estimated above all others, and to the advancement of which he devoted
his best powers, for twenty years, and those years the best, generally,
of a man's life, for intellectual and creative work, namely, from
thirty-two to fifty-two. The last eight of those years he worked in
total darkness, not bating a jot of heart or hope, sustained by the
consciousness of having lost his eyes 'overplied in Liberty's
defence'—'the glorious liberty,' more especially, 'of the children of
God,' 'the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free,' without which,
outward liberty he regarded as a temptation and a snare.
In addition to the absolute merit attaching to his labors in the cause
of liberty, it must not be forgotten that he turned aside with a heroic
self-denial, during all those years of his manhood's prime, from what he
had, from his early years up, felt himself dedicated to, and toward
fitting himself for the accomplishment of which, he had, with an
unflagging ardor, trained and marshalled all his faculties.
COMUS
_A Masque presented at Ludlow Castle, 1634, before the Earl of
Bridgewater, then President of Wales_
Masques, in the reigns of Elizabeth, James I., and Charles I., were
generally written for the entertainment of royalty and nobility. They
were, besides, in most cases, presented by royal and noble persons. In
their setting, they were in strong contrast to the public drama of the
day, got up, as they were, with great magnificence of architecture,
scenery, and 'appareling' (Ben Jonson's word for the apparatus of the
scene), and frequently at an enormous expense. They were generally
offset by grotesque and comic antimasques, which were played by common
actors, dancers, and buffoons, from the public theatres. Shakespeare's
'A Midsummer Night's Dream' was probably not written as a regular drama
for the public stage, but as a masque, on the occasion of some noble
marriage. 'The most lamentable comedy and most cruel death of Pyramus
and Thisbe' presented by the 'rude mechanicals,' 'hard-handed men,' in
the fifth act, is the antimasque. It offsets the Masque in a special
way. The Masque makes great demands on the imagination in its
presentation of the fairy world; the antimasque is absurdly
realistic—nothing is left by the 'rude mechanicals' to the imagination.
The Masque of 'Comus' is the last notable, if not entirely the last,
composition of the kind in English literature, and the loftiest and
loveliest. It is a glorification of the power of purity and chastity
over the impure and the unchaste; and the poet no doubt meant it as a
reflection upon the license and excesses and revelries (of which Comus
is a personification) of the profligate and extravagant court of the
time, imported from 'Celtic and Iberian fields.' The now obvious
attitude of the composition was perhaps not at all suspected when it was
performed at Ludlow Castle.
There is nothing in the Masque of 'Comus' that is even suggestive of the
antimasque of the earlier masques, unless it be where the Country
Dancers come in before the entrance of the Attendant Spirit with the two
Brothers and the Lady, who catch the dancers at their sport. The
Attendant Spirit addresses them in the song (vv. 958-965):
'Back, shepherds, back! Enough your play
Till next sunshine holiday.
Here be, without duck or nod,
Other trippings to be trod
Of lighter toes,' etc.
The subject of 'Comus' was too serious to be offset or parodied in any
way by an antimasque; and, furthermore, Milton was not the man for
anything of the kind. His theme excluded all humor, even if he had had
any to expend upon it. Its seriousness must have been deepened for him
by what he no doubt already felt in regard to the Court and the Church,
that both were corrupt, and that both were leagued in their despotic
tendencies, or rather in their actual despotic characters.
The traditional story that the two sons of the Earl of Bridgewater, the
Lord Brackley and Mr. Thomas Egerton, and their sister, the Lady Alice
Egerton, were lost in Haywood Forest on their way to Ludlow Castle from
Herefordshire, where they had been visiting their relatives, the
Egertons, and that the Lady Alice was for a time separated from her
brothers, they having gone to discover the right path, may have had its
origin in the Masque. This seems more likely than that the Masque had
its origin in the story.
In the talk of the two Brothers in regard to their lost sister, the idea
of the Masque is explicitly presented by the elder Brother. He had said:
'My sister is not so defenceless left
As you imagine; she has a hidden strength
Which you remember not.'
The second Brother replies:
'What hidden strength,
Unless the strength of Heaven, if you mean that?'
And then the elder Brother gives expression, in a long speech, the gem
of the Masque (vv. 418-475), to the power of chastity and purity over
the unchaste and the impure.
In the service of this idea, the poet started, no doubt, with Comus, the
personification of unchaste and impure revelry (κῶμος), and therefrom
constructed his plot, in which a pure maiden is brought within range of
the wiles and temptations of the enchanter. And as the daughter of the
noble family for which the Masque was written was to play the part of
the tempted maiden, in the presentation of the Masque, the incident of
her being temporarily and necessarily left alone by her brothers in the
forest, would be readily suggested to the poet. It afforded him, too, an
opportunity of paying a high compliment to the children of the Earl of
Bridgewater.
