497. swain: a word of common use in pastoral poetry. It denotes strictly a peasant or, more correctly, a young man: comp. the compounds boat-swain, cox-swain. See Arc. 26, "Stay, gentle swains," etc.

499. pent, penned, participle of pen, to shut up (A.S. pennan, which is connected with pin, seen in pin-fold, l. 7). forsook: a form of the past tense used for the participle.

501. and his next joy, i.e. 'and (thou), his next joy'—words addressed to the second brother.

502. trivial toy, ordinary trifle. The phrase seems redundant, but 'trivial' may here be used in the strict sense of common or well-known. Compare Il Pens. 4, "fill the fixed mind with all your toys"; and Burton's Anat. of Mel., "complain of toys, and fear without a cause."

503. stealth of, things stolen by.

506. To this my errand, etc., i.e. in comparison with this errand of mine and the anxiety it involved. 'To' = in comparison with; an idiom common in Elizabethan English, e.g. "There is no woe to this correction," Two Gent. ii. 4. 138. See Abbott, Sec. 187.

508. How chance. Chance is here a verb followed by a substantive clause: 'how does it chance that,' etc. This idiom is common in Shakespeare (Abbott, Sec. 37), where it sometimes has the force of an adverb (= perchance): compare Par. Lost, ii. 492: "If chance the radiant sun, with farewell sweet," etc.

509. sadly, seriously. Radically, sad = sated or full (A.S. saed); hence the two meanings, 'serious' and 'sorrowful,' the former being common in Spenser, Bacon, and Shakespeare. Comp. 'some sad person of known judgment' (Bacon); Romeo and Jul. i. 1. 205, "Tell me in sadness, who is that you love"; Par. Lost, vi. 541, "settled in his face I see Sad resolution." See also Swinburne's Miscellanies (1886), page 170.

510. our neglect, i.e. neglect on our part.

511. Ay me! Comp. Lyc. 56, "Ay me! I fondly dream"; 154. This exclamatory phrase = ah me! Its form is due to the French aymi = alas, for me! and has no connection with ay or aye = yes. In this line true rhymes with shew: comp. youth and shew'th, Sonnet on his having arrived at the age of twenty-three.

512. Prithee. A familiar fusion of I pray thee, sometimes written 'pr'ythee.' Lines 495-512 form nine rhymed couplets.

513. ye: a dative. See note on l. 216.

514. shallow. Comp. Son. i. 6, "shallow cuckoo's bill," xiia. 12; Arc. 41, "shallow-searching Fame."

515. sage poets. Homer and Virgil are meant; both of these mention the chimera. Milton (Par. Lost, iii. 19) afterwards speaks of himself as "taught by the heavenly Muse." Comp. L'Alleg. 17; Il Pens. 117, "great bards besides In sage and solemn tunes have sung."

516. storied, related: 'To story' is here used actively: the past participle is frequent in the sense of 'bearing a story or picture'; Il Pens. 159, "storied windows"; Gray's Elegy, 41, "storied urn"; Tennyson's "storied walls." Story is an abbreviation of history.

517. Chimeras, monsters. Comp. the sublime passage in Par. Lost, ii. 618-628. The Chimera was a fire-breathing monster, with the head of a lion, the tail of a dragon, and the body of a goat. It was slain by Bellerophon. As a common name 'chimera' is used by Milton to denote a terrible monster, and is now current (in an age which rejects such fabulous creatures) in the sense of a wild fancy; hence the adj. chimerical = wild or fanciful. enchanted isles, e.g. those of Circe and Calypso, mentioned in the Odyssey.

518. rifted rocks: rifted = riven. Orpheus, in search of Eurydice, entered the lower world through the rocky jaws of Taenarus, a cape in the south of Greece (see Virgil Georg. iv. 467, Taenarias fauces); here also Hercules emerged from Hell with the captive Cerberus.

519. such there be. See note on l. 12 for this indicative use of be.

520. navel, centre, inmost recess. Shakespeare (Cor. iii. l. 123) speaks of the 'navel of the state'; and in Greek Calypso's island was 'the navel of the sea,' while Apollo's temple at Delphi was 'the navel of the earth.'

521. Immured, enclosed. Here used generally: radically it = shut up within walls (Lat. murus, a wall).

523. witcheries, enchantments.

526. murmurs. The incantations or spells of evil powers were sung or murmured over the doomed object; sometimes they were muttered (as here) over the enchanted food or drink prepared for the victim. Comp. l. 817 and Arc. 60, "With puissant words and murmurs made to bless."

529. unmoulding reason's mintage charactered, i.e. defacing those signs of a rational soul that are stamped on the human face. The figure is taken from the process of melting down coins in order to restamp them. 'Charactered': here used in its primary sense (Gk. charakter, an engraven or stamped mark), as in the phrase 'printed characters.' The word is here accented on the second syllable; in modern English on the first.

531. crofts that brow = crofts that overhang. Croft = a small field, generally adjoining a house. Brow = overhang: comp. L'Alleg. 8, "low-browed rocks."

532. bottom glade: the glade below. The word bottom, however, is frequent in Shakespeare in the sense of 'valley'; hence 'bottom glade' might be interpreted 'glade in the valley.'

533. monstrous rout; see note on the stage-direction after l. 92. Comp. 'the bottom of the monstrous world,' Lyc. 158. In Aen. vii. 15, we read that when Aeneas sailed past Circe's island he heard "the growling noise of lions in wrath, ... and shapes of huge wolves fiercely howling."

534. stabled wolves, wolves in their dens. Stable (= a standing-place) is used by Milton in the general sense of abode, e.g. in Par. Lost, xi. 752, "sea-monsters whelped and stabled." Comp. "Stable for camels," Ezek. xxv. 5, and the Latin stabulum, Aen. vi. 179, stabula alta ferarum.

535. Hecate: see l. 135.

536. bowers: see note, l. 45.

539. unweeting; unwitting, unknowing. This spelling is found in Spenser's Faerie Queene, both in the compounds and in the simple verb weet, a corruption of wit (A.S. witan, to know). Compare Par. Reg. i. 126, "unweeting, he fulfilled The purposed counsel." Sams. Agon. 1680; Chaucer, Doctor's Tale, "Virginius came to weet the judge's will."

540. by then, i.e. by the time when. The demonstrative adverb thus implies a relative adverb: comp. the Greek, where the demonstrative is generally omitted, though in Homer occasionally the demonstrative alone is used. Another rendering is to make line 540 parenthetical.

542. knot-grass. A grass with knotted or jointed stem: some, however, suppose marjoram to be intended here. dew-besprent, i.e. besprinkled with dew: comp. Lyc. 29. Be is an intensive prefix; sprent is connected with M.E. sprengen, to scatter, of which sprinkle is the frequentative form.

543. sat me down: see note, l. 61.

544. canopied, and interwove. Comp. M. N. D. ii. 2. 49, 'I know a bank,' etc. In sense 'canopied' refers to 'bank,' and 'interwove' to 'ivy.' There are two forms of the past participle of weave, viz. wove and woven: see Arc. 47.

545. flaunting, showy, garish. In Lyc. 146, the poet first wrote 'garish columbine,' then 'well-attired woodbine.'

547. meditate ... minstrelsy, i.e. to sing a pastoral song: comp. Lyc. 32. 66. To meditate the muse is a Virgilian phrase: see Ecl. i. and vi. The Lat. meditor has the meaning of 'to apply one's self to,' and does not mean merely to ponder.

548. had, should have: comp. l. 394. ere a close, i.e. before he had finished his song (Masson). Close occurs in the technical sense of 'the final cadence of a piece of music.'

549. wonted: see note, l. 332.

550. barbarous: comp. Son. xii. 3, "a barbarous noise environs me Of owls and cuckoos, etc."

551. listened them. The omission of to after verbs of hearing is frequent in Shakespeare and others: comp. "To listen our purpose"; "List a brief tale"; "hearken the end"; etc. (see Abbott, Sec. 199). 'Them': this refers to the sounds implied in 'dissonance.'

552. unusual stop. This refers to what happened at l. 145, and the "soft and solemn-breathing sound" to l. 230.

553. drowsy frighted, i.e. drowsy and frighted. The noise of Comus's rout is here supposed to have kept the horses of night awake and in a state of drowsy agitation until the sudden calm put an end to their uneasiness. In Milton's corrected MS. we read 'drowsy flighted,' where the two words are not co-ordinate epithets but must be regarded as expressing one idea = flying drowsily; to express this some insert a hyphen. Comp. 'dewy-feathered,' Il Pens. 146, and others of Milton's remarkable compound adjectives. The reading in the text is that of the printed editions of 1637, '45, and '73.

554. Sleep (or Night) is represented as drawn by horses in a chariot with its curtains closely drawn. Comp. Macbeth, ii. l. 51, "curtained sleep."

555. 'The lady's song rose into the air so sweetly and imperceptibly that silence was taken unawares and so charmed that she would gladly have renounced her nature and existence for ever if her place could always be filled by such music.' Comp. Par. Lost, iv. 604, "She all night long her amorous descant sung; Silence was pleased"; also Jonson's Vision of Delight:

"Yet let it like an odour rise To all the senses here, And fall like sleep upon their eyes, Or music in their ear."

558. took, taken. Comp. l. 256 for a similar use of take, and compare 'forsook,' line 499, for the form of the word.

560. Still, always. This use of still is frequent in Elizabethan writers (Abbott, Sec. 69). I was all ear. Warton notes this expressive idiom (still current) in Drummond's 'Sonnet to the Nightingale,' and in Tempest, iv. l. 59, "all eyes." All is an attribute of I.

561. create a soul, etc., i.e. breathe life even into the dead: comp. L'Alleg. 144. Warton supposes that Milton may have seen a picture in an old edition of Quarles' Emblems, in which "a soul in the figure of an infant is represented within the ribs of a skeleton, as in its prison." Rom. vii. 24, "Who shall deliver me out of the body of this death?"

565. harrowed, distracted, torn as by a harrow. This is probably the meaning, but there is a verb 'harrow' corrupted from 'harry,' to subdue; hence some read "harried with grief and fear."

567. How sweet ... how near. This sentence contains two exclamations: this is a Greek construction. In English the idiom is "How sweet ... and how near," etc. We may, however, render the line thus: "How sweet..., how near the deadly snare is!"

568. lawns. 'Lawn' is always used by Milton to denote an open stretch of grassy ground, whereas in modern usage it is applied generally to a smooth piece of grass-grown land in front of a house. The origin of the word is disputed, but it seems radically to denote 'a clear space'; it is said to be cognate with llan used as a prefix in the names of certain Welsh towns, e.g. Llandaff, Llangollen. In Chaucer it takes the form launde.

