Snow (metaphor)
At the beginning of the hymn, Milton imagines nature as a woman covering her sin in “innocent Snow.” He takes the image from the Bible, where snow is frequently used as a metaphor for the purity of the saved (for example, Isaiah promises that God will wash away the sinner’s “crimson” crimes, making them “white as snow”). Milton twists the image in his description of nature, where snow is no more than a show of innocence, a layer of purity masking deeper sins. By warping the image, Milton emphasizes how difficult it is to truly escape sin.
Christ (allegory)
In the “Nativity Ode,” Milton uses the birth of Christ as an allegory for his birth as a poet. As he imagines the role Christ will play in Christian history, he also fantasizes about the role he hopes to play in English history. At the time Milton wrote the “Nativity Ode,” he was 21 and had not yet published a collection of poems. Like the infant in the manger, he was full of unfulfilled potential. He cemented the allegory by placing the “Nativity Ode” on the first page of his first collection of poetry, turning a poem about the birth of Christ into the first poem of his career.
Music (motif)
Milton returns to music again and again in the “Nativity Ode,” using “music sweet” to describe the beginning of the world, the end of the world, and the birth of Christ. His passages on the perfect music of these biblical events echo the way he writes about music in “L’Allegro” and “Il Penseroso,” where he uses perfect music as a metaphor for perfect poetry. By turning the birth of Christ into a musical event in the “Nativity Ode,” Milton brings poetry into the nativity scene. He creates a place for his own work in the manger.
