Chapter XXIII: On His Deceased Wife (1)

Methought I saw my late espoused saint
Brought to me like Alcestis from the grave,
Whom Jove's great son to her glad husband gave,
Rescued from Death by force, though pale and faint.
Mine, as whom washed from spot of child-bed taint 5
Purification in the Old Law did save,
And such as yet once more I trust to have
Full sight of her in Heaven without restraint,
Came vested all in white, pure as her mind.
Her face was veiled; yet to my fancied sight 10
Love, sweetness, goodness, in her person shined
So clear as in no face with more delight.
But, oh! as to embrace me she inclined,
I waked, she fled, and day brought back my night.

NOTES.

ON THE MORNING OF CHRIST'S NATIVITY.

From his sixteenth year Milton had been wont to write freely in Latin verse, on miscellaneous poetic themes, sometimes expressing his thoughts on events of the day, and sometimes addressing letters to his friends on purely personal matters. From these Latin poems, which therefore in some sense belong to English literature, we obtain valuable insight into his course of life and his way of thinking. What Milton wrote in foreign languages is indispensable for the information it gives us about himself--its content is important; but as poetry implies a fusing of content and form into an artistic unity, if one of these elements is foreign, the result is nondescript and cannot be ranged under the head of English literature in the strict sense of the term.

It is in one of Milton's own Latin pieces that we find our best commentary on the Hymn on the Nativity. The sixth Latin Elegy is an epistle to his intimate college friend, "Charles Diodati making a stay in the country," the last twelve lines of which may be freely translated as follows:--

But if you shall wish to know what I am doing,--if indeed you think it worth your while to know whether I am doing anything at all,--we are singing the peace-bringing king born of heavenly seed, and the happy ages promised in the sacred books, and the crying of the infant God lying in a manger under a poor roof, who dwells with his father in the realms above; and the starry sky, and the squadrons singing on high, and the gods suddenly driven away to their own fanes. Those gifts we have indeed given to the birthday of Christ; that first light brought them to me at dawn. Thee also they await sung to our native pipes; thou shalt be to me in lieu of a judge for me to read them to.

This means, of course, that the poet is composing a Christmas Hymn in his native language. We must note his age at this time,--twenty-one years: he is a student at Cambridge. The poem remains the great Christmas hymn in our literature. "The Ode on the Nativity," says Professor Saintsbury, "is a test of the reader's power to appreciate poetry."

In four stanzas the poet speaks in his own person: he too must, with the wise men from the east, bring such gifts as he has, to offer to the Infant God. His offering is the _humble ode_ which follows. We must take note of the change in the metric form which marks the transition from the introduction to the ode. In the stanzas of the former the lines all have five accents, except the last, which has six; while in the latter, four lines have three accents each, one has four, two have five, and one has six. Notice also the occasional hypermetric lines, such as line 47.

In connection with Milton's Hymn, read Alfred Domett's _It was the calm and silent night_.

5. For so the holy sages once did sing. See Par. Lost XII 324.

6. our deadly forfeit should release. Compare Par. Lost III 221, and see the idea of _releasing a forfeit_ otherwise expressed in the Merchant of Venice IV 1 24.

10. he wont. This is the past tense of the verb _wont_, meaning to _be accustomed_. See the present, Par. Lost I 764, and the participle, I 332.

15. thy sacred vein. See _vein_ in the same sense, Par. Lost VI 628.

19. the Sun's team. Compare Comus 95, and read the story of Phaethon in Ovid's Metamorphoses II 106.

24. prevent them with thy humble ode. See _prevent_ in this sense, in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar V 1 105, and in Psalm XXI 3.

28. touched with hallowed fire. See Acts II 3. On the meaning of secret, compare Par. Lost X 32.

41. Pollute is the participle, exactly equivalent to _polluted_.

48. the turning sphere. For poetical purposes Milton everywhere adopts the popular astronomy of his day, which was based on the ancient, i.e. the Ptolemaic, or geocentric system of the universe. Copernicus had already taught the modern, heliocentric theory of the solar system, and his innovations were not unknown to Milton, who, however, consistently adheres to the old conceptions. In Milton, therefore, we find the earth the centre of the visible universe, while the sun, the planets, and the fixed stars revolve about it in their several _spheres_. These spheres are nine in number, arranged concentrically, like the coats of an onion, about the earth, and, if of solid matter, are to be conceived as being of perfectly transparent crystal. Beginning with the innermost, they present themselves in the following order: the Moon, Mercury, Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, the Fixed Stars, the Primum Mobile. In Par. Lost III 481, the ninth sphere appears as "that crystalline sphere whose balance weighs the trepidation talked," and the Primum Mobile, or the first moved, becomes the tenth and outermost of the series. The last two spheres contain no stars.

We see, then, what we must understand by the oft-recurring _spheres_ in Milton's poetry. In the line, _Down through the turning sphere_, however, the singular _sphere_ is obviously used to mean the whole aggregate of spheres composing the starry universe.

50. With turtle wing. With the wing of a turtle-dove.

56. The hooked chariot. War chariots sometimes had scythes, or hooks, attached to their axles. See 2 Maccabees XIII 2.

60. sovran. Milton always uses this form in preference to _sovereign_.

62. the Prince of Light. Note the corresponding epithet applied to Satan, Par. Lost X 383.

64. The winds, with wonder whist. The word _whist_, originally an interjection, becomes an adjective, as here and in The Tempest I 2 378.

66. Make three syllables of Oceaen, and make it rhyme with _began_.

68. birds of calm. The birds referred to are doubtless halcyons. Dr. Murray defines halcyon thus: "A bird of which the ancients fabled that it bred about the time of the winter solstice in a nest floating on the sea, and that it charmed the wind and waves so that the sea was specially calm during the period; usually identified with a species of kingfisher, hence a poetic name of this bird."

