The Cambridge Series for Schools mid Training Colleges COMUS AND LYCIDAS. aionDon •- C. J. CLAY and SONS, CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS WAREHOUSE, AVE MARIA LANE. (Elasgoto: 263, ARGYLE STREET. EtipjtQ: F. A. BROCKHAUS. iplefaj^orfc: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY Jjomfaag: E. SEYMOUR HALE. COMUS AND LYCIDAS EDITED WITH INTRODUCTION, NOTES, GLOSSARY AND APPENDIX BY A. W. VERITY, M.A. SOMETIME SCHOLAR OF TRINITY COLLEGE ; EDITOR OF 'THE PITT PRESS SHAKESPEARE FOR SCHOOLS.' CAMBRIDGE : AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS. 1898 {All Rights reserved.] ©ambriijge: PRINTED BY J. & C. F. CLAY, AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS. PR 3567 NOTE. "^ I ^HIS volume is partly a recast of the earlier •^ editions of these poems in the " Pitt Press Series," and I desire to repeat my acknowledg- ment of indebtedness to other Editors. I have also the pleasure to thank the General Editor of the series for many valuable suggestions. The Indexes were compiled for me. A. W. V. 041 CONTENTS. PAGE Introduction vii— Iv COMUS I 38 Lycidas 39—46 Notes 47—158 Textual Variations in Lycidas . . 159 — 161 Glossary 162 — 174 Appendix ....... 175 — 187 Critical Opinions on Comus and Lycidas . 188—200 Index 2or — 208 INTRODUCTION. LIFE OF MILTON. Milton's life falls into three clearly defined divisions. The first period ends with the poet's return ^^^ ^^^^^ from Italy in 1639; the second at the periods in Restoration in 1660, when release from the ^ ^^"^ ^-^^* fetters of politics enabled him to remind the world that he was a great poet, if not a great controversialist ; the third is brought to a close with his death in 1674. The poems given in the present volume date from the first of these periods ; but we propose to summarise briefly the main events of all three. John Milton was born on December 9, 1608, in London. He came, in his own words, ex ^ ' Born 1608; genej'e honesto. A family of Miltons had the poet's been settled in Oxfordshire since the reign -^^^ ^^' of Elizabeth. The poet's father had been educated at an Oxford school, possibly as a chorister in one of the College choir-schools, and imbibing Anglican sympathies had conformed to the Established Church. For this he was disinherited by his father. He settled in London, following the profession of scrivener. A scrivener com- bined the occupations of lawyer and law- stationer. It appears to have been a lucrative calling ; certainly John Milton (the poet was named after the father) attained to easy circumstances. He married about 1600. viii INTRODUCTION. and had six children, of whom several died young. The third child was the poet. The elder Milton was evidently a man of considerable culture, in particular an accomplished musician, and a composer^ whose madrigals were deemed worthy of being printed side by side with those of Byrd, Orlando Gibbons and other leading musicians of the time. To him, no doubt, the poet owed the love of music of which we see frequent indications in the poems ^. Realising, too, that in his son lay the promise and possibility of future greatness, John Milton took the utmost pains to have the boy adequately educated ; and the lines Ad Patrein show that the ties of affection between father and child were of more than ordinary closeness. Milton was sent to St Paul's School as a day-scholar Early about the year 1620. He also had a tutor, Training, Thomas Young, a Scotchman, who sub- sequently became Master of Jesus College, Cambridge. More important still, Milton grew up in the stimulating atmosphere of cultured home-life. This was a signal advantage. There are few who realise that the word 'culture' signifies anything very definite or desirable before they pass to the University ; for Milton, however, home- life meant, from the first, not only broad interests and refinement, but active encouragement towards literature and study. In 1625 he left St Paul's. He was not a precocious genius, a 'boy poet,' like Chatterton • or Shelley. Of his extant English poems ^ only one. On the Death of a Fair Infant^ was written in his school- days. But his early training had done that which was ^ See tlic article on him in Grove's Dictionary of Music . 2 Milton was es})ecially fond of the organ; see note on // Penseroso, 161. During his residence at Horton Milton made occasional journeys to London to hear, and obtain instruction in, music. 8 His paraphrases of Psalms cxiv, cxxxvi, scarcely come under this heading. LIFE OF MILTON. IX all-important : it had laid the foundation of the far- ranging knowledge which makes Paradise Lost unique for diversity of suggestion and interest. Milton entered at Christ's College, Cambridge, com- mencing residence in the Easter term of At 1625. Seven years were spent at the Cambridge. University. He took his B.A. degree in 1629, proceeded M.A. in 1632, and in the latter year left Cambridge. His experience of University life had not been wholly fortu- nate. He was, and felt himself to be, out of sympathy with his surroundings ; and whenever in after-years he spoke of Cambridge ^ it was with something of the resentfulness of Gibbon, who complained that the fourteen months which he spent at Oxford were the least profitable part of his life. Milton, in fact, an- ticipates the laments that we find in the correspondence of Gray, addressed sometimes to Richard West and re-echoed from the banks of the I sis. It may, however, 1 That Milton's feeling towards the authorities of his own college was not entirely unfiiendly would appear from the fol- lowing sentences written in 1642. He takes, he says, the opportunity to " acknowledge publicly, with all grateful mind, that more than ordinary respect which I found, above many of my equals, at the hands of those courteous and learned men, the Fellows of that college wherein I spent some years; who, at my parting after I had taken two degrees, as the manner is, signified many ways how much better it would content them that I would stay; as by many letters full of kindness and loving respect, both before that time and long after, I was assured of their singular good affection towards me." — Apology for Smedymmius, P. W. III. 311. Perhaps Cambridge would have been more congenial to Milton had he been sent to Emmanuel College, long a stronghold of Puritanism. Dr John Preston, then Master of the College, was a noted leader of the Puritan party; see his Life by Thomas Ball, printed in 1885 by Mr E. W. Harcourt from the MS. at Newnham Court. (The abbreviation P. W. - Milton's Prose Works, Bohn's ed.) V. c. b X INTRODUCTION. be fairly assumed that, whether consciously or not, Milton owed a good deal to his University ; and it must not be forgotten that the uncomplimentary and oft-quoted allusions to Cambridge date for the most part from the unhappy period when Milton the politician and polemical dogmatist had effectually divorced himself at once from Milton the scholar and Milton the poet. A poet he had proved himself before leaving the University. The short but exquisite ode Ala Solemn Music, and the Nativity Hyvin (1629), were already written. Milton's father had settled^ at Horton in Buckingham- shire. Thither the son retired in 1632. He yearsU^^2— ^^^ S^ne to Cambridge with the intention of 1637) spent at qualifying for some profession, perhaps the Church 2. This purpose was soon given up, and when Milton returned to his father's house he seems to have made up his mind that there was no profession which he cared to enter. He would choose the better part of studying and preparing himself, by rigorous self- discipline and application, for the far-off divine event to which his whole life moved. It was Milton's constant resolve to achieve something ^ As tenant of the Earl of Bridgewater, according to one account; but probably the tradition arose from Milton's subse- quent connection with the Bridgewater family. 2 Cf. Milton's own words, " The Church, to whose service by the intention of my parents and friends I was destined of a child, and in my own resolutions." What kept him from taking orders was not, at first, any difTerence of belief, but solely his objection to Church discipline and government. " Coming to some maturity of years, and perceiving what tyranny had invaded in the church, that he who would take orders must subscribe slave (I) thought it better to prefer a blameless silence before the sacred office of speaking, bought and begun with servitude and forswearing." — Reason of Church Government, P. //'. ii. 482. Milton disliked in particular the episcopal system, and spoke of himself as " Church-outed by the prelates." LIFE OF MILTON. xi that should vindicate the ways of God to men, something great^ that should justify his own possession The key to of unique powers — powers of which, with no Milton's life. trace of egotism, he proclaims himself proudly conscious. The feeling finds repeated expression in his prose ; it is the guiding-star that shines clear and steadfast even through the mists of politics. He has a mission to fulfil, a purpose to accomplish, no less than the most earnest of religious enthusiasts ; and the means whereby this end is to be attained are fourfold : devotion to learn- ing, devotion to religion, ascetic purity of life, and the pursuit of o-TrovSator//? or " excellent seriousness " of thought. This period of self-centred isolation lasted from 1632 to 1637. Gibbon tells us among the many wise things contained in that most wise book the Autobiography^ that every man has two educations : that which he receives from his teachers and that which he owes to himself; the latter being often the more important. During these five years Milton completed his second education ; ranging the whole world of classical antiquity and absorbing the classical genius so thoroughly that the ancients were to him what they afterwards became to Landor, what they have perhaps never become to any other English poet in the same degree, even as the very breath of his being ; learning, too, all of art, especially music, that contemporary England could furnish ; wresting from modern languages and literatures their last secrets ; and combining these vast and diverse influences into a splendid equipment of hard-won, well-ordered culture. ^ Cf. the second sonnet; "How soon hath Time." Ten years later (1641) Milton speaks of the "inward prompting which grows daily upon me, that by labour and intent study, which I take to be my portion in this life, joined with the strong propensity of nature, I might perhaps leave something so written to after times, as they should not willingly let it die" — Reason of Church Government, P. W. ii. 477, 478. b2 Xll INTRODUCTION. The world has known many greater scholars in the technical, limited sense than Milton, but few men, if any, who have mastered more things worth mastering in art, letters and scholarship^. It says much for the poet that he was sustained through this period of study, pursued ohiie Hast^ ohne Rast^ by the full consciousness that all would be crowned by a masterpiece which should add one more testimony to the belief in that God who ordains the fates of men. It says also a very great deal for the father who suffered his son to follow in this manner the path of learning^. True, Milton gave more than one earnest of his future Milton's fame. The dates of the early pieces — lyric verse ; L'Alleo^ro, II Pcmcvoso, Avcades, Com lis its relntiott . to contem- and Lycidas — are not all certain; but pro- porary ije. bably each was composed at Horton before 1638. We must speak of them elsewhere. Here we may note that four of them have great autobiographic value as an indirect commentary, written from Milton's coign of seclusion, upon the moral crisis through which English life and thought were passing, the clash between the care- less, pleasure-seeking Cavalier world and the deepening austerity of Puritanism. In V Alki^ro the poet holds the balance almost equal between the two opposing tendencies. In II Pcnsooso it becomes clear to which side his sym- pathies are leaning. Conms is a covert prophecy of the downfall of the Court-party, while lycidas openly "fore- tells the mine" of the Established Church. The latter poem is the final utterance of Milton's lyric genius. ' Milton's poems with iheir undercurrent of perpetual allusion are the best proof of the width of his reading; but interesting supplementary evidence is afforded hy tlie commonplace hook discovered in 1874, and printed by the Camden Society^ 1876. It contains extracts from about 80 different authors whose works Milton had studied. - Cf. the poem Ad J'atni/i, 68-72, in wliidi Milton lliaiiks his father for not having forced him to be a merchant or lawyer. LIFE OF MILTON. XIU Here he reaches, in Mr Mark Pattison's words, the high- water mark of English verse ; and then — the pity of it — he resigns his place among poets, gives himself up to politics, and for nearly twenty years suffers his lyre to hang mute and rusty in the temple of the Muses. The composition of Lycidas may be assigned to the year 1637. In the spring of the next year Travels in Milton started for Italy. He had long made Italy; dose , . -^ r T 1- 1 • of tJie first hmiself a master 01 Italian, and it was period in his natural that he should seek inspiration in ^'^^• the land where many English poets, from Chaucer to Shelley, have found it. Milton remained abroad some fifteen months. Originally he had intended to include Sicily and Greece in his travels, but news of the troubles in England hastened his return. He was brought face to face with the question whether or not he ^ ^ Cause of should bear his part in the coming struggle ; his return to whether without self-reproach he could lead "^'^" any longer this life of learning and indifference to the public weal. He decided as we might have expected that he would decide, though some good critics see cause to regret the decision. Milton puts his position very clearly. " 1 considered it," he says, " dishonourable to be enjoying myself at my ease in foreign lands, while my countrymen were striking a blow for freedom." And again : " Perceiving that the true way to liberty followed on from these beginnings, inasmuch also as I had so prepared myself from my youth that, above all things, 1 could not be ignorant what is of Divine and what of human right, I resolved, though I was then meditating certain other matters, to transfer into this struggle all my genius and all the strength of my industry." The summer of 1639 (July) found Milton back in England. Immediately after his return he The second wrote the Epitaphiiini Datiionis^ the beautiful period, 1639— elegy in which he lamented the death of his abandofis poe- school friend, Diodati. Lycidas was the last ^^y- xiv INTRODUCTION. of the English lyrics : the Epitaphimn^ which should be studied in close connection with Lycidas, the last of the long Latin poems. Thenceforth, for a long spell, the rest was silence, so far as concerned poetry. The period which for all men represents the strength and maturity of manhood, which in the cases of other poets produces the best and most characteristic work, is with Milton a blank. In twenty years he composed no more than a bare handful of Sonnets, and even some of these are infected by the taint of political animus. Other interests filled his thoughts — the question of Church-reform, edu- cation, marriage, and, above all, politics. Milton's first treatise upon the government of the Pamphlets Established Church {Of Reformatio?i toiich- "'^ ^J^i.^^"*''f'' mg Church-Discipline in Engla7id) appeared Hon. in 1641. Others followed in quick succession. The abolition of Episcopacy was the watchword of the enemies of the Anglican Church— the great rallying- cry of Puritanism, and no one enforced the point with greater eloquence than Milton. During 1641 and 1642 he wrote five pamphlets on the subject. Meanwhile he was studying the principles of education. On his return from Italy he had undertaken the training of his nephews ^ This led to consideration of the best edu- cational methods ; and in the Tractate on Education, 1644, Milton assumed the part of educational theorist. In the previous year, May, 1643, he married^. arriage. ^^^ marriage proved, at the time, unfor- tunate. Its immediate outcome was the pamphlets on 1 Edward and John Phillips, sons of Milton's only sister. Both subsequently joined the Royalist party. To Edward Phillips we owe a memoir of the poet. 2 His wife (who was only seventeen) was Mary Powell, eldest daughter of Richard Powell, of Forest Hill, a village some little distance from Oxford. She went to stay with her father in July 1643, and refused to return to Milton; why, it is not certain. She was reconciled to her husband in 1645, bore him four children, and died in 1652, in her twenty-seventh year. LIFE OF MILTON. XV Divorce. Clearly he had little leisure for literature proper. The finest of Milton's prose works, the Areopagitica^ a plea for the free expression of opinion, was political published in 1644. In 1645 ^ he edited the Pamphlets. r- 11- /-!• T /■ 1- Appointment first collection of his poems. In 1649 his to Latin Se- advocacy of the anti-royalist cause was cretaryship. recognised by the offer of a post under the newly ap- pointed Council of State. His bold vindication of the trial of Charles I., The Temtre of Kings., had appeared earlier in the same year. Milton accepted the offer, No doubt, the scene in Paradise Lost x. 909 — 946, in which Eve begs forgiveness of Adam, reproduced the poet's personal experience, while many passages in Samson Agonistes must have been inspired by the same cause. ^ i.e. old style. The volume was entered on the registers of the Stationers' Company under the date of October 6th, 1645. It was published on Jan. 2, 1646, with the following title- page: '■'• Poems of Mr. fohn Milton., both English and Latin, composed at several times. Printed by his true Copies. The Songs were set in Mttsick by Mr. Henry Laxves, gentleman of the King's ChappeU and one of His Majesties private Musick. ' B ace are front em Cingite, ne vati noceat mala lingua futuro.^ ViRG. Eel. 7. Printed and pnblisli'd according to Order. Lotidon, Printed by Ruth Paworth, for Humphrey Moseley, atid are to be sold at the signe of the Princes Arms in Pauls Churchyard. 1645." From the prefatory Address to the Reader it is clear that the collection was due to the initiative of the publisher. Milton's own feeling is expressed by the motto, where the words " vati futnro''^ show that, as he judged, his great achievement was yet to come. The volume was divided into two parts, the first containing the English, the second the Latin poems. Comus was printed at the close of the former, with a separate title-page to mark its importance. XVI INTRODUCTION. becoming Latin ^ Secretary to the Committee of Foreign Affairs. There was nothing distasteful about his duties. He drew up the despatches to foreign governments, translated state-papers, and served as interpreter to foreign envoys. Had his duties stopped here his ac- ceptance of the post would, I think, have proved an unquaHfied gain. It brought him into contact with the The advnn- ^"^^^^ "^^" ^" ^^ State-, gavc him a practical tageo/tiie insight into the working of national affairs ■ and the motives of human action ; in a word, furnished him with that experience of life which is essential to all poets who aspire to be something more than ''the idle itsdisad- singcrs of an empty day." But unfortunately vantage. ^\^q secretaryship entailed the necessity of defending at every turn the past course of the revolution and the present policy of the Council. Milton, in fact, held a perpetual brief as advocate for his party. Hence the endless and unedifying controversies into which he drifted; controversies which wasted the most precious years of his life, warped, as some critics think, his nature, and eventually cost him his eyesight. Between 1649 ^'^<^ 1660 Milton produced no less than Milton s eleven pamphlets. Several of these arose out of ivritingson the publication of the famous Eikon Basilike. behal/p/the ^, , , • , • ^ Common- The book was prmted in 1649 and created so 7veati. great an impression in the king's favour that Milton was asked to reply to it. This he did with * A Latin Secretary was required because the Council scorned, as Edward TMiillips says, " to carry on their affairs in the wheedling, lisping jargon of the cringing French." Milton's salary was ;^288, in modern money about jCgoo. - There is no proof that Milton ever had personal intercourse with Cromwell, and Mr Mark I'attison implies that he was altogether neglected by the foremost men of the time. Vet it seems unlikely that the Secretary of the Committee should not have been on friendly terms with some of its members, Vane, for example, and Whiteiocke. LIFE OF MILTON. XVll EikonoklasteSy introducing the wholly unworthy sneer at Sidney's Arcadia and the awkwardly expressed reference to Shakespeare ^ Controversy of this barren type has the inherent disadvantage that once started it may never end. The Royalists commissioned the Leyden professor, Salmasius, to prepare a counterblast, the Defensio Regia^ and this in turn was met by Milton's Pro Populo Anglicano Defejisio^ ^651, over the pre- His blind- paration of which he lost what little power ''''^^ of eyesight remained-. Salmasius retorted, and died before his second collection of scurrilities was issued : Milton was bound to answer, and the Defensio Seciinda ^ See UAL 133 — 134, note. It would have been more to the point to remind his readers that the imprisoned king must have spent a good many hours over La Calpi-enede's Cassandre. ^ Perhaps this was the saddest part of the episode. Milton tells us in the Defensio Secunda that his eyesight was injured by excessive study in boyhood : " from the twelfth year of my age I scarce ever left my lessons and went to bed before midnight. This was the first cause of my blindness." Continual reading and writing must have increased the infirmity, and by 1650 the sight of the left eye had gone. He was warned that he must not use the other for book-work. Unfortunately this was just the time when the Commonwealth stood most in need of his services. If Milton had not written the first Defence he might have retained his partial vision. The choice lay between private good and public duty. He repeated in 1650 the sacrifice of 1639. "In such a case I could. not listen to the physician, not if yEsculapius himself had spoken from his sanctuary ; I could not but obey that inward monitor, I know not what, that spoke to me from heaven I concluded to employ the little remaining eyesight I was to enjoy in doing this, the greatest service to the common weal it was in my power to render" (Second Defence). By the Spring of 1652 Milton was quite blind. He was then in his forty-fourth year. The allusion in Paradise Lost., in. 21 — 26, leaves it doubtful from what disease he suffered, whether cataract or amaurosis. Throughout Samson Agonistes there are frequent references to his affliction. XVlll INTRODUCTION. appeared in 1654. Neither of the combatants gained anything by the dispute ; while the subsequent develop- ment of the controversy in which Milton crushed the Amsterdam pastor and professor, Morus, goes far to prove the contention of Mr Mark Pattison, that it was an evil day when the poet left his study at Horton to do battle for the Commonwealth amid the vulgar brawls of the market-place : " Not here, O Apollo, Were haunts meet for thee." Fortunately this poetic interregnum in Milton's life ,^, „ was not destined to last much longer. The rhe Res to- ° ration re- Restoration came, a blessing in disguise, from poiiiLs. ^^^ '^^ 1660 the ruin of Milton's political Return to party and of his personal hopes, the absolute overthrow of the cause for which he had fought for twenty years, left him free. The author of Lycidas could once more become a poet^ Much has been written upon this second period. Should ^^2)9 — 1660, and a word may be said here. Milton have We saw what parting of the ways Confronted kept apart '^ '^ -^ t-.-ii from political Miltou ou his return from Italy. Did he ■^^ ' choose aright.'* Should he have continued upon the path of learned leisure ? There are writers who One reply to argue that Milton made a mistake. A poet, this question, they say, should keep clear of political strife : fierce controversy can benefit no man : who touches pitch must expect to be, certainly will be, defiled : Milton sacrificed twenty of the best years of his life, doing work which an underling could have done and which was not ^ We have not attempted to trace the growth of Milton's political and relii^ious opinions: "Through all these stages," Mr Mark Pattison writes, " Milton passed in the space of twenty years — Church-Puritan, Presbyterian, Royalist, Independent, Conimonwealtli's man, Oliverian." To illustrate tliis statement would need many pages. LIFE OF MILTON. XiX worth doing : another Covins might have been written, a loftier Lyddai: that hterature should be the poorer by the absence of these possible masterpieces, that the second greatest genius which England has produced should in a way be the " inheritor of unfulfilled renown," is and must be a thing entirely and terribly deplorable. This is the view of the purely literary critic. Mr Mark Pattison writes very much to this effect. There remains the other side of the question. It may fairly be contended that had Milton elected The opposite in 1639 to live the scholar's life apart from '"''^^'^• " the action of men," Paradise Lost, as we have it, could never have been written^ Knowledge of life and human nature, insight into the problems of men's motives and emotions, grasp of the broader issues of the human tragedy, all these were essential to the author of an epic poem ; they could only be obtained through commerce with the world ; they would have remained beyond the reach of a recluse. Dryden complained that Milton saw nature through the spectacles of books: we might have had to complain that he saw men through the same medium. Fortunately it is not so: and it is not so because at the age of twenty-two he threw in his fortunes with those of his country; Hke the diver in Schiller's ballad he took the plunge which was to cost him so dear. The mere man of letters will never move the world. /Eschylus fought at Marathon : Shakespeare was practical to the tips of his fingers; a better business man than Goethe there was not within a radius of a hundred miles of Weimar. This aspect of the question is emphasised by Milton himself. The man, he says, " who would not Milton's be frustrate of his hope to write well here- oivn opinion. after in laudable things, ought himself to be a true poem, that ifj, a composition and pattern of the best and honour- ^ This is equally true of Saw son Agoitistes, xxii INTRODUCTION. MSS. at Trinity College ^ shew that exactly ninety-nine possible themes occupied his thoughts from time to time; but even as early as 1641 the story of the lost Paradise began to assume prominence. Still, even when the subject was definitely chosen, the question of its treatment- dramatic or epic — remained. Milton contemplated the former. He even commenced work upon a drama of which Satan's address to the sun in the fourth book of Paradise Losf^ formed the exordium. These lines were written about 1642. Milton recited them to his nephew Phillips at the time of their composition. Possibly, had Milton not been distracted and diverted from poetry by political and other interests, he might from 1642 onwards have continued this drama, and thus produced a drama- tic masterpiece akin to Samson Agonistes. As things fell out, the scheme was dropped, and never taken up again. When he finally addressed himself to the composition of Paradise Lost he had decided in favour of the epic or narrative form. Following Aubrey (from Aubrey and Phillips most of Paradise o^r information concerning Milton is derived) Lost begun, ^yg j^^y assumc that Milton began to write Paradise Lost about 1658. He worked continuously at the epic for some five years. It was finished in 1663, the year of his third^ marriage. Two more years, however, ^ They include the original drafts of Arcades, Comus, Lyddas, and some of the minor poems, together with Milton's notes on the design of the long poem he meditated composing, and other less important papers. The MSS. were presented to Trinity by a former mcml:)er of the college, Sir Henry Newton Tuckering, who died in 1700. It is not known how they originally came into his possession. - Bk. IV. II. 32 et seq. '^ Milton's second marriage took place in the autumn of i6s,6, i.e. after he had become blind. His wife died in February, 1658. Cf. the Sonnet, " Mcthought I saw my latfe espoused LIFE OF MILTON. xxiii were spent in the necessary revision, and in 1665 Milton placed the completed poem in the hands of his friend Thomas Ell wood 1. In 1667 Paradise Lost The poem was issued from the press^. Milton received published. £^. Before his death he was paid a second instalment, £^. Six editions of the poem had been published by the close of the century. When EUwood returned the MS. of Paradise Lost to Milton he remarked: "Thou hast said much here of Paradise Lost., but what hast thou to say of Paradise found.?" Possibly we owe /*<2r<3:^/.y^ Ke^Tmed: Regained \.o these chance words: or the poem, Samson ^ . ' r ' Agontstes. forming as it does a natural pendant to its predecessor, may have been included in Milton's original design. In any case he must have commenced the second epic about the year 1665. Samson Agonistes appears to have been written a little later. The two poems were published together in 167 1. In giving this bare summary of facts it has not been saint," the pathos of which is heightened by the fact that he had never seen her. ^ Cf. the account given in Ellwood's Antobiogrdphy : "after some common discourses