The traditional story may therefore be safely regarded as a figment.
Henry Lawes, the most prominent music teacher of the time, in noble and
wealthy families, and with a high reputation as a musical composer,
furnished the music for the Masque, and took the part of the Attendant
Spirit, first appearing as such, and afterward in the guise of the old
and faithful shepherd Thyrsis. It is not known by whom the parts of
Comus and Sabrina were taken.
Lawes had been one of Milton's musical friends from early boyhood.
Milton addressed the following sonnet to him, which was prefixed to
'Choice Psalmes . . . by Henry and William Lawes, brothers, 1648.' In
Milton's volume of poems published in 1645, Lawes is represented as
'Gentleman of the king's chapel and one of His Majesty's private music.'
_To Mr. H. Lawes, on his Airs_ (1646)
'Harry, whose tuneful and well-measured song
First taught our English music how to span
Words with just note and accent, not to scan
With Midas' ears, committing short and long,
Thy worth and skill exempts thee from the throng, 5
With praise enough for envy to look wan;
To after-age thou shalt be writ the man,
That with smooth air could humour best our tongue.
Thou honourest verse, and verse must lend her wing
To honour thee, the priest of Phœbus' quire, 10
That tunest their happiest lines in hymn or story.
Dante shall give fame leave to set thee higher
Than his Casella, whom he wooed to sing,
Met in the milder shades of Purgatory.'
THE PERSONS
THE ATTENDANT SPIRIT, afterward in the habit of THYRSIS.
COMUS, with his Crew.
THE LADY.
FIRST BROTHER.
SECOND BROTHER.
SABRINA, the Nymph.
The Chief Persons which presented were:
The Lord Brackley;
Mr. Thomas Egerton, his Brother;
The Lady Alice Egerton.
_The First Scene discovers a Wild Wood._
_The ATTENDANT SPIRIT descends or enters._
Before the starry threshold of Jove's court
My mansion is, where those immortal shapes
Of bright aerial spirits live insphered
In regions mild of calm and serene air,
Above the smoke and stir of this dim spot 5
Which men call Earth, and, with low-thoughted care,
Confined and pestered in this pinfold here,
Strive to keep up a frail and feverish being,
Unmindful of the crown that virtue gives,
After this mortal change, to her true servants, 10
Amongst the enthronèd Gods on sainted seats.
Yet some there be that by due steps aspire
To lay their just hands on that golden key
That opes the palace of eternity.
To such my errand is; and, but for such, 15
I would not soil these pure ambrosial weeds
With the rank vapours of this sin-worn mould.
But to my task. Neptune, besides the sway
Of every salt flood and each ebbing stream,
Took in by lot, 'twixt high and nether Jove, 20
Imperial rule of all the sea-girt isles
That, like to rich and various gems, inlay
The unadornèd bosom of the deep;
Which he, to grace his tributary gods,
By course commits to several government, 25
And gives them leave to wear their sapphire crowns
And wield their little tridents. But this Isle,
The greatest and the best of all the main,
He quarters to his blue-haired deities;
And all this tract that fronts the falling sun 30
A noble Peer of mickle trust and power
Has in his charge, with tempered awe to guide
An old and haughty nation proud in arms:
Where his fair offspring, nursed in princely lore,
Are coming to attend their father's state, 35
And new-intrusted sceptre. But their way
Lies through the perplexed paths of this drear wood,
The nodding horror of whose shady brows
Threats the forlorn and wandering passenger;
And here their tender age might suffer peril, 40
But that, by quick command from sovran Jove,
I was despatched for their defence and guard.
And listen why; for I will tell you now
What never yet was heard in tale or song,
From old or modern bard, in hall or bower. 45
Bacchus, that first from out the purple grape
Crushed the sweet poison of misusèd wine,
After the Tuscan mariners transformed,
Coasting the Tyrrhene shore, as the winds listed,
On Circe's island fell. (Who knows not Circe, 50
The daughter of the Sun, whose charmed cup
Whoever tasted lost his upright shape,
And downward fell into a grovelling swine?)
This Nymph, that gazed upon his clustering locks,
With ivy berries wreathed, and his blithe youth, 55
Had by him, ere he parted thence, a son
Much like his father, but his mother more,
Whom therefore she brought up, and Comus named:
Who, ripe, and frolic of his full-grown age,
Roving the Celtic and Iberian fields, 60
At last betakes him to this ominous wood,
And, in thick shelter of black shades imbowered,
Excels his mother at her mighty art,
Offering to every weary traveller
His orient liquor in a crystal glass, 65
To quench the drouth of Phœbus; which as they taste
(For most do taste through fond intemperate thirst),
Soon as the potion works, their human count'nance,
The express resemblance of the gods, is changed
Into some brutish form of wolf or bear, 70
Or ounce, or tiger, hog, or bearded goat,
All other parts remaining as they were.
