A NOTE ON MILTON’S BLINDNESS

PROF. M. V. RAMA SARMA

Professor of English and Head of the Department, Sri Venkateswara University, Tirupati.

Very often critics conclude that Milton must have felt extremely miserable owing to his blindness. Their conclusions are mostly based on the references made to blindness in Samson Agonistes. The lengthy passages on blindness in Samson are accepted as authentic versions of Milton’s frustration and disillusionment at that period of his life. Samson is interpreted as ‘thinly disguised autobiography.’ The following lines are oft quoted as illustrative of Milton’s poignant feelings on losing eyesight.

‘O loss of sight, of thee I most complain!

Blind among enemies; O worse than chains,

Dungeon, or beggary, or decrepit age!

Light, the prime work of God, to me is extinct,

And all her various objects of delight

Annulled, which might in part my grief have eased,

Inferior to the vilest here excel me,

They creep, yet see, I dark in light exposed

To daily fraud, contempt, abuse and wrong,

Within doors, or without, still as a fool,

In power of others, never in my own;

Scarce half I seem to live, dead more than half.

O dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon,

Irrevocably dark, total eclipse

Without all hope of day.’

(Samson Agonistes, 11. 67-82)

‘Exposed to daily fraud, contempt, abuse and wrong, within door, or without’ is generally interpreted as a reference to Milton’s life and to how he was cheated and treated with contempt by persons all around him. The repetition of ‘dark’ intensifies the agony and frustration experienced by the poet himself. Samson protests that the privilege given to an insect, of seeing things, is denied to him. The misery is summed up in the ‘total eclipse’ without a ray of hope of day. The piercing cry is supposed to be coming right from the blind poet who has ‘fallen on evil days’ and ‘evil tongues.’ Of course, Prof. Parker rightly warns us against this ‘autobiographical fallacy.’¹ He argues that on this basis we cannot possibly take Samson Agonistes as the last poetical composition of Milton. He may have composed it much earlier. ² The coincidence of blindness in Samson and in Milton is an irresistible temptation to the critics to read into the lines. Blind Samson is often considered to be blind Milton himself.

We have to be on our guard against such a tendency. This is a dramatic speech and should be taken as an utterance in a particular situation. Milton being a playwright naturally identifies himself with Samson and the other characters in the play. In the subtle, intricate arguments of Dalila do we not see the intellect of Milton? The seductive charm of Dalila, the stoically resigned Samson, and the sententious, moralising chorus, all have the stamp of Milton’s personality. A great artist can visualise for himself situations he has to present and he need not be blind in order to portray the feelings of a blind person. So we may argue that there is nothing peculiarly personal about the references to blindness in Samson.

But the opening lines in Paradise Lost, Book III pose a problem. In a very moving manner the poet says,

‘Thus with the year

Seasons return, but not to me returns

Day, or the sweet approach of Evn or Morn,

Or sight of vernal bloom, or summers Rose

Or flocks, or herds or human face divine.’

(Paradise Lost, Book III, 11.40–44)

We cannot dismiss these lines as dramatic utterance. The poet talks to us direct. One can see the discomfort faced by the poet. But there is a world of difference between this reference to blindness and lengthy passage on blindness in Samson. Here the poet feels sorry that he is deprived of the opportunity of beholding the beautiful objects of nature and the glorious creation of God. Most of all the ‘human face divine’ can no longer be seen by him. The humanist in Milton takes this as a greater inconvenience than anything else. One also sees in these lines gentle pathos especially when the poet says,

‘Seasons return, but not to me returns

Day, or the sweet approach of Evn or Morn’.

There is disappointment, no doubt, but no protest. In Samson references to blindness invariably have a tinge of bitterness and they reveal a mood of protest against God’s ways. The lines in Paradise Lost are no doubt personal, there is a wistful sadness about them. In Samson there is protest, in Paradise Lost there is acquiescence.

Our next question is what then could be the mental state of Milton, once he was blind? He was forty-four when he became blind. As yet the great poem that posterity may not “willingly let it die” was not written. It must have been a great shock for him to be blind before he could fulfil his mighty objective. One wonders in what mood Milton may have taken the serious physical disability that came to him in the prime of his life.³

On his blindness ta a certain extent reveals Milton’s mind at that time. In the great Master’s plan all have a place, the physically handicapped ones and the whole ones. In fact God may not require our services at all. Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth and do God’s behests. Thousands at His bidding speed and post over land and ocean without rest. Milton assures self in the sonnet On his blindness that ‘they also serve who only stand and wait’. This, no doubt, sums up the equanimity of temperament possessed by Milton.