569. often trod by day, which I have often trod by day, and therefore know well.

570. mine ear: see note, l. 171.

571. wizard. Here used in contempt, like many other words with the suffix -ard, or -art, as braggart, sluggard, etc. Milton occasionally, however, uses the word merely in the sense of magician or magical, without implying contempt: see Lyc. 55, "Deva spreads her wizard stream."

572. certain signs: see l. 644.

574. aidless: an obsolete word. See Trench's English Past and Present for a list of about 150 words in -less, all now obsolete: comp. l. 92, note. wished: wished for. Comp. l. 950 for a similar transitive use of the verb.

575. such two: two persons of such and such description.

577. durst not stay. Durst is the old past tense of dare, and is used as an auxiliary: the form dared is much more modern, and may be used as an independent verb.

578. sprung: see note, l. 256.

579. till I had found. The language is extremely condensed here, the meaning being, 'I began my flight, and continued to run till I had found you'; the pluperfect tense is used because the speaker is looking back upon his meeting with the brothers after completing a long narration of the circumstances that led up to it. If, however, 'had found' be regarded as a subjunctive, the meaning is, 'I began my flight, and determined to continue it until I had found (i.e. should have found) you.' Comp. Abbott Sec. 361.

581. triple knot, a three-fold alliance of Night, Shades, and Hell.

584. "This confidence of the elder brother in favour of the final efficacy of virtue, holds forth a very high strain of philosophy, delivered in as high strains of eloquence and poetry" (Warton). And Todd adds: "Religion here gave energy to the poet's strains."

585. safely, confidently. period, sentence.

586. for me, i.e. for my part, so far as I am concerned: see note, l. 602.

588. Which erring men call Chance. 'Erring' belongs to the predicate; "which men erroneously call Chance." Comp. Pope, Essay on Man:

"All nature is but art, unknown to thee; All chance, direction, which thou canst not see."

588. this I hold firm. 'This' is explained by the next line: "this belief, namely, that Virtue may be assailed, etc., I hold firmly."

590. enthralled, enslaved. Comp. l. 1022.

591. which ... harm, which the Evil Power intended to be most harmful.

595-7. Gathered like scum, etc. According to one editor, this image is "taken from the conjectures of astronomers concerning the dark spots which from time to time appear on the surface of the sun's body and after a while disappear again; which they suppose to be the scum of that fiery matter which first breeds it, and then breaks through and consumes it."

598. pillared firmament. The firmament (Lat. firmus, firm or solid) is here regarded as the roof of the earth and supported on pillars. The ancients believed the stars to be fixed in the solid firmament: comp. Par. Reg. iv. 55; also Wint. Tale, ii. l. 100, "If I mistake In those foundations which I build upon, The centre is not big enough to bear A schoolboy's top."

602. for, as regards. let ... girt, though he be surrounded.

603. grisly legions. 'Grisly,' radically the same as grue-some = horrible, causing terror. In Par. Lost, iv. 821, Satan is called "the grisly king." 'Legions' is here a trisyllable.

604. sooty flag of Acheron. Acheron, at first the name of a river of the lower world, came to be used as a name for the whole of the lower world generally. Todd quotes from P. Fletcher's Locusts (1627): "All hell run out and sooty flags display."

605. Harpies and Hydras. The Harpies (lit. 'spoilers') were unclean monsters, being birds with the heads of maidens, with long claws and gaunt faces. Hydras, here used as a general name for monstrous water-serpents (Gk. hyd{=o}r, water); the name was first given to the nine-headed monster slain by Hercules. See Son. xv. 7, "new rebellions raise Their Hydra heads"; the epithet 'hydra-headed' being applied to a rebellion, an epidemic, or other evil that seems to gain strength from every endeavour to repress it.

607. return his purchase back, i.e. 'give up his spoil,' or (as in the MS.) 'release his new-got prey.' To purchase (Fr. pour-chasser) originally meant to pursue eagerly, hence to acquire by fair means or foul: it thus came to mean 'to steal' (as frequently in Spenser, Jonson, and Shakespeare), and 'to buy' (its current sense). See Trench, Study of Words; Hen. V. iii. 2. 45, "They will steal anything, and call it purchase"; i. Hen. IV. ii. l. 101, "thou shalt have share in our purchase."

609. venturous, ready to venture. See note, l. 79.

610. yet, nevertheless. The meaning is: 'Though thy courage is useless, yet I love it.' emprise: an obsolete form (common in Spenser) of enterprise. It is literally that which is undertaken; hence 'readiness to undertake'; hence 'daring.'

611. can do thee little stead, i.e. can help thee little. Stead, both as noun and verb, is obsolete except in certain phrases, e.g. 'to stand in good stead,' and in composition, e.g. steadfast, homestead, instead, Hampstead, etc. Its strict sense is place or position: comp. Il Pens. 3, "How little you bested."

612. Far other arms, i.e. very different arms. 'Other' has here its radical sense of 'different,' and can therefore be modified by an adverb.

615. unthread, loosen. Comp. Temp. iv. l. 259, "Go charge my goblins that they grind their joints With dry convulsions, shorten up their sinews With aged cramps."

617. As to make this relation, i.e. as to be able to tell this.

619. a certain shepherd lad. This is supposed to refer to Charles Diodati, Milton's dearest friend, to whom he addressed his 1st and 6th elegies, and after whose death he wrote the touching poem Epitaphium Damonis, in which he alludes to his friend's medical and botanical skill:

"There thou shalt cull me simples, and shalt teach Thy friend the name and healing powers of each."

(Cowper's translation.)

620. Of small regard to see to: in colloquial English, 'not much to look at.' This is an old idiom: comp. Greek kalos idein: see English Bible, "goodly to look to," i. Sam. xvi. 12; Ezek. xxiii. 15; Jer. xlvii. 3.

621. virtuous, of healing power: see note, l. 165. Comp. Il Pens. 113, "the virtuous ring and glass."

623. beg me sing: see note, l. 304.

625. ecstasy: see note, l. 261. The Greek ekstasis = standing out of one's self.

626. scrip, wallet.

627. simples, medicinal herbs. 'Simple' (Lat. simplicem, 'one-fold,' 'not compound') was used of a single ingredient in a medicine; hence its popular use in the sense of 'herb' or 'drug.'

630. me, i.e. for me: the ethic dative.

633. bore. The nom. of this verb is, in sense, some such word as the plant or the root.

634. unknown and like esteemed: known and esteemed to a like extent, i.e. in both cases not at all. Like here corresponds to the prefix un in unknown. On the description of the plant, see Introduction, reference to Ascham's Scholemaster.

635. clouted shoon, patched shoes. The expression is found in Shakespeare, ii. Hen. VI. iv. 2. 195, "Spare none but such as go in clouted shoon"; Cym. iv. 2. 214, "put My clouted brogues from off my feet, whose rudeness Answer'd my steps too loud": see examples in Mayhew and Skeat's M. E. Dictionary. There are instances, however, of clout in the sense of a plate of iron fastened on the sole of a shoe. In either sense of the word 'clouted shoon' would be heavy and coarse. Shoon is an old plural (O.E. scon); comp. hosen, eyen (= eyes), dohtren (= daughters), foen (= foes), etc.

636. more med'cinal, of greater virtue. The line may be scanned thus: And yet more med 'cinal is it than that Mo ly. Moly. When Ulysses was approaching the abode of Circe he was met by Hermes, who said: "Come then, I will redeem thee from thy distress, and bring deliverance. Lo, take this herb of virtue, and go to the dwelling of Circe, that it may keep from thy head the evil day. And I will tell thee all the magic sleight of Circe. She will mix thee a potion and cast drugs into the mess; but not even so shall she be able to enchant thee; so helpful is this charmed herb that I shall give thee ... Therewith the slayer of Argos gave me the plant that he had plucked from the ground, and he showed me the growth thereof. It was black at the root, but the flower was like to milk. Moly the gods call it, but it is hard for mortal men to dig; howbeit with the gods all things are possible" (Odyssey, x. 280, etc., Butcher and Lang's translation). In his first Elegy Milton alludes to M{=o}ly as the counter-charm to the spells of Circe: see also Tennyson's Lotos-Eaters, "beds of amaranth and moly."

638. He called it Haemony. He is the shepherd lad of line 619. Haemony: Milton invents the plant, both name and thing. But the adjective Haemonian is used, in Latin poetry as = Thessalian, Haemonia being the old name of Thessaly. And as Thessaly was regarded as a land of magic, 'Haemonian' acquired the sense of 'magical' (see Ovid, Met. vii 264, "Haemonia radices valle resectas," etc.), and Milton's Haemony is simply "the magical plant." Coleridge supposes that by the prickles and gold flower of the plant Milton signified the sorrows and triumph of the Christian life.

639. sovran use: see note, l. 41. The use of this adjective with charms, medicines, or remedies of any kind was so very common that the word came to imply 'all-healing,' 'supremely efficacious'; see Cor. ii. 1. 125, "The most sovereign prescription in Galen."

640. mildew blast: comp. Arc. 48-53, Ham. iii. 4. 64, "Here is your husband; Like a mildew'd ear Blasting his wholesome brother." A mildew blast is one giving rise to that kind of blight called mildew (A.S. meledeaw, honey-dew), it being supposed that the prevalence of dry east winds was favourable to its formation.

642. pursed it up, etc., i.e. put it in my wallet, though I did not attach much importance to it. little reckoning: comp. Lyc. 116, where the very same phrase occurs.

643. Till now that. Here that = when, the clause introduced by it being explanatory of now (see Abbott, Sec. 284).

646-7. Entered ... came off. 'I entered into the very midst of his treacherous enchantments, and yet escaped.' Lime-twigs = snares; in allusion to the practice of catching birds by means of twigs smeared with a viscous substance (called on that account 'birdlime'). Shakespeare makes repeated allusion to this practice: see Macbeth, iv. 2. 34; Two Gent. ii. 2. 68; ii. Hen. VI. i. 3. 91; etc.

649. necromancer's hall. Warton supposes that Milton here thought of a magician's castle which has an enchanted hall invaded by Christian knights, as we read of in the romances of chivalry. Necromancer, lit. one who by magical power can commune with the dead (Gk. nekros, a corpse); hence a sorcerer. From confusion of the first syllable with that of the Lat. niger, black, the art of necromancy came to be called "the black art."

650. Where if he be, Lat. ubi si sit: in English the relative adverb in such cases is best rendered by a conjunction + a demonstrative adverb; thus, 'and if he be there.'