And they, so perfect is their misery,
Not once perceive their foul disfigurement,
But boast themselves more comely than before, 75
And all their friends and native home forget,
To roll with pleasure in a sensual sty.
Therefore, when any favoured of high Jove
Chances to pass through this adventurous glade,
Swift as the sparkle of a glancing star 80
I shoot from heaven, to give him safe convoy,
As now I do. But first I must put off
These my sky robes, spun out of Iris' woof,
And take the weeds and likeness of a swain
That to the service of this house belongs, 85
Who, with his soft pipe, and smooth-dittied song,
Well knows to still the wild winds when they roar,
And hush the waving woods; nor of less faith,
And in this office of his mountain watch
Likeliest, and nearest to the present aid 90
Of this occasion. But I hear the tread
Of hateful steps; I must be viewless now.
_COMUS enters, with a charming rod in one hand, his glass
in the other; with him a rout of monsters, headed like
sundry sorts of wild beasts, but otherwise like men and
women, their apparel glistering. They come in making a
riotous and unruly noise, with torches in their hands._
_Comus._ The star that bids the shepherd fold
Now the top of heaven doth hold;
And the gilded car of day 95
His glowing axle doth allay
In the steep Atlantic stream;
And the slope sun his upward beam
Shoots against the dusky pole,
Pacing toward the other goal 100
Of his chamber in the east.
Meanwhile, welcome joy and feast,
Midnight shout and revelry,
Tipsy dance and jollity.
Braid your locks with rosy twine, 105
Dropping odours, dropping wine.
Rigour now is gone to bed;
And Advice with scrupulous head,
Strict Age, and sour Severity,
With their grave saws, in slumber lie. 110
We, that are of purer fire,
Imitate the starry quire,
Who, in their nightly watchful spheres,
Lead in swift round the months and years.
The sounds and seas, with all their finny drove, 115
Now to the moon in wavering morrice move;
And on the tawny sands and shelves
Trip the pert fairies and the dapper elves.
By dimpled brook and fountain-brim,
The wood-nymphs, decked with daisies trim, 120
Their merry wakes and pastimes keep;
What hath night to do with sleep?
Night hath better sweets to prove;
Venus now wakes, and wakens Love.
Come, let us our rites begin, 125
—'Tis only daylight that makes sin—
Which these dun shades will ne'er report.
Hail, goddess of nocturnal sport,
Dark-veiled Cotytto, to whom the secret flame
Of midnight torches burns! mysterious dame, 130
That ne'er art called but when the dragon womb
Of Stygian darkness spets her thickest gloom,
And makes one blot of all the air!
Stay thy cloudy ebon chair,
Wherein thou ridest with Hecat', and befriend 135
Us thy vowed priests, till utmost end
Of all thy dues be done, and none left out;
Ere the blabbing eastern scout,
The nice Morn on the Indian steep,
From her cabined loop-hole peep, 140
And to the tell-tale Sun descry
Our concealed solemnity.
Come, knit hands, and beat the ground
In a light fantastic round.
_The Measure._
Break off, break off! I feel the different pace 145
Of some chaste footing near about this ground.
Run to your shrouds within these brakes and trees;
Our number may affright. Some virgin sure
(For so I can distinguish by mine art)
Benighted in these woods! Now to my charms, 150
And to my wily trains: I shall ere long
Be well stocked with as fair a herd as grazed
About my mother Circe. Thus I hurl
My dazzling spells into the spungy air,
Of power to cheat the eye with blear illusion, 155
And give it false presentments, lest the place
And my quaint habits breed astonishment,
And put the damsel to suspicious flight;
Which must not be, for that's against my course.
I, under fair pretence of friendly ends, 160
And well-placed words of glozing courtesy,
Baited with reasons not unplausible,
Wind me into the easy-hearted man,
And hug him into snares. When once her eye
Hath met the virtue of this magic dust, 165
I shall appear some harmless villager
Whom thrift keeps up about his country gear.
But here she comes; I fairly step aside,
And hearken, if I may her business hear.
