The “Day-Star” Symbolism in Milton's Lycidas

Abstract

From l. 165 of Lycidas the speaker tells his fellow shepherds to stop weeping because Lycidas is not really dead even though he has sunk beneath the ocean. Next the speaker gives us a simile saying Lycidas will rise again like the “day-star”: “For Lycidas your sorrow is not dead, / Sunk though he be beneath the wat‘ry floor, / So sinks the day-star in the Ocean bed, / And yet anon repairs his drooping head, / And tricks his beams, and with new-spangled Ore, / Flames in the forehead of the morning sky.” Here the salvation of Lycidas is assured and prepared for by analogy of the “day-star.” Most of Milton critics have glossed the “day-star” as the sun, but I think that the word symbolizes Christ the savior. The “day-star” has been a biblical, patristic, medieval, and Renaissance symbol of Christ. The premier exhibit is a messianic prophecy of Malachi 4:2, and various patristic writers develop this biblical symbol. Cyprian, for example, in De dominica oratione: “When we at the sinking of the earthly day pray and ask that the light might come over us again, then we therewith ask for the coming of Christ, who will confirm for us the mercy of eternal light, for Christ is the true sun and the true day.” In the Middle Ages the connection between Christ and the sun was well understood. In Norway, for example, Olaf Trygvasson, when his men were about to strike down an image of Thor, pointed to the east and asked the assembly to behold his own god riding in the glorious light. Something may no doubt be gathered of vague hope for Lycidas’ resurrection from the diurnal dipping and rising of the sun, and the poem undoubtedly builds upon a pagan substructure; but the Christological reading is necessary if the analogy of the sun and Christ is to have the effect that the poet intends. For Lycidas is saved not by the daily return of the sun of the watery depths but by the symbolic meaning of Christ returning from the world of sin, tribulation, death, and punishment. The verses in ll. 165-171 help, thus considered, to harmonize the Apollo-theophany in ll. 77-84 and the overt reference to Christ as “Him that walk’d the waves.” They call to mind Christ’s suffering and death and his gathering in the souls of the elect during the Harrowing of Hell. The verses prepare for the apotheosis of Lycidas in ll. 174 ff. They deepen the images of the “two massy Keys” -- “The Golden opes” (the sun-Christ opens the doors of Heaven); “The Iron shuts amain” (the sun-Christ closes the door of Hell).