EPT“[Milton] rejoices that his first Defensio
Turning upon his new enemy, Milton notes that morus in Greek meant fool; he accuses him of heresy, profligacy, and fornication, of getting Salmasius’ maidservant with child and then abandoning her. Even the printer of the Clamor gets a lashing; everyone knows that he is a “notorious cheat and bankrupt”.
- so routed my opponent… that he yielded at once, broken alike in spirit and reputation, and in the whole three years of his subsequent life, though threatening and fuming much, gave us no further trouble save that he called to his aid the obscure labor of some utterly despicable person, and suborned I know now what silly and extravagant adulation to repatch by their eulogies, as far as might be, the unexpected and recent ruin of his character.
Turning upon his new enemy, Milton notes that morus in Greek meant fool; he accuses him of heresy, profligacy, and fornication, of getting Salmasius’ maidservant with child and then abandoning her. Even the printer of the Clamor gets a lashing; everyone knows that he is a “notorious cheat and bankrupt”.
“[Milton] replied to his critics learnedly in Tetrachordon, and in a lighter vein in Colasterion… heaping upon them his rich vocabulary of vituperation - clod, pork, boar, snout, cock-brained solicitor, brazen ass, odious and odorous fool. Milton could leap in one page from the heights of Parnassus to a Tartarus of scurrility.”
“In 1652 there had appeared a book whose very title was a battle cry: The Cry of the Royal Blood to Heaven against the English Parricides. It began with a description of Milton as a monster hideous, ugly, huge, bereft of sight, … a hangman, … a gallows bird.” It compared the execution of Charles I with the crucifixion of Christ, and reckoned the regicide the greater crime… The book closed with the address “To the Bestial Blackguard John Milton, Advocate of Parricides and Parricide,” and a hope that he would soon be mercilessly flogged..”
“After this exemplary passage [about Christian vs pagan poets, quoted in the text] Milton proceeded to talk of the bishop’s socks and feet sending a “fouler stench to heaven”; and if such language should seem uncongenial to theology, he defended it by “the rules of the best rhetoricians,” and the example of Luther; and he reminded his readers that “Christ himself, speaking of unsavory traditions, scruples not to name the dunghill and the jakes.”
“On December 31, 1650, appeared Joannis Miltoni, Angli, pro Populo Anglicano Defensio contra Claudii Salmasii Defensionem Regiam. It began by taunting Salmasius for selling his services to Charles II, and went on to show that Salmasius only four years earlier had written against episopacy, which he now defended.
… Salmasius had idealized Charles I, Milton degrades him. He suspects Charles of having abetted the Duke of Buckingham to poison his father,, James I; he accuses the dead King of “all kinds of viciousness” with the said Duke; he charges Charles with kissing women at the theater, and publicly fondling the breasts of virgins and matrons. Salmasius had called Milton many names; Milton retaliates by describing Salmasius as a fool, beetle, ass, liar, slanderer. apostate, idiot, ignoramus, vagabond, slave. He taunts Salmasius with being dominated by his wife, chides him for his Latin errors, invites him to hang himself, and guarantees him admission to hell.”
- O you venal and fee-taking agent! … O sneak and turncoat! … You, silliest of blockheads, are worthy of the fool’s staff itself for thinking to persuade kings and princes to war with such puerile arguments… Do you then, without wit, without genius, a mouther and a pettifogger, born onlt to rifle and transcribe good authors, imagine that you can produce anything of your own that will live- you, whose foolish writings, bundled up with yourself, the next age, believe me, will consign to oblivion?
… Salmasius had idealized Charles I, Milton degrades him. He suspects Charles of having abetted the Duke of Buckingham to poison his father,, James I; he accuses the dead King of “all kinds of viciousness” with the said Duke; he charges Charles with kissing women at the theater, and publicly fondling the breasts of virgins and matrons. Salmasius had called Milton many names; Milton retaliates by describing Salmasius as a fool, beetle, ass, liar, slanderer. apostate, idiot, ignoramus, vagabond, slave. He taunts Salmasius with being dominated by his wife, chides him for his Latin errors, invites him to hang himself, and guarantees him admission to hell.”
There was much in the book showing the loftier sides of Milton, but I cherry picked these quotes because it’s amusing to see a venerated literary figure behaving like an angry forumite or youtube commenter. Just goes to show that those people who come across as childish and ludicrous may have genius hidden in them.
