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

[Jeremy Downes]

Thomas Festa's suggestion is intriguing to me, but I've always read this
"for" as used in the sense of "in spite of" or "instead of":

Could heaven, in spite of pity, so strictly judge thee?

Maybe I've been reading too simply here.


Best,

Jeremy

 
 

Jeremy M. Downes
Associate Professor
Department of English
Auburn University

downejm at auburn.edu



>>> "Thomas Festa" <festat at newpaltz.edu> 09/03/08 10:04 AM >>> 
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
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