71. their precious influence. The word _influence_ is originally a term of astrology,--"a flowing in, or influent course, of the planets; their virtue infused into, or their course working on, inferior creatures" (Skeat, _Etym. Dict._).

73. For all the morning light. As in Burns's "We dare be poor for a' that," _for_ meaning in spite of.

74. Lucifer. See Par. Lost VII 131-133.

81. As, for _as if_.

86. Or ere the point of dawn. The two words _or ere_ mean simply _before_, as in Hamlet I 2 147, "A little month, or ere those shoes were old." _The point of dawn_ imitates the French _le point du jour_.

88. Full little thought they than. _Than_ is an ancient form of _then_, not wholly obsolete in Milton's day.

89. the mighty Pan. The poet takes the point of view of the shepherds and uses the name of their special deity.

95. by mortal finger strook. Milton uses the three participle forms, _strook, struck_, and _strucken_.

98. As all their souls in blissful rapture took. The verb _take_ has here the same meaning as in Hamlet I 1 163, "no fairy takes nor witch hath power to charm." Thus also we say, a vaccination takes.

103. Cynthia's seat. See Penseroso 59, and Romeo and Juliet III 5 20.

108. Make the line rhyme properly, giving to union three syllables.

112. The helmed cherubim. See Genesis III 24.

113. The sworded seraphim. See Isaiah VI 2-6.

116. With unexpressive notes, meaning beyond the power of human expression. So in Lycidas 176; Par. Lost V 595; and in As You Like It, "the fair, the chaste, and inexpressive she."

119. But when of old the Sons of Morning sung. See Job XXXVIII 7.

124. the weltering waves. Compare Lycidas 13.

125. Ring out, ye crystal spheres. See note, line 48. The elder poetry is full of the notion that the spheres in their revolutions made music, which human ears are too gross to hear. See Merchant of Venice V 1 50-65.

136. speckled Vanity. The leopard that confronts Dante in Canto I of _Hell_ is beautiful with its dappled skin, but symbolizes vain glory.

143. like glories wearing. The adjective _like_ means nothing without a complement, though the complement sometimes has to be supplied, as in this instance. Fully expressed the passage would be,--_wearing glories like those of Truth and Justice_. The _like_ in such a case as this must be spoken with a fuller tone than when its construction is completely expressed.

155. those ychained in sleep. The poets, in order to gain a syllable, long continued to use the ancient participle prefix _y_. See _yclept_, Allegro 12.

157. With such a horrid clang. See Exodus XIX.

168. The Old Dragon. See Revelation XII 9.

173. Stanzas XIX-XXVI announce the deposition and expulsion of the pagan deities, and the ruin of the ancient religions. In accordance with his custom of grouping selected proper names in abundance, thus giving vividness and concreteness to his story and sonority to his verse, the poet here illustrates the triumph of the new dispensation by citing the names of various gods from the Roman, Greek, Syrian, and Egyptian mythologies.

176. Apollo, the great god, whose oracle was at Delphi, or Delphos.

179. spell, as in Comus 853, and often.

186. Genius. A Latin word, signifying a tutelary or guardian spirit supposed to preside over a person or place. See Lycidas 183, and Penseroso 154.

191. The Lars and Lemures. In the Roman mythology these were the spirits of dead ancestors, worshipped or propitiated in families as having power for good or evil over the fortunes of their descendants.

194. Affrights the flamens. The Roman flamens were the priests of particular gods.

195. the chill marble seems to sweat. Many instances of this phenomenon are reported. Thus Cicero, in his _De Divinatione_, tells us: "It was reported to the senate that it had rained blood, that the river Atratus had even flowed with blood, and that the statues of the gods had sweat."

197. Peor and Baaelim. Syrian false gods. See Numbers XXV 3.

199. that twice-battered god of Palestine. See I Samuel V 2.

200. mooned Ashtaroth. See I Kings XI 33.

203. The Lybic Hammon. "Hammon had a famous temple in Africa, where he was adored under the symbolic figure of a ram."

204. their wounded Thammuz. See Ezekiel VIII 14.

205. sullen Moloch. See Par. Lost I 392-396.

210. the furnace blue. Compare Arcades 52.

212. Isis, and Orus, and the dog Anubis. Egyptian deities, the latter figured as having the head of a dog.

213. Nor is Osiris seen. Osiris was the principal god of the Egyptians, brother and husband of Isis. His highest function was as god of the Nile. He met his death at the hands of his brother Typhon, a deity of sterility, by whom he was torn into fourteen pieces. Thereupon a general lament was raised throughout Egypt. The bull Apis was regarded as the visible incarnation of Osiris.--_Murray's Manual of Mythology_.

215. the unshowered grass. Remember, this was in Egypt.

223. his dusky eyn. This ancient plural of eye occurs several times in Shakespeare, as in As You Like It IV 3 50.

240. Heaven's youngest-teemed star. Compare Comus 175.

241. Hath fixed her polished car. _Fix_ has its proper meaning, _stopped_. The star "came and stood over where the young child was."

ON SHAKESPEARE.

The first edition of the collected works of Shakespeare, known as the first folio, was published in 1623, when Milton was fifteen years old. The second Shakespeare folio appeared in 1632. Among the commendatory verses by various hands prefixed, after the fashion of the time, to the latter volume, was a little piece of eight couplets, in which some then unknown rhymer expressed his admiration of the great poet. Collecting his poems for publication in 1645, Milton included these couplets, gave them the date 1630, and the title _On Shakespeare_ which they have since borne in his works. The fact that he wrote the verses two years before their publication in the Shakespeare folio shows that he did not produce them to order, for the special occasion. It is interesting to note that Milton at twenty-two was an appreciative reader of Shakespeare. The lines themselves give no hint of great poetic genius; they are a fair specimen of the conventional, labored eulogy in vogue at the time.

4. star-ypointing. To make the decasyllabic verse, the poet takes the liberty of prefixing to the present participle the _y_ which properly belongs only to the past.

