When The Assault Was Intended To The City - J. Milton

70 When The Assault Was Intended To The City
The seventieth poem in the collection. (* additional details below )

*NOTES FROM THE BACK OF THE BOOK:

The assault: was an attack on London expected in 1642, when the troops of Charles I. reached Brentford. "Written on his door" was in the original title of this sonnet. Milton was then living in Aldersgate Street.

Emathian Conqueror: When Thebes was destroyed (B.C. 335) and the citizens massacred by thousands, Alexander ordered the house of Pindar to be spared. He was as incapable of appreciating the Poet as Lewis XIV. of appreciating Racine: but even the narrow and barbarian mind of Alexander could understand the advantage of a showy act of homage to Poetry.

the repeated air \Of sad Electra's poet: Amongst Plutarch's vague stories, he says that when the Spartan confederacy in 404 B.C. took Athens, a proposal to demolish it was rejected through the effect produced on the commanders by hearing part of a chorus from the Electra of Euripides sung at a feast. There is however no apparent congruity between the lines quoted (167, 8 Ed. Dindorf) and the result ascribed to them.