651. brandished blade. Comp. Hermes' advice to Ulysses: "When it shall be that Circe smites thee with her long wand, even then draw thy sharp sword from thy thigh, and spring on her, as one eager to slay her," Odyssey, x. break his glass. An imitation of Spenser, who makes Sir Guyon break the golden cup of the enchantress Excess, F. Q. i. 12, stanza 56.

652. luscious, delicious. The word is a corruption of lustious from O.E. lust = pleasure: see note, l. 49.

653. But seize his wand. The force of this injunction is shown by lines 815-819.

654. menace high, violent threat. High is thus used in a number of figurative senses, e.g. a high wind, a high hand, high passions (Par. Lost, ix. 123), high descent, high design, etc.

655. Sons of Vulcan. In the Aeneid (Bk. viii. 252) we are told that Cacus, son of Vulcan (the Roman God of Fire), "vomited from his throat huge volumes of smoke" when pursued by Hercules, "Faucibus ingentem fumum," etc.

657. apace; quickly, at a great pace. This word has changed its meaning: in Chaucer it means 'at a foot pace,' i.e. slowly. The first syllable is the indefinite article 'a' = one (Skeat).

658. bear: the subjunctive used optatively (Abbott, Sec. 365). (Stage Direction) puts by: puts on one side, refuses. goes about to rise, i.e. endeavours to rise. This idiomatic use of go about still lingers in the phrase 'to go about one's business'; comp. 'to set about' anything.

659. but, merely: comp. l. 656. After the conditional clause we have here a verb in the present tense ('are chained'), a construction which well expresses the certainty and immediate action of the sorcerer's spell (see Abbott, Sec. 371).

660. your nerves ... alabaster. Comp. Tempest, i. 2. 471-484. Milton has the word alabaster three times, twice incorrectly spelled alablaster (in this passage and Par. Lost, iv. 544) and once correctly, as now entered in the text (Par. Reg. iv. 548). Alabaster is a kind of marble: comp. On Shak. 14, "make us marble with too much conceiving."

661. or, as Daphne was, etc. The construction is: 'if I merely wave this wand, you (become) a marble statue, or (you become) root-bound, as Daphne was, that fled Apollo.' Milton inserts the adverbial clause in the predicate, which is not unusual; he then adds an attributive clause, which is not usual in English, though common in Greek and Latin. Daphne, an Arcadian goddess, was pursued by Apollo, and having prayed for aid, she was changed into a laurel tree (Gk. daphne): comp, the story of Syrinx and Pan, referred to in Arc. 106.

662. fled. Comp. the transitive use of the verb in l. 829, 939, Son. xviii. 14, "fly the Babylonian woe"; Sams. Agon. 1541, "fly The sight of this so horrid spectacle."

663. freedom of my mind, etc. Comp. Cowper's noble passage, "He is the freeman whom the truth makes free," etc. (Task, v. 733).

665. corporal rind: the body, called in Il Pens. 92, "this fleshly nook."

668. here be all. See note, l. 12.

669. fancy can beget: comp. Il Pens. 6.

672. cordial julep, heart-reviving drink. Cordial, lit. hearty (Lat. cordi, stem of cor, the heart): julep, Persian gul{=a}b, rose-water.

673. his = its: see note, l. 96.

674. syrups: Arab, shar{=a}b, a drink, wine.

675. that Nepenthes, etc. The allusion is explained by the following lines of the Odyssey: "Then Helen, daughter of Zeus, turned to new thoughts. Presently she cast a drug into the wine whereof they drank, a drug to lull all pain and anger, and bring forgetfulness of every sorrow. Whoso should drink a draught thereof, when it is mingled in the bowl, on that day he would let no tear fall down his cheeks, not though his father and his mother died ... Medicines of such virtue and so helpful had the daughter of Zeus, which Polydamna, the wife of Thon, had given her, a woman of Egypt, where earth the grain-giver yields herbs in greatest plenty, many that are healing in the cup, and many baneful" (Butcher and Lang's translation, iv. 219-230). 'Nepenthes,' a Greek adj. = sorrow-dispelling (ne, privative; penthos, grief). It is here used by Milton as the name of an opiate and it is now occasionally used as a general name for drugs that relieve pain.

677. Is of such power, etc.: see note, l. 155. The construction is, 'That Nepenthes is not of such power to stir up joy as this (julep is, nor is it) so friendly to life (nor) so cool to thirst.'

679. Why ... to yourself. Comp. Shakespeare, Son. i. 8, "Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel."

680. 'Nature gave you your beautiful person to be held in trust on certain conditions, of which the most obligatory is that the body should have refreshment after toil, ease after pain. Yet this very condition you disregard, and deal harshly with yourself by refusing my proferred glass at a time when you are in need of food and rest.' Comp. Shakespeare, Son. iv. "Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend Upon thyself thy beauty's legacy," etc.

685. unexempt condition, i.e. a condition binding on all and at all times, a law of human nature.

687. mortal frailty, i.e. weak mortals: abstract for concrete.

688. That. The antecedent of this relative is you, l. 682. See note, l. 2.

689. timely, seasonable. So 'timeless' = unseasonable (Scott's Marmion, iii. 223, "gambol rude and timeless joke"): comp. Son. ii. 8, "timely-happy spirits"; and l. 970.

693. Was this ... abode? The verb is singular, because 'cottage' and 'safe abode' convey one idea: see Comus's words, l. 320. Notice also that the past tense is used as referring to the past act of telling.

694. aspects: accent on final syllable.

695. oughly-headed: so spelt in Milton's MS. = ugly-headed. Ugly is radically connected with awe.

698. with visored falsehood and base forgery. A vizor (also spelt visor, visard, vizard) is a mask, "a false face." The allusion is to Comus's disguise: see l. 166. With in this line, as in lines 672 and 700, denotes by means of.

700. liquorish baits: see note on baited, l. 162. 'Liquorish,' by catachresis for lickerish = tempting to the appetite, causing one to lick one's lips. The student should carefully distinguish the three words lickerish (as above), liquorish (which is really meaningless) and liquorice (= licorice = Lat. glycyrrhiza), a plant with a sweet root.

702. treasonous; an obsolete word. The current form 'treasonable' has usually a more restricted sense: Milton and Shakespeare use treasonous in the more general sense of traitorous (a cognate word). In this line 'offer' = the thing offered.

703. good men ... good things. This noble sentiment Milton has borrowed from Euripides, Medea, 618, Kakou gar andros dor' onesin ouk echei "the gifts of the bad man are without profit." (Newton).

704. that which is not good, etc. This is Platonic: the soul has a rational principle and an irrational or appetitive, and when the former controls the latter, the desires are for what is good only (Rep. iv. 439).

707. budge doctors of the Stoic fur. Budge is lambskin with the wool dressed outwards, worn on the edge of the hoods of bachelors of arts, etc. Therefore, if both budge and fur be taken literally the line is tautological. But 'budge' has the secondary sense of 'solemn,' like a doctor in his robes; and 'fur' may be used figuratively in the sense of sect, just as "the cloth" is used to denote the clergy. The whole phrase would thus be equivalent to 'solemn doctors of the Stoic sect.' It is possible that Milton makes equivocal reference to the two senses of 'budge.'

708. the Cynic tub = the tub of Diogenes the Cynic, here put in contempt for the Cynic school of Greek philosophy, which was the forerunner of the Stoic system. Diogenes, one of the early Cynics, lived in a tub, and was fond of calling himself ho kyon (the dog).

709. the: here used generically.

711. unwithdrawing. In this participle the termination -ing seems almost equivalent to that of the past participle: comp. "all-obeying breath" (= obeyed by all), A. and C. iii. 13, 77. Nature's gifts are not only full but continuous.

714. all to please ... curious taste. All = entirely, here modifies the infinitives please and sate. Curious = fastidious: its original sense is 'careful' or 'anxious.' Compare the two senses of exquisite, note l. 359.

715. set, i.e. she set. The pronominal subject is omitted.

717. To deck: infinitive of purpose.

718. in her own loins, i.e. in the bowels of the earth.

719. hutched = stored up, enclosed. Hutch is an old word for chest or coffer, chiefly used now in the compound 'rabbit-hutch.'

720. To store her children with, i.e. wherewith to store her children. Or we may read, 'in order to store her children with (them).' 'Store' = provide.

721. pet of temperance, i.e. a sudden and transitory fit of temperance. pulse. So Daniel and his three companions refused the dainties of the King of Babylon and fed on pulse and water; Dan. i.

722. frieze, coarse woollen cloth.

723. All-giver. Comp. Gk. pandora, an epithet applied to the earth as the giver of all.

725. 'And we should serve him as (if he were) a grudging master and a penurious niggard of his wealth, and (we should) live like Nature's bastards': see Hebrews xii. 8, "If ye are without chastening, whereof all have been made partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons."

728. Who. The pronoun here relates not to the word immediately preceding it, but to the substantive implied in the possessive pronoun her, i.e. the sons of her who. His, her, etc., in such constructions have their full force as genitives: comp. L'Alleg. 124, "her grace whom" = the grace of her whom. surcharged: overloaded, 'overfraught' (l. 732). waste fertility, wasted or unused abundance. This participial use of 'waste' seems to be due to the similarity in sound to such participles as 'elevate' (= elevated), 'instruct' (= instructed), etc., which occur in Milton (comp. English Past and Present, vi.).

729. strangled, suffocated.

730. winged air darked with plumes, i.e. the air being darkened by the flight of innumerable birds. Spenser also has dark as a verb. Both clauses in this line are absolute.

731. over-multitude, outnumber. This line and the preceding one illustrate the freedom with which, in earlier English, one part of speech was used for another.

732. o'erfraught: see note, l. 355.

733. emblaze, make to blaze, make splendid. There is perhaps a reference to the sense of emblazon, which is from M.E. blazen, to blaze abroad, to proclaim.

734. bestud with stars. In Milton's MS. it is 'bestud the centre with their star-light,' centre being the 'centre of the earth.'

735. inured, accustomed, by custom rendered less sensitive. Inure is from the old phrase 'in ure' = in operation (Fr. oeuvre, work).

737. coy: shy or reserved. cozened: cheated, beguiled. The origin of this word is interesting: a cozener is one who, for selfish ends, claims kindred or cousinship with another, and hence a flatterer or cheat.

739-755. Beauty is Nature's coin, etc. "The idea that runs through these seventeen lines is a favourite one with the old poets; and Warton and Todd cite parallel passages from Shakespeare, Daniel, Fletcher, and Drayton. Thus, from Shakespeare (M. N. D. i. 1. 76-8):

"Earthlier happy is the rose distilled Than that which, withering on the virgin thorn, Grows, lives, and dies, in single blessedness."

See also Shakespeare's first six sonnets, which are pervaded by the idea in all its subtleties" (Masson).