had passed between us, he called for a manuscript of his ; which, being brought, he delivered to me, bidding me take it home with me and read it at my leisure, and, when I had so done, return it to him with my judgment there- upon. When I came home, and had set myself to read it, I found it was that excellent poem which he intituled Paradise Lost:' - The delay was due to external circumstances. Milton had been forced by the Plague to leave London, settling for a time at Chalfont St Giles in Buckinghamshire, where EUwood had taken a cottage for him. On his return to London, after "the sickness was over, and the city well cleansed," the Great Fire threw everything into disorder; and there was some little difficulty over the licensing of the poem. For these reasons the publication oi Paradise Lost was delayed till the autumn of 1667 (Masson). XXIV INTRODUCTION. our purpose to offer any criticism upon the poems. It would take too much space to show why Samson Agonistes is in subject-matter the poet's threnody over the fallen form of Puritanism, and in style the most perfectly classical poem in English literature ; or again, why some great writers (among them Coleridge and Words- worth) have pronounced Paradise Regained to be in point of artistic execution the most consummate of Milton's works — a judgment which would have pleased the author himself since, according to Phillips, he could never endure to hear Paradise Regained "censured to be much inferior to Paradise Lost." The latter speaks for itself in the rolling splendour of those harmonies which Tennyson has celebrated and alone in his time equalled. In 1673 Milton brought out a reprint of the 1645 Close of edition of his Poems, adding most of the Milton's life, sonncts^ written in the interval. The last four years of his life were devoted to prose works of no ^ The number of Milton's sonnets is twenty-three (if we exclude the piece on "The New Forcers of Conscience"), five of which were written in Italian, probably during the time of his travels in Italy, 1638 — 9. Ten sonnets were printed in the edition of 1645, ^^^^ ^^^t of ihcm being that entitled (from the Cambridge MS.) "To the Lady Margaret Ley." The remaining thirteen were composed between 1645 and 165S. The conclud- ing sonnet, therefore (to the memory of Milton's second wife), immediately preceded his commencement of Paradise Lost. Four of these poems (xv. xvi. xvii. xxii.) could not, on account of their political tone, be included in the edilion of 1673. They were first published by Edward Phillips at the end of his n»enioir of Milton, 1694. The sonnet on the "Massacre in Piedmont" is usually considered the finest of the collection, of which the late Rector of Lincoln College edited a well-known edition, jritten, and Derby, in whose honour AraiJes was written. In July 1 63 1 the Earl of Bridgewater was made Lord-Lieutenant of the counties on the Welsh border and of North and South Wales — a viceregal post similar to the Lord-Lieutenancy of Ireland. For some reason the Earl's formal entry on his duties was delayed till the autumn of 1634. To celebrate the event great festivities were held at his official residence, Ludlow Castle. The first performance of Comiis was part of these festivities. It took place on Michaelmas night, 1634. Doubtless Lawes, as music-master to the Earl's family, and as a practised writer of Masque-music, had been asked to undertake the provision of an entertainment suitable to the occasion, and had applied to Milton for help. With the Puritan Milton of later years, who in Paradise Lost, iv. 764, decried " mixed dance or wanton masque," the petition would have fared ill. But at this time there could be nothing distasteful in it. Milton showed himself in V Allegro friendly to the stage, admitting "masque and antique pageantry" among the legitimate delights that Mirth might offer. Further, there was the desire to do a service to his friend Lawes. Milton accepted the commission, and Coinus was the outcome. Probably he wrote the piece early in 1634. Date 0/ j^ -^^^ j^Q Ijj, ready by the autumn; and time would be required for the setting of the music, and for all the preparations incidental to the representation of an unusually long Masque. The spring COMUS. xxvii therefore of 1634 may be received with some confidence as the date of the composition of Comus. Whether the play was successful at its representation we do not know. Many of Lawes's friends evidently appreciated it. Some were present in the Hall at Ludlow Castle on that September evening; others, perhaps, heard the songs afterwards sung by Lawes himself or his pupils. They realised that there was in England a poet of rare promise and exquisite performance. Copies of Comus were asked for ; it became "much desired 1." At last, to save himself the trouble of making these transcripts, Lawes published an edition of Conms^ probably from the MS. which had been used as the acting-version. This, the first edition of Comris. was issued in ™, ^ , ' The first 1637. The title-page describes the poem as edition 0/ "A Maske presented at Ludlow Castle, 1634, on Michaelmasse Night, before the Right Honourable John, Earle of Bridge water. Viscount Brackley, Lord President of Wales, and one of his Majcstie's most honourable Privy Counsell. '■ Eheu quid vohii viisero mihi! fiorihiis Atistrum Perditus—''' It will be observed that Milton's name is omitted. The motto, however (from Vergil, Eclogt^e, 11. 58, 59), shows that his consent to the publication had been obtained: "Alas! what have I been about in my folly! On my flowers I have let in the sirocco (i.e. the hot south-east wind), infatuate as I am." The last words imply that Milton had some doubt as to the expediency of printing the volume. Had Lawes issued the imprint against the wishes of Milton, the motto chosen would have been pointless. It reminds us of the reluctance to break his silence " before the mellowing year " which he expressed at the beginning of Lycidas in that same year, ^ See p. 3. e 2 xxviii INTRODUCTION. 1637. That at least one competent and discerning critic was ready to welcome the new voice in English verse we may judge from Sir Henry Wotton's complimentary letter to Milton ^ Editions of Milton's minor poems appeared in 1645 ^ , and 1673. Coj?ius, of course, was printed in Later ' ^ ' . editions of each. In neither, however, did he describe omus. ^^^ poem by the name it has long borne. The title in the 1645 edition reads thus: "A Mask of the Same Author, Presented at Ludlow Castle, 1634, before the Earl of Bridgewater, then President of Wales : Anno Dom. 1645." The title of the later edition is almost identical. A more definite designation being desirable, the Masque was named Comus after its chief character. The basis of the text of Conms is supplied by the three above-mentioned editions — that of Lawes, 1637, and those of Milton, 1645 ^"^ 1673. Milton's original draft of the poem is among the MSS.^ at Cambridge; and the Bridgewater manuscript, supposed to be the stage-copy from which the actors learned their parts, and believed to be in Lawes's hand- writing, also survives. All the differences between these five authorities — on the whole, not inconsiderable differ- ences — we have not attempted to record. A careful comparison of them was given by Todd, and it is instructive to note the unerring instinct with which Milton, like Tennyson, always corrected his work for the better. Perhaps the last of the editions published during Milton's life has the most weight. It gives us Comus, not as the Masque originally left Milton's hands — for that we must turn to the Cambridge MS. — but in the finally revised form which he wished it to assume. There is a single passage where one is fain to believe that the Cambridge manuscript is right, and the printed copies ^ See p. 4. ^ i.e. the iMilton IMSS. at Trinity College; see p. xxii. COMUS. XX ix wrong. This is line 553. Milton's blindness necessarily introduces a slight uncertainty as to the text of his poems published in the latter part of his hfe. Such, in brief, is the external history of Coinus. Something must be said about the poem itself — the sources from which Milton drew, the undercurrent of idea that runs throughout, the dramatic value of the Masque, its ethical and literary qualities. In lines 43—45 the Attendant Spirit says : ' ' I will tell you now What never yet was heard in tale or song, The sources^ From old or modern bard, in hall or bower." This claim to absolute originality must not be pressed. Milton was indebted in Comus, in some measure, to previous writers. We shall best be able to estimate the debt if we split up the Masque into its chief component parts. There is (i) the main story : that of the sister lost in a wood, entrapped by a magician, and rescued by her brothers ; with the attendant dd>ur'' incidents. This Milton owed, it is almost Georgej>eeie certain, to the Old Wives' Tale (1595) of George Peele, the Elizabethan poet (1558 — 1598). Warton summarised thus the points of contact between Comiis and the Old Wives' Tale : " This curious piece (i.e. Peele's play) exhibits, among other parallel incidents, two Brothers wandering in quest of their Sister, whom an Enchanter had imprisoned. This magician had learned his art from his mother Meroe, as Comus had been instructed by his mother Circe. The Brothers call out the Lady's name, and Echo replies 1. The Enchanter had given her a potion which suspends the power of reason, and superinduces oblivion of herself. The Brothers afterwards meet with an Old Man, who is also skilled in magic ; and by listening to his soothsayings, ^ In Comus it is the Lady who invokes the Echo. XXX INTRODUCTION. they recover their lost Sister. But not till the Enchanter's wreath has been torn from his head, his sword wrested from his hand, a glass broken, and a light extinguished." Warton's abstract of the Old Wives' Tale somewhat accentuates the resemblance. It does not strike us quite so forcibly when we read Peele's work. Sliil the similarity is there, and Milton's indebtedness to Peele is universally admitted. The popular tradition, still extant, as to the genesis of Comus must also be mentioned. This was to tionai account the cftect that the young Lady Alice Egerton "■^..{{'■^r-'"'^^"';, and her two brothers, Viscount Brackley and oj tonus. ' •' Mr Thomas Egerton, were actually overtaken by nightfall in Haywood Forest, near Ludlow : they were returning to the castle from a visit to their relatives, the Egertons, in Herefordshire, and the sister was separated from her brothers. If this ever took place and news of it reached ?vl ikon's ears, then he simply dramatised the episode ; though part of his debt to Peele, viz. the intro- duction of the magician, would still remain. But it seems more probable that the legend, which cannot be traced further back than the last century, grew out of the Masque. (2) The chief character of the piece, Comus, introduces another element in the story. He is in all rac'terof csscntials the creation of Milton. In classical Comus, the Qi-^ek KMuos signifies 'revel' or 'revelling- ■ntagicuin. r o o band.' The word km/jlos was specially used of the band of revellers^ at the vintage festivals held in honour of Dionysus the god of wine ( = the Roman god Bacchus). Thence naturally arose the personification Comus, i.e. revelling or sensual pleasure regarded as a ^ The Cambridge MS of Comus lias the stage-direction "intrant /cwyaa^oj/res " ('they enter in revelling fashion') at line 93. And in the list of possible subjects of Milton's great poem is the entry " Comazontes, or The Benjaminites, or The Rioters," with references iojud^^es xix, xx, xxi. COMUS. xxxi kind of deity; but this is a post-classical conception, known only to later mythology. Apparently this deity Comus is first mentioned by the Greek writer Philostratus the elder, who lived in the third century A.D. and wrote a book on paintings, under the title " Likenesses, Por- traits" {Imagines). Philostratus describes a fresco in which Comus is represented as a youth ruddy with wine, but the account is too slight to have been of much service to Milton, even if he was familiar with it. More definite is the picture drawn by Ben Jonson in the Masque of Pleasure Reconciled to Vi?'tue (1619). Comus is a character in that Masque and described as "The founder of taste For fresh meats, or powdered, or pickle, or paste ; Devourer of boiled, baked, roasted or sod ; An emptier of cups." Obviously this sordid power of dull, "lust-dieted" appetite has not very much in common with Milton's blithe, caressing personification of pleasure, so fatal because outwardly so beautiful; though I do not doubt that Milton knew Ben Jonson's Masque. There is also a certain Latin play which may have given suggestions and which from its title tj l f deserves to be mentioned. It was called Play, Comus. It was written by a Dutchman, Hendrik van der Putten (better known under the name of Erycius Puteanus), sometime professor at Louvain. First printed in 1608, his Comus was reissued at Oxford in 1634, a remarkable coincidence. The Comus of Puteanus is a much subtler, embodiment of sensuality than the cup-quaffing deity of Ben Jonson ; he ap- proximates more to the graceful reveller and enticing magician of Milton, and I should be loath to acquit Milton of all indebtedness to Puteanus. I think that he must have gone through the Latin piece, picking out from the worthless slag an occasional atom of genuine ore. XXXll INTRODUCTION. The extremely appropriate parentage which is assigned to Comus (46 — 58) was Milton's own invention. It was partly suggested, no doubt, by the association of the word Kw^os with Dionysus (Bacchus). Milton's purpose in making Comus the son of Circe and inheritor of her magic powers was to bring out the enticing aspect of sensual pleasure, which seeks to cast its beguiling spells upon men. (3) The third strand in the material out of which ,,.,, , Cofnus is woven is the Circe-myth. In Mtlton s use , , •' o/the legend describing the .supernatural powers of Comus Milton transfers to the wizard the classical attributes of his mother Circe. Like Vergil and Ovid before him, he lays the Odyssey under large contribution : so had Spenser in his account qf the enchantress Acrasia in The Faerie Queeiie^ II. 12, 55 et seq. Browne, too, had made the adventure of Odysseus and his crew at the island of Circe the theme of The Inner Temple Masque (1614). Probably each account — certainly Spenser's — was known to Milton, and may have exercised an unconscious in- fluence upon him, e.g. in the turn of a phrase or addition of a descriptive detail. Going over the same ground as other writers with whom he is in any degree familiar, a poet can scarcely escape being influenced in some way, even though he is quite unaware of it. (4) There remains the legend of the river-goddess Sabrina, whose intervention frees the im- ofS^^'l'^^^ prisoned lady and brings the Masque to Milton's in- a happy close. The source of this legend, Fletche^! " which had been handled by other poets, was the History of Geoffrey of Monmouth ^ In this important part of Comus the influence of Fletcher's Faithful Shepherdess is unmistakeable. This beautiful pastoral was composed before 1625. It had been acted as a Court-drama, and representations were given in the ^ See p. 186. COMUS. xxxill London theatres in 1633 and 1634. The motive of the play is identical with that of Conms, viz. the strength of purity ; and in Fletcher's heroine must be recognised an elder sister of Milton's Sabrina. Speaking briefly we may say that the last two hundred lines of Conius — the disenchantment scene — betray in the conception of the nymph Sabrina, in the incidents, and the lyric movement, the spell which Fletcher's genius exercised on Milton. Milton chose the story of the goddess who swayed the Severn stream in compliment to his audience. It suited the scene and the setting of his Masque ; and his treat- ment of the theme reflects, in no servile spirit of imitation, the graceful example of the poet with whom the name of Shakespeare himself is linked in more than one work. It is not doing Milton any real service to ignore or deny his indebtedness to these various sources. Absolute, unqualified originality is practically impossible. Litera- ture is a series of echoes, and one of the tests of genius is to take inferior work and tune it to finer issues. Has the*artist breathed fresh suggestion into things old .'' has he added things new ? If we can answer 'yes ' to each of these questions, his record is clear. We must indeed always try to get a clear idea wherein lies the greatness of a work, what are the qualities that make it immortal. In Comiis those qualities, surely, are the exquisite music, especially of the lyric portions, the rapt elevation of thought and tone, the distinction of style. These gifts are a poet's own. He does not obtain them from * sources,' search he never so carefully. And they constitute the 'originality' that is essential. It is manifestly unfair to judge any work by tests which do not properly apply to it: we must ..^ not condemn a thing for not being what it he judged as does not profess to be — a truism which '^ ^^^^e- criticism often ignores. So it is beside the mark to say that Co7mis is "deficient as a drama." It does not profess to be a " drama " in the sense that The Me7-chant of Venice XXXIV INTRODUCTION. or Hamlet is. It is a " Masque." Now in a Masque we are not to look for the qualities which are indispensable to an ordinary drama, such as probability of story and logical development of dramatic motive, propriety of construction, studied and consistent character-drawing^ These things lie outside the province of the Masque- writer, whose fancy plays unfettered in a land where truth and realism seldom set foot. Consequently Cofnus should not be contrasted with works that belong to a different sphere of art. To estimate its merits aright we should study what Ben Jonson and Fletcher, the ablest of pro- fessional Masque-writers, have left us of a like description. We must accord Milton the licence which the composers of such pieces habitually claimed, and test Comus by the elementary standard of dramatic propriety recognised in these entertainments. Judged so, it has no cause to fear the objection that its story lacks probability or its con- struction violates rule. On the other hand, there is one objection to Comus Its moral- which we cannot gainsay: as a Masque ising. designed for representation it is over- weighted with the moralising element. Magnificent in itself and intensely interesting as a revelation of Milton's character and of his relation towards the peculiar re- ligious and social conditions of his age, this lofty strain of moralising is out of place in a Masque. It fits neither the occasion nor the speakers 2. You cannot but feel that Milton uses the long speeches of the Lady and the Elder Brother to expound views which he holds especially sacred. All great art teaches, but the teaching is indirect. In Comus the didactic purpose is patent; nay, obtrudes. It hampers the movement of the piece, checks the natura' 1 In Comus the absence of names for all the characters except Comus should prepare us for the sHghtness of the characterisation. ^ Hence the significant omissions, made doubtless by Lawes, at the original performance. See notes on 195—225, 737 — 755. One passage, 779 — 806, was an addition. COMUS. XXXV progress of the story ; and worse, it strikes a note alien to the genius of the fanciful Masque and all its festive associations. But this demerit is characteristic of the poet. Milton's one defect, what more than aught else marks him Shakespeare's inferior, is lack of humour. A sense of humour means a keen sense of the incon- gruous ; and a writer with half Milton's genius but more of that sense would have shunned the incongruous element which mars Coiniis as a Masque while increasing its power and beauty as a poem. It is, therefore, as a poem that the piece should be regarded, and the long speeches "must be read as majestic soliloquies" (Macaulay). This didactic element reveals Milton, and that at a point of special interest in his career. It teaches the doctrine nearest to his heart, tonic idea" namely, sobriety of life. There was nothing f/"'^^'^'^^,. ^^ for which Milton cared more than this. An atmosphere of rare purity breathes in his works. He shows an extraordinarily nice sense of whatsoever things are fair and of good report. There is in him a strong vein of asceticism, and he praises more than once the "cloistered virtue" of abstinence. As a youth he de- scribed thus, in a strain of classical allusion, the obli- gations of those who would touch the highest reaches of poetic art : " But they, who demi-gods and heroes praise, And feats performed in Jove's more youthful days, Who now the counsels of high heaven explore, Now shades that echo the Cerberean roar, Simply let these, like him of Samos, live, Let herbs to them a bloodless banquet give; In beechen goblets let their beverage shine, Cool from the crystal spring their sober wine. Their youth should pass in innocence secure From stain licentious, and in manners pure, .Pure as the priest, when robed in white he stands, The fresh lustration ready in his hands. XXXVl INTRODUCTION. Thus Linus lived, and thus, as poets write, Tiresias, wiser for his loss of sight. Thus exiled Chalcas, thus the bard of Thrace, Melodious tamer of the savage race. Thus trained by temperance, Homer led of yore His chief of Ithaca from shore to shore. For these are sacred bards, and from above Drink large infusions from the mind of Jove^" That was his youthful ideal : his works and all that we know of his life show that it was his practice. Pro- fessor Masson well sums up the matter in the statement that "the sublime notion and high mystery" of a dis- ciplined life is '■''the Miltonic idea." Nowhere is it more conspicuous than in this Masque. Under any circumstances the theme would have kindled „, „ . his muse to eloquence. But now in the year The Pun- ^ -' ta7is and the 1634, when the people were slowly separating ava ten,. j^^^ hostile camps, the truth was of more than personal import : it had become vitalised with a tragic national intensity. Each day the conflict between the gloom and ungraciousness of Puritanism and the pleasure- seeking carelessness of the Cavalier world grew keener. Extremes produce extremes : for one part of the nation life meant pleasure : the other identified pleasure with sin. When Co?nus was written Milton stood between the two armies. His Puritanism was tempered by Renaissance culture. The life of ideal happiness as pictured in L Allegro is one into which enter all the influences of culture and nature that bring in their train "the joy in widest commonalty spread ;" the cheer- fulness which should be synonymous with Life, and to which Art should minister. And when in // Penseroso Milton celebrates divinest Melancholy, she is not the bitter power whom Dante punished with the pains of Purgatory ; rather, she has something of the kindliness ^ From the sixth of the Latin Elegies, Cowper's translation. COMUS. XXXVll that Shakespeare attributes to his goddess Adversity, whose uses are sweet, and of whom it was happily said that she must be a fourth Grace, less known than the classic Three, but still their sister. These poems, V Allegro ^ II Penseroso^ and Comtis, belong to the non-political period in Milton's life. The bare fact that he wrote the last showed that he had not yet gone over to help the party whose unreasoning hatred of all amusement had flashed out in Prynne's Histrio- mastix'^ (1633). As Green says, "the historic interest of Conius lies in its forming part of a protest made by the more cultured Puritans against the gloomier bigotry which persecution was fostering in the party at large." On the other hand, the whole tone of Co?nus was op- posed to the spirit of the Cavaliers. It sternly rebuked intemperance. The revel-god personified the worst ele- ments of Court-life. In his overthrow Milton alle- gorically foreshadowed the downfall of those who led that life; just as in Lycidas, under the guise of pastoral symbolism, he predicted the ruin of the "corrupted Clergie," and at the end of his life lamented the crash of Puritanism through the mouth of Samson Agonistes. Two hundred and fifty years ago therefore Comus was terribly real as a warning against the danger upon which the ship of national life was drifting. But the theme is true yesterday, to-day, and for ever; and the art with which it is enforced remains undimmed, the wisdom unfading. Johnson had fault to find with the songs tj l ' i in Comus. He considered them "harsh" parts of ^^ and "not very musical." This was the "<^^''"'^-" most curious feature of his strange, grudging criticism of ^ Prynne often refers to Masques, and always in terms of scorn; e.g. on page 783 of the Histi'io?nastix, "Stage-players, Mumeries, Masques, and such like heathenish practises," 1633 ed. xxxviii INTRODUCTION. the Masque, since the superlative excellence of Milton's lyrics has never been a matter of dispute. In them Milton achieves a style of quintessential beauty, re- minding us with Wordsworth that poetry is primarily a matter of inspiration, and proving, like Gray, that it must also be a matter of art. Richness of imagery, epithets that (in Macaulay's words) supply " a text for a canto," single phrases that for their curious felicity are, as Archbishop Trench said, "poems in miniature," evanescent touches that recall to the classical reader the old and happy, far-off things of Athens and Rome — these qualities, that belong mainly to art, are held together and heightened by a perfect genuineness of emotion which is the outcome of sheer inspiration. Above all, Milton gives us what we require most in lyric verse — true melody, and those who are deaf to these sphere-born notes, who find the " numbers " of Comus unpleasing, must be left to their displeasure. Most of us will prefer Mr Saintsbury's verdict: "It is impossible to single out passages, for the whole is golden. The entering address of Comus, the song 'Sweet Echo,' the descriptive speech of the Spirit, and the magnificent eulogy of the 'sun-clad power of chastity,' would be the most beautiful things where all is beautiful, if the unapproachable ' Sabrina fair ' did not come later, and were not sustained before and after, for nearly two hundred lines of pure nectar." It was a happy inspiration which reserved the rhymed parts mainly for the close, where they form a kind of lyric cadenza on which the Masque closes. After bearing the heat and burden of the piece, after enforcing with all the power of his eloquence and righteous enthusiasm the moral which Comus illustrates, Milton turned to his muse and bade her touch a lighter, festive note. The philosophic strain was dropped : the poet of VAllegio reasserted himself; and Comus came to an end with Lawes's music ringing through the Hall. COMUS. xxxix The stage-history of Comus is very slight. The representation at Ludlow appears to be the only one that took place in the seventeenth stage-his- century. It is interesting to note that part at least of the music written by Lawes for the original performance survives, viz. the five numbers, " From the heavens," " Sweet Echo," " Sabrina fair," " Back Shep- herds" and "Now my task." In the last century most of Milton's minor poems were made to supply libretti for contemporary musicians. Handel set L^ Allegro and // Penseroso (1740) to music, and afterwards (1742) made Samson Agonistes the basis of his Oratorio. Cojmis^ or rather an adaptation of it, fell to the skilful hands of Dr Arne, the composer to whom we owe some of the best known settings of Shakespeare's songs. The adaptation of the Masque was made by the Rev. John Dalton, afterwards Canon of Worcester. He altered it beyond recognition, dividing it into three acts, redistributing the speeches, introducing fresh characters (among them Lycidas) and scenes, and interpolating songs of his own composition. The most curious change occurs in Act ill., which commences with twenty-six lines ("But come, thou goddess," line 11) taken from L! Allegro, the invocation to Mirth being followed by the appearance on the scene of Euphrosyne. This stage-version was produced at Drury Lane theatre in 1738, and was frequently acted and several times printed. On the title-page of the first imprint (1738) are the words "never presented but on Michaelmas Day, 1634." Geneste in his Annals of the Stage mentions later stage-versions with Arne's music, notably one for which Sir Henry Bishop wrote additional airs. Altogether Comus seems to have had some vogue on the stage in a quasi-operatic form. The last notable rendering of the Masque was that produced by Macready, who himself played the part of the magician. xl INTRODUCTION. LYCIDAS. Lycidas was composed in November 1637, and pub- lished some time in 1638. It is an In ^^^^' mejnoriam poem, and the circumstances which evoked it were as follows. On August the loth, 1637, a Fellow of Christ's College, Cambridge, Edward King, was lost at sea. Circum- He had been slightly junior to Milton at the IZpositit University, but there had, no doubt, been some intimacy, possibly some friendship, be- tween them. He seems to have been a scholar of great promise and much beloved; and when the news of his death was known at Cambridge in the ensuing Michaelmas term, his friends decided to publish a collection of elegiac verses as an expression of the University's regret at his early death. Such collections were customary in the 17th century. When any event of significance occurred — Similar especially a royal birth, or wedding, or death '^verse. ^^"^ — the scholars and wits of Oxford and Cam- bridge invoked the Muses in strains of congratulation or lament. Thus the death of Ben Jonson (in 1637) was marked by the issue in this very year, 1638, of a volume of elegies; and there was a tradition in the last century that Milton's own Epitaph on the Marchioness of Winchester was first printed in a Cambridge collection of elegiac poems on her death. That Edward King should have been honoured by the issue of one of these tributes, usually reserved for greater names, is a proof of the esteem in which he was held at Cambridge. LYCIDAS. xli The memorial poems were published in 1638, in a volume divided into two sections. The first contains twenty-three pieces of Greek and , V\^ Cam- . 