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."