some of the Titans who are disposed to be rebellious in their
imprisonment in Tartarus. It seems to be meant that Erebus is a more
painful region than that into which they were cast after their defeat by
Jove (Zeus).
815. _snatched his wand_: see v. 653.
816. _without his rod reversed_: the process, as related in Ovid,
'Met.,' xiv. 299-305, by which the companions of Ulysses are, through
his intervention, retransformed by Circe.
822. _Melibœus_: Spenser is probably referred to.
823. _soothest_: truest, most faithful.
826. _Sabrina_: the legend of Sabrina is told by Geoffrey of Monmouth,
in his 'Latin History of the Britons'; by Drayton, in his 'Polyolbion,'
6th Song; by Warner, in his 'Albion's England'; by Spenser, in his
'Faerie Queene,' II. x. 14-19, and by Milton, in the first book of his
'History of Britain.'
835. _Nereus_: 'the good spirit of the Ægean Sea,' father of the nereids
or sea-nymphs.
852. _old swain_: Melibœus.
867-889. _Listen, and appear to us_: _Oceanus_ was the most ancient
sea-god, . . . _Neptune_, with his trident, was a later being. _Tethys_
was the wife of Oceanus, and mother of the river-gods. _Hoary Nereus_ is
the 'aged Nereus' of line 835. The _Carpathian wizard_ is the subtle
_Proteus_, ever shifting his shape: . . . _Triton_, son of Neptune and
Aphrodite, . . . he was 'scaly,' because the lower part of him was fish.
_Glaucus_ was a Bœotian fisherman who had been changed into a marine
god: . . . was an oracle for sailors and fishermen. _Leucothea_ ('the
white goddess') was originally Ino, the daughter of Cadmus, and had
received her new name after she had drowned herself and been converted
into a sea-deity. _Her son that rules the strands_ was Melicertes,
drowned and deified with her, and thenceforward known as _Palæmon_, or
_Portumnus_, the god of bays and harbours. _Thetis_, one of the
daughters of Nereus, and therefore a sea-deity by birth, married Peleus,
and was the mother of Achilles: . . . Of the _Sirens_, or singing
sea-nymphs . . . _Parthenope_ and _Ligea_ were two. The 'dear tomb' of
the first was at Naples . . . the 'golden comb' of the second is from
stories of our own mermaids.—_Masson's note, condensed._
900. _gentle swain_: the attendant spirit is still in the person and
habit of the shepherd Thyrsis.
913. _cure_: curative power.
919. _his_: old neuter genitive, its.
921. _to wait_: to attend in the bower (court) of Amphitrite (wife of
Neptune).
922. _daughter of Locrine_: see vv. 827, 828. The order of the legendary
'line' is, Anchises, Æneas, Ascanius, Silvius, Brutus, Locrine.
924. _brimmed_: full to the brim or edge of the bank; _cf._ 'full-fed
river.'—_Tennyson's Palace of Art._
929. _scorch_: optative subj.
934-937. The true construction of these lines is pointed out by Mr.
Calton, quoted in Todd's _variorum_ ed.: 'May thy lofty head be
_crowned round_ with many a tower and terrace, and here and there [may]
thy banks [be crowned] upon with groves of myrrh and cinnamon.'
960. _duck or nod_: _i.e._ of the awkward country dancers.
964. _mincing Dryades_: daintily stepping wood-nymphs.
968. _goodly_: interesting and attractive in appearance.
972. _assays_: trials.
982. _Hesperus and his daughters three_: brother of Atlas, and father of
the Hesperides.
1012. _But now, etc._: may be an independent or a subordinate sentence;
if the latter, understand 'that' after 'now.' It is, perhaps, preferable
to take it as an independent sentence.
1015. _bowed welkin_: arched sky; the idea is that the bend is the less
noticeable at 'the green earth's end.'
1017. _corners_: horns.