4,, „ , . , . . bridge Latm verse. The English portion is com- volume. posed of thirteen poems, Milton's being the last. It is introduced with the simple title Lycidas^ and signed with the initials "J. M." This therefore is the first edition of the elegy. Besides the poems the volume includes a brief preface in Latin, setting forth the manner of King's death. He had sailed from Chester for J^lf'^pZm. Ireland, where most of his relations were settled; he himself had been born at Boyle, county Roscommon, and his father had held office as Secretary for Ireland under Elizabeth and the two succeeding monarchs. Not far from the British coast the vessel struck on a rock, sprang a leak, and sank. The narrative says that while other passengers were trying to save their lives Edward King knelt on the deck, and was praying as the ship went down. Some of those on board must have escaped, else this fact would not have been known. It is curious, I think, that Milton should have made no allusion to an episode so affecting, and for the purposes of the poet so effective. Other contributors to the volume mention it. Probably, however, Milton had not heard full details of the accident. He was living away from Cambridge — at Horton — and may have received no more than a notice in general terms of King's death, and an invitation to join his friends in lamenting the loss to the College and University. For students of Milton the text of Lycidas possesses unusual interest. We have the original MS. preserved at Trinity; the Cambridge edition of 1638; a copy of this edition in the University Library, with corrections in Milton's handwriting; and the 1645 edition of Milton's early poems. This last version, almost identical with the issue of 1673, represents the final V. C. d xlii INTRODUCTION. revision of Lycidas. It offers a good many differences of reading from the MS. and the tirst (1638) edition. The changes illustrate what we have already noted in the case of CotJius^ viz. Milton's true instinct for improving his work. The same quality is very marked in Tennyson, the successive editions of whose works show numerous corrections for the better. Lycidas^ it is scarcely necessary to say, represents the pastoral styled No type of poetry is more artificial. With some readers the inherent artificiality of the type is a ground of depreciation of this elegy. They find in it a note of unreality, a falseness of tone. ^^ Lycidas" writes Johnson, " is not to be considered as the effusion of real passion ; for passion Is " Ly Yxxns not after remote allusions and obscure Ctdas an expression of Opinions. Passion plucks no berries from ^griefT the myrtle and ivy, nor calls upon Arcthuse and Mincius, nor tells of rough ' Satyrs ' and * Fauns with cloven heel.' Where there is leisure for fiction, there is httle grief." But pastoralism is only an imaginative medium of expression, and it is surely a hard saying that true feeling will not find imaginative vent. We must not apply rigidly the prosaic test of fact to works of fancy, and seek to bind down art to the literal presentment of life. All feeling, when it exceeds the bounds of the barest, briefest self-expression, tends to metaphor and symbol. Grief finds relief in so doing. " She clothes herself in meta- phors, and, abstaining from the direct expression of poignant emotion, dwells on thoughts and images that have a beauty of their own for solace." It seems to me therefore a fallacy that the feeling of Lycidas must necessarily be unreal because the allegory in which it is prefigured had no actual basis in experience. Pastoral ^ It will be more convenient to give a brief sketch of the history of pastoral poetry independently; see p. 181. LYCIDAS. xliii elegy is one of the recognised vehicles of lament, and the poet who adopts it is bound by literary traditions to do those things which Johnson says that no mourner does in real life. Truth of art is not identical with truth of fact. Nevertheless, Johnson's remark that Lycidas is not to be regarded as "the effusion of real passion" does serve to warn us from a wrong way of looking at the poem. The primary interest of the elegy is artistic, not emotional. It is a study in the pastoral manner; "a highly-wrought piece of art," as Shelley said of his own elegiac poem Adonais. Milton knew the Greek pastoral writers and their Latin imitator, Vergil, by heart. He knew, in particular, those poems — the first Idyl of a'^tud^''^ ' Theocritus and the Lament for Bion by Moschus — which are models for all time of pastoralism dedicated to the purposes of elegy. And he had doubt- less studied modern works, especially Italian, cast in the same vein. Here was an opportunity of weaving this knowledge into an exquisite fabric of learning and literary suggestion and artistic pathos. The outcome was a poem singularly appropriate to the circumstances which evoked it. For what more fitting than that the lament of a University over a gifted student should take the form of a work in which preeminently art and scholar- ship join hands ? As to the kind or degree of personal feeling towards Edward King which Lycidas expresses, that will ever remain an open question. To me it seems that the feeling is no more than the sentiment of regret and pity which the premature death of a fellow-student and associate would naturally excite. There is, however, in Lycidas one subject on which Milton lets the reader know what he thought in entirely unambiguous language: namely, th/church^'''^ the corruption, from his point of view, of the Anglican Church. No one can mistake the drift of lines 1 18 — 131, or the spirit that animates them. The passage d 2 xliv INTRODUCTION. has been much censured, and from the standpoint of art seems indefensible. First, it is a digression, distracting attention from the main theme of the poem into a wholly different channel : the fact that Edward King had intended to take orders in the Church scarcely justifies the insertion of a long invective against it. Under any circumstances, whatever the style of the poem, an episode of this kind would be objectionable. But here amid bucolic imagery and pagan dramatis personce Christianity can have no place. It would be hard to conceive greater incongruity of effect, and the only defence that can be offered is, that this blending of Christian sentiment and associations with paganism had long been a tradition with pastoral writers. It is found in the Eclogues of the Carmelite Baptista Spagnola (commonly called Mantuan from the fact that he lived at Mantua), a now forgotten writer Christianity , • n ^ i introduced whosc mfluence on pastoral verse was con- i7ito pastoral giderable, as the Glosse to The Shepheards verse. ' • r i i • i_ Calender shows. It is found also m the Latin elegiac poetry of Italian scholars of the i6th century with whom references to the contemporary Church and State are freely interspersed among pictures of pastoral life painted in the manner of Theocritus and Vergil. Spenser, again, in the fifth Eclogue of The Shepheards Calender^ twenty-nine lines of which are quoted by Milton in his prose-work the Animadversions^ shadows forth under the slightest of disguises the ordinary contrast between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism. And Phineas Fletcher in his Piscatorie Eclogues^ which are cast in an essentially classical, pastoral style, attacks the "corrupted clergy" in the character of fishermen neglectful of their duty. Milton therefore could at least plead the privilege of custom i, and he took full advantage of it. 1 See the Globe Spenser, pp. 451, 476, 478, for references to Mantuan ; Symonds's Renaissance in Italy (' Revival of Learn- ing'), II. 486 — 498, for the Italian writers of pastoral; and Grosart's edition of Fletcher, ii. 274, 276. LYCIDAS. xlv Personally I cannot help thinking that our dislike of what we call incongruity in literature, i.e. the mixture of inharmonious associations, is a comparatively late de- velopment of taste. Consider for example the combination of Elizabethanism and classical mythology or history in a play like A MidsuTumer-Nighf s Dream ox Juluts CcBsar. We cannot assume that what Milton writes is meant to apply to the whole Church. He limits it to the corrupt elements, though a few years " ^^-^^ P'iot later he seems to have regarded the corruption icean lake'.' as universal. Nor is it a reasonable inference from his description of St Peter that he then felt any sympathy with episcopacy, which he afterwards assailed so vehemently. Dramatic propriety required that the Apostle should be invested with all the circumstance and pomp of his office — the mitre and the fateful keys — since by heightening the dignity of those who mourned for Lycidas the poet paid honour to him. Religion and learning alike bent over his tomb, the one symbolised by the head of the Catholic Church, the other by the spokes- man of Edward King's University. Truly, he was fortunate in his elegist. Once elsewhere in Lycidas the personal note inter- rupts the even monotone of elegy. It is 1 c T 1 1 T X ^ The supposed surely not fanciful to detect m Imes 64 — 69 allusion to a complaint that poetry had fallen on trifling contemporary times when all the qualities which in Milton's view were essential to the poet — sobriety of life, learning, earnestness of thought — counted for nothing in popular esteem. As we read this passage we remember the introduction to the second book of The Reason of Church Governme?tt (than which Milton's prose works contain nothing more valuable), where he contrasts two types of poets. He shows us there on the one hand "the vulgar amourist" whose inspiration is "the heat of youth, or the vapours of wine." On the other hand, he describes the scholar and seer who gives himself over to study and the xlvi INTRODUCTION. mastery of all arts and sciences that illuminate the mind, and "devout prayer to that eternal Spirit, who can enrich with all utterance and knowledge, and sends out his seraphim, with the hallowed fire of his altar, to touch and purify the lips of whom he pleases." It is under this type that he directly classes himself ; and to the former that he indirectly assigns in Lycidas, 64 — 69, the Sucklings and Herricks and Cavalier song-writers. An Introduction to Lycidas cannot well omit mention, however brief, of those modern works which eieeifs^^^'^ owe Something to Milton's elegy, viz. Shelley's Adonais, written on the death of Keats, and Matthew Arnold's ThyrsiSy a lament for his poet-friend and Oxford contemporary, Arthur Hugh Clough. These later elegists drew inspiration from the same classical sources as the author of Lycidas. They too revive echoes of the Greek shepherd-music; and apart from such general similarities as we should expect where writers have chosen the same vehicle of expression (in this case the most stereotyped and conventional of methods), each has at least one point of contact with Milton. Thyrsis^ like Lycidas., presents an idealised picture of University- life, and perhaps for sincerity and true feeling begotten of love for the scenes described the advantage rests with the modern poet. In the Adonais Shelley's invective against the enemies of Keats (the poet regarded them as his own enemies too) recalls Milton's onslaught on the Church : a subsidiary theme kindled the fire of personal feeling in both poems, and neither can be regarded merely as the consecration of friendship. Of the three elegies, Lycidas and Thyrsis have most nfiinity. Thyrsis follows the pastoral type much more closely than Adonais^ and has more of that intensely classical spirit which breathes throughout Milton's poem. Moreover, there is a closer parallel between the circumstances which severally produced Lycidas and Thyrsis. In each a scholar-poet was moved to lament a fellow-student with whom he had LYCIDAS. xlvii had ties of kindred pursuits ; whereas the intimacy between Keats and Shelley had been slight, and what animated Shelley in writing the Adonais was primarily the feeling that he was fighting in this, as in his other works, the battle of fairness and freedom, and in another's wrongs avenging his own. Of Tennyson's In Meinoriaiu^ which is sometimes compared with these elegies, we need not speak. It really stands apart. It is not a pastoral; and it has a philosophic scope far beyond that of any poem of lament. It is Tennyson's verdict on the ten- dencies and peculiar difficulties of his age, and his chief contribution to our "criticism of life." xlviii INTRODUCTION. METRICAL FEATURES OF THESE POEMS. To those who desire more insight into the poetic Art of Milton it may be helpful to note a few important points of metre^. First as to the blank verse of blank verlT^ Co7?ius. The typical blank verse is a line of ten syllables forming five feet in which the stresses or accents fall on the even syllables. These feet are commonly termed "iambic^," and the rhythm of a line composed of iambic feet is a " rising " rhythm. Here is a typical blank verse from Coinus (line 30) : "And all this tract that fronts the falling siin." Blank verse prior to Marlowe, the great Elizabethan dramatist whose work influenced Shakespeare, was modelled strictly on this type. Further, this early blank verse was what is termed " end-stopt " : that is to say, there was almost always so7ne pause, however slight, in the sense, and consequently in the rhythm, at the close of each line ; while the couplet was normally the limit of the sense. As an example of " end-stopt " verse look at Comusj ']2i — T] : " And they, so perfect is their misery, Not once perceive their foul disfigurement, But boast themselves more comely than before, And all their friends and native home forget, To roll with pleasure in a sensual sty." ^ The authoritative work is Mr Bridges's book Milton^s Prosody^ on which I have drawn. ^ An iambus in Greek prosody is a foot of two syllables, short -f- long, thus -^ -. Roughly speaking, stress or accent is the equivalent in English prosody for the "quantity" of classical prosody ; i.e. a stressed syllable (') corresponds with the long syllable (-) of classical verse, and an unstressed syllable with the short (~'). In "scanning" a passage it is better always to use the term "stress" or "accent" than "long syllable," and the symbol '. not -, METRICAL FEATURES OF THESE POEMS, xlix If the whole poem were written in verse of this kind the effect, obviously, would be intolerably monotonous. Blank verse before Marlowe was intolerably monotonous, and his great service to metre, carried further by Shake- speare, was to introduce variations into the existing type of the blank decasyllabic measure. In fact, analysis of the blank verse of any writer really resolves itself into a study of his modifications of the purely " iambic," " end- stopt" type. The four chief variations employed by MUton's chief Milton 1 in Comus are these: variations. (i) His use of the "overflow" of the _, „ ^ „ ^ The ^^ overflow. sense from one Ime to another ; what the French call '''' enjambeinentP Put simply, this only means that he makes the sense and rhythm run on from one line to another. A large proportion of his blank verse is "unstopt," not "end-stopt." Take Cojnus^ i — 4 : " 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." In those lines there is no pause of sense and consequently none of rhythm at the end of either of lines i — 3 : sense and rhythm run on. Now "unstopt" verse escapes one of the dangers of blank verse : the danger of being stiff and formal, and hampering the sense, as in the early days of the metre, through arrangement in single lines or couplets. But it incurs another danger : it may be loose and formless through want of clearly marked pauses, balance of the parts, and rhythmic cadences — the qualities which should compensate for the absence of rhyme. Blank verse there- fore of the -'unstopt" type in which the paragraph is the unit, not the single hne or couplet, needs an exquisite * Not necessarily peculiar to him. 1 INTRODUCTION. sense of sound, and of sound harmonised in a complex, elaborate scheme. And this sense was Milton's great gift. Hence his blank verse unites the two qualities so difficult to reconcile, yet essential, namely freedom and form : the freedom which allows an easy, natural expression of the sense and a variety of rhythm that echoes ail its shifting inflections; and the form which comes from consummate mastery of pause, balance and cadence. Thus much as to the arrangement of his lines: now as to their internal formation. (2) The second great feature of his blank verse is ,, ^ , the use of "extrametrical" syllables. Briefly, Extra- ■' ^ metrical" he sometimes has eleven or even twelve syllables. syllables instead of ten in a line. The extra syllable may come {a) at the end of the line, {b) about the middle after some pause, or {c) in both places. Here are examples (211, 67, 617): {a) "The virtuous mind, that ever walks attend(ed)." [I)) " To quench the drouth of Phce(bus); which as they taste." {c) "As to make this rela(tion)? Care and utmost (shifts)." Far the commonest of these variations from the typical decasyllabic line is {a). It is a great feature of the verse of Cotniis and Samson Agotiistes. The pro- portion of such lines as {a) is said to be i in 9 in Cotiius^ I in 6 in Samson Agonistes. In Paradise Lost, on the other hand, this kind of verse is rare. This is the one great difference between Milton's early and late blank verse, and the reason for it is clear. The extra syllable at the end of the line tends to make the rhythm run on into the next line, and therefore gives a rapid movement suitable to the spoken verse of the stage. It characterises thus the dramatic and lyrical pieces, whilst epic narrative like Paradise Lost demands a statelier, slower movement. This extrametrical syllable at the end of a line is commonly called the "double" or "feminine" ending. METRICAL FEATURES OF THESE POEMS. U Note that it is of two kinds — where the last syllable would naturally bear a stress or accent, and where it would not. Thus contrast 265 "And she shall be my queen. Hail, foreign w6n(der)" with 633 **Bore a bright golden flower, but not in this (soil)." Illustrations of (^) are lines 302, 415, 599, 662, 842. The other variation (c) is also- illustrated, 1 think, by line 407. (3) Another feature is "inversion of rhythm," i.e. the substitution of "falling" rhythm for "rising" by use of a trochee in place of an iambus, ofrhythm""'^ these feet being exact opposites. A trochee is admitted into any of the first four feet of a line. Com- pare {a) "Strive to | keep up a frail and feverish being" (8); {b) "Be well | stock'd with [ as fair a herd as grazed" (152); {c) "But to my task. | Neptune | besides the sway" (18); {d) " Benighted in these woods. | Now to | my charms " {150). Observe that inversion generally gives some emphasis to the word. Much the commonest inversion is that of the first foot. Indeed, this use of an initial trochee is one of the most characteristic points in Milton's verse. Among many examples take lines 39 ("threats the"), 46 ("Bacchus")? 47 ("crush'd the"), 49 ("coasting"), with 60, 79, 80, 90, 147, 162, 163, 190 etc. In 145 there are two trochees ("break off, break off") ; but I have not observed a similar instance. The trochee is a swift foot, and you will see that in several of the examples just given the sense refers to motion of some sort. (4) The last point is failure of stress in one foot. Instead of five stresses there are sometimes only four. Usually failure of stress occurs stress."^^^ with a preposition, and is commonest in the Hi INTRODUCTION. first and fourth feet. It gives, by way of compensation, a peculiar heaviness, as of two^ stressed syllables, to the following foot. Compare these instances : (a) "With the | rank va|pours of this sin-worn mould" (17); (d) "Ere morrow wake, | or the | low-roost|ed lark" (317); {c) "Stepped, as | they said, ] to the | next thick|et-side"(i85). Observe that the variations (2), (3) and (4) may be used in combination, e.g. we find all three in line 49 •'Coasting | the Tyrjrhene shore | as the | winds list{ed)," and in 617 "As to I make this | rela(tion)? | Care and | utmost (shifts)"; and (3) and (4) in line 185 (quoted just above). The lyrics of Comus are simple in structure, cast for the most part in the octosyllabic measure, in lylicT "-^^''^ " ^'sing " rhythm, much used by Ben Jonson and easily set as musical recitative. They show that Milton exercised very freely the right of using im- perfect rhymes. As proof of this Professor rh%7:^^^* Masson aptly refers to the Echo Song. It has fourteen lines, with four consecutive pairs of irregular rhyme ; and it is none the less wholly beautiful. Milton varies the eight-syllabled measure (i) by an extra syllable at the end of the line, (2) by ill the octo- lines of only seven syllables in "falling," 7urf''^ """'" i.e. trochaic rhythm, with an extra syllable, stressed, at the end, (3) by occasional deca- syllabic rhymed couplets. For (i) compare 999 " Wiiere young Adunis oft repo(ses) "; ^ i.e. forming a spondaic foot, the classical spondee being two long syllables ( ). METRICAL FEATURES OF THESE POEMS, liii and for (2), which is by far the most important modifica- tion, cf. the following lines : "The star | that bids | the shep|herd fold Now the I top of I heav'n doth | hold; And the j gilded | car of | day His gl6w|ing ax|le doth | allay." For (3) see 115, 116, 129-132. Then, it must be remembered that in all scansion of English poetry two things play a great part, viz. "contraction" and "elision." "Contractions" may be divided into (i) the abbrevia- tions of everyday speech, "such as the - , .... 7 1 • 1 Contractions. perfect tenses and participles in This evening late, by then the chewing flocks 540 Had ta'en their supper on the savoury herb Of knot-grass dew-besprent, and were in fold, I sat me down to watch upon a bank With ivy canopied, and interwove With flaunting honeysuckle, and began, Wrapt in a pleasing fit of melancholy. To meditate my rural minstrelsy. Till fancy had her fill ; but ere a close 24 COMUS. The wonted roar was up amidst the woods, And filled the air with barbarous dissonance ; 550 At which I ceased, and listened them a while, Till an unusual stop of sudden silence Gave respite to the drowsy-flighted steeds That draw the litter of close-curtained Sleep. At last a soft and solemn-breathing sound Rose like a steam of rich distilled perfumes, And stole upon the air, that even Silence Was took ere she was ware,' and wished she might Deny her nature, and be never more, Still to be so displaced. I was all ear, 560 And took in strains that might create a soul Under the ribs of Death : but. Oh ! ere long Too well I did perceive it was the voice Of my most honoured Lady, your dear sister. Amazed I stood, harrowed with grief and fear ; And ' O poor hapless nightingale,' thought I, 'How sweet thou sing'st, how near the deadly snare!' Then down the lawns I ran with headlong haste, Through paths and turnings often trod by day. Till, guided by mine ear, I found the place 570 Where that damned wizard, hid in sly disguise (For so by certain signs I knew), had met Already, ere my best speed could prevent, The aidless innocent lady, his wished prey ; Who gently asked if he had seen such two, Supposing him some neighbour villager. Longer I durst not stay, but soon I guessed Ye were the two she meant ; with that I sprung Into swift flight, till I had found you here ; But further know I not. Second Brother. O Night and Shades, 580 How are ye joined with hell in triple knot Against the unarmed weakness of one virgin, COMUS. 25 Alone and helpless ! Is this the confidence You gave me, brother? Elder Brother. Yes, and keep it still ; Lean on it safely ; not a period Shall be unsaid for me. Against the threats Of malice or of sorcery, or that power Which erring men call Chance, this I hold firm : Virtue may be assailed, but never hurt, Surprised by unjust force, but not enthralled ; 590 Yea, even that which Mischief meant most harm Shall in the happy trial prove most glory. But evil on itself shall back recoil, And mix no more with goodness, when at last, Gathered like scum, and settled to itself. It shall be in eternal restless change Self-fed and self-consumed : if this fail. The pillared firmament is rottenness. And earth's base built on stubble. But come, let's on ! Against the opposing will and arm of Heaven 600 May never this just sword be lifted up ; But, for that damned magician, let him be girt With all the griesly legions that troop Under the sooty flag of Acheron, Harpies and Hydras, or all the monstrous forms 'Twixt Africa and Ind, I'll find him out. And force him to return his purchase back. Or drag him by the curls to a foul death. Cursed as his life. Spirit. Alas ! good venturous youth, I love thy courage yet, and bold emprise; 610 But here thy sword can do thee little stead : Far other arms and other weapons must Be those that quell the might of hellish charms ; He with his bare wand can unthread thy joints. And crumble all thy sinews. 26 COM us. Elder Brother. Why, prithee, Shepherd, How durst thou then thyself approach so near As to make this relation? Spirit. Care and utmost shifts How to secure the Lady from surprisal Brought to my mind a certain shepherd lad, Of small regard to see to, yet well skilled 620 In every virtuous plant and healing herb That spreads her verdant leaf to the morning ray : He loved me well, and oft would beg me sing ; Which when I did, he on the tender grass Would sit, and hearken even to ecstasy, And in requital ope his leathern scrip. And show me simples of a thousand names, Telling their strange and vigorous faculties. Amongst the rest a small unsightly root, But of divine effect, he culled me out ; 630 The leaf was darkish, and had prickles on it. But in another country, as he said. Bore a bright golden flower, but not in this soil : Unknown, and like esteemed, and the dull swain Treads on it daily with his clouted shoon ; And yet more med'cinal is it than that Moly That Hermes once to wise Ulysses gave. He called it H^emony, and gave it me, And bade me keep it as of sovran use 'Gainst all enchantments, mildew blast, or damp, 640 . Or ghastly Furies' apparition. I pursed it up, but little reckoning made. Till now that this extremity compelled : But now I find it true ; for by this means I knew the foul enchanter, though disguised, Entered the very lime-twigs of his spells, And yet came off. If you have this about you (As I will give you when we go) you may COMUS. 27 Boldly assault the necromancer's hall ; Where if he be, with dauntless hardihood 650 And brandished blade rush on him : break his glass, And shed the luscious liquor on the ground, But' seize his wand ; though he and his curst crew Fierce sign of battle make, and menace high, Or, like the sons of Vulcan, vomit smoke, Yet will they soon retire, if he but shrink. Eld. Bro. Thyrsi s, lead on apace ; I'll follow thee ; And some good angel bear a shield before us ! The Scene cha7iges to a stately palace., set out with all ma7i7ier of delicious7iess : soft 77m si c^ tables spread with all dai7ities. COMUS appears with his rabble^ aTtd THE Lady set i7i a7i e7ichatited chair j to whom he offe7's his glass, which she puts by., a7id goes about to rise. C0711US. Nay, Lady, sit : if I but wave this wand, Your nerves are all chained up in alabaster, 660 And you a statue, or as Daphne was. Root-bound, that fled Apollo. Lady. Fool, do not boast : Thou canst not touch thfe freedom of my mind With all thy charms, although this corporal rind Thou hast immanacled, while Heaven sees good. Co7niis. Why are you vexed, Lady ? why do you frown ? Here dwell no frowns, nor anger ; from these gates Sorrow flies far. See, here be all the pleasures That fancy can beget on youthful thoughts. When the fresh blood grows lively, and returns 670 Brisk as the April bud^ in primrose season. And first behold this cordial julep here, That ^flames and dances in his crystal bounds, / 28 COMUS. With spirits of balm and fragrant syrups mixed. Not that Nepenthes which the wife of Thone In Egypt gave to Jove-born Helena Is of such power to stir up joy as this, To life so friendly, or so cool to thirst. Why should you be so cruel to yourself, And to those dainty limbs, which Nature lent 680 For gentle usage and soft dehcacy ? But you invert the covenants of her trust. And harshly deal, like an ill borrower. With that which you received on other terms, Scorning the unexempt condition By which all mortal frailty must subsist. Refreshment after toil, ease after pain, That have been tired all day without repast. And timely rest have wanted ; but, fair virgin. This will restore all soon. Lady. 'Twill not, false traitor ! 690 'Twill not restore the truth and honesty That thou hast banished from thy tongue with lies. Was this the cottage and the safe abode Thou told'st me of? What grim aspects are these, These ugly-headed monsters .'* Mercy guard me ! Hence with thy brewed enchantments, foul deceiver ! Hast thou betrayed my credulous innocence With vizored falsehood and base forgery? And wouldst thou seek again to trap me here With lickerish baits, fit to ensnare a brute? 700 Were it a draught for Juno when she banquets, I would not taste thy treasonous offer : none ^ But such as are good men can give good things ; ^ And that which is not good is not delicious To a well-governed and wise appetite. Co?niis. O foolishness of men ! that lend their ears To those budge doctors of the Stoic fur, COMUS. 