Lycidas

I've read this poem before, but am re-reading it for my Milton class. But I added it to the Ex Libris directory just to add this note, which I thought was amazing:

Milton may well have read in his acquaintance Franciscus Junius’s De pictura veterum (The Painting of the Ancients; Latin 1637, English 1638) about how Virgil “brought forth his verses after the manner of Beares, which bring forth their young ones without shape or beauty, and afterwards by licking, fashion what they have brought forth; that such were the new births of his wit, rude and imperfect to looke on, untill he by handling and polishing gave them perfect lineaments.”

- from Rutherford's Experimental Form of Lycidas

Noted on February 24, 2014