8. a livelong monument. Instead of _livelong_, the first issue of the lines, in the Shakespeare folio of 1632, has _lasting_. The change is Milton's, appearing in his revision of his poems in 1645. Does it seem to be an improvement?

10-12. and that each heart hath ... took. The conjunction _that_ simply repeats the _whilst_.

11. thy unvalued book. In Hamlet I 3 19 _unvalued persons_ are persons of no value, or of no rank. In Macbeth III 1 94 the _valued file_ is the file that determines values or ranks. In Milton's phrase the _unvalued book_ means the book whose merit is so great as to be beyond all valuation: a new rank must be created for it.

12. Those Delphic lines: lines so crowded with meaning as to seem the utterances of an oracle.

13. our fancy of itself bereaving: transporting us into an ecstasy, or making us rapt with thought.

14. Dost make _us_ marble with too much conceiving. The concentrated attention required to penetrate Shakespeare's meaning makes statues of us.

15. Make the word sepulchred fit metrically into the iambic verse.

L'ALLEGRO AND IL PENSEROSO.

The year in which the poems were composed is uncertain. Masson regards 1632 as the probable date.

The exquisite poems to which Milton gave the Italian titles L'Allegro,--the mirthful, or jovial, man,--and Il Penseroso,--the melancholy, or saturnine, man,--should be regarded each as the pendant and complement of the other, and should be read as a single whole. The poet knew both moods, and takes both standpoints with equal grace and heartiness. The essential idea of thus contrasting the mirthful and the melancholy temperament he found ready to his hand. Robert Burton had prefaced his _Anatomy of Melancholy_, published in 1621, with a series of not unpleasing, though by no means graceful, amoebean stanzas, in which two speakers alternately represent Melancholy, one as sweet and divine, and the other as harsh, sour, and damned. Undoubtedly Milton knew his Burton. But if he got his main idea from this source, he made his poems thoroughly Miltonic by his art of visualizing in delicious pictures the various phases of his abstract theme. The poems are wholly poetical, equally free from obscurity of thought and from obscurity of expression.

Each poem is prefaced with a vigorous exorcism of the spirit to which it is hostile. This is couched in alternate three and five accent iambics, preparing a delicious rhythmic effect when the metre changes, in the invocation, to the octosyllable, with or without anacrusis.

In L'Allegro we accompany the mirthful man through an entire day of his pleasures, from early morning to late evening. The melancholy man moves through a programme less definitely and regularly planned. The scenes of his delights are mostly in the hours of the night: when the sun is up, he hides himself from day's garish eye.

L'Allegro.

2. Of Cerberus and blackest Midnight born. Milton follows the example of the ancient poets in announcing the parentage of the principal beings whom he brings upon his stage. Moreover, he uses the ancient freedom in assigning mythical pedigrees, not only adopting no authority as a canon, but allowing his own fancy to invent origins as suits his purpose. He knew the Greek and Latin poets, and assumed for himself the privilege which they exercised of shaping the myths as they pleased. We are not therefore to seek in Milton a reproduction of any system of mythology. _Cerberus_ was the terrible three-headed dog of Pluto. His station was at the entrance to the lower world, or the _Stygian cave_.

3. The Stygian cave is so called from the Styx, the infernal river, "the flood of deadly hate."

5. some uncouth cell. _Uncouth_ may be used here in its original sense of _unknown_, as in Par. Lost VIII 230.

10. In dark Cimmerian desert. The Cimmerians were a people fabled by the ancients to live in perpetual darkness.

12. yclept is the participle of the obsolete verb _clepe_, with the ancient prefix _y_, as in ychained, Hymn on the Nativity 155.

15. two sister Graces more. Hesiod names, as the three Graces, Euphrosyne, Aglaia, and Thalia, but he makes them the daughters of Zeus and Eurynome.

18. The frolic wind. See _frolic_ again as an adjective, Comus 59.

24. So buxom, blithe, and debonair. See Shakespeare's Pericles, I Gower 23. All these words are interesting to look up for etymologies and changes of meaning.

25-36. We readily accept and understand the personification of Jest, Jollity, Sport, Laughter, and Liberty, but the plurals, Quips, Cranks, Wiles, Nods, Becks, Smiles, we do not manage quite so easily, especially in view of the couplet 29-30.

28. Smiles may be said to be wreathed because they inwreathe the face. See Par. Lost III 361.

33. trip it, as you go. So in Shakespeare, "I'll queen it no inch further; Rather than fool it so; I'll go brave it at the court, lording it in London streets."

41. With this line begins a series of illustrations of the _unreproved pleasures_ which L'Allegro is going to enjoy during a day of leisure. At first the specified pleasures or occupations are introduced by infinitives, _to hear, to come_; but the construction soon changes, as we shall see. The first pleasure is To hear the lark, etc. 41-44. L'Allegro begins his day with early morning. Here we must imagine him as having risen and gone forth where he can see the sky and can look about him to see what is going on in the farm-yard.

45-46. Then to come, in spite of sorrow,
And at my window bid good-morrow.

It must be L'Allegro himself who comes to the window, and as he is outside, he comes to look in through the shrubbery and bid good morning to the cottage inmates, who are now up and about their work. The pertinency of the phrase, _in spite of sorrow_, is not intelligible.

53. Oft listening how the hounds and horn. This "pleasure" and the next--_sometime walking_--are introduced with present participles. There is no interruption of grammatical consistency.

57. Sometime walking, not unseen. See the counterpart of this line, Penseroso 65. Todd quotes the note of Bishop Hurd,--"Happy men love witnesses of their joy: the splenetic love solitude."

59. against, _i.e._ toward.

62. The clouds in thousand liveries dight. _Dight_ is the participle of the verb _to dight_, meaning to adorn. It is still used as an archaism.

