When poets refer to other great works, people, and events, it’s usually not accidental. Put on your super-sleuth hat and figure out why.
Literary and Philosophical References:
- Lines 13-14: Hermes Trismegistus—the idea that everything on earth has a similar but more superior counterpart in the heavens comes from a line of philosophical thinking called Hermeticism.
- Lines 19-20: Virgil, Eclogue X, ln 53-54—"It is better to suffer and carve my love on the young trees. They will grow; thou, too, my love, wilt grow."
- Lines 43-44: Pliny, Natural History, IX.i.2—the image depends on the idea that all species on land had their corresponding species in the sea
- Lines 52-56: Spenser, An Hymne of Heavenly Beautie (1596), ln 24-8— "to mount aloft by order dew, / To contemplation of th'immortal sky, / Of the soare falcon so I learne to fly, / That flags awhile her fluttering wings beneath, / Till she her selfe for stronger flight can breathe."
Mythological References:
- Lines 29-30: The story of Daphne and Apollo—Ovid, Metamorphoses I, ln 452- 567
- Lines 31-32: The story of Pan and Syrinx—Ovid, Metamorphoses I, ln 698-712
Biblical References:
- Line 40: Job 18:10— "The snare is laid for him in the ground, and a trap for him in the way"
- Isaiah 40:6— "All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field"
- Line 60: Genesis 2:18—"And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him"