"Now, now begin to set
Your spirits in active heat;
And, since your hands are met,
Instruct your nimble feet,
In motions swift and meet,
The happy ground to beat."
144. ~light fantastic round~: comp. _L'Alleg._ 34, "Come, and trip it, as
you go, On the light fantastic toe." A round is a dance or 'measure' in
which the dancers join hands, 'Fantastic' = full of fancy, unrestrained.
So Shakespeare uses it of that which has merely been imagined, and has
not yet happened. It is now used in the sense of grotesque. _Fancy_ is a
form of _fantasy_ (Greek _phantasia_).
At this point in the mask Comus and his rout dance a measure, after
which he again speaks, but in a different strain. The change is marked
by a return to blank verse: the previous lines are mostly in
octosyllabic couplets.
145. ~different~, _i.e._ different from the voluptuous footing of Comus
and his crew.
146. ~footing~: comp. _Lyc._ 103, "Camus, reverend sire, went _footing_
slow."
147. ~shrouds~, coverts, places of hiding. The word etymologically denotes
'something cut off,' being allied to 'shred'; hence a garment; and
finally (as in Milton) any covering or means of covering. Many of
Latimer's sermons are described as having been "preached in The
Shrouds," a covered place near St. Paul's Cathedral. The modern use of
the word is restricted: comp. l. 316. ~brakes~, bushes. Shakespeare has
"hawthorn-_brake_," _M. N. D._ iii. l. 3, and the word seems to be
connected with _bracken_.