Heaven Stoops to Virtue

Many scholars have viewed the disputations in Milton's Comus as insertions which interrupt the flow of dramatic action and musical spectacle. However, since "each episode of Comus reenacts the central themes and illuminates the poetic process in a fashion characteristic of masques and allegorical poetry" (Swaim 187), we can ask whether or not the "central themes" are enunciated explicitly. They are stated quite clearly, I believe, in the disputations. Far from being digressions, the two disputations provide meaning to the action of the masque, and a proper understanding of their relation to the whole work will provide a greater appreciation of Comus. The second debate, between the Lady and Comus, generally receives the most attention, so I will look at it first. A.E. Dyson emphasizes the importance of this debate in understanding the rest of the masque: "The fact that in dramatic terms Comus's view, though plausible, is shown to be false, and the Lady's view, though austere, to be true, is central to the poem's meaning, and what it is 'really about' ... The interpretation of Comus centres upon what we make of the case between Comus and the Lady" (89-90). The subject of their debate is what Marjorie Nicolson calls "the Appeal to Nature for Standards" (78). Comus argues that nature's bounties urge us to revel in their pleasures, and that our refusal to do so displeases the creator who provided Nature for this very purpose, and additionally creates the risk that Nature's fertileness will cause it to outgrow and overrun the Earth, wreaking havoc and disorder. The Lady responds by telling Comus that Nature proffers her delights only to those "That live according to her sober laws" (766) and respect Nature by enjoying her fruits in moderation so that all may reap a portion of her bounty. The Lady's argument recalls Genesis Chapter 1, where Adam is given "dominion" over the earth; in effect, he is told to enjoy it, but also to manage it. The Lady's call for prudent management is compatible with Stoicism, while Comus' plea for frivolity recalls a popular form of Epicureanism (Nicolson 78-79). As to who wins the debate, we can may recall Dyson's words just cited, and also quote David Miller: "The great debate between license and freedom is not a draw; Comus has been thoroughly beaten" (52). Comus' concession, "I feel that I do fear / Her words set off by some superior power; / And though not mortal, yet a cold shudd'ring dew / Dips me all o'er" (800-03), reveals that the Lady has indeed won the disputation, and we can take this as an affirmation that "...Milton ultimately sides with the Lady and her allies against Comus and his" (Clark 15). "The Lady is, I feel, 'right'," says Dyson, " and Comus 'wrong', and the movement of the entire drama is intended to illustrate this" (92). Tillyard puts great emphasis on additions to the 1637 edition of Comus, especially the part of the Spirit's epilogue which discusses Adonis' garden. In doing so, he comes to a different conclusion: Comus had spoken magnificently but perversely of the bounty of God. The Lady in reply had countered the perversity by a plea of moderation and of equal distribution, yet in so doing had shown less sense of that bounty than her adversary. The Attendant Spirit by mentioning the Garden of Adonis, the very workshop of nature, gives the solution. This garden has all the bounty described by Comus and all the comeliness and order insisted on by the Lady. Both disputants are shown partly right and partly wrong (94).