Of the many versions of Milton’s blindness by others we may choose two, one coming from Johnson and another from Gray, both of the eighteenth century. Johnson very seriously and sincerely think that Milton lost eyesight in defending a wrong cause. He argues almost unsympathetically, ‘This darkness, had his eyes been better employed, had undoubtedly deserved compassion, but to add the mention of danger was ungrateful and unjust’. ⁴ Johnson’s deep prejudices against Milton made him uncharitable towards a human predicament. Johnson pleads that if Milton has overdone his job in supporting the parliamentarians against the king and in that process has lost his eyesight he should not complain about it. But Gray views Milton’s blindness from a different angle altogether,

‘blasted with excess of light.’

Closed his eyes in endless light’.⁵

Gray suggests that Milton dared to look at God in all His glory and had lost his eyesight dazed by the brilliance of God. The two writers of the eighteenth century view Milton’s blindness from diametrically opposite angles–Johnson is wholly unsympathetic towards Milton and Gray is all admiration for him.

In his own day Milton’s blindness was viewed by his political enemies and royalist sympathisers as a punishment meted out to him by God for his misdeeds. This Milton could not tolerate and accept. The visit of James, the then. Prince of Wales, to Milton’s house to see how miserable he was and his comment that Milton should have committed some serious sin for he had lost his eyesight are well known. Also Milton’s rejoinder that Jame’s father (Charles I) must have been a greater sinner for he had lost his head whereas Milton lost only his eyesight, testifies to the popular belief of the day that unregenerate sinners are punished with curses imposed on them.

In the context of all these varying views on Milton’s blindness one is tempted to ask how did Milton react to his blindness. What could be the mental state of Milton at that time? Did he like Samson rave and rant and passionately protest against the physical disability?

We have to depend on Milton himself for the answers. Two sources are available to us–there could be many others also. At least we can depend on Milton’s own clear cut, categorical statements in A Second Defence and in his ‘Letter to Leonard Philaras’–both written in 1654, almost within a few months of his losing his eyesight. These are revelations of Milton’s mind at that time. One may argue that the defence shields Milton against many attacks, and therefore may not be a correct picture. This argument is not tenable for Milton’s whole attitude towards the physical disability is amply illustrated in A Second Defence. Milton the patriot, the lover of individual liberty and freedom of thought is prepared to lose his eyesight in defence of right reason and the will of God. Personal discomfort in the interest of public good is desirable, understandable and expected of a person like him. Milton therefore unhesitatingly accepts blindness as divine dispensation. It is his duty as an Englishman to defend England and its people against the attacks of foreign princes and royalists. So while answering Salmasius Milton states, ‘To be blind is not miserable; not to be able to bear blindness, that is miserable...when that office against the royal defence was publicly assigned me, and at a time when not only my health was unfavourable, but when I had nearly lost the sight of my other eye; and my physicians expressly foretold; that if I undertook the task, I should in a short time lose both–in no wise dismayed at this warning, me thought it was no physician’s voice I heard not even the voice of Aesculapius from the shrine of Epidaurus–but of some divine monitor within, methought, that, by a certain fatality in my birth, two destinies were set before me–on the one hand blindness, on the other duty–that I must necessarily incur the loss of my eyes, or desert a sovereign duty.

Hence I thought with myself that there were many who purchased a less good with greater end; for example, glory with death. On the contrary, I proposed to purchase a grater good with a less evil; namely at the price of blindness only to perform one of the noblest acts of duty; and duty, being a thing in its own nature more substantial even than glory, ought on that account to be more desired and venerated!’ ⁶

Duty for the sake of duty is Milton’s attitude. Public good even at the expense of personal discomfort, country’s defence even if it means losing eyesight–these are some of Milton’s ideals. Also he feels that he has to choose between losing eyesight and not doing his duty. His love of the nation is so overpowering and tremendous that he would rather lose his eyesight than shirk his duty. He says, ‘I decided, therefore, that as the use of light would be allowed me for so short a time, it ought to be enjoyed with the greatest possible utility to the public’.⁷ The insistence on duty is not like the cold resignation of the stoic to the ills of life. It is the positive acceptance of discomfort and disability with the hope that thereby he serves a better cause. The philosophic calm and meditative pose are also based on an awareness of God’s grace being extended to human beings.

