230. ~Echo~. In classical mythology she was a nymph whom Juno punished by
preventing her from speaking before others or from being silent after
others had spoken. She fell in love with Narcissus, and pined away until
nothing remained of her but her voice. Compare the invocation to Echo in
Ben Jonson's _Cynthia's Revels_, i. 1.
The lady's song, which has been described as "an address to the very
Genius of Sound," is here very naturally introduced. The lady wishes to
rouse the echoes of the wood in order to attract her brothers' notice,
and she does so by addressing Echo, who grieves for the lost youth
Narcissus as the lady grieves for her lost brothers.
231. ~thy airy shell~; the atmosphere. Comp. "the hollow round of
Cynthia's seat," _Hymn Nat._ 103. The marginal reading in the MS. is
_cell_. Some suppose that 'shell' is here used, like Lat. _concha_,
because in classical times various musical instruments were made in the
form of a shell.
232. ~Meander's margent green~. Maeander, a river of Asia Minor,
remarkable for the windings of its course; hence the verb 'to meander,'
and hence also (in Keightley's opinion) the mention of the river as a
haunt of Echo. It is more probable, however, that, as the lady addresses
Echo as the "Sweet Queen of Parley" and the unhappy lover of the lost
Narcissus, the river is here mentioned because of its associations with
music and misfortune. The Marsyas was a tributary of the Maeander, and
the legend was that the flute upon which Marsyas played in his rash
contest with Apollo was carried into the Maeander and, after being
thrown on land, dedicated to Apollo, the god of song. Comp. _Lyc._
58-63, where the Muses and misfortune are similarly associated by a
reference to Orpheus, whose 'gory visage' and lyre were carried "down
the swift Hebrus to the Lesbian shore." Further, the Maeander is
associated with the sorrows of the maiden Byblis, who seeks her lost
brother Caunus (called by Ovid _Maeandrius juvenis_). [Since the above
was written, Prof. J. W. Hales has given the following explanation of
Milton's allusion: "The real reason is that the Meander was a famous
haunt of swans, and the swan was a favourite bird with the Greek and
Latin writers--one to whose sweet singing they perpetually allude"
(_Athenaeum_, April 20, 1889).] 'Margent.' _Marge_ and _margin_ are
forms of the same word.
233. ~the violet-embroidered vale~. The notion that flowers _broider_ or
ornament the ground is common in poetry: comp. _Par. Lost_, iv. 700:
"Under foot the violet, Crocus, and hyacinth, with rich inlay
_Broidered_ the ground." In _Lyc._ 148, the flowers themselves wear
'embroidery.' The nightingale is made to haunt a violet-embroidered vale
because these flowers are associated with love (see Jonson's _Masque of
Hymen_) and with innocence (see _Hamlet_, iv. 5. 158: "I would give you
some violets, but they withered all when my father died"). Prof. Hales,
however, thinks that some particular vale is here alluded to, and
argues, with much acumen, that the poet referred to the woodlands close
by Athens to the north-west, through which the Cephissus flowed, and
where stood the birthplace of Sophocles, who sings of his native Colonus
as frequented by nightingales. The same critic regards the epithet
'violet-embroidered' as a translation of the Greek +iostephanos+ (=
crowned with violets), frequently applied by Aristophanes to Athens, of
which Colonus was a suburb. Macaulay also refers to Athens as "the
violet-crowned city." It is, at least, very probable that Milton might
here associate the nightingale with Colonus, as he does in _Par. Reg._
iv. 245: see the following note.
234. ~love-lorn nightingale~, the nightingale whose loved ones are lost:
comp. Virgil, _Georg._ iv. 511: "As the nightingale wailing in the
poplar shade plains for her lost young, ... while she weeps the night
through, and sitting on a bough, reproduces her piteous melody, and
fills the country round with the plaints of her sorrow." _Lorn_ and
_lost_ are cognate words, the former being common in the compound
_forlorn_: see note, l. 39. Milton makes frequent allusion to the
nightingale: in _Il Penseroso_ it is 'Philomel'; in _Par. Reg._ iv. 245,
it is 'the Attic bird'; and in _Par. Lost_ viii. 518, it is 'the amorous
bird of night.' He calls it the Attic bird in allusion to the story of
Philomela, the daughter of Pandion, King of Athens. Near the Academy was
Colonus, which Sophocles has celebrated as the haunt of nightingales
(Browne). Philomela was changed, at her own prayer, into a nightingale
that she might escape the vengeance of her brother-in-law Tereus. The
epithet 'love-lorn,' however, seems to point to the legend of A{=e}don
(Greek +aêdôn+, a nightingale), who, having killed her own son by
mistake, was changed into a nightingale, whose mournful song was
represented by the Greek poets as the lament of the mother for her
child.
235. ~her sad song mourneth~, _i.e._ sings her plaintive melody. 'Sad
song' forms a kind of cognate accusative.
237. ~likest thy Narcissus~. Narcissus, who failed to return the love of
Echo, was punished by being made to fall in love with his own image
reflected in a fountain: this he could never approach, and he
accordingly pined away and was changed into the flower which bears his
name. See the dialogue between Mercury and Echo in _Cynthia's Revels_,
i. 1. Grammatically, _likest_ is an adjective qualified adverbially by
"(to) thy Narcissus": comp. _Il Pens._ 9, "likest hovering dreams."
238. ~have hid~. This is not a grammatical inaccuracy (as Warton thinks),
but the subjunctive mood.