Chapter X: Part 10

P. 37. 44. _Ophiuchus_: _i.e._ a serpent holder (ὄφις + ἔχειν); a constellation in the northern hemisphere, the outline of which is imagined to be a man holding a serpent; called also Anguitenens and Serpentarius, which have the same meaning; Ophiuchus is the translator's word; the original is _sibila serpens_, the hissing serpent.

P. 37. 45. _Orion_: a constellation with sword, belt, and club; 'Orion arm'd.'—_P. L._, i. 305.

P. 37. 50. _Lyæus_: an epithet of Bacchus as the deliverer from care (Gk. λυαίος).

P. 37. 53. _proposed_: set forth.

P. 37. 55. _to imitation_: _i.e._ for imitation, to be imitated, _i.e._ the character of heroes and their deeds.

P. 38. 92. _Streams Aonian_: so called as if the resort of the muses.

P. 39. 120. _the boy_: Phaëthon.

P. 40. 141-148. _Ye too, . . . my voluntary numbers_: it does not seem to me improbable that these six lines [115-120 of the original] were added to the poem just before its publication in the volume of 1645. The phrase '_juvenilia carmina_' seems to refer to that volume as containing this piece among others. Anyhow, it was a beautiful ending and prophetic.—_Masson._

_An English Letter to a Friend_

P. 40. _English letter to a friend_: this letter of which there are two undated drafts in Milton's handwriting in the Library of Trinity College, Cambridge, must have been written in 1632 or 1633. In the second draft (which is given in the text), Milton is content, for the first few sentences, with simply correcting the language of the first; but in the remaining portion he throws the first draft all but entirely aside, and rewrites the same meaning more at large in a series of new sentences. Evidently he took pains with the letter.—_Masson._

P. 41. _tale of Latmus_: _i.e._ of Endymion's sleeping upon Mount Latmus, and of his being visited by Selene (the moon).

P. 42. 5. _Perhaps my semblance might deceive the truth_: _i.e._ he appears younger than he really is. In his Second Defence, he says, 'though I am more than forty years old, there is scarcely any one to whom I do not appear ten years younger than I am.'

P. 42. 8. _timely-happy_: happy, or fortunate, in the matter of inward ripeness.

P. 42. 10. _it_: 'inward ripeness.'

P. 42. _it shall be still_: Milton very early regarded himself as dedicated to the performance of some great work for which he had to make adequate preparation, in the way of building himself up; _even_: equal, in proportion to, in conformity with.

P. 43. _Your true and unfeigned friend, etc._: see penultimate sentence of the passage given, p. 65, from 'The Reason of Church Government urged against Prelaty.'

_To Alexander Gill, Jr._ (_Familiar Letters_, No. V.)

P. 43. _this ode_: Psalm cxiv.

_To Charles Diodati._ (_Familiar Letters_, No. VI.)

P. 44. _To Charles Diodati_: Milton's schoolfellow at St. Paul's, and his dearest friend; he died in August, 1638, while Milton was on his Continental tour; on his return he wrote the _In memoriam_ poem, _Epitaphium Damonis_.

_To Benedetto Bonmattei of Florence._ (_Familiar Letters_, No. VIII.)

P. 46. _To Benedetto Bonmattei_: mentioned by Milton among his Florentine friends, in the autobiographical passage in the Second Defence; see note, p. 247.

_Mansus_

P. 47. _our native kings_: the ancient kings of Britain.

P. 47. _stirring wars even under the earth_: King Arthur, after his death, was supposed to be carried into the subterraneous land of Faerie, or of Spirits, where he still reigned as a king, and whence he was to return into Britain, to renew the Round Table, conquer all his old enemies, and reëstablish his throne. He was, therefore, _etiam movens bella sub terris_, still meditating wars under the earth. The impulse of his attachment to this subject was not entirely suppressed; it produced his History of Britain. By the expression _revocabo in carmina_, the poet means, that these ancient kings, which were once the themes of the British bards, should now again be celebrated in verse.—_Warton._ Warton renders _bella moventem_ [v. 81 of the Latin] _meditating wars_, but that is not the true sense; it is waging wars, and Arthur is represented as so employed in Fairy-land in the romances.—_Keightley._

P. 47. _Paphian myrtle_: the myrtle was sacred to Venus; Paphos was an ancient city of Cyprus, where was a temple of Venus.

_Areopagitica_

P. 48. _Galileo_: b. 1564, d. 1642; he was seventy-four years old when Milton visited him in 1638; whether he was actually imprisoned at the time is somewhat uncertain; he may have been, as Hales suggests, _in libera custodia_, _i.e._ 'only kept under a certain restraint, as that he should not move away from a specified neighborhood, or perhaps a special house.'

P. 48. _never be forgotten by any revolution of time_: _i.e._ as Hales explains, caused to be forgotten.

P. 48. _other parts_: _i.e._ of the world.

P. 48. _in time of parliament_: there was no parliament assembled from 1629 to 1640.

P. 48. _without envy_: without exciting any odium against me.—_Hales._

P. 48. _he whom an honest quæstorship_: Cicero, 75 B.C.

P. 48. _Verres_: pro-prætor in Sicily, 73-71 B.C. Cicero's Verrine orations were directed against his extortions and exactions.

_To Lucas Holstenius._ (_Familiar Letters_, No. IX.)

P. 49. _Lucas Holstenius_: see note, p. 21.

P. 49. _Alexander Cherubini_: Roman friend of Milton, 'known in his lifetime as a prodigy of erudition, though he died at the early age of twenty-eight.'

P. 49. _Virgil's 'penitus convalle virenti'_: Virgil's 'souls enclosed within a verdant valley, and about to go to the upper light.'

P. 49. _Cardinal Francesco Barberini_: b. 1597, d. 1679; librarian of the Vatican, and founder of the Barberini Library.

_Epitaphium Damonis_

P. 50. In the British legends of Geoffrey of Monmouth and others, the mythical Brutus, before arriving in Britain with his Trojans, marries Imogen, daughter of the Grecian king Pandrasus; Brennus and Belinus are two legendary British princes of a much later age, sons of King Dunwallo Molmutius; Arvirach or Arviragus, son of Cunobeline, or Cymbeline, belongs to the time of the Roman conquest of Britain; the "Armorican settlers" are the Britons who removed to the French coast of Armonica to avoid the invading Saxons; Uther Pendragon, Igraine, Gorlois, Merlin, and Arthur are familiar names of the Arthurian romances.—_Masson._

_Of Reformation in England_

P. 52. _their damned designs_: the restoration of Papacy and ecclesiastical despotism.

P. 53. _antichristian thraldom_: he would seem to allude to the invasions of England by the Romans, Saxons, Danes (twice), and Normans, and the War of the Roses, followed by the partial reformation under Henry VIII.—_Keightley._

P. 53. _Thule_: some undetermined island or other land, regarded as the northernmost part of the earth; called in Latin _Ultima Thule_; often used metaphorically for an extreme limit.

