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

[Nick.Rowe]

I've always taken 'for' here to mean 'in spite of' rather than the more
usual 'because of'.
 
In which case the line's meaning rather reminds me of 'die he or justice
must'.

	-----Original Message-----
	From: milton-l-bounces at lists.richmond.edu
[mailto:milton-l-bounces at lists.richmond.edu] On Behalf Of Gregory
Machacek
	Sent: 03 September 2008 15:13
	To: John Milton Discussion List
	Subject: [Milton-L] "for pity" in "fair infant"
	
	
	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
	

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.richmond.edu/pipermail/milton-l/attachments/20080903/b7906e97/attachment.html