It is not simply a political decision. It has a grater significance and deeper connotation. His puritanic faith and his mystic experiences give him the spiritual understanding that his decision to work for the cause of the nation is predetermined for him by divine dispensation. He tells his enemies, ‘I neither repine nor repent me of my lot….I neither believe, nor have found that God is angry; nay, that in things of the greatest moment I have experienced...his mercy, and his paternal goodness towards me;…..I acquiesce in His divine will, for it is He Himself who comforts and upholds my spirit.’ ⁸ This is profound and sublime faith in God’s ways. Like the ‘yogin’ of the Indian type Milton stoutly and almost cheerfully accepts the lot allotted to him as a part of the divine dispensation.

Equally revealing is the explanation Milton offers about his blindness in his letter to Leonard Philaras. He explains very vividly how first a darkness came over ‘the left part’ of his left eye and objects in front also, if he chanced to close the right eye looked ‘…..smaller’. Inveterate mists now seem to have settled in my forehead and temples, which weigh me down and depress me with a kind of sleepy business, especially from meal-time to evening….yet the darkness which is perpetually before me, by night as well as by day, seems always nearer to a whitish than to a blackish, and such that, when the eye rolls, there is admitted, as through a small chink, a certain trifle of light…..But if, as is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God’ what should prevent one from resting likewise in the belief that his eyesight lies not in his eyes alone, but enough for all purposes in God’s leading and providence. Verily while only He looks out for me, as He doth leading me and leading me forth as with His hand through my whole life, I shall willingly since it has seemed good to Him, have given my eyes their long holiday.’ ⁹

This letter unequivocally proves that Milton accepted blindness as divine dispensation. His non-involvement in physical pain and a certain detached attitude towards blindness reveal unmistakably his implicit faith in and unswerving loyalty towards God. His attitude is ‘let no one be troubled that I have lost my eyes in an honourable cause; and far be it from me to be troubled at it’. ¹⁰ Milton is not cowed down in spirit by the loss of eyesight. He rather accepts it, as the above statements indicate, heroically and philosophically as a part of the divine scheme of things operating in this universe. Like a mystic and seer, he shows ‘a calm of mind, all passion spent.’ He even talks as though he is in the great line of prophets who were blind. He believed that he was a prophetic poet and felt that he was like

‘Blind Thamyris and blind Maeonides,

And Tiresias and Phineus Prophets old.’

(Paradise Lost–Book III, 11. 35-36)

Perhaps the inward vision enabled him to be in communion with God and His good angels, and he donned on himself the robes of heavenliness. In mystic grandeur, with firm faith that he was one of the ‘chosen few’ Milton lived his life of blindness accepting the holy dictates of God and His divine laws. We will be unfair to Milton if we equate him with Samson and conclude that he must have been a terribly frustrated person in the last days of his life.

¹ Prof. William Parker in ‘The date of Samson Agonistes (Philological Quarterly, Jan. 1949) refers to this tendency and condemns it.

² Prof. Parker argues for an earlier date of composition for Samson. He says, ‘My own guess,...is that Samson Agonistes was begun in 1646 or 1647, near the time of the Ode to Rouse, and that composition was discontinued in April 1648 when Milton turned to the translating of psalms. My further guesses are that the drama was taken up again for its possible Katharsis in 1652 or 1653.’ ‘The date of Samson Agonistes’

(Philological Quarterly, Jan., 1949.)

³ We are no doubt aware of Milton’s reference to his abject state of misery in the opening lines of Paradise Lost, Book VII, when he says,

‘though fallen on evil days,

On evil days though fallen, and evil tongues:’

But typical of Milton immediately after this reference to dangers and difficulties there is the assurance that Urania will come to his rescue.

⁴ Johnson–Life of Milton.

⁵ Gray–Progress of Poesy.

⁶ Milton-A Second Defence–The Works of John Milton–Vol. 8, p.63, (Columbia University Press)

⁷ Milton–A Second Defence–The Works of John Milton, Vol. 8, p. 71. (Columbia University Press)

⁸ Milton-A Second Defence-The Works of John Milton, Vol. 8. p. 71, (Columbia University Press)

⁹ Milton’s Letter to Leonard Philaras, Athenian (Westminister–September 28, 1654) The Works of Milton, Vol. 12 p. 69. (Columbia University Press)

¹⁰ Milton -A Second Defence–The Works of Milton, (Columbia University Press)

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