P. 53. _that horrible and damned blast_: Keightley understands this as referring to the Gunpowder plot.

P. 53. _that sad intelligencing tyrant_: Philip IV., King of Spain from 1621 to 1665.

P. 53. _mines of Ophir_: used in a general sense for gold mines.

P. 53. _his naval ruins_: an allusion to the destruction of the Spanish armada, in 1588, in the reign of his grandfather, Philip II.

P. 54. _in this land_: when Milton wrote this, he must still have been meditating a poem to be based on British history.

_Animadversions upon the Remonstrant's Defence, etc._

P. 56. _and thou standing at the door_: see introductory remarks on Lycidas.

_The Reason of Church Government urged against Prelaty_

P. 57. _Slothful, and ever to be set light by_: thou slothful one, and ever, etc.

P. 57. _infancy_: not speaking.

P. 58. _preventive_: going before, forecasting, anticipative.

P. 58. _equal_: impartial, equitable; Lat. _æqualis_.

P. 58. _the elegant and learned reader_: him only Milton addressed, not the common reader. He was no demagogue.

P. 58. _anything elaborately composed_: he had his meditated great work in mind.

P. 59. _another task_: poetical composition.

P. 59. _empyreal conceit_: lofty conceit of himself.

P. 59. _envy_: odium; Lat. _invidia_.

P. 60. _Ariosto_ (_Lodovico_): Italian poet; b. 1474, d. 1533; author of the _Orlando Furioso_.

P. 60. _Bembo_ (_Pietro_): b. 1470, d. 1547; secretary to Pope Leo X.; Cardinal, 1539; famous as a Latin scholar.

P. 60. _wits_: geniuses.

P. 61. _Tasso_ (_Torquato_): Italian poet; b. 1544, d. 1595; author of the _Gerusalemme Liberata_ (Jerusalem Delivered).

P. 61. _a prince of Italy_: Alfonso II., Duke of Ferrara?

P. 61. _Godfrey's expedition against the Infidels_: the subject of Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered; Godfrey of Bouillon, leader of the first crusade; b. about 1058, d. 1100.

P. 61. _Belisarius_: a celebrated general, in the reign of Justinian; b. about 505 A.D., d. 565.

P. 61. _Charlemagne_ (or Charles the Great): b. 742, d. 814; Emperor of the West and King of the Franks.

P. 61. _doctrinal and exemplary_: instructive and serving for example.

P. 61. _Origen_: Christian Father, of Alexandria (185-254).

P. 61. _Pareus_ (_David_): b. 1548, d. 1622; a Calvinist theologian, Professor of Theology, University of Heidelberg.

P. 62. _Pindarus_: Greek lyric poet, about 522-442 B.C.

P. 62. _Callimachus_: Greek poet and grammarian, about 310-235 B.C.

P. 62. _most an end_: 'almost uninterruptedly, almost always, mostly, for the most part.'—_Murray's New English Dictionary_, _s.v._ 'an end.' The phrase occurs again in Chap. III. Book II. of this same pamphlet: 'the patients, which most an end are brought into his [the civil magistrate's] hospital, are such as are far gone,' etc. Vol. II. p. 491, of the Bohn ed. of the P. W.

P. 63. _demean_: conduct; O. Fr. _demener_.

P. 63. _such (sports, etc.) as were authorized a while since_: _i.e._ in the Book of Sports. Proclamation allowing Sunday sports, issued by James I.

P. 63. _paneguries_: same as panegyrics.

P. 64. _Siren daughters_: the Muses, daughters of Memory or Mnemosyne.

P. 65. _gentle apprehension_: a refined faculty of conception or perception.

_Apology for Smectymnuus_

P. 66. _Solon_: Athenian statesman and lawgiver, about 638-558 B.C. 'According to Suidas it was a law of Solon that he who stood neuter in any public sedition, should be declared ἄτιμος, infamous.'

P. 66. _doubted_: hesitated; or, perhaps, in the sense of feared.

P. 66. _most nominated_: most frequently named, most prominent.

P. 66, 67. _my certain account_: the account which I shall certainly have to render.

P. 67. _tired out almost a whole youth_: see the extract given from 'The Reason of Church Government urged against Prelaty.'

P. 67. _this modest confuter_: Dr. Joseph Hall, Bishop of Exeter, afterward of Norwich; the reference is to his 'Modest Confutation' of Milton's 'Animadversions.'

P. 69. _Animadversions_: 'A. upon the Remonstrant's Defence against Smectymnuus.' 1641.

P. 69. _devised_: described, represented.

P. 70. _conversation_: in New Testament sense, mode or way of life, conduct, deportment (ἀναστροφή).

P. 70. _apology_: defence, vindication.

P. 71. _propense_: inclined, disposed.

P. 71. _that place_: the University.

P. 71. _to obtain with me_: prevail, succeed with me, to get the better of.

P. 71. _both she or her sister_: Cambridge or Oxford University; 'both' requires 'and'; 'or' requires 'either.'

P. 71. _that suburb sink_: the 'pretty garden-house in Aldersgate street,' as his nephew, Edward Phillips styles it, to which he removed from 'his lodgings in St. Bride's Churchyard,' in 1640, and where he was living when he wrote his 'Apology for Smectymnuus.'

P. 72. _I never greatly admired, so now much less_: in 'The Reason of Church Government urged against Prelaty' ('The Conclusion. The mischief that Prelaty does in the State'), Milton writes: 'The service of God, who is truth, her (Prelaty's) liturgy confesses to be perfect freedom; but her works and her opinions declare that the service of prelaty is perfect slavery, and by consequence perfect falsehood. Which makes me wonder much that many of the gentry, studious men as I hear, should engage themselves to write and speak publicly in her defence; but that I believe their honest and ingenuous natures coming to the universities to store themselves with good and solid learning, and there unfortunately fed with nothing else but the scragged and thorny lectures of monkish and miserable sophistry, were sent home again with such a scholastic bur in their throats, as hath stopped and hindered all true and generous philosophy from entering, cracked their voices for ever with metaphysical gargarisms, and hath made them admire a sort of formal outside men prelatically addicted, whose unchastened and unwrought minds were never yet initiated or subdued under the true lore of religion or moral virtue, which two are the best and greatest points of learning; but either slightly trained up in a kind of hypocritical and hackney course of literature to get their living by, and dazzle the ignorant, or else fondly over-studied in useless controversies, except those which they use with all the specious and delusive subtlety they are able, to defend their prelatical Sparta.'