_The LADY enters._
_Lady._ This way the noise was, if mine ear be true, 170
My best guide now. Methought it was the sound
Of riot and ill-managed merriment,
Such as the jocund flute or gamesome pipe
Stirs up among the loose unlettered hinds,
When, for their teeming flocks, and granges full, 175
In wanton dance they praise the bounteous Pan,
And thank the gods amiss. I should be loth
To meet the rudeness and swilled insolence
Of such late wassailers; yet, oh! where else
Shall I inform my unacquainted feet 180
In the blind mazes of this tangled wood?
My brothers, when they saw me wearied out
With this long way, resolving here to lodge
Under the spreading favour of these pines,
Stepped, as they said, to the next thicket-side 185
To bring me berries, or such cooling fruit
As the kind hospitable woods provide.
They left me then when the gray-hooded Even,
Like a sad votarist in palmer's weed,
Rose from the hindmost wheels of Phœbus' wain. 190
But where they are, and why they came not back,
Is now the labour of my thoughts. 'Tis likeliest
They had engaged their wandering steps too far;
And envious darkness, ere they could return,
Had stole them from me. Else, O thievish Night, 195
Why shouldst thou, but for some felonious end,
In thy dark lantern thus close up the stars
That Nature hung in heaven, and filled their lamps
With everlasting oil to give due light
To the misled and lonely traveller? 200
This is the place, as well as I may guess,
Whence even now the tumult of loud mirth
Was rife, and perfect in my listening ear;
Yet nought but single darkness do I find.
What might this be? A thousand fantasies 205
Begin to throng into my memory,
Of calling shapes, and beckoning shadows dire,
And airy tongues that syllable men's names
On sands and shores and desert wildernesses.
These thoughts may startle well, but not astound 210
The virtuous mind, that ever walks attended
By a strong siding champion, Conscience.
O, welcome, pure-eyed Faith, white-handed Hope,
Thou hovering angel girt with golden wings,
And thou unblemished form of Chastity! 215
I see ye visibly, and now believe
That He, the Supreme Good, to whom all things ill
Are but as slavish officers of vengeance,
Would send a glistering guardian, if need were,
To keep my life and honour unassailed. . . . 220
Was I deceived, or did a sable cloud
Turn forth her silver lining on the night?
I did not err: there does a sable cloud
Turn forth her silver lining on the night,
And casts a gleam over this tufted grove. 225
I cannot hallo to my brothers, but
Such noise as I can make to be heard farthest
I'll venture; for my new enlivened spirits
Prompt me, and they perhaps are not far off.
_Song._
Sweet Echo, sweetest nymph, that liv'st unseen 230
Within thy airy shell
By slow Meander's margent green,
And in the violet-embroidered vale,
Where the love-lorn nightingale
Nightly to thee her sad song mourneth well: 235
Canst thou not tell me of a gentle pair
That likest thy Narcissus are?
Oh, if thou have
Hid them in some flowery cave,
Tell me but where, 240
Sweet Queen of Parley, Daughter of the Sphere!
So mayst thou be translated to the skies,
And give resounding grace to all Heaven's harmonies!
_Comus._ Can any mortal mixture of earth's mould
Breathe such divine enchanting ravishment? 245
Sure something holy lodges in that breast,
And with these raptures moves the vocal air
To testify his hidden residence.
How sweetly did they float upon the wings
Of silence, through the empty-vaulted night, 250
At every fall smoothing the raven down
Of darkness till it smiled! I have oft heard
My mother Circe with the Sirens three,
Amidst the flowery-kirtled Naiades,
Culling their potent herbs and baleful drugs, 255
Who, as they sung, would take the prisoned soul,
And lap it in Elysium: Scylla wept,
And chid her barking waves into attention,
And fell Charybdis murmured soft applause.
Yet they in pleasing slumber lulled the sense, 260
And in sweet madness robbed it of itself;
But such a sacred and home-felt delight,
Such sober certainty of waking bliss,
I never heard till now. I'll speak to her,
And she shall be my queen.—Hail, foreign wonder! 265
Whom, certain, these rough shades did never breed,
Unless the goddess that in rural shrine
Dwell'st here with Pan or Sylvan, by blest song
Forbidding every bleak unkindly fog
To touch the prosperous growth of this tall wood. 270
_Lady._ Nay, gentle shepherd, ill is lost that praise
That is addressed to unattending ears.
Not any boast of skill, but extreme shift
How to regain my severed company,
Compelled me to awake the courteous Echo 275
To give me answer from her mossy couch.
_Comus._ What chance, good Lady, hath bereft you thus?
_Lady._ Dim darkness and this leavy labyrinth.
_Comus._ Could that divide you from near-ushering guides?
_Lady._ They left me weary on a grassy turf. 280
_Comus._ By falsehood, or discourtesy, or why?
_Lady._ To seek i' the valley some cool friendly spring.
