"_Trepidation talk'd._"--What mean the following words in Milton,
_Paradise Lost_, book iii. line 481?
"They pass the planets seven, and pass the fixed,
And that crystalline sphere _whose balance weighs
The trepidation_ TALK'D, and that first moved."
By the last three words we may easily understand the _primum mobile_ of
the Ptolemaic astronomy; and _trepidation_ is thus explained in the
_Imperial Dictionary_:
"In the _old astr._ a libration of the eighth sphere, or a motion
which the Ptolemaic system ascribes to the firmament, to account
for the changes and motion of the axis of the world."
Newton, in his edition of Milton, is silent. Bentley says in a note:
"_Foolish_ ostentation, in a thing that a child may be taught in a
map of these imaginary spheres. _Talk'd_, not good English, for
called, styled, named."
Paterson, in his _Commentary on Paradise Lost_, 1744, for the sight of
which I am indebted to the courtesy of the librarian of the Chetham
Library, says:
"_Trepidation_, Lat., an astronomical T., a trembling, a passing.
Here, two imagined motions of those spheres. Therefore Milton
justly ridicules those wild notions."
Granting that _trepidation_ and _whose balance weighs_ are understood,
can any of your readers explain the phrase _trepidation talk'd_?