743. let slip time, i.e. allow time to slip: see note, l. 304. Comp. Par. Lost, i. 178. "Let us not slip the occasion."

744. It = beauty. languished, languid or languishing: comp. Par. Lost, vi. 496, "their languished hope revived"; Epitaph on M. of W. 33. The suffix -ed is frequent in Elizabethan English where we now have -ing (Abbott, Sec. 374).

747. most, as many as possible.

748. homely ... home. There is here a play upon words as in Two Gent. i. 1. 2: "Home-keeping youth have ever homely wits." Homely is derived from home.

749. Women with coarse complexions and dull cheeks are good enough for household occupations.

750. of sorry grain, not brilliant, of poor colour. 'Grain' is from Lat. granum, a seed, applied to small objects, and hence to the coccus or cochineal insect which yields a variety of red dyes. Hence grain came to denote certain colours, e.g. Tyrian purple, violet, etc., and is so used by Milton: see Il Pens. 33, "a robe of darkest grain"; Par. Lost, v. 285, "sky-tinctured grain"; xi. 242, "A military vest of purple ... Livelier than ... the grain Of Sarra," etc. And as these were fast or durable colours we have such phrases as 'to dye in grain,' 'a rogue in grain,' 'an ingrained habit.' (See further in Marsh's Lect. on Eng. Lang. p. 55).

751. sampler, a sample or pattern piece of needlework. It is a doublet of exemplar. tease the huswife's wool. To tease is to comb or card: comp. the Lat. vexare. 'Huswife' = house-wife, further corrupted into hussy. Hussif (a case for needles, etc.) is a different word.

752. What need a vermeil-tinctured lip? See note, l. 362, on 'what need.' Vermeil: a French spelling of vermilion. The name is from Lat. vermis, a worm (the cochineal insect, from which the colour used to be got); and as vermis is cognate with Sansk. krimi, a worm, it follows that vermilion, crimson, and carmine are cognate.

753. tresses. Homer (Odyssey, v. 390) speaks of "the fair-tressed Dawn," euplokamos Eos.

755. advised. Contrast with 'Advice,' l. 108.

756. Lines 756-761 are not addressed to Comus.

757. but that: were it not that.

758. as mine eyes: as he has already charmed mine eyes; see note, l. 170.

759. rules pranked in reason's garb, i.e. specious arguments. Pranked = decked in a showy manner: Milton (Prose works, i. 147, ed. 1698) speaks of the Episcopal church service pranking herself in the weeds of the Popish mass. Comp. Wint. Tale, iv. 4. 10, "Most goddess-like prank'd up"; Par. Lost, ii. 226, "Belial, with words clothed in reason's garb."

760-1. I hate when Vice brings forward refined arguments, and Virtue allows them to pass unchallenged. bolt = to sift or separate, as the boulting-mill separates the meal from the bran; in this sense the word (also spelt boult) is used by Chaucer, Spenser (F. Q. ii. 4. 24), Shakespeare (Cor. iii. 1. 322, Wint. Tale, iv. 4. 375, "the fanned snow that's bolted By the northern blasts twice o'er," etc.). The spelling bolt has confused the word with 'bolt,' to shoot or start out. See Index to Globe Shakespeare.

763. she would her children, etc., i.e. she wished (that) her children should be wantonly luxurious: comp. l. 172; Par. Lost, i. 497-503.

764. cateress, stewardess, provider: lit. 'a buyer.' Cateress is feminine: the masculine is caterer, where the final -er of the agent is unnecessarily repeated.

765. Means ... to the good: intends ... for the good.

767. dictate. The accent in Milton's time was on the first syllable, both in noun and verb. spare Temperance. For Milton's praises of Temperance comp. Il Pens. 46, "Spare Fast that oft with gods doth diet"; also the 6th Elegy, 56-66; Son. xx., etc. "There is much in the Lady which resembles the youthful Milton himself—he, the Lady of his college—and we may well believe that the great debate concerning temperance was not altogether dramatic (where, indeed, is Milton truly dramatic?), but was in part a record of passages in the poet's own spiritual history." Dowden's Transcripts and Studies.

768. If Nature's blessings were equally distributed instead of being heaped upon a luxurious few, then (as Shakespeare says, King Lear, iv. 1. 73) "distribution should undo excess, And each man have enough."

769. beseeming, suitable. The original sense of seem is 'to be fitting,' as in the words beseem and seemly.

770. lewdly-pampered; one of Milton's most expressive compounds = wickedly gluttonous. Lewd has passed through several changes of meaning: (1) the lay-people as distinct from the clergy; (2) ignorant or unlearned; and finally (2) base or licentious.

774. she no whit encumbered, i.e. Nature would not be in the least surcharged (as Comus represented in l. 728). No whit, used adverbially = not in the least, lit. 'not a particle.' Etymologically aught = a whit, naught = no whit.

776. His praise due paid, i.e. would be duly paid. On due, see note, l. 12. gluttony: abstract for concrete.

779. Crams, i.e. crams himself. There are many verbs in English that may be thus used reflexively without having the pronoun expressed, e.g. feed, prepare, change, pour, press, etc.

780. enow. 'Enow' conveys the notion of a number, as in early English: it is also spelt anow, and in Chaucer ynowe, and is the plural of enough. It still occurs as a provincialism in England. On lines 780-799 Masson says: "A recurrence, by the sister, with much more mystic fervour, to that Platonic and Miltonic doctrine which had already been propounded by the Elder Brother (see lines 420-475)."

782. sun-clad power of chastity. With 'sun-clad' compare 'the sacred rays of chastity,' l. 425. Similarly in the Faerie Queene, iii. 6, Spenser says of Belphoebe, who represents Chastity, "And Phoebus with fair beams did her adorn."

783. yet to what end? A rhetorical question, = it would be to no purpose.

784. nor ... nor. These correlatives are often used in poetry for neither ... nor (Shakespeare often omitting the former altogether), and are equally correct. Nor is only a contraction of neither, and the first may as well be contracted as the second.

785. sublime notion and high mystery. In the Apology for Smectymnuus Milton tells of his study of the "divine volume of Plato," wherein he learned of the "abstracted sublimities" of Chastity and Love: also of his study of the Holy Scripture "unfolding these chaste and high mysteries, with timeless care infused, that the body is for the Lord, and the Lord for the body."

790. dear wit. 'Dear' is here used in contempt: its original sense is 'precious' (A.S. deore), but in Elizabethan English it has a variety of meanings, e.g. intense, serious, grievous, great, etc. Comp. "sad occasion dear," Lyc. 6; "dear groans," L. L. L. v. 2. 874. Craik suggests "that the notion properly involved in it of love, having first become generalised into that of a strong affection of any kind, had thence passed on to that of such an emotion the very reverse of love," as in my dearest foe. gay rhetoric: here so named in contempt, as being the instrument of sophistry.

791. fence, argumentation, Fence is an abbreviation of defence: comp. "tongue-fence" (Milton), "fencer in wits' school" (Fuller), Much Ado, v. 1. 75.

794. rapt spirits. 'Rapt' = enraptured, as if the mind or soul had been carried out of itself (Lat. raptus, seized): comp. Il Pens. 40, "Thy rapt soul sitting in thine eyes." Milton also uses the word of the actual snatching away of a person: "What accident hath rapt him from us," Par. Lost, ii. 40.

797. the brute Earth, etc., i.e. the senseless Earth would become sensible and assist me. 'Brute' = Lat. brutus, dull, insensible: comp. Horace, Odes, i. 34. 9, "bruta tellus."

800. She fables not: she speaks truly. This line is alliterative.

801. set off: comp. Lyc. 80, "set off to the world."

802. though not mortal: sc. 'I am.' shuddering dew. The epithet is, by hypallage, transferred from the person to the dew or cold sweat which 'dips' or moistens his body.

804. Speaks thunder and the chains of Erebus, etc.; in allusion to the Titanomachia or contest between Zeus and the Titans. Zeus, having been provided with thunder and lightning by the Cyclops, cast the Titans into Tartarus or Erebus, a region as far below Hell as Heaven is above the Earth. The leader of the Titans was Cronos (Saturn). There is a zeugma in speaks as applied to 'thunder' and 'chains,' unless it be taken as in both cases equivalent to denounces.

806. Come, no more! Comus now addresses the lady.

808. canon laws of our foundation, i.e. the established rules of our society. "A humorous application of the language of universities and other foundations" (Keightley).

809. 'tis but the lees, etc. Lees and settlings are synonymous = dregs. The allusion is to the old physiological system of the four primary humours of the body, viz. blood, phlegm, choler, and melancholy (see Burton's Anat. of Mel. i. 1, Sec. ii. 2): "Melancholy, cold and dry, thick, black, and sour, begotten of the more feculent part of nourishment, and purged from the spleen"; Gk. melancholia, black bile. See Sams. Agon. 600, "humours black That mingle with thy fancy"; and Nash's Terrors of the Night (1594): "(Melancholy) sinketh down to the bottom like the lees of the wine, corrupteth the blood, and is the cause of lunacy."

811. straight, immediately. The adverb straight is now chiefly used of direction; to indicate time straightway (= in a straight way) is more usual: comp. L'Alleg. 69: "Straight mine eye hath caught new pleasures."

814. scape, a mutilated form of 'escape,' occurs both as a noun and a verb in Shakespeare and Milton: see Par. Lost, x. 5, "what can scape the eye of God?"; Par. Reg. ii. 189, "then lay'st thy scapes on names adored."

816. without his rod reversed. This use of the participle is a Latinism: see note, l. 48. At the same time it is to be noted that a phrase of this kind introduced by 'without' is in Latin frequently rendered by the ablative absolute: such construction is here inadmissible because 'without' also governs 'mutters.'

817. backward mutters. The notion of a counter-charm produced by reversing the magical wand and by repeating the charm backwards occurs in Ovid (Met. xiv. 300), who describes Circe as thus restoring the followers of Ulysses to their human forms. Milton skilfully makes the neglect of the counter-charm the occasion for introducing the legend of Sabrina, which was likely to interest an audience assembled in the neighbourhood of the River Severn. On 'mutters,' see note, l. 526.

820. bethink me. The pronoun after this verb is reflexive. "The deliverance of their sister would be impossible but for supernatural interposition, the aid afforded by the Attendant Spirit from Jove's court. In other words, Divine Providence is asserted. Not without higher than human aid is the Lady rescued, and through the weakness of the mortal instruments of divine grace but half the intended work is accomplished." Dowden's Transcripts and Studies.