1021. _higher than the sphery chime_: '_i.e._ to the Empyrean, beyond
the spheres which give forth their music.'—_Keightley._
_Lycidas_
P. 167. _haud procul a littore Britannico_: 'the ship having struck on a
rock not far from the British shore and been ruptured by the shock, he,
while the other passengers were fruitlessly busy about their mortal
lives, having fallen forward upon his knees, and breathing a life which
was immortal, in the act of prayer going down with the vessel, rendered
up his soul to God, August 10, 1637, aged 25.'—_Masson's translation._
1-5. _Yet once more_: these verses express the poet's sense of his
unripeness for the exercise of the poetic gift. See his 'English Letter
to a Friend,' p. 40; laurel, myrtle, and ivy are poetical emblems.
5. _before the mellowing year_: _i.e._ before the mellowing year or
period of his own life; 'mellowing' is intransitive, growing or becoming
mellow; 'year' is not a nominative, the subject of 'does' or 'shatters,'
understood, as several editors make it, but is the object of the
preposition 'before.'
6. _dear_: of intimate concernment; the word was formerly applied to
what is precious, or painful, to the heart; it has here, of course, the
latter application.
7. _Compels me to disturb your season due_: _i.e._ compels me to write a
poem before I have attained to the requisite 'inward ripeness.' The
compound subject, 'bitter constraint and sad occasion dear,' is
logically singular, and takes a singular verb. The placing of a noun
between two epithets is usual with Milton, especially when the epithet
following the noun qualifies the noun as qualified by the preceding
epithet; _e.g._ 'hazel copses green,' v. 42; 'flower-inwoven tresses
torn.'—_Hymn on the Nativity_, 187; 'beckoning shadows dire.'—_Comus_,
207.
14. _melodious tear_: 'tear' is used, by metonymy, for an elegiac poem.
15. _sacred well_: the Pierian spring.
16. _the seat of Jove_: Mount Olympus.
17. _loudly_: _i.e._ as Hunter explains, in lamentation; or, perhaps, in
praises.
18. _Hence with denial vain and coy excuse_: away with, etc., _i.e._ on
_my_ part; _denial_: refusal; _coy_: shrinking, hesitating, reluctant,
by reason of what is expressed in the opening verses.
19-22. _So may . . . sable shroud_: these verses are parenthetical, and
v. 23 must be connected with v. 18, 'Hence with denial vain,' etc. I
have followed Keightley's pointing; _gentle Muse_: high-born (nobly
endowed) poet; _lucky words_: words that will favorably perpetuate my
memory; _bid fair peace_: pray that fair peace be, etc.
23-36. _For we were nursed_: these verses express in pastoral language
the devotion to their joint studies, early and late, of Milton and King,
at Christ's College, Cambridge.
25. _ere the high lawns appeared_: _i.e._ before daybreak.
28. _What time the grey-fly_: _i.e._ the sultry noontide.
30. _Oft till the star . . . had sloped his westering wheel_: _i.e._
they continued their studies till after midnight, while in the meantime
many of their fellow-students were giving themselves to music and
dancing.
33. _Tempered_: attuned, modulated.
36. _old Damœtas_: 'may be,' says Masson, 'some fellow or tutor of
Christ's College, if not Dr. Bainbrigge, the master.'
37. _Now thou art gone_: emotionally repeated; _heavy_: sad.
40. _With wild thyme . . . o'ergrown_: to be connected only with 'desert
caves,' not 'woods.'
44. _to_: responsively to.
45. _canker_: cankerworm.
49. _Such_: used in its etymological sense, so-like; so-like killing is
thy loss; _thy_: of thee; the personal pronoun here, used objectively,
and not the possessive adjective pronoun.
52. _the steep_: some one of the Welsh mountains.
53. _lie_: lie buried.
54. _Mona_: the isle of Anglesey; Mona is represented by Tacitus as the
chief seat of the Druids; _shaggy_: densely wooded; 'shaggy hill.'—_P.
L._, iv. 224.
'They plucked the seated hills, with all their load,
Rocks, waters, woods, and by the shaggy tops
Uplifting, bore them in their hands.'
—_P. L._, vi. 645.
'grots and caverns shagged with horrid shades.'—_Comus_, 429.