It is true that Comus does a better job of describing Nature's bounty, but the disputation is a contest to see who can argue better what the purpose of this bounty is and what is the correct response to it; this is not a contest to see who can describe the bounty more poetically. Only if it is seen as a poetry contest can Comus be said to have won. Dyson suggests a reason why Comus' argument is more colorful and appealing: "The good characters cannot invent freely. They must always be wise and judicious, the reverse of passionate. Their arguments must appeal to the mind by way of the moral sense, not by way of the emotions" (97). And this in turn leads us to an understanding of why Milton chooses to use the action of the masque to support the Lady's argument. He knows that the arguments he puts into the mouths of his "good" characters will not be as exciting as the opposing arguments, no matter how clear the reasoning, so he creates a plot which will drive his point home emotionally. When the three children are safely reunited with their father at the end of the masque, the audience will experience deep feelings of relief and a relaxing of the tension they had experienced when the Lady was lost in the woods. These emotions created by the action of the play will reinforce the statements made by the Lady and the Attendant Spirit. In focusing on the Lady's argument for "spare Temperance" (767), I must be careful to point out what I mean by the Lady's "virtue." As many scholars have pointed out, the highest virtue which she stands for is chastity, specifically that form of chastity which is a lifelong commitment to virginity. With this, I agree. But the Lady's chastity also can be seen to represent all forms of true virtue, and the action of the masque and the verbal arguments over the efficacy of chastity's power to effect goodness apply to the same concerns about "virtue" in general. Dyson agrees: "In Comus, Chastity is more than an isolated virtue: it is symptomatic of spiritual wholeness and the life of Grace, and it is at the same time a special case ... The great 'debate' is not between Chastity and Incontinence, and still less between Virginity and Marriage, but between Reason and Passion as controlling factors in human conduct" (91). Rosemond Tuve sees that the Lady's chastity is one component of her overall fidelity to the created order and its designer: Each single step in the Lady's answer shows her "chaste", and what this chastity keeps inviolate is her freedom, specifically her free and uncharmed judgement; her "Temperance" is not a disjoined rational prelude to her impassioned acclaim of the "Sun- clad power of Chastity" but constitutes a similar stand against "Luxury" based on a parallel recognition of man's proper fealty. This is shown in her answer: that nature, innocent and herself law-abiding, means her provision only to those of her children who are thus also (excess being lawless, disproportionate, and unjust), that indulgence is ingratitude and intemperance blasphemy, and that praise is due to the giver because he is man's "feeder." This chastity, like this attempted rape, is what the traditional figure provided: a way of imaging the problem of man's freedom, within nature of which he is a part (148-49). The plot of the masque supports the Lady's argument, and we often witness beings acting responsibly towards the part of Nature which is their domain. Neptune is mentioned by the Attendant Spirit at the very beginning as a shining example of someone who, while being a recipient of the joys of Nature, also is their manager, in this case one who commissions others to oversee his domain: Neptune, besides the sway Took in by lot 'twixt high and nether Jove Imperial rule of all the Sea-girt Isles That like to rich and various gems inlay The unadorned bosom of the Deep; Which he to grace his tributary gods By course commits to several government, And gives them leave to wear their Sapphire crowns And wield their little tridents (18-27)
The Earl of Bridgewater himself, the father whose home is the children's destination throughout the entire drama, is a man charged with a divine trust to rule part of Nature: "And all this tract that fronts the falling Sun / A noble Peer of mickle trust and power / Has in his charge" (29-31). The Attendant Spirit also superintends Nature. Referring to the "perplex't paths" of the dark wood, he says that he has been "dispatcht for their defense and guard" (37,42). Even his assumed role of a Swain is someone "Who with his soft Pipe and smooth-dittied Song / Well knows to still the wild winds when they roar, / And hush the waving Woods" (86-88). Comus, too, has a domain over which he rules, but his attitude towards Nature is very different from the Attendant Spirit's; it is revealed in Comus' very first words: The Star that bids the Shepherd fold Now the top of Heav'n doth hold, And the gilded Car of Day His glowing Axle doth allay In the steep Atlantic stream, And the slope Sun his upward beam Shoots, against the dusky Pole, Pacing toward the other goal Of his Chamber in the East (93-101)

Images such as "gilded Car," "glowing Axle," and "Chamber," where nature is compared with objects that can be useful and pleasurable, contrast sharply with the Spirit's straightforward description of the "wild winds" and "waving woods" (86-87) and his use of similes which are closely related to the natural objects themselves. As Comus moves on to describe the revelry which will ensue with the onset of night, images of nature become even more closely linked to pleasure, as when the sea and all its "finny drove" are described in a fertility dance with the moon (115-16). Rosemond Tuve points out Comus' "mis-use" of disguise, which had been put to good use by the Attendant Spirit: the Spirit's assuming of "the Weeds and likeness of a Swain'... is given an ironic faked parallel a hundred lines later, by Comus's so distorting the Lady's vision that to her he appears in the weeds and likeness of a swain, whom she addresses as 'gentle Shepherd' and accepts as convoy--already partly blinded by the magic dust. So also, Comus's definitions of Nature and of her manifest intentions constitute a travesty of the true unity that holds all creatures together interdependent within one harmonious order (137-38).

We have looked at the significance of Comus' first words in the masque; the Lady's are no less significant as they offer, from the viewpoint of virtue, a description of Comus' hedonistic rabble: This way the noise was, if mine ear be true, My best guide now; methought it was the sound Of Riot and ill-manag'd Merriment, Such as the jocund Flute or gamesome Pipe Stirs up among the loose unletter'd Hinds, When for their teeming Flocks and granges full In wanton dance they praise the bounteous Pan, And thank the gods amiss (170-77).

The assumptions underlying the Lady's judgement reveal tenets of her own beliefs: merriment, if not "ill-managed," may be virtuous, as may dance and celebration. Earlier, she had referred to "misused Wine" (47,my emphasis), which, since it comes from "the purple Grape"(46), a part of Nature, can also be properly used. She is disturbed by Comus' band because they are abusing these