821. In this line and the next the attributive clauses are separated from the antecedent: see note, l. 2.

822. Meliboeus. The name of a shepherd in Virgil's Eclogue i. Possibly the poet Spenser is here meant, as the tale of Sabrina is given in the Faerie Queene, ii. 10, 14. The tale is also told by Geoffrey of Monmouth and by Sackville, Drayton and Warner. As Milton refers to a 'shepherd,' i.e. a poet, and to 'the soothest shepherd,' i.e. the truest poet, and as he follows Spenser's version of the story in this poem, we need not hesitate to identify Meliboeus with Spenser.

823. soothest, truest. The A.S. soth meant true; hence also 'a true thing' = truth. It survives in soothe (lit. to affirm to be true), soothsay (see l. 874), and forsooth (= for a truth).

824. from hence. Hence represents an A.S. word heonan, -an being a suffix = from: so that in the phrase 'from hence' the force of the preposition is twice introduced. Yet the idiom is common: it arises from forgetfulness of the origin of the word. Comp. Arc. 3: "which we from hence descry."

825. with moist curb sways: comp. l. 18. Sabrina was a numen fluminis or river-deity.

826. Sabrina: The following is Milton's version of the legend:—"After this, Brutus, in a chosen place, builds Troja Nova, changed in time to Trinovantum, now London; and began to enact laws (Heli being then High Priest in Judea); and, having governed the whole isle twenty-four years, died, and was buried in his new Troy. His three sons—Locrine, Albanact, and Camber—divide the land by consent. Locrine had the middle part, Loegria; Camber possessed Cambria or Wales; Albanact, Albania, now Scotland. But he, in the end, by Humber, King of the Huns, who, with a fleet, invaded that land, was slain in fight, and his people driven back into Loegria. Locrine and his brother go out against Humber; who now marching onward was by them defeated, and in a river drowned, which to this day retains his name. Among the spoils of his camp and navy were found certain young maids, and Estrilidis, above the rest, passing fair, the daughter of a king in Germany, from whence Humber, as he went wasting the sea-coast, had led her captive; whom Locrine, though before contracted to the daughter of Corineus, resolves to marry. But being forced and threatened by Corineus, whose authority and power he feared, Gwendolen the daughter he yields to marry, but in secret loves the other; and, ofttimes retiring as to some sacrifice, through vaults and passages made underground, and seven years thus enjoying her, had by her a daughter equally fair, whose name was Sabra. But when once his fear was off by the death of Corineus, not content with secret enjoyment, divorcing Gwendolen, he makes Estrilidis his Queen. Gwendolen, all in rage, departs into Cornwall; where Pladan, the son she had by Locrine, was hitherto brought up by Corineus, his grandfather; and gathering an army of her father's friends and subjects, gives battle to her husband by the river Sture, wherein Locrine, shot with an arrow, ends his life. But not so ends the fury of Gwendolen, for Estrilidis and her daughter Sabra she throws into a river, and, to have a monument of revenge, proclaims that the stream be thenceforth called after the damsel's name, which by length of time is changed now to Sabrina or Severn."—History of Britain (1670).

827. Whilom, of old. An obsolete word, lit. 'at time'; A.S. hwilum, instr. or dat. plur. of hwil, time.

830. step-dame. For the actual relationship, see note, l. 826. The prefix step (A.S. steop-) means 'orphaned,' and applies properly to a child whose parent has re-married: it was afterwards used in the words 'step-father,' etc. Dame (Fr. dame, a lady) retains the sense of mother in the form dam.

832. his = its: see note, l. 96.

834. pearled wrists, wrists adorned with pearls. An appropriate epithet, as pearls were said to exist in the waters of the Severn.

835. aged Nereus' hall, the abode of old Nereus, i.e. the bottom of the sea. Nereus, the father of the Nereids, or sea nymphs, is described as the wise and unerring old man of the sea; in Virgil, grandaevus Nereus. See also, l. 871, and compare Jonson's Neptune's Triumph, last song: "Old Nereus, with his fifty girls, From aged Indus laden home with pearls."

836. piteous of, i.e. full of pity for; comp. Lat. miseret te aliorum (genitive). Milton occasionally uses the word in this passive sense; its active sense is 'causing pity,' i.e. pitiful. Comp. Abbott, Sec. 3. reared her lank head, i.e. raised up her drooping head: comp. Par. Lost, viii.: "In adoration at his feet I fell Submiss: he reared me." 'Lank,' lit. slender; hence weak. The adjective lanky is in common use = tall and thin.

837. imbathe, to bathe in: the force of the preposition being reduplicated, as in Lat. incidere in.

838. nectared lavers, etc., baths sweetened with nectar and scented with asphodel flowers. On 'nectar,' see note, l. 479. asphodel; the same, both name and thing, as 'daffodil' (see Lyc. 150, where it takes the form 'daffadillies'): Gk. asphodelos, M.E. affodille. The initial d in daffodil has not been satisfactorily explained: see l. 851.

839. the porch. So Quintilian calls the ear the vestibule of the mind: comp. Haml. i. 5. 63: "the porches of mine ear"; also the phrase, "the five gateways of knowledge."

840. ambrosial oils, oils of heavenly fragrance: see note, l. 16, and compare Virgil's use of ambrosia in Georg. iv. 415, liquidum ambrosiae diffundit odorem.

841. quick immortal change: comp. l. 10.

842. Made Goddess, etc. This participial construction is frequent in Milton as in Latin: it is equivalent to an explanatory clause.

844. twilight meadows: comp. "twilight groves," Il Pens. 133; "twilight ranks," Arc. 99; Hymn Nat. 188.

845. Helping all urchin blasts, remedying or preventing the blighting influence of evil spirits. 'Urchin blasts' is probably here used generally for what in Arcades, 49-53, are called "noisome winds and blasting vapours chill," 'urchin' being common in the sense of 'goblin' (M. W. of W. iv. 4. 49). Strictly the word denotes the hedgehog, which for various reasons was popularly regarded with great dread, and hence mischievous spirits were supposed to assume its form: comp. Shakespeare, Temp, i. 2. 326, ii. 2. 5, "Fright me with urchin-shows"; Titus And. ii. 3. 101; Macbeth, iv. 1. 2, "Thrice and once the hedge-pig whined," etc. Compare the protecting duties of the Genius in Arcades. Helping: comp. the phrases, "I cannot help it," i.e. prevent it; "it cannot be helped," i.e. remedied, etc.

846. shrewd. Here used in its radical sense = shrew-ed, malicious, like a shrew. Comp. M. N. D. ii. 1, "That shrewd and knavish sprite called Robin Goodfellow." Chaucer has the verb shrew = to curse; the current verb is beshrew.

847. vialed, contained in phials.

850. garland wreaths. A garland is a wreath, but we may take the phrase to mean 'wreathed garlands': comp. "twisted braids," l. 862.

852. old swain, i.e. Meliboeus (l. 862). "But neither Geoffrey of Monmouth nor Spenser has the development of the legend" (Masson).

853. clasping charm: see l. 613, 660.

854. warbled song: comp. Arc. 87, "touch the warbled string"; Son. xx. 12, "Warble immortal notes."

857. This will I try, i.e. to invoke her rightly in song.

858. adjuring, charging by something sacred and venerable. The adjuration is contained in lines 867-889, which, in Milton's MS., are directed "to be said," not sung, and in the Bridgewater MS. "to sing or not." From the latter MS. it would appear that these lines were sung as a kind of trio by Lawes and the two brothers.

863. amber-dropping: see note, l. 333; and comp. l. 106, where the idea is similar, warranting us in taking 'amber-dropping' as a compound epithet = dropping amber, and not (as some read) 'amber' and 'dropping.' Amber conveys the ideas of luminous clearness and fragrance: see Sams. Agon. 720, "amber scent of odorous perfume."

865. silver lake, the Severn. Virgil has the Lat. lacus in the sense of 'a river.'

868. great Oceanus, Gk. Okeanon te megan. The early Greeks regarded the earth as a flat disc, surrounded by a perpetually flowing river called Oceanus: the god of this river was also called Oceanus, and afterwards the name was applied to the Atlantic. Hesiod, Drayton, and Jonson have all applied the epithet 'great' to the god Oceanus; in fact, throughout these lines Milton uses what may be called the "permanent epithets" of the various divinities.

869. earth-shaking Neptune's mace, i.e. the trident of Poseidon (Neptune). Homer calls him ennosigaios = earth-shaking: comp. Iliad, xii. 27, "And the Shaker of the Earth with his trident in his hands," etc. In Par. Lost, x. 294, Milton provides Death with a "mace petrifick."

870. Tethys' ... pace. Tethys, wife of Oceanus, their children being the Oceanides and river-gods. In Hesiod she is 'the venerable' (potnia Tethys), and in Ovid 'the hoary.'

871. hoary Nereus: see note, l. 835.

872. Carpathian wizard's hook. See Virgil's Georg. iv. 387, "In the sea-god's Carpathian gulf there lives a seer, Proteus, of the sea's own hue ... all things are known to him, those which are, those which have been, and those which drag their length through the advancing future." Wizard = diviner, without the depreciatory sense of line 571; see note there. Hook: Proteus had a shepherd's hook, because he tended "the monstrous herds of loathly sea-calves": Odyssey, iv. 385-463.

873. scaly Triton's ... shell. In Lycidas, 89, he is "the Herald of the Sea." He bore a 'wreathed horn' or shell which he blew at the command of Neptune in order to still the restless waves of the sea. He was 'scaly,' the lower part of his body being like that of a fish.

874. soothsaying Glaucus. He was a Boeotian fisherman who had been changed into a marine deity, and was regarded by fishermen and sailors as a soothsayer or oracle: see note, l. 823.

875. Leucothea: lit. "the white goddess" (Gk. leuke, thea), the name by which Ino, the daughter of Cadmus, was worshipped after she had thrown herself into the sea to avoid her enraged husband Athamas.

876. her son, i.e. Melisertes, drowned and deified along with his mother: as a sea-deity he was called Palaemon, identified by the Romans with their god of harbours, Portumnus.

877. tinsel-slippered. The 'permanent epithet' of Thetis, a daughter of Nereus and mother of Achilles, is "silver-footed" (Gk. argyropeza). Comp. Neptune's Triumph (Jonson):

"And all the silver-footed nymphs were drest To wait upon him, to the Ocean's feast."

'Tinsel-slippered' is a paraphrase of this, for 'tinsel' is a cloth worked with silver (or gold): the notion of cheap finery is not radical. Etymologically, tinsel is that which glitters or scintillates. On the beauty of this epithet, and of Milton's compound epithets generally, see Trench, English Past and Present, p. 296.