67. And every shepherd tells his tale. This undoubtedly means _counts the number_ of his flock. In Shakespeare we find, to _tell_ money, years, steps, a hundred. So _tale_ often means an enumeration, a number. L'Allegro finds the shepherds in the morning counting their sheep, not telling stories.

68. With this line ends the long, loose sentence that began with line 37. We now come to a full stop, and with line 69 begin a new sentence.

70. the landskip. A word of late origin in English, of unsettled spelling in Milton's day.

71. Russet lawns. In Milton, _lawn_ means field or pasture. See Lycidas 25.

77. In this line the subject, _mine eye_, is resumed.

80. The cynosure of neighboring eyes. In the constellation Cynosure, usually called the Lesser Bear, is the pole-star, to which very many eyes are directed.

81. A new "pleasure" is introduced, with a new grammatical subject.

83. Where Corydon and Thyrsis met. The proper names in lines 83-88 add to the poem a pleasing touch of pastoral simplicity and cheerfulness. They are taken from the common stock of names, which, originally devised by the Greek idyllists for their shepherds and shepherdesses, have by the pastoral poets of all subsequent ages been appropriated to their special use. Corydon and Thyrsis stand for farm-laborers, Phyllis and Thestylis for their wives or housekeepers. The day of L'Allegro has now advanced to dinner-time. Phyllis has been preparing the frugal meal, as we could surmise from the smoking chimney. As soon as the dinner is over the women go out to work with the men in the harvest field.

87. bower means simply _dwelling_.

90. In the tanned haycock we see the hay dried and browned by the sun.

91. The scene changes and brings yet another "pleasure." secure delight is delight without care, _sine cura_. See Samson Agonistes 55.

96. in the chequered shade. They danced under trees through whose foliage the sunlight filtered.

99. Evening comes on, and a new pleasure succeeds. Story-telling is now in order.

102. Sufficient information about Faery Mab can be got from Romeo and Juliet I 4 53-95.

103-104. She, _i.e._ one of the maids; And he,--one of the youths. The Friar's lantern is the ignis fatuus, or will-o'-the-wisp, fabled to lead men into dangerous marshes.

105. A connective is lacking to make the syntax sound: the subject of tells must be _he_. the drudging goblin. This is Robin Goodfellow, known to readers of fairy tales. Ben Jonson makes him a character in his Court Masque, Love Restored, where he is made to recount many of his pranks, and says, among other things, "I am the honest plain country spirit, and harmless, Robin Goodfellow, he that sweeps the hearth and the house clean, riddles for the country maids, and does all their other drudgery."

109. could not end. Dr. Murray gives this among other quotations as an instance of the verb _end_ meaning _to put into the barn, to get in._ So in Coriolanus V 6 87.

110. the lubber fiend. This goblin is loutish in shape and fiendish-looking, though so good to those who treat him well.

115. Thus done the tales. An absolute construction, imitating the Latin ablative absolute.

117. The country folk having gone early to bed, tired with their day's labor, L'Allegro hastes to the city, where the pleasures of life are prolonged further into the night.

120. In weeds of peace, high triumphs hold. This must mean such things as masques and revelries among the upper classes.

122. Rain influence. See note on Hymn on the Nativity 71.

124. What is the antecedent of whom?

125. What ceremony is here introduced?

128. Do not misunderstand the word mask. Its meaning becomes plain from the context.

131. To what pleasure does L'Allegro now betake himself?

132. Among the dramatists of the Jacobean time Ben Jonson had especially the repute of scholarship. The sock symbolizes comedy, as the buskin does tragedy. Compare Il Penseroso 102.

133-134. Or sweetest Shakespeare, Fancy's child,
Warble his native wood-notes wild.

The couplet seems intended to convey the idea of a counterpart or contrast to the _learned sock_ of Jonson. So considered, it is by no means an unhappy characterization.

135. The last of the "unreproved pleasures" that L'Allegro wishes he may enjoy, seems not so much planned to follow the rest in sequence of time as to accompany them and be diffused through them all. Observe the ever in this line. The eating cares are a reminiscence of Horace's _curas edaces_, Ode II 11 18.

136. Lap me in soft Lydian airs. The three chief modes, or moods, of Greek music were the _Lydian_, which was soft and pathetic; the _Dorian_, especially adapted to war (see Par. Lost 550); and the _Phrygian_, which was bold and vehement.

138. the meeting soul. The soul, in its eagerness, goes forth to meet and welcome the music.

139. The word bout seems to point at a piece of music somewhat in the nature of a round, or catch.

145. That Orpheus' self may heave his head. Even Orpheus, who in his life "drew trees, stones, and floods" by the power of his music, and who now reposes in Elysium, would lift his head to listen to the strains that L'Allegro would fain hear.

149. Orpheus, with _his_ music, had succeeded in obtaining from Pluto only a conditional release of his wife Eurydice. He was not to look back upon her till he was quite clear of Pluto's domains. He failed to make good the condition, and so again lost his Eurydice.

Il Penseroso.

3. How little you bested. The verb _bested_ means _to avail, to be of service_. It is not the same word that we find in Isaiah VIII 21, "hardly bestead and hungry."

6. fond here has its primitive meaning, _foolish_. Understand possess in the sense in which it is used in the Bible,--"possessed with devils."

10. Make two syllables of Morpheus.

12. Note that while he invoked Mirth in L'Allegro under her Greek name Euphrosyne, the poet finds no corresponding Greek designation for Melancholy. To us Melancholy seems a name unhappily chosen. But see how Milton applies it in line 62 below, and in Comus 546. To him the word evidently connotes pensive meditation rather than gloomy depression.

14. To hit the sense of human sight: to be gazed at by human eyes.

18. Prince Memnon was a fabled Ethiopian prince, black, and celebrated for his beauty. Recall Virgil's _nigri Memnonis arma_.