P. 72. _wisses_: knows.

P. 72. _the bird that first rouses_: the lark; see 'L'Allegro,' 41 _et seq._

P. 72. _old cloaks, false beards, night-walkers, and salt lotion_: the passage alluded to in the 'Animadversions,' is the following: 'We know where the shoe wrings you, you fret and are galled at the quick; and oh what a death it is to the prelates to be thus unvisarded, thus uncased, to have the periwigs plucked off, that cover your baldness, your inside nakedness thrown open to public view! The Romans had a time, once every year, when their slaves might freely speak their minds; it were hard if the free-born people of England, with whom the voice of truth for these many years, even against the proverb, hath not been heard but in corners, after all your monkish prohibitions, and expurgatorious indexes, your gags and snaffles, your proud Imprimaturs not to be obtained without the shallow surview, but _not shallow hand_ of some mercenary, narrow-souled, and illiterate chaplain; when liberty of speaking, than which nothing is more sweet to man, was girded and strait-laced almost to a brokenwinded phthisic, if now, at a good time, our time of parliament, the very jubilee and resurrection of the state, if now the concealed, the aggrieved, and long-persecuted truth, could not be suffered to speak; and though she burst out with some efficacy of words, could not be excused after such an injurious strangle of silence, nor avoid the censure of libelling, it were hard, it were something pinching in a kingdom of free spirits. Some princes, and great statists, have thought it a prime piece of necessary policy, to thrust themselves under disguise into a popular throng, to stand the night long under eaves of houses, and low windows, that they might hear everywhere the utterances of private breasts, and amongst them find out the precious gem of truth, as amongst the numberless pebbles of the shore; whereby they might be the abler to discover, and avoid, that deceitful and close-couched evil of flattery, that ever attends them, and misleads them, and might skilfully know how to apply the several redresses to each malady of state, without trusting the disloyal information of parasites and sycophants; whereas now this permission of free writing, were there no good else in it, yet at some time thus licensed, is such an unripping, such an anatomy of the shyest and tenderest particular truths, as makes not only the whole nation in many points the wiser, but also presents and carries home to princes, men most remote from vulgar concourse, such a full insight of every lurking evil, or restrained good among the commons, as that they shall not need hereafter, in old cloaks and false beards, to stand to the courtesy of a night-walking cudgeller for eaves-dropping, not to accept quietly as a perfume, the overhead emptying of some salt lotion. Who could be angry, therefore, but those that are guilty, with these free-spoken and plain-hearted men, that are the eyes of their country, and the prospective glasses of their prince? But these are the nettlers, these are the blabbing books that tell, though not half your fellows' feats. You love toothless satires; let me inform you, a toothless satire is as improper as a toothed sleekstone, and as bullish.'

P. 73. _antistrophon_: reasoning turned upon an opponent.

P. 73. _mime_: a kind of buffoon play, in which real persons and events were ridiculously mimicked and represented.

P. 73. _Mundus alter et idem_ (another world and the same): a satire by Bishop Hall.

P. 73. _Cephalus_: son of Mercury (Hermes), carried off by Aurora (Eos).

P. 73. _Hylas_: accompanied Hercules in the Argonautic expedition. His beauty excited the love of the Naiads, as he went to draw water from a fountain, on the coast of Mysia, and he was drawn by them into the water, and never again seen.

P. 73. _Viraginea_: the land of viragoes.

P. 73. _Aphrodisia_: the land of Aphrodite (Venus).

P. 73. _Desvergonia_: the land of shamelessness. Ital. _vergona_, shame, infamy.

P. 73. _hearsay_: the hearing of, knowing about.

P. 73. _tire_: head-dress.

P. 73. _those in next aptitude to divinity_: divinity students.

P. 73. _Trinculoes_: Trinculo is the name of a jester in Shakespeare's 'Tempest'; or, according to a note in Johnson's 'Life of Milton,' signed R., referred to by J. A. St. John, 'by the mention of this name he evidently refers to "Albemazor," acted at Cambridge in 1614.'

P. 73. _mademoiselles_: ladies' maids.

P. 73. _Atticism_: because he is here imitating a well-known passage in Demosthenes's speech against Æschines.—_Keightley._

P. 74. _for me_: so far as I'm concerned.

P. 74. ἀπειροκαλία: ignorance of the beautiful, want of taste or sensibility (Liddell and Scott).

P. 75. _elegiac poets, whereof the schools are not scarce_: _i.e._ they are much read in the schools.

P. 75. _numerous_: in poetic numbers; 'in prose or numerous verse.'—_P. L._, v. 150.

P. 75. _For that_: because.

P. 75. _severe_: serious.

P. 76. _the two famous renowners of Beatrice and Laura_: Dante and Petrarch.

P. 76. _though not in the title-page_: an allusion to his opponent's 'A _Modest_ Confutation.'

P. 78. _Corinthian_: licentious, Corinth having been noted for its licentiousness.

P. 78. _the precepts of the Christian religion_: J. A. St. John quotes from Symmons's 'Life of Milton': 'It was at this early period of his life, as we may confidently conjecture, that he imbibed that spirit of devotion which actuated his bosom to his latest moment upon earth: and we need not extend our search beyond the limits of his own house for the fountain from which the living influence was derived.'

P. 78. _had been_: _i.e._ might have been.

P. 79. _sleekstone_: a smoothing stone; a toothed sleekstone would fail of its purpose as much as a toothless satire.

P. 79. _this champion from behind the arras_: probably an allusion to Polonius, who, in the closet scene (A. III. S. iv.), conceals himself behind the arras to overhear the interview between Hamlet and his mother.

P. 80. _Socrates_: surnamed Scholasticus; a Greek ecclesiastical historian; b. about 379, d. after 440; author of a 'History of the Church from 306 to 439 A.D.'

P. 81. _St. Martin_: there are two saints of the name; which one is alluded to is uncertain, but probably Bishop of Tours, 4th century.

P. 81. _Gregory Nazianzen_: a Greek father, surnamed the Theologian; b. about 328, d. 389 A.D.

P. 81. _Murena_: Roman consul, 63 B.C.; charged with bribery by Servius Sulpicius; defended by Cicero, in his oration _Pro Murena_. In Cicero's answer to Sulpicius, 'three months,' as given by Milton, should be 'three days': 'itaque, si mihi, homini vehementer occupato, stomachum moveritis, _triduo_ me jurisconsultum esse profitebor.'

_To Carlo Dati._ (_Familiar Letters_, No. X.)

P. 83. _tomb of Damon_: _i.e._ of Carolo Diodati.

P. 83. _that poem_: 'Epitaphium Damonis.'

_On his Blindness_

P. 84. 1. _spent_: extinguished.

P. 84. 2. _Ere half my days_: _i.e._ are spent; Milton was about forty-four years old when his 'light' was fully 'spent.'

P. 85. 8. _fondly_: foolishly; _prevent_: to come before, anticipate, forestall.

P. 85. 12. _thousands_: _i.e._ of 'spiritual creatures.' See 'P. L.,' iv. 677.

P. 85. 14. _They also serve_: _i.e._ as Verity explains, those other angels too, who, etc.

_To Leonard Philaras._ (_Familiar Letters_, No. XII.)

P. 85. _Angier_ (_René_): resident agent in Paris for the English Parliament.

_To Henry Oldenburg._ (_Familiar Letters_, No. XIV.)

P. 87. _Henry Oldenburg_: b. at Bremen about 1615, d. 1677; sent in 1653 by the Council of Bremen as their agent to negotiate with Cromwell some arrangement by which the neutrality of Bremen should be respected in the naval war between England and Holland ('Dict. of National Biography'); became a member and secretary of the Royal Society of London, and was afterward elected a fellow of the Society; corresponded extensively with the philosopher, Benedict Spinosa; published the 'Transactions' of the Royal Society from 1664 to 1677.