29 And fetch their precepts from the Cynic tub, Praising the lean and sallow Abstinence ! Wherefore did Nature pour her bounties forth 710 With such a full and unvvithdrawing hand, Covering the earth with odours, fruits, and flocks, Thronging the seas with spawn innumerable, But all to please and sate the curious taste? And set to work millions of spinning worms. That in their green shops weave the smooth-haired silk, To deck her sons ; and, that no corner might Be vacant of her plenty, in her own loins She hutched the all-worshipped ore and precious gems, To store her children with. If all the world 720 Should in a pet of temperance feed on pulse, Drink the clear stream, and nothing wear but frieze, The All-giver would be unthanked, would be unpraised, Not half his riches known, and yet despised ; And we should serve him as a grudging master, As a penurious niggard of his wealth, And live Jike Nature's bastards, not her sons. Who would be quite surcharged with her own weight, And strangled with her waste fertility : The earth cumbered, and the winged air darked with plumes, 730 The herds would over-multitude their lords ; The sea o'erfraught would swell, and the unsought diamonds Would so emblaze the forehead of the deep, And so bestud with stars, that they below 'Would grow inured to light, and come at last To gaze upon the sun with "shameless brows. List, Lady ; be not coy, and be not cozened With that same vaunted, name. Virginity. Beauty is Nature's coin ; must not be hoarded. But must be current ; and the good thereof 740 30 COMUS. i^ Consists in mutual and partaken bliss, ''' Unsavoury in the enjoyment of itself: If you let slip time, like a neglected rose It withers on the stalk with languished head. Beauty is Nature's brag, and must be shown In courts, at feasts, and high solemnities. Where most may wonder at the workmanship : It is for homely features to keep home, They had their name thence ; coarse complexions And cheeks of sorry grain will serve to ply 750 The sampler, and to tease the huswife's wool. What need a vermeil-tinctured lip for that, Love-darting eyes, or tresses like the morn? There was another meaning in these gifts ; Think what, and be advised ; you are but young yet. Lady. I had not thought to have unlocked my lips In this unhallowed air, but that this juggler Would think to charm my judgment, as mine eyes, Obtruding false rules pranked in reason's garb. I hate when Vice can bolt her arguments 760 And Virtue has no tongue to check her pride. Impostor ! do not charge most innocent Nature, As if she would her children should be riotous With her abundance ; she, good cateress, Means her provision only to the good, That live according to her sober laws. And holy dictate of spare Temperance. If every just man that now pines with want Had but a moderate and beseeming share Of that which lewdly-pampered Luxury 770 Now heaps upon some few with vast excess. Nature's full blessings would be well-dispensed In unsuperfluous even proportion. And she no whit encumbered with her store ; And then the Giver would be better thanked, COMUS. 31 His praise due paid : for swinish gluttony Ne'er looks to Heaven amidst his gorgeous feast, But with besotted base ingratitude Crams, and blasphemes his Feeder. Shall I go on ? Or have I said enow ? To him that dares 780 Arm his profane tongue with contemptuous words Against the sun-clad power of chastity. Fain would I something say ; — yet to what end ? Thou hast nor ear, nor soul, to apprehend The sublime notion and high mystery That must be uttered to unfold the sage And serious doctrine of Virginity ; And thou art worthy that thou shouldst not know More happiness than this thy present lot. Enjoy your dear wit, and gay rhetoric, /f79° That hath so well been taught her dazzling fence -Jt Thou art not fit to hear thyself convinced : Yet, should I try, the uncontrolled worth Of this pure cause would kindle my rapt spirits To such a flame of sacred vehemence. That dumb things would be moved to sympathize, And the brute Earth would lend her nerves, and shake. Till all thy magic structures, reared so high, Were shattered into heaps o'er thy false head. Comus. She fables not. I feel that I do fear 800 Her words set off by some superior power ; And, though not mortal, yet a cold shuddering dew Dips me all o'er, as when the wrath of Jove Speaks thunder and the chains of Erebus To some of Saturn's crew. I must dissemble. And try her yet more strongly. — Come, no more ! This is mere moral babble, and direct Against the canon laws of our foundation ; I must not suffer this ; yet 'tis but the lees ^ And settlings of a melancholy blood: 810 32 COMUS. But this will cure all straight ; one sip of this Will bathe the drooping spirits in delight Beyond the bliss of dreams. Be wise, and taste . . . The Brothers rush in with swords drawn^ wrest his glass out of his hand, and break it against the ground : his rout make sign of resistance^ but are all driven in. The Attendant Spirit comes ift. Spirit, What ! have you let the false enchanter scape ? O ye mistook ; ye should have snatched his wand, And bound him fast : without his rod reversed, And backward mutters of dissevering power, We cannot free the Lady that sits here In stony fetters fixed and motionless. Yet stay : be not disturbed ; now I bethink me, 820 Some other means I have which may be used, Which once of Meliboeus old I learnt, The soothest shepherd that e'er piped on plains. There is a gentle nymph not far from hence. That with moist curb sways the smooth Severn stream : Sabrina is her name : a virgin pure ; Whilom she was the daughter of Locrine, That had the sceptre from his father Brute. She, guiltless damsel, flying the mad pursuit Of her enraged stepdame, Guendolen, 830 Commended her fair innocence to the flood That stayed her flight with his cross-flowing course. The water-nymphs, that in the bottom played. Held up their pearled wrist, and took her in. Bearing her straight to aged Nereus' hall ; Who, piteous of her woes, reared her lank head. And gave her to his daughters to imbathe In nectared lavers strewed with asphodil. And through the porch and inlet of each sense coMus. 33 Dropt in ambrosial oils, till she revived, 840 And underwent a quick immortal change, Made goddess of the river. Still she retains Her maiden gentleness, and oft at eve Visits the herds along the twilight meadows, Helping all urchin blasts, and ill-luck signs That the shrewd meddling elf delights to make, Which she with precious vialed liquors heals : For which the shepherds at their festivals Carol her goodness loud in rustic lays, And throw sweet garland wreaths into her stream 850 Of pansies, pinks, and gaudy daffodils. And, as the old swain said, she can unlock The clasping charm, and thaw the numbing spell. If she be right invoked in warbled song ; For maidenhood she loves, and will be swift To aid a virgin, such as was herself. In hard-besetting need : this will I try, And add the power of some adjuring verse. Song. Sabrina fair, Listen where thou art sitting 860 Under the glassy, cool, translucent wave, In twisted braids of lilies knitting The loose train of thy amber-dropping hair ; Listen for dear honour's sake, Goddess of the silver lake. Listen and save ! Listen and appear to us. In name of great Oceanus, By the earth-shaking Neptune's mace. And Tethys' grave majestic pace ; 870 By hoary Nereus' wrinkled look. And the Carpathian wizard's hook ; V. C. rt 34 COMUS. By scaly Triton's winding shell, And old soothsaying Glaucus' spell ; By Leucothea's lovely hands, And her son that rules the strands ; By Thetis' tinsel-slippered feet, And the songs of Sirens sweet ; By dead Parthenope's dear tomb, And fair Ligea's golden comb, 880 Wherewith she sits on diamond rocks Sleeking her soft alluring locks ; By all the nymphs that nightly dance fUpon thy streams with wily glance ; ijRise, rise, and heave thy rosy head From thy coral-paven bed. And bridle in thy headlong wave. Till thou our summons answered have. Listen and save ! Sabrina rises, attended by Water-nymphs, and shigs. By the rushy-fringed bank, 890 Where grows the willow and the osier dank. My sliding chariot stays, Thick set with agate, and the azurn sheen Of turkis blue, and emerald green, That in the channel strays : Whilst from off the waters fleet Thus I set my printlcss feet O'er the cowslip's velvet head. That bends not as I tread. Gentle swain, at thy request 900 I am here ! Spirit. Goddess dear, We implore thy powerful hand To undo the charmed band COMUS. 35 Of true virgin here distressed, Through the force and through the wile Of unblessed enchanter vile. Sabrifta. Shepherd, 'tis my office best To help ensnared chastity : Brightest Lady, look on me. 910 Thus I sprinkle on thy breast Drops that from my fountain pure I have kept of precious cure ; Thrice upon thy fingers tip, Thrice upon thy rubied lip : Next this marbled venomed seat. Smeared with gums of glutinous heat, I touch with chaste palms moist and cold. Now the spell hath lost his hold ; And I must haste ere morning hour 920 To wait in Amphitrite's bower. Sabrina descends^ and the Lady rises out of her seat. Spirit. Virgin, daughter of Locrine, Sprung of old Anchises' line, May thy brimmed waves for this Their full tribute never miss From a thousand petty rills. That tumble down the snowy hills : Summer drouth or singed air Never scorch thy tresses fair, Nor wet October's torrent flood 930 Thy molten crystal fill with mud ; May thy billows roll ashore The beryl and the golden ore ; May thy lofty head be crowned With many a tower and terrace round, And here and there thy banks upon 36 COMUS. With groves of myrrh and cinnamon. Come, Lady, while Heaven lends us grace, Let us fly this cursed place, Lest the sorcerer us entice 940 With some other new device. Not a waste or needless sound Till we come to holier ground ; I shall be your faithful guide Through this gloomy covert wide ; And not many furlongs thence Is your Father's residence, Where this night are met in state Many a friend to gratulate His wished presence, and beside 950 All the swains that there abide With jigs and rural dance resort ; We shall catch them at their sport, And our sudden coming there Will double all their mirth and cheer. Come, let us haste ; the stars grow high, But Night sits monarch yet in the mid sky. The Scene changes, presenting Ludlow Toiv7i and the P?'esident''s Castle: then' come in Co7/?itry Dancers; after them the Attendant Spirit, luith the two Brothers and the Lady. Song. spirit. Back, shepherds, back ! enough your play, ' ' X . Till next sun-shine holiday : » Here be, without duck or nod, 960 Other trippings to be trod Of lighter toes, and such court guise As Mercury did first devise COMUS. 37 With the mincing Dryades On the lawns and on the leas. This second Song presents them to their Father and Mother. Noble Lord, and Lady bright, I have brought ye new delight ; Here behold so goodly grown Three fair branches of your own : Heaven hath timely tried their youth, 970 Their faith, their patience, and their truth, And sent them here through hard assays With a crown of deathless praise. To triumph in victorious dance O'er sensual folly and intemperance. The dances ended^ the Spirit epiloguizes. Spirit. To the ocean now I fly. And those happy climes that lie Where day never shuts his eye. Up in the broad fields of the sky ; There I suck the liquid' air, ^ ,. 980 All amidst the gardens fair Of Hesperus, and his daughters three That sing about the golden tree. Along the crisped shades and bowers Revels the spruce and jocund Spring ; The Graces and thei rosy-bosomed Hours Thither all their bounties bring ; There eternal Summer dwells, And west winds with musky wing About the cedarn alleys fling 990 Nard and cassia's balmy smells. I 38 COMUS. Iris there with humid bow Waters the odorous banks, that blow Flowers of more mingled hue Than her purfled scarf can shew ; And drenches with Elysian dew (List, mortals, if your ears be true) Beds of hyacinth and roses, Where young Adonis oft reposes. Waxing well of his deep wound looo In slumber soft, and on the ground Sadly sits the Assyrian queen : But far above in spangled sheen Celestial Cupid, her famed son advanced. Holds his dear Psyche sweet entranced, After her wandering labours long, Till free consent the gods among Make her his eternal bride. And from her fair unspotted side Two blissful twins are to be born, loio ■^ Youth and Joy ; so Jove hath sworn. But now my task is smoothly done : I can fly, or I can run. Quickly to the green earth's end. Where the bowed welkin slow doth bend. And from thence can soar as soon To the corners of the moon. Mortals, that would follow me, Love Virtue : she alone is free ; She can teach ye how to climb 1020 Higher than the sphery chime ; Or if Virtue feeble were, Heaven itself would stoop to her. LYCIDAS. 41 LYCIDAS. " In this Monody the author bewails a learned Friend, unfortunately drowned in his passage from Chester on the Irish Seas, 1637^ and by occasion foretells the mine of otcr corrupted Clergie then in their heightr Yet once more, O ye laurels, and once more, Ye myrtles brown, with ivy never sere, I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude, And with forced fingers rude Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year. Bitter constraint, and sad occasion dear. Compels me to disturb your season due ; For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime, Young Lycidas, and hath not left his peer. Who would not sing for Lycidas? he knew 10 Himself to sing, and build the lofty rhyme. He must not float upon his watery bier Unwept, and welter to the parching wind, Without the meed of some melodious tear. Begin then, Sisters of the sacred well. That from beneath the seat of Jove doth spring ; Begin, and somewhat loudly sweep the string. Hence with denial vain and coy excuse ; So may some gentle Muse 42 LYCIDAS. With lucky words favour my destined urn, 20 And as he passes turn, And bid fair peace be to my sable shroud. For we were nursed upon the self-same hill. Fed the same flock, by fountain, shade and rill : Together both, ere the high lawns appeared Under the opening eyelids of the Morn, We drove a-field, and both together heard What time the gray-fly winds her sultry horn, Battening our flocks with the fresh dews of night. Oft till the star that rose at evening bright 30 Toward heaven's descent had sloped his westering wheel. Meanwhile the rural ditties were not mute. Tempered to the oaten flute ; Rough Satyrs danced, and Fauns with cloven heel From the glad sound would not be absent long, And old Damoetas loved to hear our song. But, O the heavy change, now thou art gone, Now thou art gone, and never must return ! Thee, Shepherd, thee the woods and desert caves, With wild thyme and the gadding vine o'ergrown, 40 And all their echoes mourn. The willows, and the hazel copses green. Shall now no more be seen Fanning their joyous leaves to thy soft lays. As killing as the canker to the rose. Or taint-worm to the weanling herds that graze, Or frost to flowers that their gay wardrobe wear. When first the white-thorn blows : Such, Lycidas, thy loss to shepherd's ear. Where were ye. Nymphs, when the remorseless deep 50 Closed o'er the head of your loved Lycidas ? For neither were ye playing on the steep Where your old bards, the famous Druids, lie, Nor on the shaggy top of Mona high. LYCIDAS. 43 Nor yet where Deva spreads her wizard stream. Ay me ! I fondly dream, Had ye been there — for what could that have done? What could the Muse herself that Orpheus bore, The Muse herself, for her enchanting son, Whom universal Nature did lament, 60 When, by the rout that made the hideous roar, His gory visage down the stream was sent, Down the swift Hebrus to the Lesbian shore? Alas ! what boots it with uncessant care To tend the homely slighted shepherd's trade, And strictly meditate the thankless Muse? Were it not better done, as others use, To sport with Amaryllis in the shade. Or with the tangles of Neaera's hair? Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise 70 (That last infirmity of noble mind) To scorn delights, and live laborious days ; But the fair guerdon when we hope to find. And think to burst out into sudden blaze. Comes the blind Fury with the abhorred shears, And slits the thin-spun life. " But not the praise," Phoebus replied, and touched my trembling ears : " Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil. Nor in the glistering foil Set off to the world, nor in broad rumour lies, 80 But lives and spreads aloft by those pure eyes, And perfe'ct witness of all-judging Jove ; As he pronounces lastly on each deed. Of so much fame in Heaven expect thy meed." O fountain Arethuse, and thou honoured flood. Smooth-sliding Mincius, crowned with vocal reeds, That strain I heard was of a higher mood : But now my oat proceeds, And listens to the herald of the sea, 44 LYCIDAS. That came in Neptune's plea : 90 He asked the waves, and asked the felon winds, What hard mishap hath doomed this gentle swain ? And questioned every gust of rugged wings That blows from off each beaked promontory. They knew not of his story ; And sage Hippotades their answer brings : That not a blast was from his dungeon strayed, The air was calm, and on the level brine Sleek Panope with all her sisters played. It was that fatal and perfidious bark, 100 Built in the eclipse, and rigged with curses dark, That sunk so low that sacred head of thine. Next Camus, reverend sire, went footing slow, His mantle hairy, and his bonnet sedge. Inwrought with figures dim, and on the edge Like to that sanguine flower inscribed with woe. "Ah! who hath reft" (quoth he) "my dearest pledge?" Last came, and last did go, The Pilot of the Galilean Lake ; Two massy keys he bore of metals twain no (The golden opes, the iron shuts amain) ; He shook his mitred locks, and stern bespake : " How well could I have spared for thee, young swain, Enow of such as for their bellies' sake Creep, and intrude, and climb into the fold ! Of other care they little reckoning make Than how to scramble at the shearers' feast. And shove away the worthy bidden guest. Blind mouths ! that scarce themselves know how to hold A sheep-hook, or have learnt aught else the least 120 That to the faithful herdman's art belongs ! What recks it them ? What need they ? They are sped ; And when they list, their lean and flashy songs Grate on their scrannel pipes of wretched straw ; LYCIDAS. 45 The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed, But swoln with wind, and the rank mist they draw, Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread ; Besides what the grim wolf with privy paw Daily devours apace, and nothing said ; But that two-handed engine at the door 130 Stands ready to smite once, and smite no more." Return, Alpheus, the dread voice is past That shrunk thy streams ; return, Sicilian Muse, And call the vales, and bid them hither cast Their bells, and flowrets of a thousand hues. Ye valleys low, where the mild whispers use Of shades, and wanton winds, and gushing brooks. On whose fresh lap the swart star sparely looks, Throw hither all your quaint enamelled eyes, That on the green turf suck the honied showers, 140 And purple all the ground with vernal flowers. Bring the rathe primrose that forsaken dies, The tufted crow-toe, and pale jessamine. The white pink, and the pansy freaked with jet, The glowing violet, The musk rose, and the well-attired woodbine, With cowslips wan that hang the pensive head, And every flower that sad embroidery wears ; Bid amaranthus all his beauty shed, And daffadillies fill their cups with tears, 150 To strew the laureate hearse where Lycid lies. For so to interpose a little ease. Let our frail thoughts dally with false surmise ; Ay me ! whilst thee the shores and sounding seas Wash far away, where'er thy bones are hurled ; Whether beyond the stormy Hebrides, Where thou perhaps, under the whelming tide, Visit'st the bottom of the monstrous world ; Or whether thou, to our moist vows denied, 4.6 LYCIDAS. Sleep'st by the fable of Bellerus old, i6o Where the great Vision of the guarded mount Looks toward Namancos and Bayona's hold : Look homeward, Angel, now, and melt with ruth ; And, O ye dolphins, waft the hapless youth. Weep no more, woeful shepherds, weep no more. For Lycidas, your sorrow, is not dead, Sunk though he be beneath the watery floor ; So sinks the day-star in the ocean bed, And yet anon repairs his drooping head. And tricks his beams, and with new-spangled ore 170 Flames in the forehead of the morning sky : So Lycidas sunk low, but mounted high. Through the dear might of Him that walked the waves. Where, other groves and other streams along, With nectar pure his oozy locks he laves, And hears the unexpressive nuptial song. In the blest kingdoms meek of joy and love. There entertain him all the saints above, In solemn troops and sweet societies. That sing, and singing in their glory move, 180 And wipe the tears for ever from his eyes. Now, Lycidas, the shepherds weep no more ; Henceforth thou art the Genius of the shore, In thy large recompense, and shalt be good To all that wander in that perilous flood. Thus sang the uncouth swain to the oaks and rills. While the still Morn went out with sandals gray ; He touched the tender stops of various quills. With eager thought warbling his Doric lay : And now the sun had stretched out all the hills, 190 And now was dropt into the western bay ; At last he rose, and twitched his mantle blue : To-morrow to fresh woods, and pastures new. 47 NOTES. LAWES'S DEDICATION OF THE FIRST EDITION OF COMUS. Henry Lawes, 1595 — 1662, sometime a "Gentleman of the Chapel Royal" (i.e. one of the royal choir), and a member of the king's "private music" (orchestra), was the chief composer of his age. He was specially noted as a composer of incidental music for Masques and of songs. He composed in 1633 part of the music for Shirley's great Masque The Trhajiph of Peace, and all the music for Carew's equally famous CcBlum Britannicum. He wrote the music for Cotnus (and probably for Arcades), acted the part of "the Attendant Spirit" when the piece was first per- formed at Ludlow Castle in 1634, and was responsible for the publication of the first edition in 1637. He seems to have been one of Milton's earliest and most intimate friends, thanks, no doubt, to their common love of music. Milton addressed the following Sonnet to him. "to MR H. LAWES ON HIS AIRS. 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, With praise enough for Envy to look wan ; To after age thou shalt be writ the man That with smooth air couldst humour best our tongue. 48 COM US. Thou honour'st verse, and verse must lend her wing To honour thee, the priest of Phoebus' quire, 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." This Sonnet appeared as an introduction to a volume of "Choice Psalmes, put into Musick for three Voices: composed by Henry and William Lawes, Brothers, and Servants to his Majestic : 1648." The date of the composition of the Sonnet was Feb. 1646, as we learn from the Cambridge MS. Its familiar tone shows that the intimacy between the poet and the musician had not been affected by political differences, though Lawes, like his brother (who fell fighting for the king at Chester in 1645), was an ardent Royalist, and the volume of Psalms to which Milton's poem was prefixed was dedicated to Charles. After 1648 we do not hear of Lawes in connection with Milton, so that the force of circumstances may have driven them apart.- It is significant that Lawes's dedication of Comus, which was reprinted in the 1645 edition of the poem, was omitted from the 1673 edition; though the omission may have been due to another cause. The first four lines of the Sonnet, which should be compared with Comus, 86 — 88 and 494 — 496, give a very precise and musicianly description of Lawes's songs. He was content to make his music subordinate to the words, preserving their rhythm and accent with fidelity; so that the poetry, not the music (very often, a kind of recitative), was the chief element. This quality explains his great popularity with the poets of the period, many of whom, e.g. Ilerrick, Cartwright, Waller, had songs set to music by him. See Grove's Dictionary of Music. Lord Brackley. The second Earl of Bridgewater, born in 1622; he succeeded his father in 1649, and died in 1686. This dedication was omitted (as we have said) from the edition of 1673; not unnaturally, since the Earl and the poet had taken opposite sides in the civil troubles. The former was arrested in 1651 on suspicion of being a Royalist. Milton's polemical tract Pro Populo Anglicano Defcnsio appeared in that year, and Todd says that the Earl of Bridgewater wrote on the title-page of his NOTES. 49 copy "Liber igne, author furca dignissimi" (i.e. 'the book well deserves burning and the author hanging '). For the rest he seems to have been a genial, learned man, who patronised literature and "delighted much in his library." See the National Dictionary of Biography. Of the younger brother, Mr Thomas Egerton, who took part in the Masque, little is known. The sister. Lady Alice, married Richard Vaughan, Earl of Carberry. SIR HENRY WOTTON'S LETTER. This letter is interesting as one of the earliest extant testimonies to Milton's genius. That he valued it much and thought that it would be a weighty recommendation of Co?nus is shown by his causing it to be prefixed to the 1645 edition of the poem. And in the Second Defence he says: "On my departure for Italy, the celebrated Henry Wotton gave me a signal proof of his regard, in an elegant letter which he wrote, not only breathing the warmest friendship, but containing some maxims of conduct which I found very useful in my travels " {P. W. I. 255). Sir Henry Wotton, 1568 — 1639, was a man of some note in diplomacy and literature. He represented the English Court at Venice for some years; and afterwards (1625) became Provost of Eton, and took orders in the Church. He was a friend of Isaac Walton, who wrote his life. Wotton's chief work was published posthumously in 1651, under a title which explains its miscellaneous contents: '•'■ ReliquicB Wottoniance ; or, a Collection of Lives, Letters, Poems, with Characters of sundry Personages, and other incomparable Pieces of Language and Art : By the curious Pencil of the ever-memorable Sir Henry Wotton, Knt., late Provost of Eaton College, 1651." At least one of his poems ("You meaner beauties of the night") is familiar to lovers of Jacobean verse; and his definition of an ambassador as "an honest man sent to lie abroad for the good of his country " is still fresh. The /quivoqtie had more point then than now, because " to lie " was technically used of an ambassador's residence abroad (Hannah). Wotton seems to have had a turn for aphorism. His favourite motto — engraved on his tombstone — was dispiitandi pruritus ecclesiarum scabies (*an itching for discussion is the mania of churches'). Sir V. C. 4 50 COM us. Henry Wotton admirably represents the type of courtier, wit and scholar. A sympathetic account of his career by Dr A. W. Ward has been published recently. 2. the first taste. Milton had retired to his father's house at Horton in 1632. Horton being so close to Eton, it is curious that Sir Henry had not previously met his neighbour. 6. Mr H. Commonly identified, and no doubt rightly, with the Broad Church divine John Hales, who was for some years a Fellow of Eton and Canon of Windsor. His learning won for him the title "the ever-memorable." There are allusions to him in Wotton's Reliquice. 10. banded i discussed. 16. Doric, i.e. Theocritean. Cf. Lye. 189, "With eager thought warbling his Doric lay." Wotton shows his critical faculty in singling out the lyric portions of Comiis for special commendation. Contrast Johnson's criticism. •23. Mr R. This "common friend" was probably John Rouse, of Oriel College, sometime (1620 — 1652) Bodley's Librarian. Milton had been incorporated M.A. at Oxford in 1635, according to the common practice, and on one of his visits to the University must have found his way to the Bodleian Library. Some years later (1647) the poet addressed Rouse in an elaborate Latin ode, celebrating the blissful silence and treasures of the great Library. in the very close. Sir Henry Wotton means that a copy of Lawes's edition of Coffins was inserted at the entl of a volume of poems by "the late R": probably the Cambridge poet Thomas Randolph, who died in 1634 and whose poems were published by his brother in 1638, the year in which Sir Henry wrote the letter. Randolph was one of the ablest of the followers (intellectual " sons," as they called themselves) of Ben Jonson, and wrote several amusing plays. He was con- temporary with Milton at Cambridge. 26. con la bocca dolce, i.e. with a pleasant taste in the mouth. Cf. French bonne botiche. 27, 28. Sir Henry modestly implies that he has more right to speak as an authority on travel than on literature. 29. blanch, omit, pass by. If we used the verb at all we should treat it as intransitive, inserting from. Paris. Milton arrived there in April or May, 1638. He NOTES. 5 1 seems to have stayed some time, not reaching Florence till August. 30. Mr M. B. Identified with Michael Branthwaite. Sir Henry Wotton mentions him in the Reliquice as ''hereto- fore his Majesties Agent in Venice, a gentleman of approved confidence and sincerity," p. 546. This was in 1626. Afterwards Branthwaite became diplomatic agent at Paris. Page 5, line i. Lord S., i.e. Lord Scudamore, son of the English ambassador. Viscount Scudamore, who showed Milton much courtesy in Paris ; as we learn from his Second Defence of the People of England. (This was one of Milton's political treatises, written in Latin to justify the English Civil War, and more especially the execution of Charles I., in the eyes of Europe. Milton's first pamphlet on the subject had elicited violent attacks upon himself, his life and character ; in his reply he gave a sketch of his career. The Second Defence therefore has very great autobiographical interest.) governor \ we should say 'tutor.' 