878-80. Sirens ... Parthenope's ... Ligea's. The three Sirens (see note, l. 253) were Parthenope, Lig{=e}a, and Lucosia. The tomb of the first was at Naples (see Milton's Ad Leonaram, iii., "Credula quid liquidam Sirena, Neapoli, jactas, Claraque Parthenopes fana Acheloeiados," etc.). Ligea, described by Virgil (Georg. iv. 336) as a sea-nymph, is here represented as seated, like a mermaid, in the act of smoothing her hair with a golden comb.

881. Wherewith = with which. The true adjective clause is "sleeking ... locks" = with which she sleeks, etc.; and the true participial clause is "she sits ... rocks" = seated on ... rocks.

882. Sleeking, making sleek or glossy. The original sense of 'sleek' is greasy: comp. Lyc. 99, "On the level brine Sleek Panope with all her sisters played."

885. heave, raise. Comp. the similar use of the word in L'Alleg. 145, "Orpheus' self may heave his head."

887. bridle in, i.e. restrain.

888. have: subjunctive after till, as frequently in Milton.

890. rushy-fringed, fringed with rushes. The more usual form would be rush-fringed: we may regard Milton's form as a participle formed from the compound noun "rushy-fringe": comp. 'blue-haired,' l. 29; "false-played," Shakespeare, A. and C. iv. 14.

891. grows. A singular with two nominatives connected by and: the verb is to be taken with each. But the compound subject is really equivalent to "the willow with its osiers dank," osiers being water-willows or their branches. dank, damp: comp. Par. Lost, vii. 441, "oft they quit the dank" (= the water).

893. Thick set, etc., i.e. thickly inlaid with agate and beautified with the azure sheen of turquoise, etc. There is a zeugma in set. azurn sheen. Sheen = brightness: it occurs again in l. 1003; see note there. 'Azurn': modern English has a tendency to use the noun itself as an adjective in cases where older English used an adjective with the suffix -en = made of. Most of the adjectives in -en that still survive do not now denote "made of," but simply "like," e.g. golden hair, etc. Azurn and cedarn (l. 990), hornen, treen, corden, glassen, reeden, etc., are practically obsolete; see Trench, English Past and Present. Comp. 'oaten' (Lyc. 33), 'oaken' (Arc. 45). As the words 'azurn' and 'cedarn' are peculiar to Milton some hold that he adopted them from the Italian azzurino and cedrino.

894. turkis; also spelt turkoise, turquois, and turquoise: lit. 'the Turkish stone,' a Persian gem so called because it came through Turkey (Pers. turk, a Turk).

895. That ... strays. Milton does not imply that these stones were found in the Severn, nor does he in lines 932-937 imply that cinnamon grows on its banks.

897. printless feet. Comp. Temp. v. i. 34: "Ye that on the sands with printless foot Do chase the ebbing Neptune"; also Arc. 85: "Where no print of step hath been."

902. It will be noticed that the Spirit takes up the rhymes of Sabrina's song ('here,' 'dear'; 'request,' 'distressed'), and again Sabrina continues the rhymes of the Spirit's song ('distressed,' 'best').

913. of precious cure, of curative power. See note on this use of 'of,' l. 155.

914. References to the efficacy of sprinkling are frequent, e.g. in the English Bible, in Spenser, in Virgil (Aen. vi. 229), in Ovid (Met. iv. 479), in Par. Lost, xi. 416.

916. Next: an adverb modifying 'touch.'

917. glutinous, sticky, viscous. The epithet is transferred from the effect to the cause.

921. Amphitrite: the wife of Neptune (Poseidon) and goddess of the Sea.

923. Anchises line: see note, l. 827. Locrine was the son of Brutus, who was the son of Silvius, who was the grandson of the great Aeneas, who was the son of old Anchises.

924. may ... miss. This verb is optative: so are '(may) scorch,' '(may) fill,' 'may roll,' and 'may be crowned.'

925. brimmed. The passive participle is so often used where we now use the active that 'brimmed' may mean 'brimming' = full to the brim. On the other hand, 'brim' is frequent in the sense of bank (comp. l. 119), so that some regard 'brimmed' as = enclosed within banks.

928. singed, scorched. We should rather say 'scorching.' On the good wishes expressed in lines 924-937 Masson's comment is: "The whole of this poetic blessing on the Severn and its neighbourhood, involving the wish of what we should call 'solid commercial prosperity,' would go to the heart of the assemblage at Ludlow."

933. beryl: in the Bible (Rev. xxi. 20) this precious stone forms one of the foundations of the New Jerusalem. The word is of Eastern origin: comp. Arab, billaur, crystal. golden ore. As a matter of fact gold has been found in the Welsh mountains.

934. May thy lofty head, etc. The grammatical construction is: 'May thy lofty head be crowned round with many a tower and terrace, and here and there (may thy lofty head be crowned) with groves of myrrh and cinnamon (growing) upon thy banks.' This makes 'banks' objective, and 'upon' a preposition: the only objection to this reading is that the notion of crowning the head upon the banks is peculiar. The difficulty vanishes when we recollect that Milton frequently connects two clauses with one subject rather loosely: the subject of the second clause is 'thou,' implied in 'thy lofty head.' An exact parallel to this is found in L'Alleg. 121, 122: 'whose bright eyes rain influence and judge the prize'; also in Il Pens. 155-7; 'let my due feet never fail to walk ... and love, etc.': also in Lyc. 88, 89. The explanation adopted by Prof. Masson is that Milton had in view two Greek verbs—peristephanoo, 'to put a crown round,' and epistephanoo, "to put a crown upon": thus, "May thy lofty head be crowned round with many a tower and terrace, and thy banks here and there be crowned upon with groves of myrrh and cinnamon." This makes 'banks' nominative, and 'upon' an adverb.

In the Bridgewater MS. the stage direction here is, Song ends.

942. Not a waste, etc., i.e. 'Let there not be a superfluous or unnecessary sound until we come.' 'waste' is an attributive: see note, l. 728.

945. gloomy covert wide: see note, l. 207.

946. not many furlongs. These words are deliberately inserted to keep up the illusion. It is probable that, in the actual representation of the mask, the scene representing the enchanted palace was removed when Comus's rout was driven off the stage, and a woodland scene redisplayed. This would give additional significance to these lines and to the change of scene after l. 957. 'Furlong' = furrow-long: it thus came to mean the length of a field, and is now a measure of length.

949. many a friend. 'Many a' is a peculiar idiom, which has been explained in different ways. One view is that 'many' is a corruption of the French mesnie, a train or company, and 'a' a corruption of the preposition 'of,' the singular noun being then substituted for the plural through confusion of the preposition with the article. A more correct view seems to be that 'many' is the A.S. manig, which was in old English used with a singular noun and without the article, e.g. manig mann = many men. In the thirteenth century the indefinite article began to be inserted; thus mony enne thing = many a thing, just as we say 'what a thing,' 'such a thing.' This would seem to show that 'a' is not a corruption of 'of,' and that there is no connection with the French word mesnie. Milton, in this passage, uses 'many a friend' with a plural verb. gratulate. The simple verb is now replaced by the compound congratulate (Lat. gratulari, to wish joy to a person).

950. wished, i.e. wished for; see note, l. 574. and beside, i.e. 'and where, besides,' etc.

952. jigs, lively dances.

958. Back, shepherds, back! On the rising of the curtain, the stage is occupied by peasants engaged in a merry dance. Soon after the attendant Spirit enters with the above words. Enough your play, i.e. we have had enough of your dancing, which must now give way to 'other trippings.'

959. sunshine holiday. Comp. L'Alleg. 98, where the same expression is used. There is a close resemblance between the language of this song and lines 91-99 of L'Allegro. Milton's own spelling of 'holiday' is 'holyday,' which shows the origin of the word. The accent in such compounds (comp. blue-bell, blackbird, etc.) falls on the adjective: it is only in this way that the ear can tell whether the compound forms (e.g. holiday) or the separate words (e.g. holy day) are being used.

960. Here be: see note, l. 12. without duck or nod: words used to describe the ungraceful dancing and awkward courtesy of the country people.

961. trippings ... lighter toes ... court guise: words used to describe the graceful movements of the Lady and her brothers: comp. L'Alleg. 33: "trip it, as you go, On the light fantastic toe." Trod (or trodden), past participle of tread: 'to tread a measure' is a common expression, meaning 'to dance.' 'Court guise,' i.e. courtly mien; guise is a doublet of wise = way, e.g. 'in this wise,' 'likewise,' 'otherwise.' In such pairs of words as guise and wise, guard and ward, guile and wile, the forms in gu have come into English through the French.

963. Mercury (the Greek Hermes) was the herald of the gods, and as such was represented as having winged ankles (Gk. ptenopedilos): his name is here used as a synonym both for agility and refinement.

964. mincing Dryades. The Dryades are wood-nymphs (Gk. drys, a tree), here represented as mincing, i.e. tripping with short steps, unlike the clumsy striding of the country people. Comp. Merch. of V. iii. 4. 67: "turn two mincing steps Into a manly stride." Applied to a person's gait (or speech), the word now implies affectation.

965. lawns ... leas. On 'lawn,' see note, l. 568: a 'lea' is a meadow.

966. This song is sung by Lawes while presenting the three young persons to the Earl and Countess of Bridgewater.

967. ye: see note, l. 216.

968. so goodly grown, i.e. grown so goodly. Goodly = handsome (A.S. godlic = goodlike).

970. timely. Here an adverb: in l. 689 it is an adjective. Comp. the two phrases in Macbeth: "To gain the timely inn," iii. 3. 7; and "To call timely on him," ii. 3. 51.

972. assays, trials, temptations. Assay is used by Milton in the sense of 'attempt' as well as of 'trial': see Arc. 80, "I will assay, her worth to celebrate." The former meaning is now confined to the form essay (radically the same word); and the use of assay has been still further restricted from its being used chiefly of the testing of metals. Comp. Par. Lost, iv. 932, "hard assays and ill successes"; Par. Reg. i. 264, iv. 478.

974, 5. To triumph. The whole purpose of the poem is succinctly expressed in these lines. Stage Direction: Spirit epiloguizes, i.e. sings the epilogue or concluding stanzas. In one of Lawes' manuscripts of the mask, the epilogue consists of twelve lines only, those numbered 1012-1023. From the same copy we find that line 976 had been altered by Lawes in such a manner as to convert the first part of the epilogue into a prologue which, in his character as Attendant Spirit, he sang whilst descending upon the stage:—

From the heavens now I fly, And those happy climes that lie Where day never shuts his eye, Up in the broad field of the sky. There I suck the liquid air All amidst the gardens fair Of Hesperus, and his daughters three That sing about the golden tree. There eternal summer dwells, And west winds, with musky wing, About the cedarn alleys fling Nard and cassia's balmy smells. Iris there with humid bow Waters the odorous banks, that blow Flowers of more mingled hue Than her purfled scarf can show, Yellow, watchet, green, and blue, And drenches oft with Manna dew Beds of hyacinth and roses, Where many a cherub soft reposes.

