I am at the point of believing," he says, "that my labor will be as useless as the commonwealth of Plato," he says in a moment of sort of uncharacteristic despair, "will be as useless as the commonwealth of Plato."

我就快相信，自己所做的这一切都将是无用功,就像柏拉图所建立的理想国一样,他曾异常绝望地这样说，就像柏拉图的理想国一样毫无意义“

耶鲁公开课 - 政治哲学导论课程节选

But Milton portrays himself as a laborer here, a poet who by labor and intense study actually has to work to produce the great poem. Milton's divine vocation, his calling, seems in this light to be something like a vocation in the modern sense: it's a job that exacts work or labor.

但弥尔顿把他自己描绘成一个工人,一个只能通过努力学习来创作出,伟大诗歌的诗人，弥尔顿的神圣的使命，他的天职，就此而论就像现代意义上的职业了：,一份要求工作和劳动的职业。

耶鲁公开课 - 弥尔顿课程节选