7. Marseilles... to Genoa. The route that Addison took; see his Travels. But Milton entered Italy by way of Nice, coasted thence to Genoa, and went on to Florence, the favourite resting- place of English travellers, where he spent some months. 8, 9. a Gravesend barge. Cf. Hasted's History of Kent., vol. I. p. 450: "King Richard II. granted to the Abbat and Convent of St Mary Graces., that the inhabitants of Gravesend and Milton should have the sole privilege of carrying passengers by water from hence to London, on condition that they should provide boats for that purpose, and carry all passengers either at ^d. per head with their bundle, or let the hire of the whole boat at 4^. This charter was confirmed several times afterwards by succeeding kings, and under proper regiilation by the legislature they still (1778) enjoy the privilege." 12. At Siena. This was in the autumn of 1592. "I am here," Sir Henry writes to Lord Zouch from Siena, Oct. 25, 1592, "by the means of certain Persons (to whom I was recom- mended) gotten into the House of Scipione Alberti, an ancient Courtier of the Popes, and a Gentleman of this Town, at whose Table I live." In a letter dated August 22, 1593, he mentions his Siena host again, and also refers to the Duke of Pagliano — a reference which I cannot explain. 4—2 52 COMUS. 17, 18. at my dej>ariure. Evidently the story that follows was a favourite with Sir Henry; he tells it in the Keliquur. 21, 1^. i pensieri etc. "Your thoughts close and your countenance loose" (literally 'open'), as George Herbert renders the saying in his collection of proverbs entitled Jacula Pru- dentum (' Shafts of the Wise'). In spite of the maxim Milton gave free expression to his strong Protestant views, offending the English Jesuits and others at Rome. See Mark Pattison's Life of Milton^ pp. 33 — 38. 23. Delphian oracle^ i.e. maxim which might have been uttered by the oracle of Apollo at Delphi. 35. entertain you with ho/ne-novelties, i.e. write news of events in England. No further correspondence between Sir Henry Wotton and INIilton is extant. COMUS. G. = Glossary. The performance. This took place on Michaelmas night, 1634, in the great Hall of Ludlow Castle, afterwards, says Professor Masson, called ' Comus Hall.' At the end of the room a stage was erected, concealed from the audience by a curtain or screen until the piece began. The Earl and Countess of Bridgewater occupied the Throne of State, the audience filling the rest of the hall. When everything was ready the scene, representing a wood, was disclosed. The Persons. The Masque contains six characters. We know how four of the parts were filled, viz. that the Lady was represented by the young Lady Alice Egerton, daughter of the Earl of Bridgewater ; the two Brothers by her brothers Lord Brackley and Mr Thomas Egerton; and the Attendant Spirit by Lawes. It is likely that all four performers took part in the representation of Arcades, while it is known that Lord Brackley and his brother were among the Masquers in Carew's Ccelum Britannicutn acted in the previous February. Probably therefore Comus had the advantage of tolerably com- petent amateur acting. For Sabrina and Comus, no doubt, some relatives or friends of the Bridgewater family appeared. presented, i.e. represented the characters. Cf. The Tempesty IV. 167, "when I presented Ceres"; and Tennyson's /W«f 153- Cf. the notes on 50 and 74. The Cambridge MS. adds the direction They all scatter. 154. dazzling. The Cambridge MS. has poxvdered ; cf. "magic dust," 165. No doubt as the actor spoke these lines, 153 — 156 (cf. "Thus"), he scattered some powder in the air. A coloured light too may have been burnt behind the scene to heighten the effect — Masson. spongy, because it seems, like a sponge, to drink in and retain the spells; cf. Troilus and Cressida, ii. 1. 12, "More spongy to suck in the sense of fear." 155. blear, deceptive. To blear the eyes is to blur, i.e make them dim. Dimness led easily to the notion of de ceiving. 156. presentments. Cf. Hamlet's "counterfeit presentment,' where 'representation,' 'picture' is the sense required, ill. 4. 54 157. quaint habits, i.e. his fanciful magician's dress Milton has to explain why Comus at his next entry (244) appears as a "gentle shepherd" (271). 160. ends, purposes, intentions. 68 COMUS. i6i. glozing, flattering; with the idea of falsehood. See G. ^di. not uiiplausible, i.e. very specious ; an instance of the figure of speech called meiosis (Gk. fxelwais, 'diminution'), by which you express in very moderate language something which you really wish to emphasise, e.g., 'it is no small pleasure to' = it is a very great pleasure to. Another name for this figure of rhetoric is litotes ('simplicity,' from the Greek). 163. IVinil me, i.e. obtain his confidence. Needlessly changed in some editions to loin. Shakespeare has wiud with the sense 'to get an unfair advantage over'; e.g. in King Lear., I. 2. 106, "seek him out : wind me into him, I pray you." the easy-hearted vian, unsuspicious people. 165. virtue, peculiar power; cf. virtuous, 621 ; see G. 167. gear, business. Properly ^m/'=' apparatus,' 'tackle,' as in compounds, travelling or fishing gear, etc. In Elizabe- than English it usually has the wider meaning of 'affair,' 'matter in hand.' Cf. Romeo andyuliet, ii. 4. 107, " Here's goodly gear," i.e. as we might say colloquially, *a pretty business.' 166 — 169. The edition of 1673 differs from that of 1645, by omitting 167, transposing 168, 169, and giving hear for here in 169. Most editors keep to the text of the earlier edition, except that they substitute hear for here. Some, however, follow the 1645 ^^- ^^ printing "And hearken, if I may, her business here," and take hearken transitively. 168. fairly, softly; cf. "Soft and fair, friar," Much Ado About Nothing, v. 4. 72. Comus steps back into the wood. 172. ill-managed, disorderly. 173 — 177. Milton is thinking of a shearing feast and harvest- home, such as Herrick describes in the Hesperides (a work from which we learn much about the rural life of Milton's generation). See again 848, Lye. 117, and L^ Allegro, 91 — 114. 174. hinds, peasants ; see G. 175. granges, barns, granaries; from Lat. grauuvi, corn. Now a })oetic word in this sense ; cf. Tennyson's Demeter, " l\e- joicing in the harvest and the grange." 177. amiss, i.e. in a wrong way. 178. swilled, drunken ; a coarse word, apiilicablc to animals but suiting the context here. Cf. the description in Par. Lost, i. 502, of revellers " flown with insolence and wine," i.e. flushed with. NOTES. 69 1 79. wassailers ; see G. 180. inforfu^ find guidance for. Cf. Samson Agonistes, 335. 181. blind, obscure ; as in ' blind alley.' 183. to lodge, to pass the night. 184. the sp7-eading favour, the kindly shelter. 188. then when; a favourite emphatic phrase with Milton; cf. Par. Lost, iv. 970, "Then, when I am thy captive, talk of chains." gray-hooded Even ; hence Keats's line in Endymion, i. : " She sings but to her love, nor e'er conceives How tiptoe Night holds back her dark-giay hood." 189. sad, sober, serious, without any notion of sorrow; cf, sadly in line 509, and see G. votarist. Used of anyone who had taken a vow {votiim) \ here a vow of pilgrimage. Cf. Thnon of Athens, iv. 3. 27, "I am no idle votarist." A palmer -^2^% "one who bore a palm-branch in memory of having been to the Holy Land " — Skeat. The comparison between "the ^ray-hooded Even" and a palmer may be illustrated by one of Greene's lyrics describing Love dressed as a pilgrim : " Down the valley gan he track, Bag and bottle at his back, In a surcoat all of gray ; Such wear palmers on the way, When with scrip and staff they see Jesus' grave on Calvary." So Collins in his Ode, "How sleep the brave," stanza 2: " There Honour comes, a pilgrim gray, To bless the turf that wraps their clay." 190. i.e. they left her just as the sun was sinking. 193. engaged, ventured, committed. 195 — 225. From " else O thievish Night" down to " tufted grove" (225) is omitted in the Bridgewater MS., i.e. was not acted ; perhaps to lighten the part of the young lady ; perhaps from motives of delicacy — Masson. 195 — 200. This piece of imagery has been very generally censured as far-fetched and unnatural. The fact is that Milton's early poems do show just a trace of the fault which mars the works of those fantastic contemporary wxiters, such as Donne and 70 COM us. Crashaw, whom Johnson calls the ' metaphysical ' poets {Life of Cowley). One of the 'notes' of this school of writers was the use of fantastic imagery, far-fetched metaphors. Cf. the Nativity Ode, 229 — 231 : "So when the sun in bed, Curtained with cloudy red, Pillows his chin upon an orient wave." The image there is a mere 'conceit,' which barely escapes the grotesque. 198. their lamps; a much used comparison; cf. Shelley's line, "The lamps of Heaven flash with a softer light," Adonais, XIX. Shakespeare quaintly compared the stars to candles in Romeo and Juliet, III. 5. 9 — "Night's candles are burnt out"; and Macbeth, 11. i. 5. 203. perfect in, perfectly clear to. 204. single, total. 205. what mightl what could this be? The original sense of may was ' can,' * be able.' 207 — 209. Milton was drawing upon popular superstition. Perhaps some of his audience believed in these "calling shapes" and " airy tongues " of which medieval romance is full. Editors cite many illustrations, e.g. the "strange shapes" and "sounds and sweet airs" and "voices" of The Tempest, III. 2. 144 — 149, 3. 18—39. 207. beckoning shadaivs dire. The order of the W(.)uls— a noun placed between two qualifying words — is a favourite with Milton. The idiom is Greek ; in his note on Lycidas, 6 Mr Jerram quotes Euripides, Phcenisscc, 234, vi(p6^o\oi' opos lp6v (' snowclad mount divine,' viz. Parnassus). Gray probably borrowed the device from Milton ; cf. his Eleg}', 53, "Full many a gem of purest ray serene." Cf. also Tennyson's early poems, in which the influence of Milton is very noticeable; e.g. The Lotos-Eaters, Vli., "With half-dropt eyelid still," and IVie Palace of Art, " In diverse raiment strange." beckoning. Like the ghost in I/a »i let, I. 4. 58. 208. airy tongues. Cf. Etidymion, IV. : "No, never more Shall airy voices cheat me to the shore." Probably due to Comiis. syllable, i.e. pronounce clearly. 212. siding, going by the side; hence ' defending.* NOTES. yi 214. gi7't with golden juings. Possibly a reminiscence of Psalm Ixviii, 13 : "yet shall ye be as the wings of a dove covered w^ith silver, and her feathers with yellow gold." 215. unblemished.^ that may not be blemished ; see 349, note. Chastity. A departure from the ordinary Trinity of Faith, Hope and Charity (to keep the Authorised Version of 6.'^a-K-r\). Conius is an enforcement of the doctrine intensely sacred in Milton's eye — the doctrine of purity; and it is worth noting that the substantive chastity occurs seven times in the poem; the adjective chaste four times. 216. ye ; the original distinction between ye (nominative) 2sAyou (objective) was often ignored by Elizabethan writers ; we see it in John xv. 16, "Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you." 217. Supreme. Scan stlpreme; see note on 273. The sense in 217 — 219 is : 'he who uses all evil powers as agents to execute his displeasure against wicked men would send...' 221. Was I deceived! A moment before she had expressed the belief that Providence would, if necessary, interpose to protect her. The rift in the clouds seems an omen : the moon- light is like a "glistering guardian." 223. 224. Milton employs sparingly, but with fine effect, the artifice of verbal repetition. Cf. Par. Lost, vii. 25, 26: "though fallen on evil days, On evil days though fallen, and evil tongues." No modern poet uses this device more beautifully than Tennyson. Cf. in Enoch Arden the latter part of the great passage that begins " The mountain wooded to the peak." 224. Cf. the proverb "no cloud without a silver lining." 225. casts. We should expect cast after does in 223. 228. neiu- enlivened, i.e. by the favourable sign in the sky. 230. Invocations of Echo, whose reply would be counter- feited behind the scenery, were not uncommon in Masques. It was a pretty, fanciful device appropriate to the fanciful character of the ordinary Masque. Also, it gave an opportunity for the introduction of Music (ever a great feature of Masque-perfor- mances). Echo, a mountain-nymph (Oread, from opos, a mountain) who was changed by Juno into an Echo — "that is, a being with no control over its tongue, which is neither able to speak before ^2 COM us. anybody else has spoken, nor to be silent when somebody else has spoken. Echo in this state fell desperately in love with Narcissus ; but as her love was not returned, she pined away in grief, so that in the end there remained of her nothing but her voice " — Classical Dictionary. 231. airy shell; some interpret 'the vault of Heaven ' = "sphere," 241; others 'a shell with air in it,' lying by the river's side (232). 232. There is said to be no classical authority for this association of Echo and Meander, though we meet with it in Gray's Progress of Poesy ^ 69 — 72, a reminiscence perhaps of the present passage. It has been sutjgested, however, that the mention of the Meander in poetry is due to the fact that it was a special resort of the swan, which, like the nightingale, is one of the favourite birds of poets ; cf. the legend of the ' swan's song.' Meander is the modern Mendereh, rising in Phrygia. The circuitous course of the river has given us the word meaiid<:r. 241. Parity, conversation, dialogue ; since an echo seems to keep up a dialogue with the voice. Daughter of the sphere. Cf. the epithet 'sphere-born' applied to the "harmonious sisters. Voice and Verse," At a Solemn Music, 2, There is perhaps an allusion to the notion of "the music of the spheres," which is referred to in 102 1 ; see note there. 242. translated, raised aloft. 243. i.e. re-echo the music of heaven. Note that the verse is an Alexandrine (six feet), the only one in the poem. Milton was fond of the metre; see the Nativity Ode, or Death of a Fair Infant. An Alexandrine rounds off effectively the close of a stanza; cf. the Odes of Gray and Collins. The abuse of the artifice excited Pope's ridicule. Essay on Criticism, 356, 357 : "A needless Alexandrine ends the song, That, like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along." 244. In the Cambridge MS. the return of Comus to the scene is marked by a stage-direction — Comus looks in and speaks. Probably he appears at the side of the stage, not revealing himself to the Lady till 265. 244, 245. The language of the couplet is a little extravagant; but we must remember that it was inserted out of compliment to the composer and the Lady Egerton who had sung the air. NOTES. 73 246 — 248. Probably a reference to the idea, attributed to Pythagoras, that the soul is a harmony. Plato in the PJuvdo compares it to a harmony. Cf. The Merchant of Venice, V. 63, where Farmer quoted Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity.^ Bk. v. "Touching musical harmony... so pleasing effects it hath in that very part of man which is most divine, that some have been thereby induced to think, that the soul itself by nature is or hath in it harmony." 247. moves the vocal air, fills the air till it becomes vocal (a proleptic use of the epithet). 248. To, so as to. hisy its ; see G. 249. 250. " Even silence herself was content to convey her mortal enemy, sound, on her wings, so greatly was she charmed with its hamiony " — Warburton. 251, 252. These lines exemplify Milton's faculty for suggest- ing by means of metaphor — the quality in which Coleridge among modern poets is eminent. We are to conceive of darkness as being a dusky bird whose ruffled wings cover the earth — imagery which is illustrated by V Allegro, 6, where "brooding Darkness spreads his jealous wings." And on this bird of night falls the spell of harmony, just as in the first Pythian Ode of Pindar the eagle of Zeus was charmed to rest by music ; cf. Gray, The Progress of Poesy, I. 2 : "Perching on the sceptred hand Of Jove, thy magic lulls the feather'd king With ruffled plumes, and flagging wing : Quench'd in dark clouds of slumber lie The terror of his beak, and light'ning of his eye." The raven is chosen as symbolising darkness by its colour. Mrs Gaskell has a happy allusion to this passage : "she was late — that she knew she would be. Miss Simmonds was vexed and cross. That also she had anticipated — and had intended to smooth her raven down by extraordinary diligence" — Mary Barton, 11. p. 27. 251. fall, cadence; cf. "That strain again ! it had a dying fall," Twelfth Night, I. 1.4. Cf. close in 548. 252. till it smiled, i.e. Darkness. 253. the Sirens; "sea-nymphs who had the power of charming by their songs all who heard them... According to Homer, the island of the Sirens was situated between Aea 74 COM us. [Circe's isle] and the rock of Scylla [cf. 257], near the S.W. coast of Italy" — Classical Dictionary. Strictly the Sirens (Homer says there were two) had nothing to do with Circe. 254. In Odyssey, x. 350, 351, Circe is waited upon by four maidens, "born of the wells and of the woods and of the holy rivers, that flow forward into the salt sea." The Naiads were "the nymphs of fresh water, whether of rivers, lakes, brooks, or springs" — Classical Dictionary: hence their association with wild-flowers. Cf. Par. Regained^ ii. 355, 356. Jlozvery-kirtled ; "dressed with garlands of flowers for skirts" — Dr Bradshaw. Or perhaps, 'flower-decked.' 255. potent herbs. Cf. yEncid, VII. 19, 20, where Vergil speaks of the victims whom " the cruel goddess Circe had trans- formed from men into beasts potentidtis herbis.'''' 256. prisoned, i.e. in the body; cf. 385. 257. lap it in Elysiiun, fill it with an intense bliss. Elysiiun; the Paradise of Greek mythology; hence a synonym of supreme happiness. 257 — 259. Homer makes Odysseus sail some distance beyond the island of the Sirens, and out of reach of their song, before he came to Scylla and Charybdis. All through this passage Milton adapts rather than follows Homer's account of the classical figures enumerated. " Scylla and Charybdis, the names of two rocks between Italy and Sicily, and only a short distance from one another. In the one of these rocks which was nearest to Italy, there was a cave, in which dwelt Scylla, a fearful monster, barking like a dog. In the opposite rock dwelt Charybdis, who thrice every day swallowed down the waters of the sea, and thrice threw them up again " — Classical Dictionary. There was a proverbial line, incidis in Scyllam ciipicns vitare Chatybdim, ' in seeking to avoid Charybdis you fall into Scylla,' i.e. escape one danger only to fall into another. Editors note that Milton has in mind a passage in Silius Ilalicus (a late Latin poet, of the 'silver age'), where the two monsters are represented as charmed by the pipe of a shepherd. Milton's figure of Sin in Par. Lost, 11. 650 ct scq. reflects the influence of the classical accounts of Scylla. barking; cf. Odyssey, XII. 85, " therein dwelleth Scylla, yelping terribly {5€(.vbv XeXaKvIa)." Vergil speaks of a rock NOTES. 75 surrounded by "barking waves" (jnultis ciraini latrantibits utidis — ^neid, vii. 588). 261. robbed it of itself, i.e. made it unconscious. 262. home felt, 'keenly felt'; /z^w^ suggesting 'to the full.' As we say, ' pay him home,' ' drive it home.' 263. sober; in contrast to "madness" (261), as "waking" to " slumber " (260). This (says Comus) is an elevated pleasure which one enjoys with all the faculties keenly awake to it and not soothed into unconsciousness. 265. Cf. Ferdinand's meeting with Miranda, The Tempest, I- 2. 425—427 : "my prime request, Which I do last pronounce, is, O you wonder ! If you be maid or no?" 267. 268. i.e. unless thou art the goddess that dwells here. 268. Sylvan. Sylvamis, originally the god of fields and forests (Lat. silva, a wood), was in later times identified with Pan, the god of nature in general (Gk. izav, all). blest song; referring to the strains he has just heard. 269. Cf. Arcades, 48, 49. 271. shepherd. See 164 — 167. ill is lost, i.e. male perditur. 273. boast of skill, i.e. boastful desire to show her skill. extreme shift; scan extreme, an illustration of the rule that in Shakespeare and Milton words like obsaire, extreme, complete, throw the accent on to the previous syllable when they are fol- lowed immediately by an accented syllable, e.g. a monosyllable like shift. Cf. Lucrece, 230, "And extreme fear can neither fight nor fly." So "serene air" (4), "complete steel" (421). 276. her mossy couch, i.e. on the "margent green" (232). 277 — 290. Note the severely classical style, ^s^w'va. Samson Agonistes (which for Goethe had " more of the antique spirit than any other production of any other modern poet") we do not find a piece of aTvxpixvQla. (i.e. dialogue in alternate lines) so long as the present. The nearest approach is the dialogue between Manoah and the Messenger, 1552 et seq. There are a few examples, of the same type of dialogue in Shakespeare's earlier plays; cf. Richard III. IV. 4. 343 — 367, a play written under the influence of his great predecessor Marlowe. Marlowe was a Cambridge man, and, though the general character of his works is essentially romantic, yet he shows the influence of his academic y6 COM us. training by several features, e.g. the use of 316. lodged, i.e. in some cottage (cf. 320, 339, 346). shroud, are sheltering, i.e. in the open air, under some tree or bank. 317,318. i.e. thelark which has her roosting-placc ("ground- nest," as he calls it in Par. Regained, ii. 280) among grass or stubble such as thatched roofs are made of. For a similar vague use of thatched cf. The Tempest, iv. 63, where the sense seems to be ' thick-covered as with a thatch.' 319, 320. low but loyal, humble but reliable. 322 — 326. The sentiment reminds us of the Republican Milton of the Commonwealth days. 322. The derivation — courtesy from cotcrt, 325 — is correct. Cf. Greene's Friar Bacon and Friar Btmgay, ill. 67, *'His courtesy gentle, smelling of the court"; and George Herbert, The Church- Porch, "Courtesie grows in court." See As You Like It, III. I. 41, 42. 324. tapestry, hung with tapestry. 327. 2varranted; in the general sense 'safe, secure.' 329. Eye me, keep your watch over me. square, adjust. 331. Cf. Dryden, yEneid, iii. 767, "The stars were muffled, and the moon was pent." Tennyson in The Priiicess speaks of "A full sea glazed with muffled moonlight," i.e. the light of a moon half hidden by clouds. 332. woufst. The verb ivon, now limited to the participle wont or wonted, was then still conjugated; cf. "he wont... to sit," i.e. used to, Nativity Ode, 10. But as an inflected verb it was commoner in its original sense *to dwell in,' i.e. be used to a place; cf. Par. Lost, vii. 457, "he wons in forest wild." Cf. the cognate Germ. «/^//«^« = (i) to dwell, (2) to be wont. benison ; O. F. beneison ; Lat. benedictio, blessing. 333. Stoop. Cf. the picture in // J\nseroso, 71, 72 of tlie moon "Stooping through a fleecy cloud"; and Endymion, iv. : "The moon put forth a little tliamond peak, Bright signal that she only stooped to tie Her silver sandals." amber; exactly descriptive of the fringe of light round NOTES. 79 the moon when shining through a cloud. Cf. Tennyson's Margaret^ i.: " Like the tender amber round, Which the moon about her spreadeth, Moving thro' a fleecy night." " Amber" is the tint of the atmosphere in The Lotos-Eaters, Choric Song v., and of the sunrise in L' Allegro, 6i (" Robed in flames and amber light"). 334. disinherit, dispossess. Inherit in Shakespeare fre- quently signifies 'to have,' 'possess,' without any notion, as novi^, of heirship. Chaos. Cf. the description of the dark realm of Chaos and his consort "ancient Night" in Par. Lost, 1 1. 959 et seq. 336 — 34 1 . i.e. if your influence (the moon's) be quite eclipsed, then do thou, Oh gentle taper, from some quarter, visit us, and thou shalt be, etc. 336. influence^ power ; see G. 340. A beautiful instance of the sound echoing the sense. The alliteration (/. /.) is clearly meant to suggest the line of light. Cf. Matthew Arnold's The Scholar- Gipsy, "The line of festal light in Christ-Church Hall." For /. /. suggesting length see Par. Lost, vii. 480. 341, 342. A somewhat fanciful way of saying that they will direct their course by the light of the taper as a mariner directs his course by means of the constellations, star ofArcady = any star in the constellation of the Great Bear {Ursa major). Cynostire=- the constellation of the Lesser Bear {Ursa minor'), especially the star at the end of the tail, known as the Pole-star ; the name Cynosnre being due to the constellation's supposed resemblance to the shape of a dog's tail {kvvos ovpd). The story ran that the Arcadian nymph Callisto, after being turned into a she-bear by Juno, was changed into a star, the Great Bear, by Jupiter. She was the daughter of Lycaon, king of Arcadia : whence Milton's "star of A ready. ^' Areas, the son of Callisto, was changed into the Lesser Bear. Greek sailors steered by the Great Bear; the Phoenicians (or Tyrians) by the Lesser — hence " Tyrian Cynosure." For the same reason the Lesser Bear was also called ^oivLK-q (the Phoenician star). See Class. Dictionary. As Cynosura meant literally the star to which sailors looked, Cynosure came to signify metaphorically (i) *a guiding star,' 8o COM us. (2) 'an object on which attention is specially fixed.' For (i) cf. Sylvester's Dii Bartas, Grosart's ed., vol. I. p. 88 : " To the bright Lamp which serves for Cynosu)-e To all that sail upon the sea obscure." This sense, now obsolete, is required by the present verse in Coinus. For (2) cf. V Allegro, 80, "The Cynosure of neigh- bouring eyes." 344. wattled cfites, i.e. sheepfolds made with small hurdles. Matthew Arnold borrowed the phrase in The Scholar-Gipsy : "Go, shepherd, and untie the wattled cotes"; and Tennyson varied it in the Ode to Memory, iv.: " Pour round mine ears the livelong bleat Of the thick-fleeced sheep from wattled folds." ^'^a///^=' hurdle ' is the same word as wallet =^^ bag.' 345. pastoral reed, the traditional shepherd's pipe. See 823. The oaten pipe has been accepted by English writers as distinctly symbolical of pastoral music, without, as Mr Jerram points out in his note on Lye. 33, any direct authority in the classics. In Theocritus we have the KaXafios (i.e. reed) and Pan's pipe, avpiy^ ; in Latin poets calamus, tibia and cicuta (the stem of hemlock). Probably the notion of the "oaten straw" is to be traced to Vergil's te^itii avcna, in the first Eclogue, 2. Cf. the Glosse to the Shepheards Calender, October, " Oaten reedes, Avena." But avena could be applied to any stalk. stops; the small holes in wind instruments like the flute. Cf. Hamlet, in. 2. 365-376: " Will you play upon this pipe?... 'Tis as easy as lying : govern these ventages with your finger and thumb... these are the stops.'''' Collins, who imitated Milton very often, began his Ode to Evening with the words " If aught of oaten stop, or pastoral song..." 346. the lodge, i.e. of the keeper of the wood. 349. innuvierous, innumerable ; L. innumerus. Cf. Par. Lost, VII. 455, " innumerous living creatures." We find much the same shifting use of adjectival and participial terminations in Shakespeare ; e.g. unvalued =ms:!\vi-xh\ii, Richard III. i. 4. 27; z<«flft'(?7 395" i'6' would need dragons to watch over her with eyes that cannot be enchanted, in order to save etc. 398. uns2iJined, i.e. secret. 401. wink on, be blind to. Cf. Macbeth, i. 4. 51, 52 : "Let not light see my black and deep desires; The eye wink at the hand," i.e. let not the eye perceive what the hand is doing. This seems to suit our text. 'Danger' is not to see its opportunity, and, not seeing, is to let the maiden pass unmolested ; a thing, argues the brother, for which we cannot hope. But the personification of Danger is strained. Desire would be simpler. Opportunity. Cf. Lucrece, S'j6 et seq. : "O Opportunity! thy guilt is great: 'Tis thou that executest the traitor's treason." King John put the same truth differently, iv. 2. 219, 220 : "How oft the sight of means to do ill deeds Makes ill deeds done." 404. recks. Cf. I^yc. 122. The verb is not often im- personal. 407. unowned, lonely. 408. Lnfer, argue. 409. without, beyond; cf. 2 Corinthians x. 13, "things without our measure." Cf. the adverb 7i7V//f'/// = outside. 410 — 412. i.e. where the chances seem equally balanced, there being as much reason for hope as for fear, I incline to hope. 41 1, arbitrate the event, decide the issue ( = Lat. tfcntus). 413. sqtiint, i.e. which does not look at things in a fair, straightforward manner. 418. As Masson observes, we have here, up to 475, the most continuous exposition that Comus csontains of its central doctrine. The idea is never absent from Milton's thoughts ; but in no other part of the poem is it treated at such length. 419. if, even if. NOTES. 85 420 — 424. Probably Milton was thinking of the description of Parthenia in Phineas Fletcher's Purple Island, x. 27 — 32 : **A warlike maid, Parthenia, all in steel and gilded arms." {Parthenia = i\iQ Maiden, from Gk. irapdevos, a virgin.) 421. Scan complete; see 273, note, and cf. Hamlet, i. 4. 51—53: "What may this mean, That thou, dead corse, again in cSmplete steel Revisit'st thus the glimpses of the moon?" 422. a quivered nymph; such as those who attended on Diana (see 441). 