Doubtless this was the arrangement in the actual performance of the mask.

976. To the ocean, etc. The resemblance of this song, in rhythm and rhyme, to the song of Ariel in the Tempest, v. 1. 88-94, has been frequently pointed out: "Where the bee sucks, there suck I," etc. Compare also the song of Johphiel in The Fortunate Isles (Ben Jonson): "Like a lightning from the sky," etc. The epilogue as sung by Lawes (ll. 1012-1023) may also be compared with the epilogue of the Tempest: "Now my charms are all o'erthrown," etc.

977. happy climes. Comp. Odyssey, iv. 566: "The deathless gods will convey thee to the Elysian plain and the world's end ... where life is easiest for men. No snow is there, nor yet great storm, nor any rain; but always ocean sendeth forth the breeze of the shrill west to blow cool on men": see also l. 14. 'Clime,' radically the same as climate, is still used in its literal sense = a region of the earth; while 'climate' has the secondary meaning of 'atmospheric conditions.' Comp. Son. viii. 8: "Whatever clime the sun's bright circle warms."

978. day ... eye. Comp. Son. i. 5: "the eye of day"; and Lyc. 26: "the opening eyelids of the Morn."

979. broad fields of the sky. Comp. Virgil's "Aeris in campis latis," Aen. vi. 888.

980. suck the liquid air, inhale the pure air. 'Liquid' (lit. flowing) is used figuratively and generally in the sense of pure and sweet: comp. Son. i. 5, "thy liquid notes."

981. All amidst. For this adverbial use of all (here modifying the following prepositional phrase), compare Il Pens. 33, "all in a robe of darkest grain."

982. Hesperus: see note, l. 393. Hesperus, the brother of Atlas, had three daughters—Aegle, Cynthia, and Hesperia. They were famed for their sweet song. In Milton's MS. Hesperus is written over Atlas: Spenser makes them daughters of Atlas, as does Jonson in Pleasure reconciled to Virtue.

984. crisped shades. 'Crisped,' like 'curled' (comp. "curl the grove," Arc. 46) is a common expression in the poetry of the time, and has the same meaning. The original form is the adjective 'crisp' (Lat. crispus = curled), from which comes the verb to crisp and the participle crisped. Compare "the crisped brooks ... ran nectar," Par. Lost, iv. 237, where the word is best rendered 'rippled'; also Tennyson's Claribel, 19, "the babbling runnel crispeth." In the present case the reference is to the foliage of the trees.

985. spruce, gay. This word, now applied to persons with a touch of levity, was formerly used both of things and persons in the sense of gay or neat. Compare the present and earlier uses of the word jolly, on which Pattison says:—"This is an instance of the disadvantage under which poetry in a living language labours. No knowledge of the meaning which a word bore in 1631 can wholly banish the later and vulgar associations which may have gathered round it since. Apart from direct parody and burlesque, the tendency of living speech is gradually to degrade the noble; so that as time goes on the range of poetical expression grows from generation to generation more and more restricted." The origin of the word spruce is disputed: Skeat holds that it is a corruption of Pruce (old Fr. Pruce, mod. Fr. Prusse) = Prussia; we read in the 14th century of persons dressed after the fashion of Prussia or Spruce, and Prussia was called Sprussia by some English writers up to the beginning of the 17th century. See also Trench, Select Glossary.

986. The Graces. The three Graces of classical mythology were Euphrosyne (the light-hearted one), Aglaia (the bright one), and Thalia (the blooming one). See L'Alleg. 12: "Euphrosyne ... Whom lovely Venus, at a birth, With two sister Graces more, To ivy-crowned Bacchus bore." They were sometimes represented as daughters of Zeus, and as the goddesses who purified and enhanced all the innocent pleasures of life. rosy-bosomed Hours. The Hours (Horae) of classical mythology were the goddesses of the Seasons, whose course was described as the dance of the Horae. The Hora of Spring accompanied Persephone every year on her ascent from the lower world, and the expression "The chamber of the Horae opens" is equivalent to "The Spring is coming." 'Rosy-bosomed'; the Gk. rhodokolpos: compare the epithets 'rosy-fingered' (applied by Homer to the dawn), 'rosy-armed,' etc.

989. musky ... fling. Compare Par. Lost, viii. 515: "Fresh gales and gentle airs Whispered it to the woods, and from their wings Flung rose, flung odours from the spicy shrub." In this passage the verb fling is similarly used. 'Musky' = fragrant: comp. 'musk-rose,' l. 496.

990. cedarn alleys, i.e. alleys of cedar trees. For 'alley,' comp. l. 311. For the form of 'cedarn,' see note on 'azurn,' l. 893. Tennyson uses the word 'cedarn' in Recoll. of Arab. Nights, 115.

991. Nard and cassia; two aromatic plants. Cassia is a name sometimes applied to the wild cinnamon: nard is also called spike-nard; see allusion in the Bible, Mark, xiv. 3; Exod. xxx. 24, etc.

992. Iris ... humid bow: see note, l. 83. The allusion is, of course, to the rainbow.

993. blow, here used actively = cause to blossom: comp. Jonson, Mask at Highgate, "For thee, Favonius, here shall blow New flowers."

995. purfled = having an embroidered edge (O.F. pourfiler): the verb to purfle survives in the contracted form to purl, and is cognate with profile = a front line or edge. shew: here rhymes with dew; comp. l. 511, 512. This points to the fact that in Milton's time the present pronunciation of shew, though familiar, was not the only one recognised.

996. drenches with Elysian dew, i.e. soaks with heavenly dew. The Homeric Elysium is described in Odyssey, iv.: see note, l. 977; it was afterwards identified with the abode of the blessed, l. 257. Drench is the causative of drink: here the nominative of the verb is 'Iris' and the object 'beds.'

997. if your ears be true, i.e. if your ears be pure: the poet is about to speak of that which cannot be understood by those with "gross unpurged ear" (Arc. 73, and Com. l. 458). He alludes to that pure Love which "leads up to Heaven," Par. Lost, viii. 612.

998. hyacinth. This is the "sanguine flower inscribed with woe" of Lycidas, 106: it sprang from the blood of Hyacinthus, a youth beloved by Apollo.

999. Adonis, the beloved of Venus, died of a wound which he received from a boar during the chase. The grief of Venus was so great that the gods of the lower world allowed him to spend six months of every year on earth. The story is of Asiatic origin, and is supposed to be symbolic of the revival of nature in spring and its death in winter. Comp. Par. Lost, ix. 439, "those gardens feigned Or of revived Adonis," etc.

1000. waxing well of, i.e. recovering from. The A.S. weaxan = to grow or increase: Shakespeare has 'man of wax' = adult, Rom. and Jul. i. 3. 76; see also Index to Globe Shakespeare.

1002. Assyrian queen, i.e. Venus, whose worship came from the East, probably from Assyria. She was originally identical with Astarte, called by the Hebrews Ashteroth: see Par. Lost, i. 438-452, where Adonis appears as Thammuz.

1003, 4. far above ... advanced. These words are to be read together: 'advanced' is an attribute to 'Cupid,' and is modified by 'far above.'

1003. spangled sheen, glittering brightness. 'Spangled': spangle is a diminutive of spang = a metal clasp, and hence 'a shining ornament.' In poetry it is common to speak of the stars as 'spangles' and of the heavens as 'spangled': comp. Addison's well-known lines:

"The spacious firmament on high, With all the blue ethereal sky, And spangled heavens, a shining frame, Their great Original proclaim."

Comp. also Lyc. 170, "with new-spangled ore." 'Sheen' is here used as a noun, as in line 893; also in Hymn Nat. 145, "throned in celestial sheen": Epitaph on M. of W. 73, "clad in radiant sheen." The word occurs in Spenser as an adjective also: comp. "her dainty corse so fair and sheen," F. Q. ii. 1. 10. In the line "By fountain clear or spangled starlight sheen" (M. N. D. ii. l. 29) it is doubtful whether the word is a noun or an adjective. Milton uses the adjective sheeny (Death of Fair Infant, 48).

1004. Celestial Cupid. The ordinary view of Cupid is given in the note to line 445; here he is the lover of Psyche (the human soul) to whom he is united after she has been purified by a life of trial and misfortune. The myth of Cupid and Psyche is as follows: Cupid was in love with Psyche, but warned her that she must not seek to know who he was. Yielding to curiosity, however, she drew near to him with a lamp while he was asleep. A drop of the hot oil falling on him, he awoke, and fled from her. She now wandered from place to place, persecuted by Venus; but after great sorrow, during which she was secretly supported by Cupid, she became immortal and was united to him for ever. In this story Psyche represents the human soul (Gk. psyche), which is disciplined and purified by earthly misfortune and so fitted for the enjoyment of true happiness in heaven. Further, in Milton's Allegory it is only the soul so purified that is capable of knowing true love: in his Apology for Smectymnuus he calls it that Love "whose charming cup is only virtue," and whose "first and chiefest office ... begins and ends in the soul, producing those happy twins of her divine generation, Knowledge and Virtue." To this high and mystical love Milton again alludes in Epitaphium Damonis:

"In other part, the expansive vault above, And there too, even there the god of love; With quiver armed he mounts, his torch displays A vivid light, his gem-tipt arrows blaze, Around his bright and fiery eyes he rolls, Nor aims at vulgar minds or little souls, Nor deigns one look below, but aiming high Sends every arrow to the lofty sky; Hence forms divine, and minds immortal, learn The power of Cupid, and enamoured burn."

Cowper's translation.

1007. among: preposition governing 'gods.'

1008. make: subjunctive after 'till.' Its nominative is 'consent.'

1010. blissful, blest. Bliss is cognate with bless and blithe. Comp. "the blest kingdoms meek of joy and love," Lyc. 177. are to be born. There seems to be here a confusion of constructions between the subjunctive co-ordinate with make and the indicative dependent in meaning on "Jove hath sworn" in the following line.

1011. Youth and Joy. Everlasting youth and joy are found only after the trials of earth are past. So Spenser makes Pleasure the daughter of Cupid and Psyche, but she is "the daughter late," i.e. she is possible only to the purified soul. See also note on l. 1004.

1012. my task, i.e. the task alluded to in line 18. This line is an adverbial clause = Now that (or because) my task is smoothly done.

1013. The Spirit's task being finished he is free to soar where he pleases. There seems to be implied the injunction that mankind can by virtue alone attain to the same spiritual freedom.