19. that starred Ethiop queen. Cassiopeia, wife of the Ethiopian king Cepheus, boasted that she was more beautiful than the Nereids, for which act of presumption she was translated to the skies, where she became the beautiful constellation which we know by her name.

23. bright-haired Vesta. _Vesta_--in Greek, Hestia--"was the goddess of the home, the guardian of family life. Her spotless purity fitted her peculiarly to be the guardian of virgin modesty."

30. Whilst yet there was no fear of Jove, _i.e._ before Saturn was dethroned by Jupiter.

33. All in a robe of darkest grain. In Par. Lost V 285, the third pair of Raphael's wings have the color of _sky-tinctured grain_; and XI 242, his vest is of purple livelier than "the grain of Sarra," or Tyrian purple. This would leave us to infer that the robe of Melancholy is of a deep rich color, so dark as to be almost black. Dr. Murray quotes from Southey's _Thalaba_, "The ebony ... with darkness feeds its boughs of raven grain." What objection is there to making the _grain_ in Milton's passage _black_?

35. And sable stole of cypress lawn. Dr. Murray thus defines _cypress lawn_, "A light transparent material resembling cobweb lawn or crape; like the latter it was, when black, much used for habiliments of mourning."

37. Come; but keep thy wonted state. Compare with this passage, L'Allegro 33.

40. Thy rapt soul sitting in thine eyes. In Cymbeline I 6 51 we find the present tense of the verb of which _rapt_ is the participle: "What, dear Sir, thus raps you?" Do not confound this word with _rap_, meaning to strike.

42. Forget thyself to marble. With this compare On Shakespeare 14.

43. With a sad leaden downward cast. So in Love's Labor's Lost IV 3 321, "In leaden contemplation;" Othello III 4 177, "I have this while with leaden thoughts been pressed." So also Gray in the Hymn to Adversity, "With leaden eye that loves the ground."

45-55. Compare the company which Il Penseroso entreats Melancholy to bring along with her with that which L'Allegro wishes to see attending Mirth.

46. Spare Fast, that oft with gods doth diet. Only the rigid ascetic has a spiritual ear so finely trained that he hears the celestial music.

48. Aye, as their rhymes show, is always pronounced by the poets with the vowel sound in _day_.

53. the fiery-wheeled throne. See Daniel VII 9.

54. The Cherub Contemplation. Pronounce _contemplation_ with five syllables. It is difficult to form a distinct conception of the nature and office of the _cherub_ of the Scriptures. Milton in many passages of Par. Lost follows, with regard to the heavenly beings, the account given by Dionysius the Areopagite in his Celestial Hierarchy. According to Dionysius there were nine orders or ranks of beings in heaven, namely,--seraphim, cherubim, thrones, dominions, virtues, powers, principalities, archangels, angels. The cherubim have the special attribute of knowledge and contemplation of divine things.

55. hist, primarily an interjection commanding silence, becomes here a verb.

56. With the introduction of the nightingale comes the first intimation of the time of day at which Il Penseroso conceives the course of his satisfactions to begin.

57. Everywhere else in Milton plight is used with its modern connotations.

59. The moon stops to hear the nightingale's song.

65. Remember L'Allegro's _not unseen_.

77. Up to this point Il Penseroso has been walking in the open air.

78. removed,--remote, retired.

87. As the Bear never sets, to outwatch him must mean to sit up all night.

88. With thrice great Hermes. "Hermes Trismegistos--Hermes thrice-greatest--is the name given by the Neo-Platonists and the devotees of mysticism and alchemy to the Egyptian god Thoth, regarded as more or less identified with the Grecian Hermes, and as the author of all mysterious doctrines, and especially of the secrets of alchemy." (The _New Eng. Dicty._) To such studies the serious mediaeval scholars devoted themselves. To unsphere the spirit of Plato is to call him from the sphere in which he abides in the other world, or, simply, to take in hand for study his writings on immortality.

93-96. On the four classes of demons,--Salamanders, Sylphs, Nymphs, Gnomes,--see Pope's Rape of the Lock. These demons are in complicity with the planets and other heavenly bodies to influence mortals.

97-102. Thebes, Pelops' line, and the tale of Troy are the staple subjects of the great Attic tragedians. It seems strange that the poet finds no occasion to name Shakespeare here, as well as in L'Allegro.

104-105. Musaeus and Orpheus are semi-mythical bards, to whom is ascribed a greatness proportioned to their obscurity.

105-108. See note on L'Allegro, 149.

109-115. Or call up him that left half-told. This refers to Chaucer and to his Squieres Tale in the Canterbury Tales. It is left unfinished. Note that Milton changes not only the spelling but the accent of the chief character's name. Chaucer writes, "This noble king was cleped Cambinskan."

120. Stories in which more is meant than meets the ear refer to allegories, like the Fairy Queen.

121. Having thus filled the night with the occupations that he loves, Il Penseroso now greets the morning, which he hopes to find stormy with wind and rain.

122. civil-suited Morn: _i.e._ Morn in the everyday habiliments of business.

123-124. Eos--Aurora, the Dawn--carried off several youths distinguished for their beauty. the Attic boy is probably Cephalus, whom she stole from his wife Procris.

125. kerchieft in a comely cloud. _Kerchief_ is here used in its original and proper sense. Look up its origin.

126. The winds may be called rocking because they visibly rock the trees, or because they shake houses.

127. Or ushered with a shower still. The shower falls gently, without wind.

130. With minute-drops from off the eaves. After the rain has ceased, and while the thatch is draining, the drops fall at regular intervals for a time,--as it were, a drop every minute. Il Penseroso listens with contentment to the wind, the rustling rain-fall on the leaves, and the monotonous patter of the drops when the rain is over.

131. The shower is past, and the sun appears, but Il Penseroso finds its beams flaring and distasteful. He seeks covert in the dense groves.