423. trace, pass, wander, through ; cf. A Midstaiwier-Night'' s Dream, il. i. 25, "to trace the forests wild." zmharboured, i.e. unharbouring= 'yielding no shelter,' the proper sense of harhotir, Cf. Tennyson's Geraint and E?iid, '* O friend, I seek a harbourage for the night." See G. 424. Infamous hills, Cf. "And now he haunts th'infamous woods and downs," Phineas Fletcher, Piscatorie Eclogues, i. 14. Infamous— ^oi evil name,' a Latinism ; cf. Horace's infames scopulos. Odes, I. 3. 20. The (Latin) accentuation, infamous, occurs in the Death of a Fair Infant, 12 : "Thereby to wipe away the infamous blot." 426. bandit e ; "so spelt in Milton's editions, and probably rather a new word about Milton's time" — MassoJi. From Ital. bandito, literally a man placed under the ban, i.e. excommunicated by proclamation of the Church, mountaineer. An opprobrious term, as always in Shake- speare; cf. "call'd me traitor, mountaineer," Cymbeline, iv. 2. 120. People who lived in mountain-districts might naturally be taken as types of savage un-civilization. 428. very, utter. In Shakespeare very is oftener adjective than adverb, being used, as here, to emphasise the noun. 429. shagged; cf. lyc. 54. zvith horrid shades, i.e. horren- tibus umbris. Poets in whom the classical influence is strong use horrid of woods because the Latin horridus ( = shaggy) is a favourite epithet of woodland scenery. 430. nnblenched, unfaltering: "if he but blench I know my course," says Hamlet (ii. 2. 626). Akin to blanch. 431. Be it not, provided that it be not. 86 COM us. 432. Some say; a convenient phrase by which he can mention a popular superstition or theory without committing himself to belief in it. Cf. Par. Lost, x. 575, 668, 671. walks. The regular term ; see note on 435. 433. fire, i.e. a false flame {ignis fnlmis) such as was supposed to attend malicious spirits like \Vill-o'-the-Wisp and Jack-o'-the-Lanthorn, who loved to " Mislead the amazed night- wanderer from his way" [Par. Lost, ix. 640). See L Allegro^ 104. lake or fen. In Ben Jonson's Masque of Queens eleven witches appear, " From the lakes, and from the fens, From the rocks, and from the dens"; and the author, who was very learned in all pertaining to witchcraft and the like, explains in a footnote that "these places, in their own nature dire and dismal, are reckoned up as the fittest from whence such persons should come." 434. Blue; perhaps 'haggard-looking,' like ^^ blue-eyed hag'''' ( = the witch Sycorax, mother of Caliban) in The Tempest, \. 2. '269, where the reference is not to the colour of the eyes but the dark circles under them, such as come from exhaustion or weeping, meagre, lean, French maigre. stubborn, because refusing to be exorcised or 'laid.' Cf. Cymbeline, iv. ■2. 278, " Ghost unlaid forbear thee ! " It was thought that the only tongue in which a spirit could be addressed with effect was Latin ; cf Hamlet, i. i. 42. 435. magic chains. Cf. "each fettered ghost," Nativity Ode, 234. curfezu time, usually eight o'clock ; cf. II Penseroso, 74. The "foul fiend" in Lear, ill. 4. 121, "begins at curfew, and walks till the first cock"; and the spirits in The Tempest, v. 39, 40, "rejoice to hear the solemn curfew." See G. 436. goblin ; see G. swart ; cf Lye. 138. faery. Rarely used, as here, of a malignant power; cf. The Comedy of Errors, IV. 2. 35, "A fiend, a fairy, pitiless and rough"; where, however, many editors change to fury. of the mine. It was an old superstition that mines were inhabited by spirits (i.e. the 'demons' of earth — see note on 299). Collins refers to it in his Ode to I'\'ar, speaking of the eve, "When goblins haunt, from fire or fen, Or mine, or flood, the walks of men"; NOTES. ^7 and Keats in Laviia : ' ' Empty the haunted air and gnomed mine," i.e. mine where gnomes (sprites) dwell. 438 — 440. Shall I appeal to the works of Greek philo- sophers for testimony to the power of purity? schools^ i.e. of philosophy. For school =2i sect professing a special doctrine, cf. Samson Agonistes, 297, " For of such doctrine never was there school." 441. Dian, Diana, the maiden goddess of the chase, type of virginity. Cf Ben Jonson's pretty lines "Queen and huntress, chaste and fair." 443. brinded, striped, streaked; see G. 444. 7noimtain-pard, a kind of wild-cat, usually called cat-d' -mountain, as in Tlie Tempest, iv. i. 262. 445. bolt of Cupid, i.e. arrow; cf. the famous passage (one of the most exquisite pieces of flattery in all literature) in A Midsummer- Ni ghf s Dream, 11. i. 155 — 168), where "Cupid all arm'd " takes his vain aim at the " fair vestal " of the West, i.e. Queen Elizabeth. Cupid was said to have two kinds of darts, one with a golden, the other with a leaden tip ; the former to cause, the latter to repel, love. 447 — 452. Milton points the moral; and we may here note how he has taken two old-world, seemingly outworn legends and has invested them with an entirely new significance. It is Plato's method. Plato will often select some popular expression and apply it in a novel, metaphysical sense ; or some popular belief, and read into it a fresh meaning, thereby raising superstition to the higher plane of philosophy. 447. The Gorgoneion or head of Medusa, whom Perseus had^ slain, was represented on the cegis or shield of Athene ( = Lat. Minerva). Cf. //zW, v. 738 — 741: "about her shoulders cast she (viz. Athene) the tasselled ?egis terrible and therein is the dreadful monster's Gorgon head, dreadful and grim, portent of oegis-bearing Zeus." snaky-headed, because Medusa's hair had been changed into serpents by Athene ; whence her head became so terrible that all who looked on it were turned to stone. There were three Gorgons, monstrous beings, sisters, of whom Medusa is most mentioned in classical writers. 449. freezed. The weak form of the preterite was not uncommon in contemporary writers. The strong verbs 88 COMUS. suffer perpetually from the incursions of the weak conju- gation. frcezed her foes ; note the agreement of sense and sound, the alliteration and sibilants suggesting a petrifying shudder and horror. For the scansion cSngealed see again the note on 273. 451. dashed, put out of countenance, confounded; cf. Par. Lost, II. 114. 452. blauk, utterly dismayed; this use of the adj. is some- what colloquial. For blank as a verb = to make to turn pale, literally 'white' (F. blanc), — in fact, to blench — cf Samson Agottisies, 471, "And with confusion blank his worshippers." 453. "The language of mythological allusion now ceases, and the speaker passes, in his own name, into a strain of Platonic philosophy tinged with Christianity " — Masson. 454. sincerely, entirely. Cf. sincere ^'^wxq., without alloy (L. sincerus) in i Peter ii. 2, "desire the sincere milk of the word." so, i.e. chaste. 455. liveried, i.e. in all their celestial array ; cf. the descrip- tion of the six pairs of wings and "feathered mail" of the archangel Raphael in Par. Lost, v. 277 — 285. liveried; see G. lackey, attend. Lackeying is Theobald's fine emendation in Antony and Cleopatra, i. 4. 46, where the Folios read lacking — " Goes to and back, lackeying the varying tide." The word has deteriorated somewhat. This idea of the Guardian Angel watching over men is a favourite with Milton. See 658 and Par. Lost, ii. 1033. In his theological treatise 77/1? Christiaii Doctrine he devotes a section (ix.) to the ministry on earth of angelic beings. 457. dream... vision. Cf. Cowley's Essays: "I fell at last into this vision ; or if you please to call it but a dream, I sliall not take it ill, because the father of poets Homer tells us, even dreams too are from God"; where Dr Lumby's note (Pitt Press ed. p. 197) is : "In visions a higher degree of revelation was supposed to be imparted than in dreams. Cf. Select Discourses of John Smith, p. 184: 'The Jews are wont to make a vision superior to a dream, as representing things more to the life.'" 458. gross, i.e. with sin. See 784, note. 459 — 4^3- T^^^s fine conception of self-perfectibility, "till body up to spirit work," is developed in Par. Lost, V. 469 — 503; NOTES. 89 see especially 496 — 499, where Raphael tells Adam that if he and his descendants live pure, sinless lives then perhaps "Your bodies may at last turn all to spirit, Improved by tract of time, and wing'd ascend Ethereal, as we." 459. converse. In the three passages in Shakespeare where r^wz'^rj-^ =' intercourse ' occurs the stress falls, as here, on the second syllable — converse. Cf. Othello, iii. t. 40. 461. temple of the mmd. Scriptural imagery; cf. John ii. 21, "He spake of the temple of his body." 463 — 469. Milton passes to the converse of the previous idea. As the body may by self-discipline become soul, the soul by the self-indulgence of its possessor may become body. 466. "Thou desirest truth in the inward parts," Psalm li. 6. 468. i.e. grows fleshly and brutish. Cf. Par. Lost, ix. 166, 167, "This essence to incarnate and imbrute !" 469. property, essential character, Lat. propriiis, own. 470—475. Milton here adapts a well-known passage in Plato's PhcedOy 81, which Professor Jowett renders : " But the soul which has been polluted... and is the companion and servant of the body always, and is in love with and fascinated by the body do you suppose that such a soul will depart pure and unalloyed ? That is impossible, he replied. She is engrossed by the corporeal, which the continual association and constant care of the body have made natural to her. Very true. And this, my friend, may be conceived to be that heavy, weighty, earthy element of sight by which such a soul is depressed and dragged down again into the visible Avorld, because she is afraid of the invisible and of the world below — prozvling about tombs and sepulchres, in the neighbourhood of which, as they tell us, are seen certain ghostly apparitions of soids which have not departed pure, but are cloyed with sight and therefore visible." Dialogues of Plato, vol. I. p. 429. It was, no doubt, belief in the continued association of body and soul after death, and the durability of the former, that led to the yearly offering of meat and drink, and even clothes, at tombs — Thucydides, ill. 58. Many popular 90 COMUS. superstitions as to the attachment which the soul feels for its corporeal tenement might be instanced; e.g. the old Bohemian idea that the anima of a dead man took the form of a bird and perched upon a tree near to the spot where the body was being burnt. When the latter was consumed the soul flitted away. 470. gloomy shadows damp. Plato's phrase is i/'^xw" (TKioetdTJ (pavrda/JiaTa. For the word-order cf. -207, note. 471. i.e. irepl ra /xu-qixard re Kal roiis Td 530- i-e- destroying the emblem of reason which is stamped in the human countenance. George Herbert says in The Chiirch- Porch, " Wine above all things doth God's stamp deface." 529. reason ; for Milton, the chief faculty of the soul {Par. Lost, V. 100 — 102) ; the embodiment of those higher qualities of intellect which separate men from the brute creation. 530. Charactered, stamped; a continuation of the metaphor in tinmoulding (i.e. breaking up the pattern) and mintage. See G., and for the accentuation cf. The Two Gentlemen of Vei'ona, II. 7. 3, 4: ' ' the table wherein all my thoughts Are visibly chardcte7''d and engraved." 531. croft. "A little close [i.e. enclosure] adjoining to a house, and used for corn or pasture " — Johnson. 532. That brow this bottom glade, i.e. that skirt the top of the wood which slopes down to the valley. In some dialects (e.g. the New Forest) bottom is still in use for a valley, glade. 533. monstrous roiit, herd of monsters ; an instance of the adjective doing the duty of the first part of a compound noun; cf. Lye. 158. Monster-rout would sound awkward. German has a distinct advantage over English in this respect. 534. Perhaps stabled— 'which have got inside the sheep-fold (Lat. stabulum),'' and, as we know from Vergil, Eclogue III. 80, triste lupus stabulis (* a wolf is no pleasant thing for sheepfolds'). 94 COM us. But Milton may only mean 'wolves in their haunts'; cf. Par. Lost, XI. 752, where the verb stable = \o have a lair. 535. Doing rites; Lat. sacra facerey Gk. iepa pi^civ. abhorred, deie?.iable, horrible ; for the termination ed=able see the note on 349. Hecate; see 135, note. 537. yet, i.e. though they themselves are "monstrous" and therefore repulsive, and their "rites" horrible, yet they have means to attract people. 539. Milton, like Spenser, uses tinweetitig, not uinvitting. The ee represents better the long i of A.-S. witan, to know. 540, by then, by the time that. Cf. by this=-^ hy this time'; "And I do know, by this, they stay for me," Julius CiEsar, I. 3. 125. 542. knot-grass. There is a stock joke in the dramatists that short people have eaten knot-grass {Polygonum aviculare), whose special property it was to stop growth. Cf. A Mid- summer- Nighfs Dream, ill. 2. 329 ("/im^(?r?«!^ knot-grass"). 546. vielancholy . Not gloomy dejection, but the mood of seriousness or reflection celebrated in // Penseroso ; what Gray in one of his letters calls "white Melancholy, or rather Leucocholy^'' {Works, Gosse's ed. Ii. 114). Gk. Xei'/c6s = white. 547. i.e. to play on my shepherd's pipe. See Lye. 66. ' 548. her fill; now a somewhat vulgar phrase, but not then ; cf. Sonnet XIV. 14, "And drink thy fill of pure immortal streams." See Leviticus xxv. 19. ere a close; "i.e. before he had finished the song he had begun on his pipe " — Masson. Possibly close has its musical sense 'cadence,' i.e. before he reached a cadence in his song. Cf. Richard //. ii. i. 12, "music at the close." A musician himself, Milton uses musical terms often, with a musician's accuracy. 549. wonted; cf. "night by night" (532). 7uas up, had begun. Tlie 'Hunt's up' was the title of an old ballad-tune, referred to in Romeo and Juliet, iii. 5. 34. 551. Listen is transitive in Much Ado Almit Nothing, 11 1. 1.12, "listen our purpose " ( =hear our conversation, F. propos). 552. an tintisual stop, i.e. at line 145 (" break off"). 553. respite, i.e. " from the trouble the noise hail been causing them" — Masson. droivsy-Jlighted ; so the Cambridge MS.^ excej)! that the NOTES. 95 words are not hyphened. The original editions (1637, 1645, 1673) all have drotvsie frighted, which must mean, 'the drowsy steeds" of night which had been frighted by the noise of Comus and his crew.' Though this reading has the better authority, it seems in itself much inferior to dro7vsy -flighted. For droivsy- flighted gives a more picturesque conception ; it is in form an essentially Miltonic compound — cf. " flowery-kirtled " (254), "rushy- fringed" (890); and it harmonises with the passage in 2 Henry VI. iv. i. 3 — 6, which Milton must have had in his mind's eye : "And now loud-howling wolves arouse the jades That drag the tragic melancholy night ; Who with their drowsy, sloiv and flagging wings Clip dead men's graves." We have, surely, in the third line of this quotation the germ of drotvsy flighted, and it appears most improbable that Milton should have changed the line so manifestly for the worse. Further, drowsy frighted is an awkward combination of opposite ideas. I suppose then that frighted was simply an error in the 1637 edition which escaped Milton's notice and, not being corrected by him, was of course reproduced by the printer in the later editions. Newton first adopted flighted from the Cambridge MS. and Masson accepts it. The attempt to make frighted = freighted (with the sense 'the steeds of night heavy with sleep') is impossible. 554. /zV/^r, chariot, close-curtained Sleep. We cannot help remembering Macbeth's "curtain'd sleep," 11. i. 51; and Juliet's "Spread thy close curtain, night," Ro/nco, iii. 2. 5. 555 — 5^'^' Referring of course to the Lady's Song (230 — 243), in the same complimentary manner as before (244). Gray (Progress of Poesy, i. 2) addresses the power of music: "Oh! Sovereign of the Milling soul, Parent of sweet and solemn-breathing airs." 556. stream of peifume. The edition of 1673 spoils the metaphor by substituting stream. Todd quotes a beautiful parallel from Bacon's Essays (xLVi,): "Because the breath of flowers is farre sweeter in the aire, where it comes and goes like the warbling of music." Cf. Tennyson, The Lotos- Eaters : "they find a music centred in a doleful song Steaming up." 96 coMus. Note in 555 — 557 the effect of the alliteration {s.,.s and j/). 557> SS^' ^o when the nightingale sang " Silence was pleased" (/*ar. Lost, iv. 604). tkaf, so that, too/e, charmed ; see G. 559, 560. i.e. cease to exist, if she could always be displaced or banished in the same way. stil/, ever, always. 560. all ear ; now a rather colloquial phrase, but not then; cf. The Tempest, I v. 59, "No tongue ! all eyes ! be silent!" 562. the ribs of Death ; a conventional description. War- burton thought that it might have been suggested by some allegorical representation of Death as a " bare-ribbed " skeleton in a popular ^^^y^ of Emblems. "Bare-ribbed" is the epithet applied to Death in King John, v. 2. 177. Contrast the shadowy, more awe-inspiring conception of Death in Far. Lost, II. 666 — 673. 565. Amazed ; see 356, note. 568. lawns, glades, open spaces in the forest ; see G. 571. in sly disguise, i.e. as a "villager," 166; cf. 576. 575. We are to suppose that he was present, though invisible, at part of the interview between the Lady and Comus. such tzvo, i.e. as she described. Cf. "two such I saw," 291. 584. You gave me. Referring to 418 — 458. 585. period, sentence. 586. for me, as far as I am concerned. 591. i.e. that which mischief intejided to be most harmful. 592. happy trial, trial of happiness ; or the adjective might have what is called a proleptic (or anticipatory) force — ' the trial which proves virtue happy.' 593 — 597. Slowly separating from the good the evil element preys upon itself, just as the figure of Sin in Par. Lost^ II, 798 — 800 is gnawed by the whelps of her own womb. 594. ivhen, till. 595. settled ; like liquid ; the metaphor in "scum." 597. if this fail ; if what I have said prove false. 598. Cf. Par. Regained, iv. 455, "the pillared frame of heaven," where Mr Jerram's note is: "The (supposed) solid dome of the sky requires pillars for its support." He refers to Job xxvi. II, "the pillars of heaven tremble... at his reproof." 603. legions. Scan as a trisyllable, griesly; see G. 604. Acheron. Strictly one of the four rivers of the lower NOTES. 97 world round which the shades of the dead hover, as in Par. Lost, 11.578: " Abhorred Styx, the flood of deadly hate ; Sad Acheron, of sorrow, black and deep": then put for the lower world itself; of. the use of Stygian, 132. From axos, pain, sorrow + peetf, to flow. 605. Harpies ; the 'robbers' or 'spoilers,' from Gk. apird^eiv, to seize. They were hideous, winged female monsters with hooked claws, who swooped upon ^neas and his followers as they were feastingi in one of the Ionian islands and carried off their food {yEna'd, ill. 225 — 228). One of the most vivid descriptions of the Harpies in English poetry is in William Morris's Jason, v. aigetseq. Hydra; literally 'a water serpent' (Gk. uSwp, water); specially used of the Lernean Hydra, a nine-headed serpent, the slaying of which was one of the ' labours ' of Hercules. When he cut off one head two fresh heads sprang in its stead, till at last he discovered how to deal with the monster. 606. Tivixt Africa a)id hid, i.e. from one end of the world to the other — west to east. Ind or Inde is a common poetic form of India; cf. Par. Lost, ii. 2. 608. In Ben Jonson's Masque Pleasure Reconciled to Virtue, Comus has "his head crown'd with roses and other flowers, his hair curled." In Elizabethan times curling the hair was a mark of effeminacy and affectation; see King Lear, iii. 4. 88. 609. purchase, prize, booty; see G. 610. yet, nevertheless, i.e. though he has just said "alas!" It is vain courage, but he cannot help admiring it. 611. stead, service; cf. the verb in The Merchant of Venice, I. 3. 7, "May you stead me?" i.e. Can you help me? To do a thing in the stead, i.e. place, of a man is to help him. 612. other, i.e. mightier. For the emphatic repetition cf. Lye. 174. 613. hellish; cf. 581. 614. 6x5. There are resemblances to The Tempest; cf. i. 2. 469 — 473 (Prospero's first meeting with Ferdinand), and iv. 259 — 261. bare, mere, wand; the usual symbol of magical power ; cf. Prospero's "staff" (v. 54). unthread, take out of their sockets, dislocate, crumble, cause to shrivel up. V. C. 7 98 COM us. 617. As to make, i.e. as to be able to make. relation, report; cf. the verb 'to relate.^ 618. siirprisal ; an echo of 590. 619 — 628. Probably a reference to Milton's school-friend Diodati, whose premature death in 1638 inspired the EpitapJtitim Damonts. Lines 150 — 154 of that poem mention Diodati's knowledge of botany and habit of imparting it to Milton. 620. to see to. An obsolete expression = to behold; cf. Ezekiel xxiii. 15: "Girded with girdles upon their loins, ex- ceeding in dyed attire upon their heads, all of them princes to look to," and jfoshua xxii. 10, " a great altar to see to." skilled, i.e. versed in the lore of. Skill was a word of wider scope then. Among the synonyms of it given and illustrated by quotation in Schmidt's Shakespeare Lexicon are 'discernment,'" 'sagacity,' 'mental power,' 'knowledge of any art.' 621. virtuous, possessed of medicinal properties. 626. sci'ip, bag. "Orig. sense 'scrap,' because made of a scrap of stuff" — Skeat. Cf. Luke xxii. 35. 627. simples. A simple was a single (i.e. simple) ingredient in a compound, especially in a compounded medicine. Its as- sociation with medicine led to the common meaning ' medicinal herb'; once in current use, as it occurs so often in Shakespeare — ^^aillingoi simples," Romeo and Juliet, v. i. 40. Cf. 630. 630 — 633. In point of style this passage, with its accumula- tion of hits, seems the most awkward in Comtis. 634. like, i.e. correspondingly : ' as unknown, so unesteemed.' 635. clouted, patched, mended ; see G. 636. 637. that, the famous; cf. 2. Aloly ; the mysterious plant which Hermes (Lat. Mercury) gave Odysseus as a safeguard against the charms of Circe {Odysst'v, x. 281 — 306). In poetry it is the flower of ideal lands. Tennyson's Lotos- Eaters lie "Propt on beds of amaranth and moly"; and Shelley associates the same plants in Prometheus Unbound, ii. 4: "folded Elysian flowers, Nepenthe, Moly, Amaranth, fadeless blooms." 637. wise. Homer's constant epithet for Odysseus ( = Ulys- ses) is 7roXi;/A7;ris = of many counsels, i.e. ever ready with some wise scheme. This conception of him as the man of wonderful knowledge and thought and experience is brought out most strikingly in Tennyson's Ulysses. NOTES. 99 638. Hirmouy. The name is Milton's invention and com- monly explained as a reference to Ilccnionia, an old name of Thessaly, the land of magic in classical writers (e.g. Horace, Odes, I. 27. 21, 22). So we may call it 'the Thessalian plant.' 639. sovran, most efficacious ; see G. 640. mildeiv blast, i.e. the hurtful power of mildew sent by evil spirits. Cf. King Lear, III, 4. t20, 123, "This is the foul fiend... he mildews the white wheat." 641. Furies, evil fairies. Scan appariti-Sn.. 642. i.e. I put it away in my purse, but never thought much about it. See Zy^r, 116. 644. it, i.e. what the shepherd had said about the plant. 644 — 647. Warton points out that it was a recognised expedient in medieval talcs for a warrior of the type of the Red Crosse Knight to cany a charm, often a herb, as a pro- tective against evil influences. 650, 651. Probably an echo of Odyssey, X. 294, 295, where Hermes says to Odysseus, "when it shall be that Circe smites thee with her long wand, then draw thou thy sharp sword from thy thigh, and spring on her, as one eager to slay her." 651, 652. So in The Faerie Qnecne, ii. 12. 57, when the sorceress Acrasia offered to Guyon the enchanted cup which she was wont to present to strangers, he flung it down, "And with the liquor stained all the land." 653. seize his wand ; which the brothers fail to do. curst creiv. Cf. Par. Lost, VI. 806. In his epics Milton repeatedly applies crezu to Satan and the rebellious angels. 655. Vnlcan,, the Roman god of fire, and master of the arts, such as working in metals, which need the aid of fire. Hence his "sons" might be expected to "vomit smoke," as did the giant Cacus (one of the "sons"), ALneid, viii. 252, 253. The Scene chaiiges. Probably a screen, called, a traverse or travers, was put forward while the alteration of the scene was being made. Cf. Ben Jonson's Entertainment at Theobalds, 1607, "The King and Queen, being entered into the gallery, after dinner there was seen nothing but a traverse of white across the room : which suddenly drawn, was discovered a gloomy obscure place." See Nares's Glossary. soft music. Wanting in the Cambridge MS. Doubtless the addition of music was due to Lawcs. The idea of tempting by 7—2 lOO COMUS. means of a banquet (cf. The Tempest, ill. 3) meets us in medieval romances of virtue assailed by evil powers. I believe that it is the basis of the scene of temptation in Par. Regained, ii. 337- enchanted chair ; because "smeared with gums," 917. puts by, refuses. So Cresar (i. 2. 230) rejected the crown : "Ay, marry... he put it by thrice." goes about, tries. 6gQ — 813. Dramatically the most effective part of Comas. 660. i.e. your sinews (Lat. nei'vi) will all be turned to alabaster, and you will become a statue, or rooted to the spot, as was Daphne. For nei-ve in its Latin sense cf. the Sonnet to Vane, where he calls money the "nerves" of war, i.e. sinews, as we say. are ; a vivid present to suggest immediate effect. alabaster; a sulphate of lime; the pure white variety was much used in images and monuments: hence "statue" in 661. Cf. The Merchant of Venice, i. i. 83, 84: "Why should a man, whose blood is warm within, Sit like his grandsire cut in alabaster?" and "smooth as monumental alabaster" in Othello, v. 2. 5. 661. Daphne. The story of Daphne the nymph who fled from Apollo and was changed into a laurel- tree at her own petition is told by Ovid, Aletamorphoses, I. 660 et seq. 664. corporal rind, bodily covering. 665. while, so long as (and only so long). 668. A reminiscence, perhaps, of Isaiah xxxv. 10, "they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away." 670. returns, i.e. circulates again (as though it had been dormant during the winter). 672. Julep. Properly rose-water; then any bright drink, as here ; linally often used to signify a syrup medicine. Persian guly a ro?,e + db, water. 673. Cf. Samson Agonistes, 543 — 546 : "Nor did the dancing ruby, Sparkling outpoured, the flavour or the smell, Or taste that cheers the hearts of gods and men. Allure thee from the cool crystalline stream." 674. balm; implying that which soothes. 675. 676. See Odyssey, iv. 219 — 229, where Menelaus and NOTES. lOT Helen entertain Telemachus at Sparta; and "Helen, daughter of Zeus, presently cast a drug into the wine whereof they drank, a drug to lull all pain and anger, and bring forgetfulness of every sorrow. Whoso should drink a draught thereof, when it is mingled in the bowl, on that day he would let no tear fall down his cheeks, not though his father and mother died Medicines of such virtue {^dpfxaKa ix-qTioevra) had the daughter of Zeus, which Polydamna, the wife of Thon, had given her, a woman of Egypt" (Butcher and Lang). Properly Nepenthes, or Nepenthe, (Gk. prj-rreudris, without pain) meant the drug itself (perhaps opium) — or herb whence it was extracted — which had this power of lulling sorrow for the day on which it was drunk : hence any deliciously soothing liquor. See T/ie Faerie Queene, iv. 3. 43. 679. Cf. Samson Agonistes, 784, and Shakespeai*e's first Sonnet, "Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel." In the translation of More's Utopia we read, "When nature biddeth the (i.e. thee) to be good and gentle to other, she commaundeth the not to be cruell and ungentle to the selfe," p. 107, Pitt Press ed. Probably the idea was suggested by Proverbs xi. 17, " The merciful man doeth good to his own soul : but he that is cruel troubleth his own flesh." 680. Nature lent. Cf. Shakespeare's fourth Sonnet, 3: "Nature's bequest gives nothing, but doth lend," i.e. nature never gives anything to man for his absolute possession, but always regards him as holding her gifts on " trust." 685. unexenipt condition, terms from which no one can be exempt. Observe how the metaphor of trusteeship runs through 680—685 ; cf "covenants," "trust," "terms," etc. 686. mortal frailty, weak human nature. 688. That. The antecedent must be "you" in 682. 693, 694. Cf. 319—321. 695. aspects, objects, appearances. Scan aspects and see G. 696. brewed enchantments, i.e. the draught in his crystal cup "with many murmurs mixed" (526). Cf. Samson Agonistes, 934, "Thy fair enchanted cup, and warbling charms." 698. vizored, masked, disguised, forgery, deceit. 700. lickerish, dainty; see G. 702, 703. Cf. Euripides, Medea, 618, KaKov yap dvdpbs dQp Svrjaiu ovK ^x^L ('for the gifts of a bad man bring no advantage'); I02 COMUS. in the same way *an enemy's gifts do not profit' — exdpC}v aSupa dCopa KovK ovfiffLfia, Sophocles, AJax, 665. 706 — 709. i.e. foolish are those who adopt the doctrines of Stoicism or Cynicism and practise rigid, morose abstinence. 