1014. green earth's end. The world as known to the ancients did not extend much beyond the Straits of Gibraltar. The Cape Verd Islands, which lie outside these straits, may be here referred to: comp. Par. Lost, viii. 630:

"But I can now no more; the parting sun Beyond the earth's green Cape and Verdant Isles Hesperean sets, my signal to depart."

1015. bowed welkin: the meaning of the line is, "Where the arched sky curves slowly towards the horizon." Welkin is, radically, "the region of clouds," A.S. wolcnu, clouds.

1017. corners of the moon, i.e. its horns. The crescent moon is said to be 'horned' (Lat. cornu, a horn). Comp. the lines in Macbeth, iii. 5. 23, 24: "Upon the corners of the moon There hangs a vaporous drop profound."

1020. She can teach ye how to climb, etc. Compare Jonson's song to Virtue:

"Though a stranger here on earth In heaven she hath her right of birth. There, there is Virtue's seat: Strive to keep her your own; 'Tis only she can make you great, Though place here make you known."

1021. sphery chime, i.e. the music of the spheres. "To climb higher than the sphery chime" means to ascend beyond the spheres into the empyrean or true heaven—the abode of God and the purest Spirits. Milton therefore implies that by virtue alone can we come into God's presence. See note on "the starry quire," line 112. 'Chime' is strictly 'harmony,' as in "silver chime," Hymn Nat. 128: the word is cognate with cymbal.

1022, 3. if Virtue feeble were, etc. A triumphant expression of that confidence in the invincibleness of virtue, when aided by Divine Providence, and therefore a fitting conclusion of the whole masque. Milton's whole life reveals his unshaken belief in the truth expressed in the last two lines of his Comus.



INDEX TO THE NOTES.

A.

Acheron, 604.

Adonis, 999.

Adventurous, 79.

Advice, 108; advised, 755.

Affects, 386.

Alabaster, 660.

All, 714, 981.

All ear, 560.

Alley, 311, 990.

All-giver, 723.

All to-ruffled, 380.

Amber-dropping, 863.

Ambrosial, 16.

Amiss, 177.

Apace, 657.

Arbitrate, 411.

Asphodel, 838.

Assays, 972.

Assyrian Queen, 1002.

Ay me, 511.

Azurn, 893.

B.

Backward, 817.

Baited, 162.

Bandite, 426.

Be, 12, 519.

Benison, 332.

Beryl, 933.

Beseeming, 769.

Blank, 452.

Blissful, 1010.

Blue-haired, 29.

Blow, 993.

Bolt, 760.

Bosky, 313.

Bourn, 313.

Brakes, 147.

Brimmed, 925.

Brinded, 443.

Brute, 797.

Budge, 707.

Burs, 352.

C.

Cassia, 991.

Cast, 360.

Cateress, 764.

Cedarn, 990.

Centre, 382.

Certain, 266.

Chance, 508.

Charactered, 530.

Charmed, 51.

Charnel, carnal, 471.

Charybdis, 257.

Chime, 1021.

Chimeras, 517.

Circe, 50.

Clime, 977.

Close, 548.

Clouted, 635.

Company, 274.

Comus, 46, 58.

Convoy, 81.

Cordial, 672.

Corners, 1017.

Cotes, 344.

Cotytto, 129.

Courtesy, 325.

Cozened, 737.

Crabbed, 477.

Crisped, 984.

Crofts, 531.

Crowned, 934.

Curfew, 435.

Curious, 714.

Cynic, 708.

Cynosure, 342.

D.

Dapper, 118.

Darked, 730.

Dear, 790.

Dell, 312.

Descry, 141.

Dew-besprent, 542.

Dimple, 119.

Dingle, 312.

Disinherit, 334.

Ditty, 86.

Drench, 996.

Drouth, 66.

Drowsy frighted, 553.

Due, 12.

Dun, 127.

Durst, 577.

E.

Each ... every, 19, 311.

Earth-shaking, 869.

Ebon, 134.

Ecstasy, 261, 625.

Element, 299.

Elysium, 257.

Emblaze, 732.

Emprise, 610.

Engaged, 193.

Enow, 780.

Erebus, 804.

Every ... each, 19, 311.

Eye, 329.

F.

Faery, 298.

Fairly, 168.

Fantastic, 144, 205.

Fence, 791.

Firmament, 598.

Fond, 67.

For, 586, 602.

Forestalling, 285.

Forlorn, 39.

Fraught, 355, 732.

Freezed, 449.

Frighted, 553.

Frolic, 59.

G.

Gear, 167.

Glistering, 219.

Glozing, 161.

Goodly, 968.

Graces, 986.

Grain, 750.

Granges, 175.

Gratulate, 949.

Grisly, 603.

Guise, 961.

H.

Haemony, 638.

Hag, 434.

Hallo, 226.

Hapless, 350.

Harpies, 605.

Harrowed, 565.

Heave, 885.

Hecate, 135.

Help, 304, 845.

Hence, 824.

Her, 351, 455.

Hesperian, 393.

High, 654.

Hinds, 174.

Holiday, 959.

Home-felt, 262.

Homely, 748.

Horror, 38.

Hours, 986.

How chance, 508.

Huswife, 751.

Hutched, 719.

Hyacinth, 998.

Hydras. 605.

I.

Imbathe, 837.

Imbodies, 468.

Imbrutes, 468.

Immured, 521.

Infamous, 424.

Infer, 408.

Influence, 336.

Inlay, 22.

Innumerous, 349.

Insphered, 3.

Interwove, 544.

Inured, 735.

Iris, 83.

Isle, 21.

J.

Jocund, 172.

Jollity, 104.

Julep, 672.

K.

Knot-grass, 542.

L.

Lackey, 455.

Lake, 865.

Languished, 744.

Lank, 836.

Lap, 257.

Lawn, 568.

Lees, 809.

Leucothea, 875.

Lewdly-pampered, 770.

Like, 22, 634.

Lime-twigs, 646.

Liquid, 980.

Liquorish, 700.

Listed, 49.

Listened, 551.

Liveried, 455.

Lore, 34.

Love-lorn, 234.

Luscious, 652.

M.

Madness, 261.

Madrigal, 495.

Mansion, 2.

Mantling, 294.

Many a, 949.

Margent, 232.

Me, 163, 630.

Meander, 232.

Meditate, 547.

Melancholy, 810.

Methought, 171.

Meliboeus, 822.

Mickle, 31.

Mildew, 640.

Mincing, 964.

Mintage, 529.

Misused, 47.

Moly, 636.

Monstrous, 533.

Mountaineer, 426.

Morrice, 116.

Mortal, 10.

Murmurs, 526.

Mutters, 817.

My, mine, 170.

N.

Naiades, 254.

Nard, 991.

Navel, 520.

Necromancer, 649.

Nectar, 479.

Neighbour, 484.

Nepenthes, 675.

Nereus, 835.

Nether, 20.

New-intrusted, 36.

Nice, 139.

Night-foundered, 483.

Nightingale, 234.

Nightly, 113.

Nor ... nor, 784.

O.

Oaten, 345, 893.

Oceanus, 97, 868.

Of, 59, 155, 836, 1000.

Ominous, 61.

Orient, 65.

Other, 612.

Oughly-headed, 695.

Ounce, 71.

Over-exquisite, 359.

Over-multitude, 731.

P.

Palmer, 189.

Pan, 176.

Pard, 444.

Parley, 241.

Pent, 499.

Perfect, 73, 203.

Perplexed, 37.

Pert, 118.

Pestered, 7.

Pinfold, 7.

Plight, 372.

Plighted, 301

Plumes, 378.

Potion, 68.

Pranked, 759.

Presentments, 156.

Prime, 289.

Prithee, 615.

Prove, 123.

Purchase, 607.

Purfled, 995.

Psyche, 1004.

Q.

Quaint, 157.

Quarters, 29.

Quire, 112.

Quivered, 422.

R.

Rapt, 794.

Ravishment, 244.

Reared, 836.

Recks, 404.

Regard, 620.

Rifted, 518.

Rite, 125.

Roost, 317.

Rosy-bosomed, 986.

Rout, 92-93.

Rule, 340.

Rushy-fringed, 890.

S.

Sabrina, 826.

Sadly, 509.

Sampler, 751.

Saws, 110.

Scape, 814.

Scylla, 257.

Serene, 4.

Several, 25.

Shagged, 429.

Shapes, 2.

Sheen, 893, 1003.

Shell, 231, 837.

Shew, 995.

Shoon, 635.

Should, 482.

Shrewd, 846.

Shrouds, 147.

Shuddering, 802.

Siding, 212.

Simples, 627.

Single, 204.

Sirens, 253, 878.

Sleeking, 882.

Slope, 98.

Solemnity, 142.

Soothest, 823.

Sooth-saying, 874.

Sounds, 115.

Sovran, 41, 639.

Spangled, 1003.

Spell, 154.

Spets, 132.

Sphery, 1021.

Spruce, 985.

Square, 329.

Squint, 413.

Stabled, 534.

Star of Arcady, 341.

State, 35.

Stead, 611.

Step-dame, 830.

Still, 560.

Stoic, 707.

Stops, 345.

Storied, 516.

Straight, 811.

Strook, 301.

Stygian, 132.

Sun-clad, 782.

Sung, 256.

Sure, 148.

Surrounding, 403.

Swain, 497.

Swart, 436.

Swinked, 293.

Sylvan, 268.

Syrups, 674.

T.

Tapestry, 324.

Temple, 461.

Thyrsis, 494.

Timely, 689, 970.

Tinsel-slippered, 877.

To-ruffled, 380.

To seek, 366.

Toy, 502.

Trains, 151.

Treasonous, 702.

Trippings, 961.

Turkis, 894.

Tuscan, 48.

Twain, 284.

Tyrrhene, 49.

U.

Unblenched, 430.

Unenchanted, 395.

Unmuffle, 331.

Unprincipled, 367.

Unweeting, 539.

Unwithdrawing, 711.

Urchin, 845.

V.

Various, 379.

Venturous, 609.

Vermeil-tinctured, 752.

Very, 427.

Vialed, 847.

Viewless, 92.

Violet-embroidered, 233.

Virtue, 165, 621.

Visage, 333.

Vizored, 698.

Votarist, 189.

W.

Wakes, 121.

Warranted, 327.

Wassailers, 179.

Waste, 728, 942.

Weeds, 16.

Welkin, 1015.

What need, 362.

Whilom, 827.

Whit, 774.

Who, 728.

Wily, 151.

Wink, 401.

Wished, 574, 950.

Wizard, 571, 872.

Wont, 332, 549.

Woof, 83.

Y.

Ye, 216.



GLASGOW: PRINTED BY ROBERT MACLEHOSE AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.

THE END