P. 87. _'Cry' of that kind 'to Heaven'_: the reference is to the _Regii Sanguinis Clamor ad Cœlum, adversus Parricidas Anglicanos_ (The Cry of the Royal Blood to Heaven against the English Parricides).

P. 87. _Morus_: Alexander More, whom Milton supposed to be the author of 'The Cry of the Royal Blood to Heaven.' See note, p. 248.

_To Leonard Philaras._ (_Familiar Letters_, No. XV.)

P. 89. _Phineus_: see note on 'P. L.,' iii. 36, in this volume.

P. 89. _Salmydessus_: a town of Thrace, on the coast of the Black Sea.

P. 89. _Argonautica_: a heroic poem on the Argonautic expedition, by Apollonius Rhodius.

P. 89. κάρος δέ μιν ἀμφεκάλυψεν:

'A darkling maze now round about him drew,
The earth from underneath seemed whirling fast,
In languid trance he lay bereft of speech.'

_Prof. Charles E. Bennett's translation._

P. 90. _the Wise Man_: Ecclesiastes xi. 8.

P. 90. _Lynceus_: the keen-sighted Argonaut.

_To Cyriac Skinner_

P. 91. 1. _this three years' day_: this day three years ago. Milton became completely blind in 1652, so this sonnet must have been written in 1655. _though clear_: see passage from Second Defence, p. 13.

P. 91. 7. _bate_: from 'abate.'

P. 91. 8. _bear up and steer right onward_: the nautical sense of 'bear up,' _i.e._ to put the ship before the wind, is indicated by what follows.

P. 91. 10. _conscience_: consciousness.

P. 91. 12. _talks_: the Trin. Coll. MS. reading; the word 'rings' was substituted by Phillips in his printed copy of 1694; 'talks' does not sound so well, in the verse, but it is more modest.

P. 91. 13. _mask_: masquerade.

_On his deceased wife_

P. 91. 1. _my late espoused saint_: his second wife, Catherine Woodcock, whom he married November 12, 1656; she died in February, 1658.

P. 91. 2. _Alcestis_: brought back to life by Herakles (Hercules). _her glad husband_: Admetus, King of Pheræ in Thessaly. See Browning's 'Balaustion's Adventure, including a Transcript from [the Alkestis of] Euripides.'

P. 91. 5. _as whom_: as one whom.

P. 91. 6. _Purification_: Leviticus xii.

P. 91. 10. _her face was veiled_: Alcestis was still in his mind. In Browning's 'Balaustion's Adventure,' when Hercules returns with her:

'Under the great guard of one arm, there leant
A _shrouded_ something, live and woman-like,
Propped by the heart-beats 'neath the lion coat. . . .
There is no telling how the hero twitched
The veil off: and there stood, with such fixed eyes
And such slow smile, Alkestis' silent self!'

_To Emeric Bigot._ (_Familiar Letters_, No. XXI.)

P. 92. _Emeric Bigot_: a French scholar, native of Rouen; b. 1626, d. 1689.

P. 92. _King Telephus of the Mysians_: wounded by Achilles and by him healed with the rust of his spear; and in return Telephus directed the Greeks on their way to Troy.

_Autobiographic passages in the Paradise Lost_

P. 96. 2. _Or of the Eternal_: or may I, unblamed, express thee as the coeternal beam of the Eternal.

P. 96. 6. _increate_: qualifies 'bright effluence.'

P. 96. 7. _Or hearest thou rather_: or approvest thou rather the appellation of pure ethereal stream; 'hearest' is a classicism: 'Matutine pater, seu Jane libentius audis' (father of the morning, or if Janus thou hearest more willingly).—_Horace_, Sat. II., vi. 20, cited by Bentley.

P. 97. 13. _wing_: flight.

P. 97. 17. _With other notes_: Orpheus made a hymn to Night, which is still extant; he also wrote of the creation out of Chaos. See 'Apoll. Rhodius,' i. 493. Orpheus was inspired by his mother Calliope only, Milton by the _heavenly Muse_; therefore he boasts that he sung with _other notes_ than Orpheus, though the subjects were the same.—_Richardson._

P. 97. 21. _hard and rare_: evidently after Virgil's Æneid, vi. 126-129.

P. 97. 25. _a drop serene_: gutta serena, _i.e._ amaurosis.

P. 97. 26. _dim suffusion_: cataract.

P. 97. 34. _So_: appears to be used optatively, as Lat. _sic_, Greek ὡς, would that I were equalled with them in renown.

P. 97. 35. _Thamyris_: a Thracian bard, mentioned by Homer, Iliad, ii. 595:

'he, over-bold,
Boasted himself preëminent in song,
Ev'n though the daughters of Olympian Jove,
The Muses, were his rivals: they in wrath,
Him of his sight at once and power of song
Amerced, and bade his hand forget the lyre.'

—_Earl of Derby's Translation_, 692-697.

P. 97. 35. _Mæonides_: a patronymic of Homer.

P. 97. 36. _Tiresias_: the famous blind soothsayer of Thebes, 'cui profundum cæcitas lumen dedit' (to whom his blindness gave deep sight), says Milton, in his _De Idea Platonica_, v. 25.

P. 97. 36. _Phineus_: a blind soothsayer, who, according to some authorities, was king of Salmydessus, in Thrace. By reason of his cruelty to his sons, who had been falsely accused, he was tormented by the Harpies, until delivered from them by the Argonauts, in return for prophetic information in regard to their voyage.

P. 97. 39. _darkling_: in the dark.

P. 97. 42. _Day_: note the emphasis imparted to this initial monosyllabic word, which receives the ictus and is followed by a pause; Milton felt that the loss of sight was fully compensated for by an inward celestial light.

P. 98. 1. _Urania_: the Heavenly Muse invoked in the opening of the poem.

P. 98. 4. _Pegaséan wing_: above the flight of 'the poet's winged steed' of classical mythology.

P. 98. 5. _the meaning, not the name_: Urania was the name of one of the Grecian Muses; he invokes not her, but what her name signifies, the Heavenly one. See vv. 38, 39.

P. 98. 8. _Before the hills appeared_: Prov. viii. 23-31.

P. 98. 10. _didst play_: the King James's version, Prov. viii. 30, reads, 'rejoicing always before him'; the Vulgate, '_ludens_ coram eo omni tempore.'

P. 98. 15. _thy tempering_: the empyreal air was tempered for, adapted to, his breathing, as a mortal, by the Heavenly Muse.

P. 98. 17. _this flying steed_: _i.e._ this higher poetic inspiration than that represented by the classical Pegasus; _unreined_: unbridled, _infrenis_.

P. 98. 18. _Bellerophon_: thrown from Pegasus when attempting to soar upon the winged horse to heaven.

P. 99. 19. _Aleian field_: in Asia Minor, where Bellerophon, after he was thrown from Pegasus, wandered and perished; πεδίον τὸ Ἀλήïον, Iliad, vi. 201, land of wandering (ἄλη).