707. budge; the name of a fur, perhaps goat-skin ; see G. Budge-row in the City was so called because most of the London furriers lived in it ; the Skinners' Company's Hall is still there. This fur seems to have been specially employed in the ornamen- tation of academic dress. Todd quotes a regulation of the University of Cambridge issued in 14x4 with reference to the dress of graduates, and budge is one of the furs mentioned as proper for hoods. In a tract against the Presbyterian elders at Belfast Milton refers to their wearing " budge-gowns " {Obser- vations on the Articles of Peace). It looks then as if Milton, perhaps with a recollection of budge-trimmed hoods seen at Cambridge, used ' budge ' to suggest a learned professor, very much as we use ' ermine ' in special association with the judges. I think that we must paraphrase in some such way as 'those teachers whose furred gowns mark them as professors in the school of Stoicism.' There was an adjective budge — s,i\^, formal, solemn-looking; but its use cannot be traced as far as 1634. Moreover, "Stoic fiir" shows that Milton meant the noun budge ( = fur), not this adjective. See New English Did. 708. the Cynic tub. Referring to Diogenes (B.C. 412 — 323) the Cynic philosopher, famous for his life of extreme austerity and moroseness at Athens. "He wore coarse clothing, lived on the plainest food, slept in porticoes or in the street, and finally, according to the common story, took up his resi- dence in a tub " — Classical Diet. The Cynics were so called " from their dog-like neglect of all forms and usages of society." Gk. Kvwv, a dog, whence kvvikos, dog-like. The founder of tlie sect was Antisthenes, a pupil of Socrates. 711. innvithdraioing, bounteous, holding back nothing. 712. odours, i.e. fragrant herbs and flowers. 714. But all to, except to. curious, dainty, critical. Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 38, 13, "If my slight Muse do ]>lcase these curious days." Lat. cura, care. 716. shops, workshops; meaning on mulberry trees. 719. hutched, enclosed, shut up; see G. ore^ metal; sec 933' fy<^- 'TO- NOTES. 103 721. Cf. Daniel i. 12 : "Prove thy servants, I beseech thee, ten days ; and let them give us pulse to eat, and water to drink." Cf. Par. Regained, II. 278, "Or as a guest with Daniel at his pulse " ( = beans, peas), a pet of, a foolish craze for. 722. frieze, or frize ; coarse woollen cloth, made chiefly in Wales; originally however, from Friesland. For cloths named after the country whence they were first imported, cf. Cambric from Cambray in Flanders, calico from Calient. 724. yet despised. Men would be despising the rich gifts of which they foolishly made no use and therefore could form no just opinion. Cf. 634. 727. "If ye be without chastisement, whereof all are par- takers, then are ye bastards, and not sons," Hebreivs xii. 8. like bastards, because the illegitimate have not the same rights as regards their parents that legitimate "sons" have; thus they have no claim to a parent's property at death. But we (says Comus) should enjoy the full rights of sonship in relation to our parent Nature. 728, 729. This idea, expanded in the next lines, occurs in Par. Lost, v. 318—320. surcharged ; F. surcharge, overladen with, zveight, i.e. of crops, herds etc. waste, wasted. 731. 0'' er- multitude, i.e. grow too numerous for their shep- herds and keepers to manage. 732. derfraught, i.e. overfull offish ; cf. 713. the unsought diamonds. Cf. 881, where Milton speaks of "diamond rocks." These "rocks" might well be said to "stud" and "emblaze" (i.e. make brilliant) the surface ("fore- head") of the sea. The argument seems to Ijc that men should quarry them and take away their diamonds, not leave them there "unsought." Todd argued that the lines were designedly fanciful, and were meant to harmonise " with the character of the 'wily' speaker" (Comus) and "to expose that ostentatious sophistry by which a bad cause is generally supported." 733. Cf. 21—23. 734. they belo7.u, i.e. the inhabitants and creatures of the deep, such as mermen, fishes. Some say 'men on earth,' oi Kara}. 735. inured ; see G. 737, 738. Note the contemptuous effect of the alliteration, especially o{ c, c.-, so again in 749, 750. cozened; see G. I04 COM US. 737 — 755. The whole passage from " List, lady," 737, down to 755, though extant in the Caynhridge AIS., is wanting in the Bridgewater copy. This shows that the lines were not spoken at the actual performance. The omission was certainly a great advantage from the point of view of good taste. 738. Cf. Fairfax, translation of Tasso, xiv. 63, "Virtue itself is but an idle name." The line occurs in Tasso's famous description of the isle of Armida ; Milton probably had the passage in mind both here and in Par. Lost, iv. 272, 273. 739 — 742. Many parallels, as regards both the sentiment and the language, might be quoted from Elizabethan poets, e.g. Shakespeare's Sonnets, i — 17 (especially 4 and 6 where the metaphor resembles Milton's, viz. money lent at interest); Ben Jonson's Cynthia^s Revels, i. i (the latter part of Echo's speech •'His name revives"); and Drayton's Legend of Matilda. 741. iimtnal, shared with others. 743, 744. Cf. A Midsunwier-Nighfs Dream, i. i. 76 — 78. 745. Natuf-e's brag, i.e. that of which nature boasts justly. 748. Much the same jingle as "Home-keeping youth have ever homely wits," The Ttvo Gentlemen of Verona, I. r. 2. 749> 750- i'C. those who have coarse complexions may be content to ply — that is all very well for them, not for you. complexions. Scan as four syllables, sorry, poor, unattrac- tive, grain; probably 'hue,' not 'texture' (already implied in "coarse"). See G. 751. saf?ipler, a piece of wool-work in which patterns (i.e. samples) were designed, especially the alphabet. Lat. exemplar, a copy. to tease, to comb out. In the art of cloth-manufacture teasing IS the process by which the surface of the cloth is smoothed and roughnesses taken away. 752. vermeil-tinctured, red; as if dipped in vermilion (from Lat. venniculus, a little worm, used of the cochineal insect). "Vermeil" as applied to ihe face represents what has been called "poetic diction," i.e. it is the sort of picturesque descrip- tion that one poet hands on to another. Cf. Caay, Ode ok Vicissitude : "With vermeil-check and whisper soft She woos the tardy spring." and Keats, Endyviion, IV.: NOTES. 105 "O Sorrow, Why dost borrow The natural hue of health from vermeil lips?" 753. Love-darting eyes. Cf. Sylvester's translation (in ex- ceedingly Spenserian verse) of the French poet Du Bartas : "Whoso beholds her sweet, love-darting eyes" (Grosart's ed. I. 205). This translation was very popular; Milton certainly Studied it in his youth and was influenced by Sylvester's diction. Dryden confessed that he once preferred Sylvester to Spenser. tresses like the morn ; an echo of Homer's phrase " the fair-tressed morn," evTrXdKa/xos 'Hws. Cf. Spenser, yirgil's Gnat, IX., "And fayre Aurora, with her rosie heare"{ = hair). See Shelley's Adofiais, xiv. 756 — 761. Spoken aside. to have unlocked. Elizabethan writers often use this perfect infinitive "after verbs of hoping, intending, or verbs signifying that something onght to have been done but was not... The same idiom is found in Latin poetry after verbs of wishing and intend- ing" (Abbott). Cf. Par. Lost, i. 40, " He trusted to have equalled the Most High." 759. obtruding, thrusting before me. pranked, decked. A common word in old writers ; see G. Shelley has it more than once, e.g. in The Question, "There grew broad flag flowers, purple pranked with white." 760. bolt ; probably a metaphor from the preparation of flour, in which to bolt (more correctly boidt) is to sift the meal from the bran. Cf. the description of Coriolanus (ill. i. 322, 323) as a rough warrior not schooled "In bolted language; meal and bran together He throws without distinction." Having this sense *to refine, to sift,' the verb came by a natural metaphor to be used of subtle arguing. So we might pai-aphrase : ' I hate to see Vice picking out her subtle arguments while Virtue is tongue-tied and unable to check her proud enemy.' Some take bolt= ' to dart, shoot like a bolt,' i.e. arrow; cf. 445. 766, 767. Cf. // Penseroso, 46, "Spare Fast, that oft with gods doth diet." Comus had ridiculed sobriety of living as a mere freak — cf. "pet of temperance," 721; she replies that temperance is a holy, beneficent power. 767 — 774. Milton has in mind Gloucester's argument in Io6 COMUS. favour of practical socialism, King Lear, iv. i. yp,, 74, viz, that Providence should make "the superjluoiis man " (cf. 773), i.e. him who has more wealth than he needs, give up part of it to his poor neighbours : "So distribution should undo excess. And each man have enough." Lear expresses the same thought earlier, iii. 4, 33 — 36. Throughout this speech the real speaker is obviously Milton himself. Much of it is inappropriate in the mouth of a young girl. It should be observed that lines 779 — 806 (from "Shall I go on" to "more strongly") are wanting in the Cam- bridge and Bridgewater A/SS., i.e. the passage was added by Milton to bring out the moral of the Masque. He may have thought that there was no likelihood of Coj/uis being acted SLgam, and that the incongiTjity between the youthful speaker and her speech would be less apparent in reading the poem. 773. unsupo'JIiious, not superabundant. 774. Understand lootild be. store^ abundance. She is answering Comus's argument in 728 — 731; cf. "cumbered," 730. 781. contemptuous words; cf. 737, 738. She deals with Comus's points in turn : first temperance, then Nature's excess, then chastity. 782. sun-clad, radiant, lustrous; cf. 425. There is perhaps n glance at Revelation xii. i: "And there appeared a great wonder in heaven ; a woman- clothed with the sun." 784 — 787. Editors quote Milton's description in the Apology for Smectymnuus of his early studies: "Thus, from the laureat fraternity of poets, riper years ami the ceaseless round of study and reading led me to the shady spaces of philosophy ; but chiefly to the divine volumes of Plato, and his equal Xenophon : where, if I should tell ye what I learnt of chastity and love, I mean that which is truly so, whose charming cup is only virtue, which she bears in her hand to those who are worthy ; (the rest are cheated with a thick intoxicating potion, which a certain sorceress, the abuser of love's name, carries about ;) and how the first and chiefest office of love begins and ends in the soul, pro- ducing those happy twins of her divine generation, knowledge and virtue: with such abstracted sublimities as these, it might be worth your listening, readers," P. IV. in. 119 — i2r. S(^ in' the same treatise: "Having had the doctrine of II<>ly Scripture, NOTES. 107 unfolding those chaste and high mysteries with timeliest care infused, that 'the body is for the Lord'." The verbal resem- blances indicate that Milton in writing these sentences recollected his earlier vindication of the "serious doctrine of Virginity." Cf. also 525, 5'26. 784. Thou hast nor ear. Cf. 997. Comus cannot hear, or hearing will not understand, her praise of purity, just as in Arcades, 72, 73, "the gross unpurged ear" of humanity may not catch the sound of the music from the spheres. 785. notion^ idea, or perhaps doctrine. niystery ; used in its Scriptural sense of a truth specially revealed to men ( = Gk. fivarripLov). Cf. i Cor. ii. 7, "we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom." 788. art zvorthy, dost deserve, in a bad sense. A rare use, but cf. The Wititer's Tale, II. 3. 109, "worthy to be hanged." 790. dear, i.e. to Comus — of which he is so proud. gay, i.e. in appearance (' showy ') rather than in spirit ; cf. "dazzling," 791. 791. fence; cf. the phrases 'to fence with a question,' and ' to parry' it, i.e. not answer it straightforwardly. 792. convinced, proved to be in the wrong, refuted. Cf. yob xxxii. 12, "behold, there was none of you that convinced Job, or that answered his words." 793. uncontrolled, uncontrollable, i.e. irresistible ; cf. " un- controlled tide," Lucrece, 645. See note on 349. 794. rapt ; see G. 797. brute, dull, unsynipathising ; the bruta tellns of Horace, Odes, l. xxxiv. 9. Cf. Tennyson, In Mcnioriaiit, cxxvii., "The brute earth lightens to the sky." her nerves, her strength ; the sinews (see 660, note) being regarded as the seat of strength. 798. thy 7nagic st7-uctures ; Comus's " stately palace." 80 r. set off; properly 'shown to the best advantage,' as a jewel by its setting: hence 'improved by,' and so 'made more forcible,' as here. 800 — 806. An aside. 802 — 805. i.e. a shudder of horror comes upon me, though not mortal, like that which comes upon Saturn's followers when Jove thunders in his wrath and dooms them to be chained in the lowest hell. I08 COMUS. 803. the wrath of Jove, the wrathful Jove ; an abstract turn of phrase imitated from the Latin. 804. Speaks thunder and chains ; another classical turn of phrase, the verb being used literally with the first noun ( = ' thunders') and figuratively with the second (=' sentences them to imprisonment'). This double use of a verb is the figure of speech called zeugma ('a joining'). Erebus, Gk. ^pe^os, darkness; a region of utter darkness in the nether world. 805. Saturn, the Latin god Saturnus identified with Gk. Cj'onus. The legend was that at one time Cronus and the Titans ruled in Olympus, till Zeus (having obtained thunder and lightning from the Cyclops) hurled them into the nether world, and ruled instead. The warfare {Titano-machia) of the gods and Titans is often referred to in classical writers, and is to some extent the model followed by Milton in describing in Paradise Lost the downfall of Satan and his followers. I must dissemble. This hackneyed phrase occurs in Marlowe's Jew of Malta, iv.; cf. also 2 Henry F/. v. i. 13. 808. the cayton laws of our foundation, the fixed rules and regidations of our establishment (or institution). An allusion to the technical phrase canon /a7i'= "ecclesiastical law as laid down in decrees of the Pope and statutes of Councils " — Dr Murray. Warton notes that Milton in his prose tracts uses canon in contemptuous combinations: e.g. "canon iniquity'; "an in- sulting and only canon-wise prelate." To the Puritan poet anything suggestive of Catholicism was distasteful. Gk. kovCiv = rule. The same sarcastic purpose is seen in Milton's applying the terms "consistory" {Par. Regained, I. 42) and "conclave" {Par. Lost, I. 795) to the assembly of the evil angels : the former word being specially used of the council-chamber of the Pope and the Cardinals, and the latter of the meeting at which the Cardinals elect a Pope. Perhaps a similar sneer underlies "pontifical" in Par. Lost, x. 313. foundation; spoken as though Comus represented some religious institution. " God save the foundation " is Dogberry's petition, Much Ado About Nothing, v. i. 327, that being the form of thanks usual among those who received alms at the door of a monastery — Schmidt. NOTES. 109 809, 810. " Ancient physicians recognised four Cardinal Hiwioufs, viz. blood, choler, phlegm and melancholy (black bile), regarded by them as determining, by their conditions and proportions, a person's physical and mental qualities and dispositions" {Century Dictionary). This old physiology of the 'humours' is often alluded to by Milton; cf. Samson Agonistes, 600, and Par. Lost, XI. 543 — 546 ; in each passage he speaks of depression of spirits as caused by the black bile or humour ( = fnelancholy from Gk. jxeXas, black + xo^Vi bile). There is much on the subject in Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy. 812, 813. The alliteration is remarkable. 814. If the "false enchanter" had not escaped there would have been no place for Sabrina, whom Milton introduces of course out of compliment to his audience. 815. Cf. 653, " seize his wand." 816. 817. i.e. incantations spoken backwards which are potent in breaking a spell. " As old as the belief in magic itself seems to have been the belief that the effects of enchant- ment could be undone by reversing the spell, pronouncing the words of charm backward etc... Mesmerists now reverse their ' passes ' to restore their patients " — Masson. In The Faerie Qtceene Britomart frees Amoret by forcing the enchanter "his charmes back to reverse" (ill. 12. 36). 822. Alelibxiis, another pastoral name in classical poetry, e.g. of one of the shepherds in Vergil's first Eclogue ; the second part of the word seems connected with /3o0s, an ox. There is thought to be a sly allusion here to Geoffrey of Monmouth, the Chronicler whose account of Sabrina Milton followed, but who was not the "soothest," i.e. most trustworthy, of writers. The reference would be parallel to Spenser's mentioning Chaucer under the pastoral pseudonym Tityrus. See The Shepheards Calender, Februarie, 92, 93, with the Glosse. 823. soothest, truest; see G. 824 — 842. For the Story of Sabrina see Appendix. 825. j-7caj/j-, rules ; cf. 18, 19. curb; cf. " bridle in," 887. 830. stepdame; not strictly accurate. But it is a very artistic inaccuracy because it suggests a cause of hostility between Guendolen and Sabrina other than the real cause, and dissociates the "guiltless damsel" from her guilty mother Estrildis, whom the poet purposely omits. I 10 COMUS. 834. pearled, adorned with pearl, which is so frequently associated with the deities of river or sea. Thus a stage direction in Ben Jonson's Alasqiic of Blackness tells us that the nymphs wore on " the front, ear, necks and wrists, ornament of the most choice and orient pearl." Doubtless Sabrina and her water-nymphs would be adorned thus when they appear later on. Pearls are found in many parts of Great Britain; particularly in some of the Welsh rivers, e.g. the Esk and Conway. — Strceter. 835. Nereus, the father of the Nereids, dwelling at the bottom of the sea. Leaf remarks that he appears in Homer as TraT7]p yepoiv and a\io% yipwv (' old man of the sea'), but is never mentioned by name. "The epithets given him by the poets refer to his old age, his kindliness, and his trustworthy know- ledge of the future" — Classical Dictionary. Cf. VGYgxVs grand- cevus Nereus ('*a^;;;'rt'rt'i, as in Sonnet 54) sometimes means a wild-rose; cf. Much Ado About Nothing, I. 3. 28. From Lat. cancer, 'a crab' — also an 'eating tumour.' Note the emphatic, remorseless effect of the alliteration. 46. taint-worm, i.e. some worm that causes disease in sheep and cattle. It has been thought that Milton may be referring to the insect mentioned in the Vulgar Errors (bk. iii. chap, xvii. sect. 11) of Sir Thomas Browne, who says, "There is found in the summer a kind of spider, called a tainct, of a red colour, and so little of body that ten of the largest will hardly outweigh a grain; this by country people is accounted a deadly poison unto cows and horses; who, if they suddenlie die, and swell thereon, ascribe their death hereto, and will commonly say, they have licked a tainct." weanling, i.e. young; a diminutive formed from the verb wean, like yeanling from yean. 47. wardrobe. Properly used of the chest or place in which dresses are kept; then applied to the dresses themselves. Cf. The Tempest, iv. 222, "look what a wardrobe here is for thee!" 1 34 LYCIDAS. Perhaps we have the same metaphor of the flowers putting on their spring garb in '■^ivell-attired woodbine," 146. 48. white-thorn = i\it hawthorn of V Allegro, 68. Shake- speare uses the same obvious way of pointing to the spring-time, A Midsuninier-Nighi's Dream, i. i. 185. blows, i.e. flowers. See Comus, 993. 50. This appeal to the Nymphs, the powers of mountain (52 — 54) and river {55), asking why they had not been present in their usual haunts to help their favourite, is modelled partly on Theocritus, Idyl i. 66 — 69, partly on Vergil, Eclogue x. 9 — 12. The places chosen by Milton, viz. the mountains of Denbigh, the isle of Anglesey, and the banks of the Dee, were associated directly with Lycidas, each being near to the scene of his shipwreck. In this respect Milton has followed Theocritus, who addressed the Nymphs of those special localities with which the subject of his poem — the shepherd Daphnis — was familiar. Vergil is less definite, mentioning only the usual resorts of the Muses, Parnassus and Mt Helicon. See Warton's note on this passage. Some, however, think that by "Nymphs" Milton means the Nine Muses. Shelley, borrowing from Par. Lost, vii. i — 12, Milton's conception of Urania (Gk. ovpavla, the Heavenly one) as the Muse of divine poetry, makes her the mother of Adonais (just as Calliope was the mother of Orpheus), and blames her (11.) for not preventing the death o( her "enchanting son": " Where wert thou, mighty Mother, when he lay. When thy son lay, pieiced by the shaft which flies In darkness? where was lorn Urania When Adonais died?" 52. the steep ; either Penmainmawr, or (as Warton thought) the Druid sepulchres at Kerig-y-Druidion in Denbigh, mentioned by Camden as a burial-place of the Druids. 53. bards; specially applied to Celtic poets; cf. Sidney's Apologie for Poetrie, "In Wales... there are good authorities to shewe the long time they had Poets which they called Bardes^^ (Pitt Press ed. p. 5). Druids; also Celtic; cf. Irish druidh, an augur. In their priestly character they were "Druids," in their poetic "bards" (Newton). In primitive times the two characters are closely associated. NOTES. 135 54. Afona = ih.e isle of Anglesey. Cf. Milton's History of Britain: "At last over-confident of his present actions... he marches up as far as Mona, the isle of Anglesey, a populous place," P. W. V. 207. That the island was formerly well- wooded (cf. ^^ shaggy top"), though now bare, we know from Tacitus. Warton identified Mona with the Isle of Man, on the authority of Caesar, Bellum Gallicwn^ V. 13. shaggy = \j3i\.. horrens^ horridus applied to woodland scenery. The picture suggested is that of a wood-clad hill-side seen in profile. Cf. Gray, The Bard, I. i, "the steep of Snowdon's shaggy side." 55. Deva, the river Dee, which flows into the Irish Channel where King was drowned. Called wizard (' prophetic ') because it was supposed to foretell, by changing its course, good or ill events for England and Wales, of which it forms the boundary : hence the reverence with which poets mention it. Cf. Milton's Vacation Exercise, 98, "ancient hallowed Dee," and "sacred Dee" in Tennyson's Geraint and Enid. Also, legend said that the "wizard " Merlin had dwelt by it. 56. fondly, foolishly. 57. yi'r explains ybz/^/j/ : ''it is foolish of me to dream (i.e. say to myself) 'if only the Nymphs had been there,' y^r after all what could they have done?" 58. the Muse herself i.e. Calliope, the muse of epic poetry, whose name Milton introduced in the original draft of these lines. See p. 160. 59. enchanting, i.e. who worked by enchantment, viz. of music. Enchant in Shakespeare has the two meanings, to bewitch, and to delight (as in mod. E.). Enchant and charm are veiy similar in derivation — one from cantns, the other from carmen — and in the weakening of their respective meanings. 61 — 63. Referring to the death of Orpheus as told by Vergil, Georgic iv. 517 — 527, and more fully by Ovid, Metamorphoses, XI. I — 55: that Orpheus in his grief for Eurydice treated with disdain the Thracian women and was torn to pieces by them ; his head (also his lyre, according to Ovid) being thrown into the Hebrus and carried across to Lesbos, an island oft" the coast of Asia Minor, where its supposed place of burial was pointed out at Antissa. Milton rewrote these lines in Par. Lost, vij. 136 LYCIDAS. 62. the stream, i.e. the Hebrus, the principal river of Thrace, which rising in the mountain range of Rhodope runs into the ^gean near CEnos. It is generally mentioned in con- nection with Orpheus ; cf. Pope, Cecilia's Day, vi. The epithet swift repeats Vergil's volucrem Hebrum in Aineid i. 317, where however some editors read Eiiriim (' east wind '), on the ground that the Hebrus is not a swift-flowing river. 63. Note the effect of 'swiftness' which the initial trochee {dSvm the) gives. 64 — 84. This passage interrupts the narrative. It is one of two long digressions in Lycidas, the other being 113 — 131. The interest centres in Milton himself. He proclaims his convictions, which find frequent vent in his prose writings, concerning the high office of the poet (which his contemporaries regarded so lightly), the dignity of learning and study, and the worth of true fame. 64. what boots, i.e. of what advantage is it? See G. 66. i.e. devote oneself to poetry. He means more than the mere composition of verse: "uncessant care" (64) and "strictly" imply rigorous self-devotion to learning and preparation for the poet's calling; cf. his Reason of Church Government, "labour and intense study... I take to be my portion in this life," P. W. II. 478. meditate the Muse; a literal translation of a phrase in Vergil, viz. tneditari Musam {Eclogite l. 2), 'to compose.' See Comus, 547, where it is used of composing music rather than verse. Cf. Gk. /xeXerai'. ///a«/&/^jj = profitless, because the Muse can do nothing to ward off death from the poet. Also, Milton may have been moved by the feeling that poetry had done little for him materially. Newton explains "that earns no thanks, is not thanked by the ungratefiil world." 67 — 69. A way of saying, would it not be better to use one's poetic gifts in that light vein of love-poetry which pleases the taste of a pleasure-loving age and wins popularity for a writer ? 67. <7///i?rj- = contemporary poets, e.g. Herrick and Suckling (whom Milton may have known at Cambridge). There were too the followers of Ben Jonson such as Randolph, whose Muse was often erotic ; and Lovelace, instanced by Mr Jerram. NOTES. 1 37 use, i.e. are wont. Cf. Psalm cxix. 132, "be merciful unto me, as thou usest to do unto those that love thy Name." 68. 69. At?iaryllis, Necera; common names of shepherdesses in pastoral verse; therefore appropriate here. See Vergil, Eclogue I. 5, III. 3. These particular names are mentioned together in Colin Clouts Come Home Againe. Warton found here an allusion to two Latin poems by the Scotch writer George Buchanan, addressed respectively to Neaera and Amaryllis. 69. Professor Hales compares Lovelace's To Althea, "When I lie tangled in her hair." 70. A common sentiment similarly expressed by Spenser, Teares of the Muses, 454, "Due praise, that is the spur of dooing well." clear, i.e. pure, here perhaps with the idea * free from the taint of worldliness, ' Cf. the Remojistratif s Defence, where Milton asks whether learning is to be sought in "the den of Plutus, or the cave of Mammon. Certainly never any clear spirit nursed up from bright influences, with a soul enlarged to the dimensions of spacious art and high knowledge, ever entered there but with scorn," P. W. iii. 8r. In the Adonais, st. iv. Shelley felicitously applied Milton's words to Milton himself : '• his clear Sprite Yet reigns o'er earth, the third among the sons of light." 71. An allusion to the famous (cf, "that"=:Lat, ille) saying in Tacitus' Histories, iv. 6, that ambition, literally desire of glory, is the last weakness which a wise man throws off, and even he is slow to do so {etiam sapientibus cupido gloricE novissima exuitur). 72. Descriptive of Milton's life at this period. It was his instinct and habit "to study and love learning for itself, not for lucre, or any other end, but the sfervice of God and of truth, and perhaps that lasting fame and perpetuity of praise, which God and good men have consented shall be the reward of those whose published labours advance the good of mankind, "^ri?ipQs; specially used, as here, of the shepherd's pipe; cf. Tke Shepheards Calender^ June. To ' tune the quill ' was a common phrase; cf. the MS. poem ascribed to Milton, "The sacred sisters tune their quills," Johnson explained quill here to mean the pkctrutti or comli with which the strings of some instruments (e.g. the lute or man- dolin) are struck; but according to all tradition the shepherd's instrument is the pipe. 189. thought. "Care, great anxiety; as in the old ex- pression to 'take thought.^ ^ Take no thought for your life,' Matt. vi. 25" — Dr Bradshaiv. The shepherd's anxiety is to compose a lament worthy of his friend. Doric; because written in the pastoral style of Theocritus and the other Sicilian poets who wrote in the Doric dialect. Moschus calls Bion " the Dorian Orpheus " and says that with him perished "the Dorian Song" (Awpis aoiSd). Sir Henry Wot ton praised most in Coimis a "certain Doric delicacy" in the lyrics; see p. 4. So in Matthew Arnold's Thyrsis, ** She loved the Dorian pipe, the Dorian strain." With poets of the last century Doric quill (as in Collins's Ode on the Popular Sjiperstitions, ii.) and Doric oat were synonyms for * pastoral poetry.' 190. From Vergil, Eclogue l. 84. stretched out, i.e. in their shadows ; the setting sun had caused long shadows to be cast by the hills. Cf. Pope's imitation, "And the low sun had lengthened ev'ry shade," Autiunn, 100. i9'2. At last, i.e. having composed his elegy from "morn (187) till dewy eve." twitched, i.e. so as to gather it about him. mantle blue. "Blue," says Professor Hales, "was the colour of a shepherd's dress, and the poet here personates a poetic shepherd." Cf. The Shepheards Calender, November. Grey, however, seems to be the colour more often mentioned. Thus Greene more than once describes the shepherd Paris as "all clad in grey" when he wooed OEnone. See Greene's Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, 11 1. 69, where Dr Ward's note gives 158 LYCIDAS. numerous instances. Browne {Eclogue ii.) speaks of an ex- travagant shepherd who had two suits, one of either colour. 193. A reminiscence of Fletcher's Purple Island, vi. 77 : "Home then my lambes; the falling drops eschew: To morrow shall ye feast in pastures new." Perhaps no line in English poetry is more frequently misquoted than this last verse of Lycidas\ even Shelley, who gives it correctly in his Letter to Maria Gisborne (the end), writes to T. L. Peacock (Nov. 18, 1818), "To morrow to fresh fields and pastures new." Possibly some i8th century edition of Lycidas may be responsible for the wrong reading. An accomplished scholar writes to me : " The reason for the shepherd's going to new haunts, is that the old ones are as- sociated with Lycidas, and so he cannot bear to feed his sheep there alone — a very just idea — and an admirable exit." I have not the least doubt that this explanation, which I have never seen in any edition of Lycidas, gives correctly the primary purport of the line. Nor does it seem to me inconsistent with the commonly accepted view that there is an underlying allusion to Milton's tour in Italy. He tells us in the Second Defence that on the death of his mother he became anxious to travel. She died in April, 1637 : the Cambridge draft of Lycidas is dated November. 