Abstract
This essay revisits the problem of sound and sense in Milton’s Lycidas, in particular the phrase “sleep’st by the fable of Bellerus old.” Critics have struggled to understand the phrase since the eighteenth century, but they have rarely entertained the simple explanation that Milton refers to a rumored geographic extension of Land’s End peninsula, Cornwall that lay submerged in the sea. While this allusion cannot be confirmed, it highlights a thematic connection between the poem’s geography and one of its greatest themes: the obligation to remember the dead. Such thematic resonance cannot resolve problems of immediate visualization upon encountering the “Bellerus” line, but it can remind readers that the aural and allusive registers of Milton’s poetry need not come at the expense of its meaning. [M.G. and J.R.]
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