134. Sylvan is the god of the woods.

135. The monumental oak is so called from its great age and size.

140. Consciously nursing his melancholy, Il Penseroso deems the wood that hides him a sacred place, and resents intrusion as a profanation.

141. Hide me from day's garish eye. See Richard III. IV 4 89, Romeo and Juliet III 2 25.

142. While the bee with honeyed thigh. Is this good apiology?

146. Entice the dewy-feathered Sleep. Note that sleep is represented as having feathers. These feathers, in their soft, gentle movement and in their refreshing effect are likened to dew. The figure is a common one with the poets. In Par. Lost IX 1044, Milton has,--"till dewy sleep oppressed them." Cowper, Iliad II, 41, has,--"Awaking from thy dewy slumbers."

148. his refers to the _dewy-feathered sleep_. Il Penseroso asks that a strange, mysterious dream, hovering close by the wings of sleep, and lightly pictured in a succession of vivid forms, may be laid on his eye-lids.

155-166. The word studious in line 156 determines that the passage refers to college life and not to church attendance. The old English colleges have their cloisters, and these have much the same architectural features as do churches.

157. embowed means vaulted, or bent like a _bow_.

158. massy-proof: massive and proof against all failure to support their load.

159. And storied windows richly dight. Compare L'Allegro, 62.

170. The best possible comment on this use of the verb spell is Milton's own language, Par. Regained IV 382, where Satan, addressing the Son of God, thus speaks:--

Now, contrary, if I read aught in Heaven,
Or Heaven write aught of fate, by what the stars
Voluminous, or single characters
In their conjunction met, give me to spell,
Sorrows and labors, opposition, hate,
Attends thee; scorns, reproaches, injuries,
Violence and stripes, and, lastly, cruel death.

Il Penseroso's aspiration is that as an astrologer he may learn the influence of every star and that he may come to know the virtue of every herb.

ARCADES.

The noble persons of the family of the Countess Dowager of Derby were fortunate enough to obtain the services of the poet John Milton to aid in the composition of a mask, which they presented to her ladyship at her residence in the country. Arcades--the Arcadians--is Milton's contribution to this performance. In date the poem precedes Comus, which is known to have been composed in 1634.

On the meaning of the term _mask_, as applied to a dramatic form, see introductory note on Comus.

20. Latona (or Leto) was the mother of Apollo and Diana by Zeus.

21. the towered Cybele is Virgil's Berecyntia Mater, the Phrygian mother, who, wearing her mural crown, drives in her chariot through the cities of Phrygia. She was conceived as one of the very oldest deities, and as mother of a hundred gods. See AEneid VI 785.

28. Of famous Arcady ye are. Arcadia, in the Peloponnesus, was peculiarly the home of music and song, especially among the shepherds. See Virgil, Eclogue VII 4-5.

30. Divine Alpheus. See note on Lycidas 132.

46. curl the grove: bestow upon the grove dense, crisp foliage.

47. With ringlets quaint and wanton windings wove. The grove is intersected with a maze of circling and purposeless paths.

49. noisome: full of annoyance, injurious. See Par. Lost XI 478. blasting vapors. See note on Comus 640.

51. thwarting thunder blue. Compare Julius Caesar I 3 50, "the cross blue lightning."

52. the cross dire-looking planet. Cross means _adverse, unfavorable_. See note on _influence_, Hymn on the Nativity 71.

54. evening gray. See note on Lycidas 187.

60. murmurs. Compare Comus 526.

63. the celestial Sirens' harmony. The Sirens are here advanced to a high function and given a new Epithet. Compare Comus 253.

64. the nine infolded spheres. See note on Hymn on Nativity 48.

65-66. See note on Lycidas 75.

69. the daughters of Necessity: the Fates.

72-73. which none can hear Of human mould with gross unpurged ear. Compare Merchant of Venice V 1 64.

87. touch the warbled string: the string that is accompanied with the voice. See Il Penseroso 106.

97. Ladon, a river of Arcadia, flowing into the Alpheus.

98. Lycaeus and Cyllene, mountains of Arcadia.

100. Erymanth. Erymanthus is a range of mountains separating Arcadia from Achaia and Elis.

102. Maenalus, another mountain of Arcadia.

106. Though Syrinx your Pan's mistress were. Syrinx was an Arcadian nymph, who, being pursued by Pan, threw herself into the Ladon, where she was metamorphosed into a reed, of which the shepherds thereafter made their pipes.

AT A SOLEMN MUSIC.

The poet listens to what in the phrase of his time is a _solemn music_, but which we should name a sacred concert. The poem is unalloyed lyric, expressing the rapture to which the music has lifted his soul. We must remember that Milton was himself an amateur musician, and in his days of darkness found habitual diversion at his organ. Indications of a susceptible and appreciative ear for musical harmony are frequent throughout the poems.

7. the sapphire-colored throne. See Ezekiel I 26.

27. consort is the word from which we derive our _concert_.

COMUS.

During the reigns of Elizabeth, James I., and Charles I., the _mask_ was one of the most popular forms of dramatic entertainment. Having a function and a character peculiar to itself, it flourished side by side with the regular plays of the theatrical stage, and gave large scope to the genius of poets, composers, and scenic artists.

The mask was usually designed to grace some important occasion, in which members of the upper classes of society, or even royal personages, were concerned. When the occasion called for particularly brilliant display, and had been long foreseen, the preparations for it would involve immense outlays for costumes, theatrical machinery, for new music, and for a libretto by a play-writer of the greatest note. When the mask was purely a private one, like Arcades and Comus, it was all the fashion for the gentle youths and maidens, for gentlemen and ladies of the highest rank, to take upon themselves the parts of the drama, to rehearse them assiduously, and finally to enact them on the private stage or on the lawn in the presence of a select audience.

