[Milton-L] "for pity" in "fair infant"

[Thomas Festa]

Dear Greg,

Another possibility occurs to me, particularly in relation 
to stanza 9 of the poem.  What if "for pity" means 
something like "out of pity" and thus functions as a means 
of raising and questioning the contemptus mundi theme?

I'm thinking here of the tone of the lines from Ben 
Jonson's epigram "On my first son":  "For why / Will man 
lament the state he should envy? / To have so soon 'scaped 
world's, and flesh's rage, / And, if no other misery, yet 
age!"  (Perhaps the "Wise child" of Saguntum at the start 
of the Cary-Morison Ode is also relevant.)

I hope this helps.
All best wishes,
Tom

On Wed, 3 Sep 2008 10:12:42 -0400
  Gregory Machacek <Gregory.Machacek at marist.edu> wrote:
> Hi All,
> 
> Could someone paraphrase for me the line "Could Heaven 
>for pity thee so strictly doom?" from "Fair Infant"?
> 
> I know that the idiom "for pity's sake," like "for 
>goodness' sake" often doesn't carry denotational meaning, 
>but just represents a generalized exasperation.  Is that 
>what's going on here:  "Oh, for goodness sake, could 
>heaven doom thee so strictly?"?
> 
> Or is "for pity" a functional part of the expression? 
> And if so, what is being expressed by asking if Heaven 
>doomed the infant *for* pity?
> 
> It's probably one of those cases where one makes an 
>interpretive mountain out of a semantic molehill, but 
>suddenly I just can't comprehend the basic meaning of 
>this pivotal line in the poem.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> 
> Greg Machacek
> Professor of English
> Marist College

Thomas Festa
Assistant Professor
Department of English
SUNY New Paltz
600 Hawk Drive, JFT 714
New Paltz, NY  12561
phone:  845-257-2726