P. 99. 20. _erroneous there to wander_: to wander without knowing whither; Lat. _erroneus_; _forlorn_: entirely lost; 'for' is intensive.

P. 99. 21. _Half yet remains unsung_: 'half of the episode, not of the whole work, . . . the episode has two principal parts, the war in heaven, and the new creation; the one was sung, but the other remained unsung, . . . _but narrower bound_, . . . this other half is not rapt so much into the invisible world as the former, it is confined in narrower compass, and bound within the visible sphere of day.'—_Newton._

_narrower_: more narrowly.

P. 99. 26. _on evil days though fallen_: a pathetic emotional repetition; note the artistic change in the order of the words. Macaulay justly characterizes the thirty years which succeeded the protectorate as 'the darkest and most disgraceful in the English annals. . . . Then came those days never to be recalled without a blush—the days of servitude without loyalty, and sensuality without love, of dwarfish talents and gigantic vices, the paradise of cold hearts and narrow minds, the golden age of the coward, the bigot, and the slave. The king cringed to his rival [Louis XIV.] that he might trample on his people, sunk into a viceroy of France, and pocketed, with complacent infamy, her degrading insults and her more degrading gold. The caresses of harlots, and the jests of buffoons regulated the measures of a government which had just ability enough to deceive, and just religion enough to persecute. The principles of liberty were the scoff of every grinning courtier, and the Anathema Maranatha of every fawning dean. . . . Crime succeeded to crime, and disgrace to disgrace, till the race, accursed of God and man, was a second time driven forth, to wander on the face of the earth, and to be a by-word and a shaking of the head to the nations.'

P. 99. 33. _Bacchus and his revellers_: Charles II. and his Court, from whom Milton had reason to fear a similar fate to that of the Thracian bard, Orpheus, who was torn to pieces by the Bacchanalian women of Rhodope.

P. 99. 38. _so fail not thou_: _i.e._ to defend me as the Muse Calliope failed to defend her son, Orpheus.

P. 99. 1. _no more of talk_: _i.e._ as in the foregoing episode.

P. 99. 5. _venial_: allowable, fitting.

P. 100. 14-19. _the wrath of stern Achilles . . . Cytherea's son_: these are not the arguments (subjects) proper of the three epics, the Iliad, the Odyssey, and the Æneid; as Newton pointed out, the poet mentions certain angers or enmities, the wrath of Achilles, the rage of Turnus, Neptune's and Juno's ire; 'the anger, etc. (v. 10) of Heaven which he is about to sing is an argument more heroic, not only than the anger of men, of Achilles and Turnus, but than that even of the gods, of Neptune and Juno;' _his foe_: Hector; _Turnus_: king of the Rutuli when Æneas arrived in Italy; _Lavinia_: daughter of King Latinus, betrothed to Turnus, but afterward given in marriage to Æneas; _the Greek_: Ulysses; _Cytherea's son_: Æneas; Cytherea, a surname of Venus, from the island Cythera, famous for her worship.

P. 100. 19. _Perplexed the Greek_: a respective construction, 'perplexed the Greek' looks back to 'Neptune's ire,' 'Cytherea's son,' to Juno's ire. Bentley's note is remarkable: '_Juno's that long perplexed the Greek_: when, contrary, the _Greek_ was her favourite all along.'

P. 100. 20. _answerable_: corresponding to the high argument.

P. 100. 21. _my celestial Patroness_: Urania, the Heavenly Muse.

P. 100. 23. _inspires_: Milton regarded himself as inspired by the Holy Spirit in the composition of 'Paradise Lost.'

P. 100. 25. _Since first this subject_: Milton, as has been seen, had meditated, as early as 1638, an epic poem to be based on legendary British history, with King Arthur for its hero, a subject which it appears he abandoned in the course of two or three years. While still undecided, he jotted down ninety-nine different subjects, sixty-one Scriptural, thirty-eight from British history. Among the former, 'Paradise Lost' appears first of all. These jottings occupy seven pages of the Cambridge MSS. It is evident that by 1640, Milton was quite decided as to the subject of 'Paradise Lost,' but not as to the form of his work. It was first as a tragedy that he conceived it, on the model of the Grecian drama with choruses. His nephew, Edward Phillips, informs us that several years before the poem was begun (about 1642, according to Aubrey), Satan's address to the sun (Book iv. 32-41) was shown him as designed for the beginning of the tragedy. The composition of the poem was begun, according to Phillips, about 1658, the poet being then fifty years of age. The student should read, in connection with this subject, the thirteenth chapter of Mark Pattison's 'Life of Milton.'

P. 100. 35. _Impresses_: 'devices or emblems used on shields or otherwise.' Keightley alludes to the enumeration of the devices of the nobles of England, in the tenth Canto of the 'Orlando Furioso.'

P. 100. 36. _bases_: 'the base was a skirt or kilt which hung down from the waist to the knees of the knight when on horseback.'

P. 100. 37. _marshalled feast_: 'from Minshew's "Guide into Tongues," it appears that the marshal placed the guests according to their rank, and saw that they were properly served; the sewer marched in before the meats and arranged them on the table, and was originally called _Asseour_ from the French _asseoir_, to set down, or place; and the _Seneshal_ was the household-steward.'—_Todd._

P. 100. 41. _Me . . . higher argument remains_: _i.e._ for me.

P. 101. 44. _an age too late_: Milton might well feel, in the reign of the 'merry monarch,' that he was treating his high argument in an age too late.

P. 101. 45, 46. _my intended wing depressed_: 'wing' is used, by metonymy, for 'flight.' Keightley incorrectly puts a comma after 'wing,' 'intended wing depressed' being a case of the placing of a noun between two epithets, usual with Milton, the epithet following the noun qualifying the noun as qualified by the preceding epithet. Rev. James Robert Boyd, in his edition of the 'P. L.,' explains 'intended,' 'stretched out'; but the word is undoubtedly used in its present sense of 'purposed.'

_Letter to Peter Heimbach._ (_Familiar Letters_, No. XXXI.)

P. 102. _a country retreat_: 'a pretty box,' secured for him by his Quaker friend, Elwood, at Chalfont St. Giles; the house still exists, having undergone little or no change.

I hardly like to express in the text a fancy that has occurred to me in translating the letter and studying it in connection with Heimbach's, to wit, that Milton may not merely have been ironically rebuking Heimbach for his adulation and silly phraseology, but may also have been suspicious of the possibility of some trap laid for him politically. Certainly, if this letter of Milton's to a Councillor of the Elector of Brandenburg had been intercepted by the English government, it is so cleverly worded that nothing could have been made of it. But Heimbach may have been as honest as he looks. Even then, however, Milton, knowing little or nothing of Heimbach for the last nine years, had reason to be cautious.—_Masson._

_Passages in which Milton's Idea of True Liberty is Set Forth_

P. 104. _Deep versed in books_: Milton would, I conceive, have thus characterized his old antagonist, Salmasius.—_Dunster._

P. 104. _trifles for choice matters_: as choice matters.

P. 104. _worth a spunge_: deserving to be wiped out. So in his 'Areopagitica': 'sometimes five imprimaturs are seen together, dialogue-wise, in the piazza of one title-page, complimenting and ducking each to other with their shaven reverences, whether the author, who stands by in perplexity at the foot of his epistle, shall to the press or to the spunge.'