The mask thus differentiated itself from the stage play in that it was not given for the pecuniary behoof of a company of actors, but represented rather expenditure for the simple purpose of producing grand effects. To act in a mask was an honor, when common players were social outcasts. The mask was got up for the occasion, and was not intended to keep the boards and attract a paying public. When the august ceremonial was over, the poet had his manuscript, to increase the bulk of his works, and the composer had his score, to furnish airs that might be played and sung in drawing-rooms if they had the good fortune to be popular.

Such was the origin of the poem which Milton, in all the editions published during his lifetime, entitled simply "A Maske presented at Ludlow Castle, 1634," but which editors since his day have agreed to name Comus.

The occasion of the poem was the coming of the Earl of Bridgewater to Ludlow Castle, to enter upon his official residence there as Lord President of Wales. The person chiefly concerned in the scenic, musical, and histrionic preparations of the mask was Milton's esteemed friend, the most accomplished musical composer of the day, Henry Lawes. Lawes composed the music and arranged the stage business. He seems to have taken upon himself the part of the Attendant Spirit. Lawes knew to whom to apply for the all-important matter of the book, the words, or the poetry, of the piece, for he had learned to know Milton's qualifications as a mask-poet in the fragment which we have under the name _Arcades_. With good music even for commonplace lyric verse, and with sprightly declamation even of conventional dialogue, the thing, as we know from modern instances, might have been carried off by gorgeous costumes and shrewdly devised scenic effects. Most of the masks of the time fell at once into oblivion. But Lawes had secured for his poet John Milton; and the consequence thereof is that the Earl of Bridgewater is now chiefly heard of because at Ludlow Castle there was enacted, in the form of a mask written by Milton, a drama which is still read and reread by every English-speaking person who reads any serious poetry, though Ludlow Castle has long been a venerable ruin.

For his plot, the poet feigned that the young children of the earl, two sons and a daughter, in coming to Ludlow, had to pass unattended through a forest, in which the boys became separated from the girl and she fell into the hands of the enchanter Comus. The Attendant Spirit appears to the youths with his magic herb, and with the further assistance of the water-nymph Sabrina, at last makes all right, and the children are restored to their parents in the midst of festive rejoicing.

The poem is dramatic, because it is acted and spoken or sung in character by its persons. It is allegorical, because it inculcates a moral, and more is meant than meets the ear. In parts it is pastoral, both because the chief personage appears in the guise of a shepherd, and because its motive largely depends on the superstitions and traditions of simple, ignorant folk. In the longer speeches, where events are narrated with some fulness, it becomes epic. Lastly, in its songs, in the octosyllables of the magician, and in the adjuration and the thanking of Sabrina, it is lyric. With iambic pentameter as the basis of the dialogue, the poet varies his measures as Shakespeare does his, and with very similar ends in view.

The name _Comus_ Milton found ready to his hand. As a common noun, the Greek word _comus_ signifies carousal,--wassail. In the later classic period it had become a proper name, standing for a personification of nocturnal revelry, and a god Comus was frequently depicted on vases and in mural paintings. Philostratus, in his _Ikones_,--or _Pictures_,--gives an interesting description of a painting of this god. See Encyclopaedia Britannica, article _Comus_. Ben Jonson, in his mask, _Pleasure Reconciled to Virtue_, played in 1619, presents a Comus as "the god of cheer, or the belly, riding in triumph, his head crowned with roses and other flowers, his hair curled." The character and the name were the common property of mask-writers.

The great distinction of Comus is its beauty, maintained at height through a thousand lines of supremely perfect verse. Greatly dramatic it of course is not. It yields its meaning to the most cursory reading; it has no mystery. It is simply beautiful, with a sustained beauty elsewhere unparalleled.

The following letter of Sir Henry Wotton to the Author deserves to be read both for its engaging style as a piece of English prose and for its exquisite characterization of Comus. Wotton was a versatile scholar, diplomat, and courtier, seventy years old at the time of this letter, with a reputation as a kindly and appreciative literary critic. He was now residing at Eton College, where he held the office of Provost. Milton, thirty years of age, the first edition of his Comus recently published anonymously, had good cause for elation over such a testimonial from such a source.

"From the College, this 13 of April, 1638.

"Sir,

"It was a special favour when you lately bestowed upon me here the first taste of your acquaintance, though no longer than to make me know that I wanted more time to value it and to enjoy it rightly; and, in truth, if I could then have imagined your farther stay in these parts, which I understood afterwards by Mr. H., I would have been bold, in our vulgar phrase, to mend my draught (for you left me with an extreme thirst), and to have begged your conversation again, jointly with your said learned friend, over a poor meal or two, that we might have banded together some good Authors of the ancient time; among which I observed you to have been familiar.

"Since your going, you have charged me with new obligations, both for a very kind letter from you dated the 6th of this month, and for a dainty piece of entertainment which came therewith. Wherein I should much commend the tragical part, if the lyrical did not ravish me with a certain Doric delicacy in your Songs and Odes, whereunto I must plainly confess to have seen yet nothing parallel in our language: _Ipsa mollities_. But I must not omit to tell you that I now only owe you thanks for intimating unto me (how modestly soever) the true artificer. For the work itself I had viewed some good while before with singular delight; having received it from our common friend Mr. R., in the very close of the late R.'s Poems, printed at Oxford: whereunto it was added (as I now suppose) that the accessory might help out the principal, according to the art of Stationers, and to leave the reader _con la bocca dolce_.

"Now, Sir, concerning your travels; wherein I may challenge a little more privilege of discourse with you. I suppose you will not blanch Paris in your way: therefore I have been bold to trouble you with a few lines to Mr. M. B., whom you shall easily find attending the young Lord S. as his governor; and you may surely receive from him good directions for the shaping of your farther journey into Italy where he did reside, by my choice, some time for the King, after mine own recess from Venice.

"I should think that your best line will be through the whole length of France to Marseilles, and thence by sea to Genoa; whence the passage into Tuscany is as diurnal as a Gravesend barge. I hasten, as you do, to Florence or Siena, the rather to tell you a short story, from the interest you have given me in your safety.

