An Epitaph on the Admirable Dramaticke Poet

At some point in his early life, John Milton (1608-1674) acquired a copy of the First Folio. When Shakespeare died in 1616, Milton was only seven years old, but he was fourteen when the First Folio was published in 1623. Either through purchase or gift, Milton acquired one of those volumes, which since 1945, has been in the possession of the Free Library of Philadelphia.

Milton spent some portion of his life writing notes in the margins of that Folio edition. Scholars now know that some of the marginalia involves comparisons Milton made between the text in the First Folio and the texts of the same works as they appeared in quarto editions, e.g. Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet.

One obvious comparison occurs on the last page of Romeo and Juliet in Milton's First Folio. Milton hand-wrote in the opening sonnet, which begins “Two households, both alike in dignity.” This sonnet appears in quarto editions but does not appear in the First Folio, except here in Milton's own hand.

There are many other notations that reveal Milton's careful comparisons of texts as well as his search for and identification of Shakespeare's sources. The sophistication of Milton's marginalia also reveals his high regard of Shakespeare. Any doubt about his love of Shakespeare is dispelled by Milton's contribution to the Second Folio in 1632.

Dear son of Memory, great heir of fame,
What need’st thou such weak witness of thy name?

In 1630, Milton wrote a poem in praise of Shakespeare that was published in the Second Folio in 1632. This was Milton's first published work.

“What needs my Shakespeare for his honoured bones,
The labor of an age in pilèd stones,
Or that his hallowed relics should be hid   
Under a star-ypointing pyramid?
Dear son of Memory, great heir of fame,
What need’st thou such weak witness of thy name?
Thou in our wonder and astonishment
Hast built thyself a live-long monument.
For whilst to th’ shame of slow-endeavouring art,   
Thy easy numbers flow, and that each heart   
Hath from the leaves of thy unvalued book
Those Delphic lines with deep impression took,   
Then thou, our fancy of itself bereaving,   
Dost make us marble with too much conceiving;
And so sepúlchred in such pomp dost lie,
That kings for such a tomb would wish to die.”