55. _Deva_: the river Dee; called a 'wizard stream' from its
associations with Druidical divinations and traditions, or Milton, in
his use of the epithet, may have had more particularly in his mind the
belief in regard to the river as the boundary between England and Wales,
that it was itself prophetic. Drayton, in his 'Polyolbion,' 10th Song,
says of the Dee:
'A brook, that was supposed much business to have seen,
Which had an ancient bound twixt Wales and England been,
And noted was by both to be an ominous flood,
That changing of his fords, the future ill, or good,
Of either country told; of either's war, or peace,
The sickness, or the health, the dearth, or the increase:
And that of all the floods of Britain, he might boast
His stream in former times to have been honoured most,
When as at Chester once King Edgar held his court,
To whom eight lesser kings with homage did resort:
That mighty Mercian lord, him in his barge bestowed,
And was by all those kings about the river rowed.'
Aubrey, in his 'Miscellanies,' 1696, Chap. XVII., says, as quoted by
Todd, 'F. Q.,' IV. xi. 39, 'when any Christian is drowned in the river
Dee, there will appear over the water, where the corpse is, a light, by
which means they do find the body; and it is therefore called the holy
Dee.'
58. _The Muse herself_: Calliope.
59. _enchanting_: refers to the power he exercised, with the lyre given
him by Apollo, over wild beasts, trees, rocks, etc.
64-69. _Alas! what boots it_: in these verses Milton, with his high
ideal of the function of poetry, laments its low state, and momentarily
gives way to the thought that it would be better to conform to the
prevailing flimsy taste than to 'strictly meditate the thankless Muse,'
_i.e._ seriously devote one's self to song such as meets with no favor
in these days. Amaryllis and Neæra are names of shepherdesses in
Virgil's first and third Eclogues, and in other pastorals; 'meditate the
thankless Muse' is after Virgil's 'Silvestrem tenui Musam meditaris
avenâ.'—_Ecl._, i. 2.
75. _Fury_: used in a general, and not in its special, mythological
sense; the allusion is, of course, to Atropos, one of the Fates; called
a blind fury by reason of the rashness with which she sometimes slits
the thin-spun thread of life, as in the case of his friend King; 'slit'
now always means to cut lengthwise; here, to cut across, sever.
76. _But not the praise_: 'slits' is understood, but it doesn't yoke
well with 'praise'; the nearest substitute would be 'cuts off': but cuts
not off the praise.
79. _Nor in_: _i.e._ nor (lies) in, not set off in; 'set off' refers,
not to 'Fame,' but to 'glistering foil,' _i.e._ the bright outside
exhibited to the world.
81. _by_: as Keightley explains, by means of, under the influence of; he
quotes Habakkuk i. 13: 'Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil.'
85. _fountain Arethuse_: in the island Ortygia, near Syracuse; by
metonymy for the 'Sicilian Muse' (v. 133), or the fountain-nymph,
Arethusa, presiding over pastoral poetry, which originated in Sicily,
and was consummated by Theocritus, a native of Syracuse. Virgil, in the
opening of his fourth Eclogue, Pollio, invokes the Sicilian Muses
(Sicelides Musæ, paullo majora canamus), and in his tenth Eclogue,
Gallus, he invokes the fountain nymph, Arethusa, to aid him in his last
pastoral song (Extremum hunc, Arethusa, mihi concede laborem); _and thou
honoured flood, smooth-sliding Mincius_: Mantua, Virgil's birth town, or
what he regarded as such (he was born in the neighboring village of
Andes), is on an island in the river Mincius, a tributary of the Po;
_honoured flood . . . crowned with vocal reeds_: _i.e._ by reason of its
association with Virgil, and his fame as a pastoral poet. Lord Tennyson,
in his ode 'To Virgil, written at the request of the Mantuans for the
nineteenth centenary of Virgil's death,' speaks of him as a pastoral
poet, in the fourth and fifth stanzas:
'Poet of the happy Tityrus
piping underneath his beechen bowers;
Poet of the poet-satyr
whom the laughing shepherd bound with flowers;
Chanter of the Pollio, glorying
in the blissful years again to be,
Summers of the snakeless meadow,
unlaborious earth and oarless sea.'
88. _my oat proceeds_: the suspended pastoral strain is resumed.
89. _Herald of the Sea_: Triton, with 'wreathed horn.'
