ON THE MUSIC OF THE
SPHERES
By
John Milton
(II. Delivered in the Public Schools)
If, Members of the University, there is any room for my insufficiency after so many and such able speakers have been heard today, I shall now try, as far as my small ability permits, to show how friendly I am to the solemn ceremonial of this day. And though I come behind, I shall follow in the train of today's triumph of eloquence. And so, of course, I am avoiding trite and commonplace subjects. I have a horror of them, and the thought of this occasion and of those who, as I quite rightly expected, would deliver themselves of something fully worthy of it, has kindled and challenged my mind to the hard attempt of a new theme. Both these considerations might well afford a stimulus and a spur for my lazy and otherwise indisposed mind. So it has occurred to me to offer a few preliminary remarks in a free style of eloquence and (as the saying is) "with open palm" about that celestial harmony on which there is soon to be a debate, as it were, with the clenched fist: -- but with due respect to the time limits, which both spur me and curb me. And yet I hope, my hearers, that you will take what I say as being said, as it were, in jest.
For what sane man would suppose that Pythagoras, that god of philosophers, at whose
name all the men of his times rose up to do solemn reverence -- who, I say, would have supposed that hhe would have brought forward so well grounded a theory? Certainly, if he taught a harmony of the spheres, and a revolution of the heavens to that sweet music, he wished to symbolize in a wise way the intimate relations of the spheres and their even revolution forever in accordance with the law of destiny. In this he seems to have followed the example of the poets -- or, what is almost the same thing, of the divine oracles -- by which no sacred and arcane mystery is ever revealed to vulgar ears without being somehow wrapped up and veiled. The greatest of Mother Nature's interpreters, Plato, has followed him, for he has told us that certain sirens have their respective seats on every one of the heavenly spheres and hold both gods and men fast bound by the wonder of their utterly harmonious song. And that universal interaction of all things, that lovely concord among them, which Pythagoras poetically symbolized as harmony, was splendidly and aptly represented by Homer's figure of the golden chain which Jove suspended from heaven? Hence Aristotle, the rival and perpetual detractor of Pythagoras and Plato, hoping to pave his way to glory over the ruins of the theories of such great men, imputed this symphony of the heavens, which has never been heard, and this music of the spheres to Pythagoras. But, O Father Pythagoras, if only destiny or chance had brought it about that your spirit had transmigrated into me, you would not now be lacking a ready advocate, however great the load of infamy you might bear.And indeed why should not the heavenly bodies produce musical vibrations? Does it not seem probable to you, Aristotle? Certainly I find it hard to believe that your intelligences could have endured the sedentary task of revolving the heavens for so many aeons, unless the ineffable chanting of the stars had detained them when they would have departed, and persuaded them by its harmonies to delay. If you take that music out of heaven, you hand over those lovely intelligences of yours and their subsidiary gods to slavery, and you condemn them to the treadmill. Why, Atlas himself would have long ago dropped the sky off his shoulders to its destruction if, while he panted and sweated under such a weight, he had not been soothed by the sweet ecstasy of that song. And the Dolphin, tired of the stars, if he had not been consumed by the thought of how far the vocal orbs of heaven surpass the sweetness of Arion's lyre, would long ago have preferred his native ocean to the skies. Why, it is quite credible that the lark herself soars up into the clouds at dawn and that the nightingale passes the night in solitary trilling in order to harmonize their songs with that heavenly music to which they studiously listen.
Hence arose also that primeval story that the Muses dance day and night before Jove's altar; and hence comes that ancient attribution of skill with the lyre to Apollo. Hence reverend antiquity believed Harmonia to be the daughter of Jove and Electra, and at her marriage with Cadmus it was said that all heaven's chorus sang. What though no one on earth has ever heard that symphony of the stars? Is that ground for believing that everything beyond the moon's sphere is absolutely mute and numb with torpid silence? On the contrary, let us blame our own impotent ears, which cannot catch the songs or are unworthy to hear such sweet strains. But this celestial melody is not absolutely unheard; for who, O Aristotle, would think those 'goats’ of yours would skip in the mid region of the air unless they cannot resist the impulse to dance when they so plainly hear the music of the neighboring heavens?
But Pythagoras alone of mortals is said to have heard this harmony -- unless he was a good genius or a denizen of the sky who perhaps was sent down by some ordinance of the gods to imbue the minds of men with divine knowledge and to recall them to righteousness. At least, he surely was a man who possessed every kind of virtue, who was worthy to consort with the gods themselves, whom he resembled, and to enjoy celestial society. And so I do not wonder that the gods, who loved him very much, permitted him to enter into the most mysterious secrets of nature.
Our impotence to hear this harmony seems to be a consequence of the insolence of the robber, Prometheus, which brought so many evils upon men, and at the same time deprived us of that felicity which we shall never be permitted to enjoy as long as we wallow in sin and are brutalized by our animal desires. For how can we, whose spirits, as Persius says, are warped earthward, and are defective in every, heavenly element, be sensitive to that celestial sound? If our hearts were as pure, as chaste, as snowy as Pythagoras' was, our ears would resound and be filled with that supremely lovely music of the wheeling stars. Then indeed all things would seem to return to the age of gold. Then we should be immune to pain, and we should enjoy the blessing of a peace that the gods themselves might envy.
But now the hour cuts me short in mid
-career, and very fortunately too, for I am afraid that by my rough and inharmonious style I have all along been clashing with this very harmony which I am proclaiming, and that I myself have impeded your hearing of it. And so I shut up.* * *