Water symbolism in Lycidas

Elizabeth Stevens Milton Professor Baumel 21 September 2004 More often than necessary, the speaker makes several comments about how water plays an important role in sadness and death. Typically, water can be compared to tears of sadness and/or joy. The speaker uses this comparison and contrast to explain both the tradgedy and triumph of the death of Lycidas. The water imagery 'fountain, flood, sea, waves' of the seventh stanza recall King's death in the chilly waters …

…Lycidas is in a happier place. The speaker takes the pitiful drowned body of Lycidas and speaks of it in the words of tragedy and sacrifice, until death itself is only an incident because the reader has overcome the brutality of his tradgic death. ...'Now Lycidas the shepherds weep no more; Henceforth thou art the genius of the shore, In thy large recompense, and shall be good To all that wander in that perilous flood'.