90. _in Neptune's plea_: Neptune's is an objective genitive: in defence,
or exculpation of Neptune. This explanation of 'plea' is supported by
its use in all other places in Milton's poetry:
'So spake the fiend, and with necessity,
The tyrant's plea, excused his devilish deeds.'
—_P. L._, iv. 394.
'to make appear,
With righteous plea, their utmost vigilance.'—_P. L._, x. 30.
'Yet of another plea bethought him soon.'—_P. R._, iii. 149.
'Weakness is thy excuse, . . .
All wickedness is weakness; that plea therefore
With God or man will gain thee no remission.'
—_S. A._, 834.
Keightley explains that Triton 'came, deputed by Neptune, to hold a
judicial inquiry into the affair. We have the Pleas of the Crown and the
Court of Common Pleas.'
96. _Hippotades_: a patronymic of Æolus, god of the winds.
98. _the level brine_: in v. 167, 'the watery floor.'
99. _Sleek Panope_: one of the sea-nymphs, daughter of Nereus; the name
(in Gk. Πανόπη) seems to indicate that the nymph is a personification
of a smooth sea ('level brine') which affords a _full view_ all around
to the horizon. The voyager on such a sea is 'ringed with the azure
world.' The epithet 'sleek' is in accord with the personification.
100-102. _It was that fatal_: these verses are not part of the answer
which Hippotades brings; the poet speaks in his own person.
101. _Built in the eclipse_: eclipses were believed to shed malign
influences (see 'P. L.,' i. 594-599); one of the ingredients of the
witches' hell-broth, in 'Macbeth,' is 'slips of yew, slivered in the
moon's eclipse'; _rigged with curses dark_: 'with,' of course, though
this has been questioned, expresses accompaniment; to understand it as
instrumental, makes a crazy hyperbole of the phrase.
102. _sacred head_: King was dedicated to the holy office of the
ministry. He is made to represent, in the poem, a pure priesthood.
103-107. _Next Camus_: Dr. Masson's note, and the included quoted one,
are the most acceptable of the numerous notes on this passage: 'Camus,
the tutelary genius of the Cam, and of Cambridge University, appeared as
one of the mourning figures; for had not King been one of the young
hopes of the University? The garb given to Camus must doubtless be
characteristic, and is perhaps most succinctly explained by a Latin note
which appeared in a Greek translation of "Lycidas" by Mr. John Plumptre
in 1797. "The mantle," said Mr. Plumptre in this note, "is as if made of
the plant 'river-sponge,' which floats copiously in the Cam; the
_bonnet_ of the river-sedge, distinguished by vague marks traced somehow
over the middle of the leaves, and serrated at the edge of the leaves
after the fashion of the ἀὶ, ἀὶ of the hyacinth." It is said that the
flags of the Cam still exhibit, when dried, these dusky streaks in the
middle, and apparent scrawlings on the edge; and Milton (in whose MS.
"_scrawled o'er_" was first written for "_inwrought_") is supposed to
have carried away from the "_arundifer Camus_" ('Eleg.,' i. 11) this
exact recollection. He identifies the edge-markings with the ἀὶ, ἀὶ
(Alas! Alas!) which the Greeks fancied they saw on the leaves of the
hyacinth, commemorating the sad fate of the Spartan youth from whose
blood that flower had sprung.'
107. _pledge_: child; Lat. _pignus amoris_.
109. _The Pilot_: St. Peter, whom, it must be understood, Milton
presents as 'the type and head of _true_ episcopal power,' to which he
was in no wise opposed. He wished the bishop to be a truly spiritual
_overseer_, as the word signifies.
114. _Enow_: an archaic plural form of 'enough'; 'hellish foes
enow.'—_P. L._, ii. 504; 'evils enow to darken all his
goodness.'—_Antony and Cleopatra_, I. iv. 11.
117. _to scramble at the shearer's feast_: to scramble for and gobble up
fat benefices.
118. _the worthy bidden guest_: one who has been truly called to serve
the Church.