P. 111. _Uzza_: see 2 Sam. vi. 3-8.

P. 112. _Whom do we count a good man_:

'Vir bonus est quis?—
Qui consulta patrum, qui leges juraque servat;
Quo multæ magnæque secantur judice lites;
Quo res sponsore, et quo causæ teste tenentur.
Sed videt hunc omnis domus et vicinia tota
Introrsùs turpem, speciosum pelle decorâ.'

—_Epistolarum Liber_, i. 16, vv. 40-45, _Ad Quinctium_.

P. 118. _Crescentius Nomentanus_: Roman patrician, a native of Nomentum (now La Mentana), tenth century, was at the head of the Italian party against the Germans and the popes, with title of Consul; was besieged in the Castle St. Angelo, and finally capitulated on terms honorable to himself, but was basely put to death by Otho III., A.D. 998.

P. 118. _Nicholas Rentius_: Rienzi, or Rienzo (Niccolo Gabrini), or Cola di Rienzi, 'the last of the Roman Tribunes,' b. about 1313, d. 1354.

'Then turn we to her latest tribune's name,
From her ten thousand tyrants turn to thee,
Redeemer of dark centuries of shame—
The friend of Petrarch—hope of Italy—
Rienzi! last of Romans! while the tree
Of Freedom's withered trunk puts forth a leaf,
Even for thy tomb a garland let it be—
The forum's champion, and the people's chief—
Her new-born Numa thou—with reign, alas! too brief.'

—_Byron's Childe Harold_, Canto iv. St. cxiv.

P. 120. _the resentment of Achilles_: the subject of the Iliad.

P. 120. _the return of Ulysses_: the subject of the Odyssey.

P. 120. _the coming of Æneas into Italy_: the subject of the Æneid.

P. 121. _As when those hinds_: he compares the reception given it [the doctrine of his Divorce pamphlets] to the treatment of the goddess Latona and her newly born twins by the Lycian rustics. These twins afterward 'held the sun and moon in fee' (_i.e._ in full possession), for they were Apollo and Diana; and yet, when the goddess, carrying them in her arms, and fleeing from the wrath of Juno, stooped in her fatigue to drink of the water of a small lake, the rustics railed at her and puddled the lake with their hands and feet; for which, on the instant, at the goddess's prayer, they were turned into frogs, to live forever in the mud of their own making (Ovid, _Met._, vi. 335-381).—_Masson._ Wordsworth uses the phrase, 'in fee,' in the same way in the opening verse of his sonnet on the 'Extinction of the Venetian Republic': 'Once did She hold the gorgeous east in fee.'

P. 121. _lapse_: fall.

P. 121. _twinned_: as a twin.

P. 121. _dividual_: separate.

P. 121. _undeservedly_: without right or merit; no thanks to them.

P. 121. _virtue, which is reason_: 'Virtus est recta ratio, et animi habitus, naturæ modo, rationi consentaneus.'—_Cicero._

P. 123. 424. _his son Herod_: king of Judea when Christ was born.

P. 123. 439. _Gideon, and Jephtha_; see _Judges_ vi.-viii. and xi., xii.; _the shepherd-lad_: David; see the _Books of Samuel_.

P. 123. 446. _Quintius_: Quintius Cincinnatus: _Fabricius_: the patriotic Roman who was proof against the bribes of Pyrrhus; _Curius_: _Curius Dentatus_: who would accept no public rewards; _Regulus_: after dissuading the Romans from making peace with the Carthaginians, returned to Carthage, knowing the consequences he would suffer.

_Comus_

P. 129. 4. _With Midas' ears_: _i.e._ with the ears of an ass; _committing_: bringing together, setting at variance (Lat. _committere_). Martial says, 'Cum Juvenale meo cur me committere tentas?' _i.e._ 'why try to match me with my Juvenal,' _i.e._ in a poetical contest with him.

P. 129. 5. _exempts_: separates, distinguishes; the compound subject 'worth and skill' is logically singular, and takes a singular verb.

P. 129. 11. _story_: 'the story of Ariadne, set by him to music,' as explained in a note in 'Choice Psalms,' 1648.

P. 129. 13. _Casella_: 'a Florentine musician and friend of Dante, who here ['Purgatorio,' ii. 91 _et seq._] speaks to him with so much tenderness and affection as to make us regret that nothing more is known of him.—_Longfellow's note._

_milder shades_: _i.e._ than those of the Inferno which Dante has just left.

3. _insphered_: in their several spheres.

7. _pestered_: here, as indicated by 'pinfold,' the word means 'clogged'; 'pester' is a shortened form of 'impester.' Fr. _empêtrer_ (OF. _empestrer_) 'signifies properly to hobble a horse while he feeds afield. Mid. Lat. _pastorium_, a clog for horses at pasture.'—_Brachet's Etymol. Dict. of the French Language_, _s.v._ _dépêtrer_.

10. _After this mortal change_: 'mortal' I understand to be used here as a noun, the subject of 'change,' a verb in the subjunctive; there is evidently an allusion to 1 Cor. xv. 52-54, in which occur the expressions, 'we shall be changed' and 'this mortal must put on immortality.'

16. _ambrosial weeds_: immortal or heavenly garments, _i.e._ garments worn by an immortal. Gk. Ἀμβρόσιος, lengthened form of ἄμβροτος, immortal. See v. 83.

20. _high and nether Jove_: by metonymy for the realms of Jove and Pluto.

23. _unadornèd_: _i.e._ but for 'the sea-girt isles.'

25. _several_: separate; _by course_: in due order.

29. _quarters_: not literally, but simply, divides, distributes.

30. _this tract that fronts the falling sun_: Wales.

31. _a noble Peer_: the Earl of Bridgewater, Lord President of Wales, before whom 'Comus' was presented at Ludlow Castle, 1634.

32. _tempered awe_: _i.e._ tempered with mercy; 'mercy seasons justice.'

34. _nursed in princely lore_: nurtured in high learning.

38. _horror_: ruggedness, shagginess. See v. 429. . . . 'densis hastilibus horrida myrtus.'—Virgil's _Æneid_, iii. 23. _brows_: overarching branches.

39. _forlorn and wandering_: entirely lost and, consequently, straying at random.

48. _After the Tuscan mariners transformed_: a Latinism; so, 'since created man.'—_P. L._, i. 573. The allusion is to the story of the Etruscan or Tyrrhenian pirates, who attempted to carry off Bacchus, sell him as a slave, and were by him changed into dolphins.—_Ovid_, _Met._, 660 _et seq._

49. _listed_: pleased.

50. _On . . . fell_: happened upon.

59. _of_: from, by reason of.

60. _Celtic and Iberian fields_: France and Spain.

61. _ominous_: portentous.

