John Milton’s Sonnet VIII, ‘When the Assault Was Intended to the City’, was inspired by the Royalists’ attack of the Roundheads at Brentford in 1642, when Milton was then a school teacher in Aldersgate Street, in London.
I took these photos of a re-enactment, in 2007 in Syon Park, of the battle and you can appreciate what apprehension this must have caused John Milton when the ‘enemy’ was at the gates of London.
CAPTAIN, or Colonel, or Knight in Arms,
Whose chance on these defenceless doors may seize,
If deed of honour did thee ever please,
Guard them, and him within protect from harms.
He can requite thee; for he knows the charms
That call fame on such gentle acts as these,
And he can spread thy name o'er lands and seas,
Whatever clime the sun's bright circle warms.
Lift not thy spear against the Muses' bower:
The great Emathian conquerer bid spare
The house of Pindarus, when temple and tower
Went to the ground; and the repeated air
Of sad Electra's poet had the power
To save the Athenian walls from ruin bare.
In the sonnet, he suggests that the Royalist army should spare the house of a poet, referring to how ‘the great Emathian conquerer’, Alexander the Great, had spared Pindar's house. He quotes another example of when the Spartan confederacy in 404 B.C. took Athens, a proposal to demolish it was rejected through the effect produced on the commanders by hearing part of a chorus from the "Electra" of Euripides sung at a feast.
As it turned out, no one attacked Milton's house, because the Earl of Essex and the London trained bands held Turnham Green for parliament and the royalists withdrew.
This sonnet VIII can be found on the John Milton website
If you would like to add to, or comment on our articles, please use our Comment Form, so we can share them.