119. _Blind mouths_: 'mouths' is used, by synecdoche, for gluttons, as
the five preceding verses show. Ruskin's explanation of the phrase, in
his 'Sesame and Lilies,' is very ingenious, but it is not likely that
Milton meant it to have such significance. 'Those two monosyllables,' he
says, 'express the precisely accurate contraries of right character in
the two great offices of the Church,—those of Bishop and Pastor. A
Bishop means a person who sees. A Pastor means one who feeds. The most
unbishoply character a man can have is, therefore, to be Blind. The most
unpastoral is, instead of feeding, to want to be fed,—to be a Mouth.
Take the two reverses together, and you have "blind mouths."'
Milton makes here his first onset upon the ecclesiastical abuses of the
time. He was destined to make, not long after, fiercer onsets in his
polemic prose writings.
120. _the least_: connect with 'aught else' rather than 'belongs.'
122. _What recks it them_: what does it concern them; _They are sped_:
they've been successful in obtaining rich livings.
123. _list_: please; in earlier English generally used impersonally with
a dative; _when they list_: _i.e._ when it suits them, not otherwise.
They don't act from any sense of duty.
123, 124. _their lean and flashy songs grate_: their wretched sermons
are wretchedly delivered with the emphasis of insincerity. Masson
explains 'scrannel,' 'screeching, ear-torturing.'
126. _wind and the rank mist they draw_: _i.e._ the mere wind of some
sermons and the poisonous doctrines of others, which their flocks inhale
and drink in, and then impart the resulting spiritual disease to others.
128, 129. _the grim wolf_: generally understood to mean the Church of
Rome. Bishop Newton, who first understood the passage to have reference
to Archbishop Laud's 'privily introducing popery' afterward gave the
alternative explanation, 'besides what the popish priests privately
pervert to their religion,' which Masson conclusively supports in his
'Life of Milton,' and adopts in his note on the passage in his edition
of the 'Poetical Works'; the 'privy paw' doesn't suit Archbishop Laud,
who did everything above-board.
130, 131. _But that two-handed engine_: see my explanation of these
verses in the Introductory Remarks.
132. _Return, Alpheus_: he invokes the return of the pastoral Muse when
the dread denouncing voice of St. Peter has ceased. Alpheus, the chief
river of Peloponnesus, flowing through Arcadia and Elis. The river-god
loved the nymph Arethusa, of Elis, whom, in her flight from him, Diana
changed into a fountain which was directed by the goddess under the sea
to the island of Ortygia, near Syracuse. The river followed under sea
and united with the fountain. See note on v. 85.
136. _use_: frequent.
138. _whose_: refers to 'valleys'; _the swart star_: understood by
editors to mean the dog-star Sirius. But it may mean, and I think it
does, the day-star, the sun. See v. 168; 'diurnal star.'—_P. L._, x.
1069; _swart_: used causatively; _sparely looks_: _i.e._ by reason of
the shades.
139. _quaint enamelled eyes_: flowers of curious structure and of
variegated glossy colors (?); the words are more enjoyable than
distinctly intelligible; in the 'P. L.,' ix. 529, it is said of the
serpent:
'oft he bowed
His turret crest, and sleek enamelled neck, fawning.'
Here 'enamelled' appears to mean variegated and glossy; so in Arcades:
'O'er the smooth enamelled green.'
141. _purple_: an imperative, to be construed with 'throw.'
142. _rathe_: early, soon; the old positive form of 'rather,' sooner.
Tennyson uses the word in his 'In Memoriam,' c. ix. 2, 'The men of rathe
and riper years'; and in 'Lancelot and Elaine,' 339, 'Till rathe she
rose,' etc.; _that forsaken dies_: forsaken by the sun.
153. _with false surmise_: _i.e._ that we have the body of Lycidas with
us.
158. _monstrous world_: the world of sea-monsters.
159. _moist_: tearful.
160. _the fable of Bellerus old_: _i.e._ the scene of the fable.
161-163. _Where the great Vision_: see Introductory Remarks.
164. _O ye dolphins_: an allusion to the story of Arion.
166. _your sorrow_: used objectively, he who is the object of your
sorrow. 'Our love, our hope, our sorrow, is not dead.'—_Shelley's
Adonais._
167. _watery floor_: what is called the level brine, v. 98; 'the shining
levels of the lake.'—_Tennyson's Morte d'Arthur_, suggested, no doubt,
by the classical _æquora_.