65. _orient_: bright. The word was used independently of the idea of 'eastern.' In the ode 'On the Nativity,' v. 231, the _setting_ sun 'pillows his chin upon an orient wave.' Fuller, in his 'Holy War,' Book ii. Chap. I., says of Godfrey of Bouillon, 'His soul was enriched with many virtues, but the most _orient_ of all was his humility, which took all men's affections without resistance.'

66. _the drouth of Phœbus_: the thirst caused by the sun's heat.

67. _fond_: foolish.

88. _nor of less faith_: _i.e._ than of musical power; 'faith' means the fidelity of his service.

90. _Likeliest_: the best suited for impersonation by the Attendant Spirit, by reason of his office of mountain watch over the flocks. He would therefore be supposed to be near at hand if aid were needed.

92. _viewless_: invisible.

93. _The star that bids the shepherd fold_: the evening star cannot be said to hold the top of heaven, _i.e._ be in the meridian; any star, the earliest to appear, must be meant.

101. _his chamber in the east_: an allusion to Psalm xix. 5.

110. _saws_: sayings, maxims; 'grave' is used contemptuously by Comus.

116. _to the moon in wavering morrice move_: the sounds and seas beneath the moon reflect dancing lights; 'morrice,' a rapid Moorish dance, once common in England.

129. _Cotytto_: the goddess of shameless and licentious orgies. Her priests were called _Baptæ_.

'involved in thickest gloom,
Cotytto's priests her secret torch illume;
And to such orgies give the lustful night,
That e'en Cotytto sickens at the sight.'

—_Gifford's translation of Juvenal_, ii. 91, 92.

132. _spets_: spits.

135. _Hecate_: goddess of sorcery and magic and 'of all kinds of nocturnal ghastliness, such as spectral sights, the howlings of dogs, haunted spots, the graves of the murdered, witches at their incantations' (_Masson_). King Lear (I. i. 112) swears by 'the mysteries of Hecate and the night.'

139. _nice_: fastidious, over-scrupulous; used contemptuously by Comus.

141. _descry_: reveal.

144. _round_: a circular dance; in 'L'Allegro,' 34, we have 'the light fantastic toe.'

151. _trains_: enticements, allurements.

154. _spungy air_: which absorbs his 'dazzling spells.'

155. _blear_: dim, deceiving.

156. _false presentments_: representations which deceive the eye.

157. _quaint habits_: strange garments.

165. _virtue_: peculiar power. See v. 621; 'Il Pens.,' 113.

167. _country gear_: rural affairs.

168. _fairly_: softly.

175. _granges_: used in its original sense—barns. (Fr. _grange_.)

178. _swilled_: drunken.

180. _inform my unacquainted feet_: where else shall I learn my way than from these revellers.

203. _perfect_: perfectly distinct, sure, certain, unmistakable. There is a similar use of the word in Shakespeare: 'Thou art perfect, then, our ship hath touched upon the deserts of Bohemia?'—_Winter's Tale_, III. iii. 1; 'I am perfect that the Pannonians and Dalmatians for their liberties are now in arms.'—_Cymb._, III. i. 73; 'What hast thou done? I am perfect what' ('I know full well, I am fully aware.' _Schmidt_).—_Cymb._, IV. ii. 118.

204. _single darkness_: pure darkness, only that and nothing more.

210. _may startle well_: _i.e._ may well (or indeed) startle.

212. _strong-siding_: strongly supporting.

215. _Chastity_: significantly substituted for Charity, as the companion virtue of Faith and Hope, it being the _theme_, the central idea of the poem, to which an explicit expression is given in the Elder Brother's speech, vv. 418-475, and in the speech of the Lady to Comus, 780-799.

231. _airy shell_: the dome of the sky; 'cell' is in the margin of Milton's MS.

248. _his_: (old neuter genitive) its, referring to 'something.'

251. _fall_: cadence.

251, 252. _smoothing . . . till it smiled_: Dr. Symmons, in his 'Life of Milton,' remarks: 'Darkness may aptly be represented by the blackness of the raven; and the stillness of that darkness may be paralleled by an image borrowed from the object of another sense—by the softness of down; but it is surely a transgression which stands in need of pardon when, proceeding a step further and accumulating personifications, we invest this raven-down with life and make it smile.' The metaphorical use of 'smile' or 'laugh,' applied to inanimate things that are smooth, shining, glossy, bright in colour, and the like, is, perhaps, common in all literatures. The Latin 'rideo' and the Greek γελάω are frequently so used; _e.g._ 'florumque coloribus almus ridet ager' (and the bounteous field laughs with the colours of its flowers).—_Ovid_, _Met._, xv. 205; 'Domus ridet argento' (the house smiles with glittering silver).—_Horace_, _Odes_, IV. xi. 6; 'Ille terrarum mihi praeter omnes angulus ridet' (that corner of the earth smiles for me above all others).—_Horace_, _Odes_, II. vi. 14.

262. _home-felt delight_: _i.e._ delight that keeps one at home with himself, does not carry him out of himself; in contrast with the singing of Circe and the Sirens three, which 'in sweet madness _robbed it_ (the sense) _of itself_.'

267. _unless the goddess_: _i.e._ unless (thou be) the goddess; 'dwell'st' should properly be 'dwells,' the antecedent of the relative 'that' being 'goddess,' third person, not 'thou' in the ellipsis.

273. _extreme shift_: last resort; Fr. _dernier ressort_.

279. _near ushering_: attending near at hand.

285. _forestalling night_: preventing, or hindering, night came before them; 'forestall' has here the present sense of 'prevent,' and 'prevent' its old, literal sense of come before.

287. _imports their loss_: does their loss signify other than your present need of them?

290. _Hebe_: the goddess of youth; cupbearer to the gods before Ganymedes.

293. _Swinked_: hard-worked. Spenser frequently uses the verb 'swink,' and several times in connection with 'sweat'; _severe_ toil is always implied in his use of the word: 'For which men swinck and sweat incessantly.'—_F. Q._, 2. 7, 8; 'And every one did swincke, and every one did sweat.'—2. 7, 36; 'For which he long in vaine did sweate and swinke,' 6. 4, 32; 'Of mortal men, that swincke and sweate for nought.'—_The Sheapherd's Calender_, _November_, 154; 'For they doo swinke and sweate to feed the other.'—_Mother Hubbard's Tale_, 163.

301. _plighted_: folded, involved.

313. _bosky bourn_: Masson explains 'shrubby boundary or watercourse.' Warton's explanation seems better supported by the context: 'A _bourn_ . . . properly signifies here, a winding, deep, and narrow valley, with a rivulet at the bottom. In the present instance, the declivities are interspersed with trees and bushes. This sort of valley Comus knew from _side to side_. He knew _both_ the _opposite sides_ or ridges, and had consequently traversed the intermediate space.'

315. _attendance_: attendants.

329. _square_: adapt.

332. _wont'st_: art accustomed; _benison_: blessing.

333. _stoop_: the same idea, or _impression_, rather, in regard to the moon, is expressed in 'Il Penseroso,' 72:

'And oft, as if her head she bowed,
Stooping through a fleecy cloud.'