_Comus._ And left your fair side all unguarded, Lady?
_Lady._ They were but twain, and purposed quick return.
_Comus._ Perhaps forestalling night prevented them. 285
_Lady._ How easy my misfortune is to hit!
_Comus._ Imports their loss, beside the present need?
_Lady._ No less than if I should my brothers lose.
_Comus._ Were they of manly prime, or youthful bloom?
_Lady._ As smooth as Hebe's their unrazored lips. 290
_Comus._ Two such I saw, what time the laboured ox
In his loose traces from the furrow came,
And the swinked hedger at his supper sat.
I saw them under a green mantling vine,
That crawls along the side of yon small hill, 295
Plucking ripe clusters from the tender shoots;
Their port was more than human, as they stood.
I took it for a faery vision
Of some gay creatures of the element,
That in the colours of the rainbow live, 300
And play i' the plighted clouds. I was awe-strook,
And, as I passed, I worshipped. If those you seek,
It were a journey like the path to Heaven
To help you find them.
_Lady._ Gentle villager,
What readiest way would bring me to that place? 305
_Comus._ Due west it rises from this shrubby point.
_Lady._ To find out that, good shepherd, I suppose,
In such a scant allowance of star-light,
Would overtask the best land-pilot's art,
Without the sure guess of well-practised feet. 310
_Comus._ I know each lane, and every alley green,
Dingle, or bushy dell, of this wild wood,
And every bosky bourn from side to side,
My daily walks and ancient neighbourhood;
And, if your stray attendance be yet lodged, 315
Or shroud within these limits, I shall know
Ere morrow wake, or the low-roosted lark
From her thatched pallet rouse. If otherwise,
I can conduct you, Lady, to a low
But loyal cottage, where you may be safe 320
Till further quest.
_Lady._ Shepherd, I take thy word,
And trust thy honest-offered courtesy;
Which oft is sooner found in lowly sheds,
With smoky rafters, than in tapestry halls
And courts of princes, where it first was named, 325
And yet is most pretended. In a place
Less warranted than this, or less secure,
It cannot be, that I should fear to change it.
Eye me, blest Providence, and square my trial
To my proportioned strength! Shepherd, lead on. 330
_Enter the TWO BROTHERS._
_Eld. Bro._ Unmuffle, ye faint stars; and thou, fair moon,
That wont'st to love the traveller's benison,
Stoop thy pale visage through an amber cloud,
And disinherit Chaos, that reigns here
In double night of darkness and of shades; 335
Or, if your influence be quite dammed up
With black usurping mists, some gentle taper,
Though a rush-candle from the wicker hole
Of some clay habitation, visit us
With thy long-levelled rule of streaming light, 340
And thou shalt be our Star of Arcady,
Or Tyrian Cynosure.
_Sec. Bro._ Or, if our eyes
Be barred that happiness, might we but hear
The folded flocks, penned in their wattled cotes,
Or sound of pastoral reed with oaken stops, 345
Or whistle from the lodge, or village cock
Count the night-watches to his feathery dames,
'Twould be some solace yet, some little cheering,
In this close dungeon of innumerous boughs.
But, oh, that hapless virgin, our lost sister! 350
Where may she wander now, whither betake her
From the chill dew, amongst rude burs and thistles?
Perhaps some cold bank is her bolster now,
Or 'gainst the rugged bark of some broad elm
Leans her unpillowed head, fraught with sad fears. 355
What if in wild amazement and affright,
Or, while we speak, within the direful grasp
Of savage hunger, or of savage heat!
_Eld. Bro._ Peace, brother: be not over-exquisite
To cast the fashion of uncertain evils; 360
For, grant they be so, while they rest unknown,
What need a man forestall his date of grief,
And run to meet what he would most avoid?
Or, if they be but false alarms of fear,
How bitter is such self-delusion! 365
I do not think my sister so to seek,
Or so unprincipled in virtue's book,
And the sweet peace that goodness bosoms ever,
As that the single want of light and noise
(Not being in danger, as I trust she is not) 370
Could stir the constant mood of her calm thoughts,
And put them into misbecoming plight.
Virtue could see to do what Virtue would
By her own radiant light, though sun and moon
Were in the flat sea sunk. And Wisdom's self 375
Oft seeks to sweet retirèd solitude,
Where, with her best nurse, Contemplation,
She plumes her feathers, and lets grow her wings,
That, in the various bustle of resort,
Were all to-ruffled, and sometimes impaired. 380
He that has light within his own clear breast,
May sit i' the centre, and enjoy bright day:
But he that hides a dark soul and foul thoughts
Benighted walks under the mid-day sun;
Himself is his own dungeon.