169-171. _repairs his drooping head_: Milton, in these lines, compares
great things with small (_parvis componit magna_); if they are
'considered curiously,' the sun makes his toilet on rising from his
ocean bed!
172. _sunk . . . mounted_: any one reading this verse for the first time
would be likely to get the impression that these words are participles;
this would not be the case if 'sunk' were 'sank,' originally the
distinctive singular form of the preterite, 'sunk' being plural; AS.
_sanc_, _suncon_.
173. _Him that walked the waves_: a beautiful designation of the
Saviour, in accord with the occasion of the poem; and so St. Peter is
designated as 'the Pilot of the Galilean Lake.'
174. _along_: beside.
176. _unexpressive_: inexpressible.
184. _thy large recompense_: 'thy' is the personal, not the possessive
adjective pronoun, being used objectively,—the large recompense thou
hast received, in which is included thy becoming the genius of the
shore; good: kind, propitious; 'sent by some spirit to mortals
good.'—_Il Pens._, 154.
185. _in that perilous flood_: 'in' is more poetic than 'on' or 'o'er'
would be; 'that perilous flood' is spoken of as a domain in which is
included the atmosphere with its winds and storms; so, to wander in the
desert.
186. _uncouth_: used, it is most likely, in its original sense of
'unknown,' Milton so regarding himself, as a poet; there may be involved
the idea (supported by the opening lines of the Elegy) of wanting in
poetic skill and grace.
188. _tender stops_: poetic transference of epithet, 'tender' being
logically applicable to the music; _various quills_: used, by metonymy,
for the varied moods, strains, metres, and other features of the Elegy;
_eager thought_: perhaps meant to signify as much as sharp grief;
_Doric_: equivalent to pastoral, the great Greek bucolic poets having
written in the Doric dialect.
190, 191. _had . . . was_: note the distinctive use of these
auxiliaries, the former being used with a participle of a transitive
verb, and the latter, with that of an intransitive; _all the hills_:
_i.e._ their shadows.
192. _twitched_: Keightley explains, 'pulled, drew tightly about him on
account of the chilliness of the evening.' Jerram explains, 'snatched up
from where it lay beside him.'
_Samson Agonistes_
P. 187. _Aristotle_: Greek philosopher, B.C. 384-322; the reference is
to 'The Poetics,' (Περὶ ποιητικῆς), the greater part of which is
devoted to the theory of tragedy.
P. 187. _a verse of Euripides_: φθείρουσιν ἤθη χρήσθ' ὁμιλίαι
κακαί, 'evil communications corrupt good manners'; found in the
fragments of both Euripides and Menander.
P. 187. _Pareus_: David Pareus, a German Calvinist theologian and
biblical commentator, 1548-1622.
P. 187. _Dionysius the elder_: known as 'the tyrant of Syracuse,' B.C.
431-367; repeatedly contended for the prize of tragedy at Athens.
P. 187. _Seneca_ (_Lucius Annæus_): Roman Stoic philosopher, B.C. 3?-65
A.D.
P. 187. _Gregory Nazianzen_: saint; a Greek father of the Church, Bishop
of Constantinople, about 328-389.
P. 188. _Martial_: M. Valerius Martialis, Latin epigrammatic poet,
43-104 A.D. or later.
P. 188. _apolelymenon_: 'a Greek word, ἀπολελυμένον, "loosed from,"
_i.e._ from the fetters of strophe, antistrophe, or epode; monostrophic
(μονόστροφος) meaning literally "single stanzaed," _i.e._ a strophe
without answering antistrophe. So allœostrophic (ἀλλοιόστροφος)
signifies stanzas of irregular strophes, strophes not consisting of
alternate strophe and antistrophe.'—_John Churton Collins._
P. 188. _beyond the fifth act_: 'Neve minor, neu sit quinto productior
actu Fabula.'—_Horace_, _Ars Poetica_, 189.
P. 191. _Agonistes_: one who contends as an athlete. 'The term is
peculiarly appropriate to Samson, for he is the hero of the drama . . .
and the catastrophe results from the exhibition of his strength in the
public games of the Philistines.'—_J. Churton Collins._
2. _dark_: blind.