'And those thin clouds above, in flakes and bars,
That give away their motion to the stars.'

—_Coleridge's Dejection: an Ode._

336. _influence_: (astrological) the effect _flowing in, or upon_, from the stars. See 'P. L.,' vii. 375, viii. 513, ix. 107, x. 662; 'L'Al.,' 122; 'Od. Nat.,' 71.

340. _rule_: long horizontal beam of light.

341. _Star of Arcady_: the constellation of the Greater Bear, by which, or by some star in which, the Greek mariner steered his course.

342. _Tyrian Cynosure_: the constellation of the Lesser Bear, or the pole star therein, by which the Phœnician (Tyrian) mariner steered.

344. _wattled cotes_: sheep-pens made of interwoven twigs.

349. _innumerous_: innumerable.

355. _leans_: subject 'she' implied in 'her,' above. See note on 'Samson Agonistes', 1671; some editors make 'head' the subject.

358. _heat_: lust.

359. _exquisite_: used literally: outsearching; 'consider not too curiously.'

366. _so to seek_: so wanting, so much at a loss.

367. _unprincipled_: ignorant of the elements, or first principles.

369. _noise_: not to be connected with 'single want of'; the meaning is, mere darkness and noise.

373. _would_: might wish.

375. _flat sea_: in 'Lycidas,' 98, 'level brine.'

376. _oft seeks to_: oft resorts to.

380. _all to-ruffled_: all ruffled up; the prefix 'to-' is an old intensive, with force of Ger. 'zer-'; generally imparts the idea of destruction: 'all to-brake,' broke all in pieces; 'all to-rent,' tore all in pieces.

382. _centre_: as in Shakespeare, centre of the earth.

386. _affects_: likes, entirely without any of its present meaning of making a show of.

390. _weeds_: garments.

391. _maple_: maple-wood.

393. _Hesperian tree_: the tree in the Hesperian gardens which bore golden apples and was guarded by the sleepless dragon Ladon, which was slain by Hercules.

395. _unenchanted_: not to be enchanted, or wrought upon by magical spells.

401. _wink on_: not take notice or advantage of.

402. _single_: solitary, alone.

404. _it recks me not_: I take no account of, care not for.

405. _events_: outcomes, consequences.

407. _unowned_: without a protector.

409. _without all doubt_: _i.e._ without any doubt; a Latinism.

413. _squint_: 'looking askance.' Spenser represents Suspect ('F. Q.,' 3. 12, 15) as

'ill favourèd, and grim,
Under his eiebrowes looking still askaunce.'

419. _if_: even if Heaven _did_ give it.

423. _unharboured_: without harbor, or shelter.

424. _infámous_: of bad reputation.

430. _unblenched_: fearless, self-sustained.

432. _some say_: reminds, as has been often noted, of the passage in 'Hamlet': 'some say that ever 'gainst that season comes,' etc.—I. i. 158.

455. _lackey_: attend, or wait upon, as guardians.

474. _and linked itself_: and as if it were itself linked.

494. _artful_: artistic, skilful.

495. _huddling_: hurrying; Verity understands 'huddling' as the result of 'delayed.'

501. _next joy_: Thyrsis addresses the elder brother as his master's heir, and then the second brother as 'his next joy,' _i.e._ object of his joy.

503. _stealth_: the thing stolen.

509. _sadly_: seriously; _without blame_: _i.e._ on our part.

515, 516. _what the sage poets . . . storied_: made the theme of story:

Tells him of trophies, statues, tombs, and stories
His victories, his triumphs, and his glories.

—_Shakespeare's V. and A._, 1013, 14.

520. _navel_: centre.

526. _murmurs_: muttered spells, or incantations.

529. _mintage_: coinage.

533. _monstrous rout_: rout of monsters; so, 'monstrous world,' world of monsters.—_Lycidas_, 158.

539. _unweeting_: not knowing.

540. _by then_: by the time that.

547. _meditate_: practice; see 'Lycidas,' 66.

548. _had_: subj., should have; _close_: _i.e._ of his 'rural minstrelsy.'

552. _unusual stop of sudden silence_: see 145.

553. _drowsy-flighted_: this is the reading of the Cambridge MS., which Masson adopts. Lawes's ed., 1637, and Milton's editions, 1645, 1673, read 'drowsy frighted.' Masson quite conclusively supports the reading of the MS., which he explains, 'always drowsily flying.' Keightley retains 'drowsy frighted,' but says in his note, 'we are strongly inclined to think it [the MS. reading] the right reading, and the present one a mistake of Lawes himself or his printer.'

558. _took_: rapt.

560. _still_: ever.

585. _period_: sentence.

586. _for me_: as for me.

603. _grisly_: horrible. 'So spake the grisly terror (Death).'—_P. L._, ii. 704.

604. _Acheron_: a river of the lower world; here used for the lower world itself.

607. _purchase_: acquisition; the word retains here much of its original meaning, _i.e._ what has been hunted down or stolen.

610. _yet_: notwithstanding; _emprise_: here, readiness for any dangerous undertaking.

619. _a certain shepherd-lad_: a supposed compliment to Milton's dearest friend, Charles Diodati.

620. _to see to_: to look upon.

621. _virtuous_: efficacious, potent.

627. _simples_: medicinal herbs.

634. _and like esteemed_: _i.e._ and (un)esteemed.

635. _clouted shoon_: patched shoes.

636. _Moly_: (Gk. μώλυ) a fabulous herb, 'that Hermes [Mercury] to wise Ulysses gave,' as a protection against the spells of Circe.—_Od._, x. 305. See Pope's note, in his translation, x. 361, Tennyson's 'Lotus Eaters,' 133.

638. _Hæmony_: supposed to be from Hæmonia, Thessaly, famous for its magic.

641. _Furies'_: used objectively.

642. _little reckoning made_: see 'Lycidas,' 116.

646. _lime-twigs_: used metaphorically.

662. _root-bound_: referring to her metamorphosis into a laurel tree (δάφνη).

673. _his_: old neuter genitive, its.

675. _Nepenthes_ (Gk. νηπενθὲς, sorrow-soothing): the drug (supposed to be opium) given by Polydamna to Helena, who put it into her husband Menelaus's wine.—_Od._, iv. 220 _et seq._ See note to Pope's translation, v. 302.

'Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe, and forget this lost Lenore.'

—_Poe's Raven_, 83.

685. _unexempt condition_: condition to which all mortal frailty is subject, namely, refreshment after toil, ease after pain.

688. _that_: referring to 'you,' 682.

695. _oughly_: the spelling in Milton's editions; 'as Milton has the common spelling, _ugly_, in all other cases where he has used the word, he must have intended a different form here, perhaps to indicate a more guttural pronunciation.'—_Masson._

698. _visored_: masked; he appears as 'some harmless villager,' v. 166.

707. _budge_: austere, morose; _fur_: used metaphorically for order, sect, profession. Landor remarks that 'it is the first time Cynic or Stoic ever put on fur.' 'Budge' also means a kind of fur, but it certainly cannot have that meaning here; the context requires the other meaning.