"At Siena I was tabled in the house of one Alberto Scipioni, an old Roman courtier in dangerous times; having been steward to the Duca di Pagliano, who with all his family were strangled, save this only man that escaped by foresight of the tempest. With him I had often much chat of those affairs, into which he took pleasure to look back from his native harbour; and at my departure toward Rome (which had been the centre of his experience), I had won his confidence enough to beg his advice how I might carry myself there without offence of others or of mine own conscience. '_Signor Arrigo mio_,' says he, '_I pensieri stretti ed il viso sciolto_ will go safely over the whole world.' Of which Delphian oracle (for so I have found it) your judgment doth need no commentary; and therefore, Sir, I will commit you, with it, to the best of all securities, God's dear love, remaining

"Your friend, as much to command as any of longer date,

"Henry Wotton."

_Postscript._

"Sir: I have expressly sent this my footboy to prevent your departure without some acknowledgment from me of the receipt of your obliging letter; having myself through some business, I know not how, neglected the ordinary conveyance. In any part where I shall understand you fixed, I shall be glad and diligent to entertain you with home-novelties, even for some fomentation of our friendship, too soon interrupted in the cradle."

The Latin phrase, _ipsa mollities_, may be translated,--it is the very perfection of delicacy. The Italian words below mean,--My dear Henry, thoughts close, face open.

1. Before the starry threshold of Jove's court. The attendant spirit not only announces himself as a dweller in heaven, but he specifies his particular function among the celestials: he is doorkeeper in the house of God.

3. insphered. Compare Il Penseroso 88.

7. Confined and pestered. _Pester_ has its primitive meaning, to clog or encumber. In this pinfold here. _Pinfold_ is probably not connected with the verb to pen, but is a shortened form of poundfold, and means, literally, an enclosure for stray cattle.

10. After this mortal change: after this life on earth, which is subject to death.

11. Amongst the enthroned gods. Make but two syllables of _enthroned_, and accent the first.

The long sentence ending with line 11 is very loose in construction: the _and_ in line 7 is a cooerdinate conjunction, but does not connect cooerdinate elements.

13. To lay their just hands on that golden key. Compare Lycidas 110.

16. these pure ambrosial weeds. Ambrosial has its proper meaning,--pertaining to the immortals.

20. by lot 'twixt high and nether Jove. Neptune drew lots with Jupiter and Pluto. To Jupiter fell the region of the upper air, to Pluto the lower world, and to Neptune the sea. The ancient poets sometimes spoke of Jupiter and Pluto as the upper and the lower Jove.

25. By course commits to several government: in due order he assigns the islands to his tributaries, giving them an island apiece.

27. But this Isle is so large that he has to divide it.

29. Consider quarters to mean nothing more than divides. his blue-haired deities. The epithet is conventional, taken from the Greek poets, and probably has no special significance in this passage.

31. A noble Peer. This connects the poem with actual persons and announces its occasion. The noble peer is the Earl of Bridgewater, and the event which is to be celebrated is his appointment to the Vice-royalty of Wales.

33. The old and haughty nation are the Welsh.

34. his fair offspring are two sons and a daughter, who are to play the parts of the Two Brothers and the Lady in the mask.

37. the perplexed paths of this drear wood. Compare Par. Lost IV 176.

41. sovran. See note on Hymn on the Nativity 60.

45. in hall or bower. Hall and bower are conventionally coupled by the poets to signify the dwellings, respectively, of the gentry and the laboring classes.

46. The transformation by Bacchus of the treacherous Tuscan sailors into dolphins belongs to the established myths of that god. But Milton exercises his right as a poet to add to the classic story whatever suits his purposes.

48. After the Tuscan mariners transformed; a Latinism, meaning, after the transformation of the Tuscan mariners.

50. fell: chanced to land.

For the story of Circe, see the Odyssey X.

58. Understand that no such distinct character as Comus belongs to the received mythology. Milton is a myth-maker.

59. frolic is used as an adjective, as in L'Allegro 18.

60. the Celtic and Iberian fields. The god traversed Gaul and Spain, on his way to Britain.

61. ominous: abounding in mysterious signs of danger.

65. His orient liquor. See line 673 of this poem.

72. Note that only the countenance is changed.

87. Well knows to still the wild winds. The poem moves throughout in the realm of romance. The swain Thyrsis is in his own character a practitioner of magic.

88. nor of less faith. Thyrsis has just been described as a person of great skill.

90. Likeliest: most likely to be.

93. The transition from the stately mood of the Attendant Spirit's exordium to the noisy exhilaration of Comus is marked by appropriate changes in the verse. Comus speaks in a lyric strain, and his tone is exultant. When he comes to serious business, in line 145, he also employs blank-verse. The lyric lines, 93-144, rhyme in couplets, and vary in length, most of them having four accents, while some have five. The four-accent lines vary between seven and eight syllables, many of them dropping the initial light syllable, or anakrusis (Auftakt). These seven-syllable lines have a trochaic effect, but are to be scanned as iambic, the standard rhythm of the poem. The star that bids the shepherd fold. So Collins, in his ode To Evening,--"For when thy folding-star arising shows His paly circlet." See also Measure for Measure IV 2 218.

96. doth allay: doth cool.

97. The epithet steep is applied to the ocean, though really it is the course of the downward-moving sun that is steep.

99-101. Milton uses pole, as the poets were wont to do, to mean the sky; and the passage means,--the sun, moving about the earth in his oblique course, now shines upon that part of the heavens which, when it is daylight to us, is in shadow.

105. with rosy twine; with twined, or wreathed, roses.

108-109. Advice ... Age ... Severity. For these abstract terms substitute their concretes.

110. their grave saws. So Hamlet I 5 100, "all saws of books."

116. in wavering morrice. See M. N. Dream II 1 98; All's Well II 2 25.