What neat repast

The "pretty garden-house" in Petty France where Milton lived from 1652 to 1660.

[Source: Wikipedia. Engraving from 1848. The house was demolished in 1877. Later residents included Mill, Bentham and Hazlitt. By this time it was 19 York Street; the name Petty France was restored in 1925. When the Commonwealth collapsed in 1660 Milton went into hiding at a friend's house in Bartholomew Close, Farringdon.]

Lawrence of vertuous Father vertuous Son,

    Now that the Fields are dank, and ways are mire,

    Where shall we sometimes meet, and by the fire

    Help wast a sullen day ; what may be won

From the hard Season gaining : time will run

    On smoother, till Favonius re-inspire

    The frozen earth ; and cloth in fresh attire

    The Lillie and Rose, that neither sow'd nor spun.

What neat repast shall feast us, light and choice,

    Of Attick tast, with Wine, whence we may rise

    To hear the Lute well toucht, or artfull voice

Warble immortal Notes and Tuskan Ayre ?

    He who of those delights can judge, and spare

    To interpose them oft, is not unwise.

This is one of the sonnets Milton wrote while living in Petty France, Westminster. He was now totally blind, and depended on younger friends like Edward Lawrence to go on walks with him. Maybe it was written in 1654 (when Milton was 46), at the same time as "Cyriack, whose grandsire", with which it seems to form a pair; both poems are about judiciously partaking in leisure activities.

There's no agreed standard for numbering Milton's sonnets, but this is Sonnet 20 according to the most widely promulgated scheme.

"Favonius" is the Latin name for Zephyrus, the west wind. It's always associated with the coming of spring and flowers, as in the opening of Horace's Ode III.7.

Milton's sonnet is about passing the winter season. It's a restrained Horatian invitation poem. Puritan feasting doesn't sound too bad to me, if it involves wine and lute songs.

I can't accept that there's any ambiguity about "spare to interpose them oft", it can only mean "refrain from indulging in them often". But I readily accept that there's an ambiguous feeling about leisure within the poem. Why end with the super-cautious "not unwise" instead of, say, "very wise"? Why say "Help waste" instead of e.g. "Enjoy"? 

What's the implication here of those biblical idlers the flowers of the field? 

22 And he said unto his disciples, Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat; neither for the body, what ye shall put on. 23 The life is more than meat, and the body is more than raiment. 24 Consider the ravens: for they neither sow nor reap; which neither have storehouse nor barn; and God feedeth them: how much more are ye better than the fowls? 25 And which of you with taking thought can add to his stature one cubit? 26 If ye then be not able to do that thing which is least, why take ye thought for the rest? 27 Consider the lilies how they grow: they toil not, they spin not; and yet I say unto you, that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 28 If then God so clothe the grass, which is to day in the field, and to morrow is cast into the oven; how much more will he clothe you, O ye of little faith? 29 And seek not ye what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink, neither be ye of doubtful mind. 30 For all these things do the nations of the world seek after: and your Father knoweth that ye have need of these things. 31 But rather seek ye the kingdom of God; and all these things shall be added unto you. 32 Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.

(Luke 12:22-32, cf. Matthew 6:25-34)

It's the ravens, not the lilies, who do not sow. 

But lilies or ravens, it might seem odd to mention them. Milton, a hard-working and well-paid servant of government, does not seemingly have much in common with these faithful creatures. But maybe he saw himself as halfway between working for a nation of the world (verse 30) and working for the kingdom of God (verse 31). His stupendous labours for the former were winding down a little, because of his blindness. The time was approaching when he could attend once more to his high-pitched poetic ambitions. In 1655 his salary was commuted to a life pension. (It's uncertain whether, by 1654, he had already begun to write bits of Paradise Lost.)

The twin topics of work and leisure had always preoccupied him; as far back as L'Allegro and Il Penseroso, or the sonnet on his 24th birthday. Milton was constantly telling himself that he needed to work bloody hard, and then having to tell himself that it was fine to relax and not feel bad about it. He's a case history for the Protestant work ethic, for over-active adrenals. In the sonnet on his blindness his body urges him to "post o'er land and ocean without rest" and, instead, he has to accept that "They also serve who only stand and wait". It's all about pacing yourself.

The syntax is a bit tricky. "Now" in line 2 is leading up to a question, but the question doesn't arrive until line 9. The beginning of line 3, despite the inversion, is not a question but a relative clause. So a free paraphrase of 2-5 might be: "Now that it's muddy outside, where we will sometimes meet each other and then go (to my home) to sit by the fire and help each other get through the day, thus gaining what can be gained from the hard season...."

 

Surely line 4 alludes to the medieval pairing of Winner and Waster, or is that just a distraction? Anyway, it seems very characteristic of Milton's adrenals that even in the enforced relaxation of winter he should be thinking about "what may be won".

What neat repast shall feast us, light and choice, 

Of Attick tast.... 

Milton's play with the -st ending (momentarily splitting into its constituent sounds, in "light and choice"), is very beautiful. Maybe what's being created here is a kind of nourishment that can't be measured in calories: the deep nourishment given by poetry, or the spiritual provision that God gives to his faithful disciples.