1637. The Italian scheme, therefore, may have occurred to him before he began this poem. Another theory with reference to the line is, that it is a covert way of saying that Milton has finally separated himself from the Anglican and Court party, and means to identify himself with the Puritans. This seeems to me very farfetched. The danger of reading 'allusions' into a writer's words is that there can be no definite limit to the process: each may start his own theory. 159 TEXTUAL VARIATIONS IN LYCIDAS. We give here the textual variations between the original MS. of Lycidas, the Cambridge edition of 1638, and that published in 1645. By 'margin' are meant the marginal corrections in the MS. Some of these are not found in the 1638 ed. : it is fair to assume that they were made after the volume had been printed. 'Milton's copy' is the copy of the first edition (now in the University Library at Cambridge) which has a few corrections in the poet's handwriting. Differences of reading are marked by italic type : 11. 3-5. ' I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude before the mellowing year e and w*^ forc't fingers rude and crop yor young shatter your leaves before the mt llow- ing yeare.' The words in italics are crossed out. Milton may have intended the last line to run — 'and crop yor young leaves w*** forc't fingers rude.' Having got as far as young he stopped, struck out 11. 4 — 5, and with slight verbal changes transposed the verses so as to alter the sequence of rhymes. 8. MS. ' iox young Lycidas ;' young erased. 10. MS. 'he w^// knew.' 11. MS. ' To bid ; ' changed to ^and bid.' 26. MS. ''glimmermg eyelids;' corrected to opening; yet the 1638 ed. \\3i% glifumering. 30. MS. 'Oft till the ev'n-starre bright' (erased); margin, 'starre that rose in Ev'ning bright;'' 1638 ed. again gives the earlier reading. 31. MS. '■burnisht weele;' corrected, %vestring ; but burnisht in 1638 ed. 39. 1638 ed. has 'Thee shepherds, thee;' i.e. the shepherds are made to mourn ; perhaps a misprint. 47. MS. 'gay butto7is weare;' weare changed to beare ; finally wardrope weare substituted. For spelling of wardrobe see note on this line. Buttons = \i\x.di%, as in Ha7nlet, I. 3. 40, or The Noble Kinsmen, iii. i. 6, "gold buttons on the boughs." Fr. bouton means a button or a bud. l60 TEXTUAL VARIATIONS. 51. MS. repeats }'our, by mistake; 1638 ed. ^/ofd Lycidas;' corrected in Milton's copy to '' lovd Lycidas.' 53. 1638 ed. ''the old bards;' corrected in Milton's copy. 58—63. MS. had: a. 'What could the golden-hayrd Calliope b. For her inchaunting son, c. When shee beheld {the gods farre sighted bee) d. His goarie scalpe roivle do7vne the Thracian lee:* a, c, d are crossed out: b left. After b (i.e. 1. 59) the margin has: e. 'Whome universal nature might lament /. And heaven and hel deplore, g. When his divine head downe the streame was sent : ' /is crossed out, also ^ as far as doume, and e left. Then on the opposite page Milton rewrote the whole passage from 1. 58 just as we have it, except that, (i) after writing 'might lament' he substituted did ; (ii) he wrote 'divine visage' and changed it to 'goarie visage,' cf. goarie in d snpra ; (iii) after 1. 59 (as it now stands) he repeated the words 'for her inchaunting son,' intending them to form a short line. No doubt, he finally rejected them because he had already used the artifice of repetition in 'The Muse herself,' 11. 58, 59. d^. 1638 ed. misprints stridly for strictly. 67. 1638 ed. 'others do ;' altered in Milton's copy to use. 69. MS. 'hid in the tangles ;' margin 'or zvilh the tangles;' but 1638 ed. 'hidin."" 82. 1638 ed. has the spelling perfect., the only place (I believe) where it occurs in Milton: perfet in 1645 ed. 85. MS. 'smooth ^ooA,^ smooth erased ; margin y^w'^?, erased ; then honoJir''d. 86. MS. 'j<7/?-sliding;' 5^ crossed out, margin smooth; 1. 85 was probably changed after 1. 86. 103. 1638 ed. Chamus. 105. MS. ' sera nFd ore \^'\\\i figures;' not crossed out, though inwrought is written in margin. 1 10. MS. * Toiv massy;' cf. 1. 130. 114. MS. Ammgh ; 1638 ed. enough ; 1645 ed. ano-io. 129. MS. ^nothing sed;' changed to little; 1638 ed. little; but 1645 ed. nothing. 130. MS. to7u-handed ; cf. 110. 131. 1638 ed. smites instead of smite. 138. MS. 'sparely looks;' sparely erased; margin stintly, or TEXTUAL VARIATIONS. l6l the word may be faintly, the writing being indistinct ; this was erased and sparely re-substituted. 139. MS. Bring, crossed out; margin throw. 142 — 150. Of this passage the MS. presents two versions ; the first, through which Milton ran his pen, reads thus: ' Bring the rathe primrose that nmvedded dies Colouring the pale cheeke of tminjoyd love. And that sad Jlozvre that strove To write his own woes on the vermeil graine ; Next adde Narcissus yt still weeps in vaine, The woodbine and ye pancie freakt w*^ jet, The glowing violet, The cowslip wan that hangs his pensive head And every hid that sorrotus liverie weares, Let Daffadillies fill thire cups with teares, Bid Amaranthus all his beautie shed To strew the laureate herse' — Underneath this follows the second version. The first four lines are identical with those in the printed editions : then the MS. continues : ' The musk -rose and the garish columbine With cowslips wan that hang the pensive head, And every flower that sad escutcheon bears ;'' the last couplet is as in the earlier passage. Garish columbine is struck out, and well-atti/d tvoodbitte (cf. the first draft) substituted. 'Escutcheon bears'' is changed to wears; then, in the margin, to 'imbroidrie bears ;' and finally to 'imbroidrie wears,'' Against the concluding couplet — 'Let Daffadillies' — Milton wrote '2. i'; showing that the order was to be reversed, while let was altered to and. 153. MS. ' j^i/ thoughts ; ' j^^ crossed out and /V^z'/i? written over it. J 54. MS. floods, erased ; margin shoars. 157. MS. ^humfning txde;^ altered to tvhehning 'va. margin of MS. and in Milton's copy; but the 1638 ed. has humm'mg. 160. MS. Corineus, erased ; margin Bellerus. 176. MS. '■Listening the unexpressive ;' ««a'//mr^i substituted. 177. Omitted in 1638 ed. ; inserted in Milton's copy, as in 1645 ed. 191. There is some change in MS., but it is not legible. V. C II 1 62 GLOSSARY. Abbreviations : — A.S. = Anglo-Saxon, i.e. English down to about the Conquest. Middle E.= Middle English, i.e. English from about the Conquest to about 1500. Elizabethan E. = the English of Shakespeare and his contemporaries (down to about 1650). O.F. = 01d French, i.e. till about 1600. F,= modern French. Germ. = modern German. Gk. =Greek. Ital. = Italian. Lat. = Latin. NOTE : In using the Glossary the student should pay very careful attention to the context in which each word occurs. alabaster, Com. 660, sulphate of lime; Gk. cCKa^aarpos, said to be derived from the name of a town, Alabastrofi, in Egypt. Misspelt alablaster in the original editions, as commonly in Elizabethan writers. alley, 'a path, walk,' especially one with trees overhead {Com. 311), as in a garden (990). Cf Much Ado About Nothing, I. •z. 10, "a thick-pleached alley," i.e. thickly interwoven over- head; and Tennyson, Ode to Memory, "plaited alleys of the trailing rose." F. allee. anon, Lye. 169, 'soon, presently.* A.S. on dn^ 'in one,' i.e. one moment. GLOSSARY. 163 ambrosial ; used by Milton of that which delights the sense of smell {Com. 16, 840) or taste. Strictly, ambrosia = \hQ food of the gods, as nectar=ihe'n drink. aspect, Com. 694. Shakespeare always accents aspect. Many words now accented on the first syllable were in Elizabethan E. accented on the second syllable, i.e. they re- tained the French accent, which (roughly speaking) was that of the original Latin words. By "accent" one means, of course, the stress laid by the voice on any syllable in pronouncing it. Thus Milton wrote "By policy and long process of time " {Par. Lost, II. 297) ; cf. French proccs, Lat, processus. So Shakespeare scans access, commerce, edict, when it suits him. asphodil. Com. 838; Gk. d(r065eXoy, a kind of lily supposed to flourish especially in the Elysian fields. Daffodil {Co7n. 851) is a corruption of 0.0^0^^X0% through Low Lat. affoclilltis ; now used of a different flower, viz. iXve. pseiido-narcisstts. Skeat thinks that the d may represent F. de \njleur d''affrodille. assay. Com. 972, ' trial, test.' The form always used by Milton. To assay metals is to test them. Cf. O.F. essai and the variant form assai; Lat. exaginm, * a weighing, trial of weight.' ay me, Com. 511, Lye. 56, 'alas.' O.F. aymi, 'alas for me!' cf. Gk. otjxoL. azum, Com. 893 ; perhaps formed from the noun azure, like silvern from silver, where -n = the suflix -en, as in wooden, woollen. Some think that Milton, with his fondness for Italian, coined azurn from Ital. azzurrino. Instances of his leaning towards half Italian forms are sdein (Ital. sdegnare), serenate (Ital. serenata), sovran, harald {Ital. araldo). See Par. Lost, I. 752, II. 518, iv. 50. 769. balm ; properly the aromatic oily resin of the dalsam-tree : then any fragrant oil or ointment for anointing, soothing pain, and so any fragrant or soothing liquid (as in Com. 674). Hence balmy =' fragrant' {Com. 991). batten, Lye. 29, 'to fatten.' From the .-ame root signifying 'excellence, prosperity,' as better, best. Germ, besser. be. The root he was conjugated in the present tense in- dicative, singular and plural, up till about the middle of the 17th century. The singular, indeed, was almost limited in Elizabethan E. to the phrase "if thou beesf,^'' where the in- II — 2 164 COM us AND LYCIDAS. dicative beest has the force of the subjunctive ; cL The Tempest, V. 134, "if thou be'st Prospero." For the plural cf. Genesis xlii. 32, "We be twelve brethren," and Matthew xv. 14, "they be blind leaders of the blind." blank, Coin. 452, 'dismayed.' Cf. the verb blank=^X.o confound' in Samson Agonistes, 471, literally 'to make to blanch or blench, i.e. become white ' (F. blanc). blow, Lye. 48, 'to flower'; cf. Germ, bliihen. Cognate with bloom, blossoju. bolt, or boult, Com. 760, 'to sift, refine.' O.F. buleter,Si corruption of bureter, 'to sift through coarse red cloth' (Low Lat. burra, 'red cloth,' from the root of Gk. trvp, 'fire'). For r softening into / in French cf 'pe/erin,' 'a pilgrim,' Lat. 'pere- grinus. ' boot, A.S. bot^ 'advantage, good,' from the same root as better, best. "There is no boot^^ {Richard II. i. i. 164) exactly='it is no good.'' Common as an impersonal verb, e.g. "what boots it?" [Lye. 64) ='what good is it?' bosky, Co?n. 313, 'covered with bushes, shrubs'; bosk (whence bosk-y, like bush-y from bush) meant a bush or clump of bushes. Cognate with bush, bouquet, F. bois, 'wood.' bourn. Com. 313, 'a brook'; the same as north-country burn; akin to Germ, brtmnen, 'a spring.' Cf. Bourne-vi\Q)\x\\\. Distinct from bourn, 'a limit' (F. borne). brinded, Coin. 443 ; an older form than brindled; it means literally 'marked as with a brand,* and generally indicates stripes of dark colour on the tawny coat of an animal. Cf "the brinded cat," Macbeth, iv, i. i. brown, Lye. 2 ; a favourite epithet with Milton, and the 1 8th century poets influenced by his diction, in the sense 'dark' = Ital. bruno) especially of shade, twilight. Cf // Pensei-oso, 134, "shadows brown"; Pope, Odyssey, x\ii. 215, "brown evening spreads her shade." budge. Com. 707. Skeat says: "a kind of fur. Budge is lamb skin with the wool dressed outwards ; orig. simply 'skin' — F. bouge. a wallet, g^eat pouch, Lat. bulga, a little bag, a word of Gaulish origin." He refers to the same root the word btidget='a. leathern l)ag,' in The IVinter^s Tale, iv. 3. 20. Others connect with O.F. bouchet, 'a kid,' because an old writer says that budge was the fur of kids. GLOSSARY. 165 character, Com. 530, 'to stamp.' Gk. xapa/cTTyp, 'a stamp on a coin, seal, etc., engraved mark.' For a good instance of its strict use cf. The Faerie Queene, v. 6. 2 : "Whose character in th' Adamantine mould Of his true heart so firmely was engraved.''* clime, Cojti. 977, 'land, country'; cf. 2 Henry VI. iii. 2. 84, "Drove back again unto my native clime." Gk. K\l/j.a, 'a slope,' from KKiveiv, 'to slope.' Clime and climate are 'doublets,' and each meant 'region,' then 'temperature,' the most important quality of a region. clouted, Com. 635, 'patched, mended'; cf. Joshua ix. 5, "old shoes and clouted upon their feet." A.S. clut, 'a patch. ' cozen, Com. 737. According to the common (but not certain) explanation, to cozen a man is to pretend to be his cousin for the purpose of getting something out of him : whence ' to cheat. ' curfew, Com. 435 ; literally the signal to cover up (i.e. put out) the fire — F. couvrir-\-feu. discover, 'to lay open to view, reveal,' literally 'uncover,' F. decouvrir. Often in stage-directions; cf. Ben Jonson's Masque of Beauty, "Here a curtain was drawn [aside] and the scene discovered." ditty, used strictly of the words of a song {Lye. 32), but in Com. 86 of the music ; cf. smootli-dittied= 'with smooth-flowing air.' From Lat. dictatum ' something dictated ' ; not from dictum. engine. Lye. 130. Properly 'a contrivance,' i.e. something made with ingenuity (Lat. ingeniiwi)\ hence 'instrument.' In the early translations of the Bible it is used of implements of war. Mayhew quotes 2 Chron. xxvi. 15, in the Douay (1609) version, " He made in Jerusalem engines of diverse kind." faery, Co7n. 118, 435; originally a collective noun = 'fairy folk, fairy land, enchantment'; cf. the title of The Faerie Qiieene. Late Lat. fata, 'a fairy,' formed from the plural of fatum, 'fate.' flashy, Lye. 123, 'tasteless'; literally 'watery,' being con- nected with an old word Jlasshe, *a pool,' F. flaque. Bacon in his Essay Of Studies describes a certain class of books as "flashy things," where his Latin translation has insipidus. foil, Lye. 79, 'gold or silver leaf.' F. feuille^ Lat. folium. l66 COMUS AND LYCIDAS. Cf. Florio's Dictionary (1598), "Foglia, a leafe, a sheete, a foile to set vnder precious stones." fond, Com. 67, 'foolish,' its old meaning. Hence fondly = 'foolishly' {Lye. 56). Originally yi^w^ was the p. p. of a Middle E. \^ih fonnen, 'to act like a fool,' from the noun /on, 'a fool.' The root is Scandinavian. founder; properly 'to sink to the bottom,' 1^2tX. ftmdus ; cf. F. s'effondrer, 'to sink.' Hence night-foundered =' plunged in night' {Com. 483). fraught, Com. 355, ' laden, filled ' ; the abbreviated p. p. {fraicghted \w?i?> rarely used) of the verb /nz«^-^/, 'to load' — see Cymbeline, I. i. 126 — which is now obsolete except in this p. p. Akin probably to freight. gloze, or glose, Com. 161, 'to speak falsely, to flatter.' Middle E. glosen meant 'to make glosses, explain,' from Late Lat. glossa, Gk. y\Q',' whence 'to deceive.' So ^/^sm_^= 'deceptive'; cf. George Herbert, The Dotage, "False glozing pleasures." Especially used of flattering, false speech. goblin, Com. 436. Late Lat. gobelinus, a diminutive of Lat. cobalus, ^a. mountain-sprite, demon ' = Gk. ko^oKos, 'a rogue,' or 'a goblin supposed to befriend rogues.' grain. Com. 750; O.F. graine='Low Lat. granum, which, like the classical Lat. cocciim ('a berry'), was used of the scarlet dye made from the cochineal insect found on the scarlet oak, the insect being like a berry or seed. Properly therefore grain = ' scarlet hue,' but Elizabethan poets seem to use it in the ex- tended sense 'hue, colour.' As grain was a very strong dye, so that the colour of cloth dyed in grain never washed out but seemed to be part of the texture itself, the word came to signify 'texture, fibre,' of cloth or wood. An ing}'ained fault is one that has become of the very texture of a man's character. griesly, Com. 603, 'horrible'; cognate -^'xth grjiesotne and Germ, gransig, griisslich. Cf. The Faerie Queene, ill. i. 17, "Lo! where a griesly foster forth did rush" (i.e. forester). guerdon, Lye. 73, 'recompense, return.' Through O.F. from Lat. luiderdonum, "a singular compound of the Old High German undar, back again, and Lat. donum, a gift" — Skeal. Literally therefore *a giving back,' whether good or evil. GLOSSARY. 167 his; this was the ordinary neuter (as well as masculine) possessive pronoun in Middle E. and remained so in Elizabethan E. Cf. Genesis iii. 15, " it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." There was also a use, not common, of it (Middle E. hit) as a possessive, though uninflected ; especially in the phrase it own. Cf. The Tempest^ II. i. 163, "of it own kind," and the Bible of 161 1 in Leviticus xxv. 5, "of it owne accord." This possessive use of ?V without own to strengthen it seems to have been somewhat familiar in Elizabethan E. , applied especially to children; cf. The Winter'' s Tale, iii. 2. loi, "The innocent milk in it most innocent mouth." Then from the possessive use of it uninflected there arose, about the close of the i6th century, the inflected form its in which -s is the usual possessive inflection, as in his. This new form its came into use slowly, the old idiom his being generally retained by EHzabethans. There are no instances of its in Spenser or the Bible (1611), and only three in Milton's poetical works {Paradise Lost, I. 254, iv. 813, Nativity Ode, 106). Its does not occur in any extant work of Shakespeare printed prior to his death: hence it seems not improbable that the nine instances in the ist Folio (five in a single play, The Winter's Tale) were due to the editors or printers of the Folio. hutcli, Com. 'Jig, 'to enclose.' F. huche, 'a hutch, bin,' Low Lat. hiUica ; probably from same root as Germ, hiiten, 'to guard.' A bolting-hutch is the bin into which flour is sifted. influence, Com. 336 ; late Lat. injluentia, literally ' a flowing in upon' (Lat. in^-Jluere). An astrological term applied to the power over the earth, men's characters, fortunes etc., which was supposed to descend from the celestial bodies. Cf. "planetary influence," King Lear, i. 2. 136; "skyey influences," Measure for Measure, ill. i. 9. Other terms due to astrology are '■^x^aster'' (Lat. astrtcm, *a star'), 'iW-starred,'' 'jovial,' 'saturnine.' inherit; then often used = ' to have, possess,' without (as now) the notion of 'heirship' (Lat. heres, 'an heir'). Cf. in the Prayer-Book, "And bless thine inheritance" — that is, 'thy peculiar possession, thy people.' Hence disinherit, 'to make to cease to have, to dispossess' {Com. 334). inure. Com. 735, 'to accustom,' Hterally 'to bring into practice' { — tire). For the obsolete noun ure (F. <£uvre, 'work,' l68 COMUS AND LYCIDAS. Lat. opera) cf. Bacon's Essay Of Simulation, "lest his hand should be out of lire," i.e. out of practice. Cf. 'man«r(f.' laver, Com. 838, 'a vessel for washing'; Lat. lavare, *to wash'; cf lave, Lye. 175. The laver mentioned in i Kings vii. 30 was a large basin in the Temple for the ablution of the priests. lawn; properly {Co}n. 568, 965) an open grass-covered space in a wood, like the glades in the New Forest; hence a poetical word for any 'pasture' {Lye. 25), 'green.' Perhaps cognate with F. lande^ 'waste land'; cf. the lancies or waste country south of Bordeaux. lewd. Com. 465; Middle E. lewed=A.S). Icewed. Its suc- cessive meanings were: (1) 'enfeebled,' Icewed [—gelewed) being the past participle of hewan, 'to weaken'; (2) then 'ignorant' ; then (3) 'bad'; then (4) 'lustful,' i.e. bad in a particular way. From (2) arose also the sense 'lay, belonging to the laity,' because the laity compared with the clergy were ignorant. lickerish, Com. 700, 'dainty'; something pleasant to liek. Cf. the cognate F. lecher, 'to lick'; Germ, leckerei, 'dainties.' list, 'to wish, please'; commonly a present {Lye. 123), rarely a preterite [Com. 49). Shakespeare once has listed ; cf. Richard III. ill. 5. 84, "his savage \\fd,xi .. .listed to make his prey." Akin to lust, which often meant 'pleasure,' as does Germ, lust ; cf, Psaliti xcii. 10, "Mine eye also shall see his lust of mine enemies" (Prayer-Book). livery. Com. 455; in Elizabethan E. = 'any kind of dress, garb'; cf. V Allegro, 62, "The clouds in thousand liveries dight." Originally livery meant whatever was given (i.e. de- livered) by a lord to his household, whether food, money or garments. From F. livrer. lull, Com. 260; an imitative word formed from lu In hummed by nurses in composing children to sleep. Hence lullaby. madrigal, Com. 495; Ital. madrigale, 'a pastoral song,' from Gk. ixavopa, *a fold, stable.' The madrigal was one of the most characteristic forms of old English music. main, Com. 28; Icelandic megin, 'mighty,' common in compounds, e.g. megin-sjdr, 'mighty sea'; from the same root as Gk. /jL^yas, Lat. magnus: whence also mickle (Com. 31) or fnicel, 'great,' Middle E. michcl or muchel (cf. much). GLOSSARY. 169 meed ; properly ' reward ' {Lye. 84) rather than ' tribute ' {Lye. 14). From the same root as Gk. /xiadds, ' pay.' methinks ; methought, Com. 171, 482. These are really impersonal constructions such as were much used in pre- Elizabethan E. ; their meaning is, 'it seems, or seemed, to me.' The pronoun is a dative, and the verb is not the ordinary verb 'to think'' — A.S. \>encan, but an obsolete impersonal verb 'to seem^ = A.S. \>ynean. These cognate verbs got confused through their similarity; the distinction between them as regards usage and sense is shown in Milton's Paradise Regained, II. 266, ^' Him thought he by the brook of Cherith stood"='to him it seemed that' etc. Cf. their German cognates denken, *to think,' used personally, and the impersonal es diinkt, 'it seems' ; also the double use of Gk. doKelv. For the old impersonal constructions cf. Spenser, Frothalamion 60, ''^ Them seem'd they never saw a sight so fayre." nice; Lat. nescius, 'ignorant.' It first meant 'foolish,' as in Chaucer; then 'foolishly particular, fastidious, prudish' {Coin. 139); then 'subtly,' since fastidiousness implies drawing fine, subtle distinctions. The original notion 'foolish' often affects the Elizabethan uses of the word, which is noticeable as having improved in sense. ore, Coi?i. "Jig, 933, Lye. 170, 'metal'; A.S. <^r, 'unrefined metal'; cf. Germ. erz. Sometimes Elizabethan writers use <7r^='gold,' i.e. through confusion of sound with Lat. aurum. Thus it means 'precious metal' in Hamlet, iv. i. 25. orient, 'bright, lustrous'; in Elizabethan poetry a constant epithet of gems, especially pearls. Perhaps, used thus, it first meant ' eastern,' gems coming from the Orient or East ; then as these were bright it got the notion 'lustrous.' Commonly Milton applies it to liquids {Com. 65) or jewels; cf. "orient pearl," Par. Lost, v. 2. pert, Com. 118. Shakespeare always uses it in a good sense = ' lively, alert'; cf. A Alidsiwimer-Nighfs Dream, I. i. 13, "Awake the pert and nimble spirit of youth." Middle E. pert is another form oi perk, 'smart'; it got its bad sense 'saucy' through confusion with malapei-t, from Lat. male + expert us, 'too experienced,' hence 'too sharp,' 'saucy.' pester, Com. 7, 'to shackle, clog.' Short for impester=¥. empHrer, which "signifies properly to hobble a horse while he lyo COMUS AND LYCIDAS. feeds afield" — Bracket; from Lat. /«, 'on, upon ' + medieval Lat. pasioritim, 'a clog for horses at pasture.' From *to shackle' follows naturally the sense 'to annoy, bother.' pinfold, Co}?i. 7, 'a pound, i.e. enclosure for strayed cattle.' Short for '/mo'- fold,' from A.S. pyndan, 'to pen up.' Cognate with pound. Cf. " Lipsbury pinfold," King Lear^ II. 2. 8. plea. Lye. 90. O.Y. plait, Late Lat. placittim, *a decision,' i.e. 'the pleasure of the Court or Judge' (from placere, 'to please^). plig-hted, Com. 301, 'folded.' Spenser msqs plight =' {old' both as noun and verb; cf. The Faerie Queene, II. 3. 26, "many a folded plight," and Vi. 7. 43, "And on his head a roll of linen plight." Cf. the cognate plait (or pleat) and F. ///, plier ; all from Lat. plicare, 'to fold.' prank, CV;//. 759, " to deck, adorn ' ; cf. The Winter's Tale, IV. 4, ro, " most goddess-like pranked up." A favourite word with Her rick; cf. The Hai-vest Hotne, "Some prank them up w^ith oaken leaves." Akin to prance (properly ' to make a show ) , and Germ. prunk, 'pomp.' prevent, Cofu. 285, 'to anticipate'; hsLt. pr^svenire, 'to come before.' Cf. Psalm cxix. 148, "mine eyes prevent the night watches." purfled, Com. 995, 'embroidered'; cf. The Faerie Queene, I. 2. 13, "Purfled with gold and pearle of rich assay." F. poui'Jile {fil, 'a thread,' 'L2ii.Jilum). The word survives m purl, a term used in lace-making. purchase, Cojn. 607, ' booty, prey.' The verb meant first to hunt after (¥ . pour + chasser) ; " then to take in hunting ; then to acquire; and then, as the commonest way of acquiring is by giving money in exchange, to buy" — Trench. The sense 'to acquire, gain ' is common in Elizabethan E. Cf. i Timothy iii. 13, "they that have used the office of a deacon well purchase to themselves a good degree' (Revised Version 'gain'). quaint, Lye. 139, 'dainty.' Derived through O.F. coint (torn Lat. cognitus, ' well-known ' ; cf. acquaint from Lat. adcognitare. The original sense (i) was 'knowing, wise'; cf. Hampole's Psalter, Ps. cxix. 98, "Abouen myn enmys quaynt thou me made," i.e. "wiser than mine enemies." But (2) through a false notion that it came from Lat. comptus, ' trimmed, adorned,' quaint lost its old sense 'knowing' and got the sense 'trim, dainty, neat' — which it has always in Shakespeare; cf. "my GLOSSARY. 171 quaint Ariel," The Tempest, i. 2. 317. Perhaps (3) quamt= ' odd, eccentric ' arose from the notion ' too trim, over- fine.' quire, Com. iiz. An older form oi choir, Lat. chorus ; cf. O.F. qtier and F. choeur. "In Quires and places where they sing," Prayer-Book. rapt. Com. 794, ' transported.' It should be written rapped, being the past participle of an old verb rap, 'to seize hurriedly'; cf. Cyvibeline, I. 6. 51, "what. ..thus raps you?" i.e. what trans- ports you thus ? The form rapt comes through confusion with Lat. rapius, the p. p. of Lat. rapere, 'to seize.' rathe. Lye 142 'early.' A.S. hrce'S, 'quick, soon'; cf. r<2:/A^= ' sooner,' ;'a^/z^j-/=' soonest' (e.g. in Bacon's Colours of Good and Evil). For rathe, ' early,' cf. The Shepheards Calender, December, " Thus is my harvest hastened all to rathe," i.e. too early). rhyme, Lye. 11 ; so spelt through confusion with rhythm, Gk. pvdixos; properly rime, from A.S. rifn, 'a number.' ruth, Lye. 163, 'pity.' Cf. Troilus and Cressida, v. 3. 48, " Spur them to ruthful work, rein them from ruth," where r^^//^/^^/= ' piteous ' ; contrast ruthless. Akin to A.S. hreowan, 'to rue,^ Germ, reue, 'repentance.' sad. Com. 189, 355, 'grave, serious,' without any notion of sorrow. Cf. Henry V. IV. i. 318, "the sad and solemn priests." Originally 'sated,' A.S. scedh&mg akin to Lat. satis, 'enough.* scrannel, Lye. 124. Skeat says: '■'■ Scramiel, thin, weakly, wretched (Scandinavian). Provincial English scranny, thin, lean ; scrannel, a lean person (Lincolnshire)." He gives a Swedish word skran, 'weak,' and says that shrink, A.S. scrincan, is cognate ; cf. its preterite shrank, A.S. scranc. shrewd. Com. 846, 'malicious, mischievous'; from its common Elizabethan sense 'bad,' literally 'cursed' {shrewd \i€\xi^ the p.p. oischrewen, 'to curse '). Cf. "a shrewd turn " = ' a bad turn,' AWs Well That Ends Well, III. 5. 71. From shreiv^K.^. scrediva, "a shrew-mouse, fabled to have a very venomous bite " (Skeat). shroud; properly 'a garment' (A.S. scrtld) — cf. Lye. 22; hence any 'shelter, covering,' Com. 147, Outside Old St Paul's Cathedral in London there was a covered place called "the Shrouds," where sermons were preached in wet weather, instead of at St Paul's Cross, which was in the open. 1/2 COMUS AND LYCIDAS. sooth, Com. 823, 'true.' A.S. sd^, 'true'; cf. soothsayer, forsooth. sound, Com. 115, 'a strait, strip of water'; A.S. sund, literally ' a strait of the sea that could be swum across.' sovran, Com. 41 ; spelt thus always in Par. Lost; cf. Ital. sovrano. The common form sovereign = O.Y. soverain. Lat. superanus, 'chief,' from super, 'above.' stole, Com. 195. Elizabethans often use the form of the past tense as a past participle — cf. took {Com. 558); and conversely with certain verbs, e.g. begin, sing, spring, the form of the past participle as a past tense. Thus Shakespeare and Milton nearly always use jz^;z^ instead of sang; cf. Far. Lost, iii. 18, "I sung of Chaos and eternal Night." swart, Lye. 138; more often swarthy, but cf. Keats, En- dymion, "Swart planet in the universe of deeds." A.S. swearf, 'very dark ' ; cf. Germ, schwartz. swink; A.S. sivincan, 'to work hard, labour.' Hence the sense ' wearied with work ' in Com. 293. A common verb in old writers ; cf. The Faerie Qneene, ii. 7. 8 : " Honour, estate, and all this worldes good, For which men swinck and sweat incessantly." Shelley has it in his humorous Letter to Maria Gisborne : " that dew which the gnomes drink, "When at their subterranean toil they swink." take ; used by Elizabethans of the influence of supernatural powers, e.g. fairies {Hamlet, I. i. 163); cf. Cotgrave (1611), ''fee, taken, bewitched." Hence *to chaiin, fascinate' — as in Com. 558; cf. Tennyson's Dying Swan, ill.: " The wild swan's death-hymn took the soul Of that waste place." Cf. the colloquial use now of ' taking ' = ' charming.' toy, Com. 502, 'a trifle.' Cf. Macbeth, 11. 3. 99, "All is but toys." Cognate with Germ, zeug, 'stuff, trash,' as in spiehcKg, ' playthings.' trains, Com. 151, 'snares.' Cf. Samson Agonistes, 533, "venereal snares "=snares of love (Venus). F. trainer, from Lat. trahere, 'to draw,' in Late Lat. 'to betray' — from the metaphor of drawing birds into snares. trick, I^yc. 170, 'to dress anew.' From Dutch trek, 'a trick, a neat contrivance': whence the idea 'neat appearance.' GLOSSARY. 173 turkis, Com. 894, 'the turquoise,' literally 'Turkish stone.' Cf. Tennyson, The Merman, ill., "Turkis and agate and almondine." uncouth, Lye. 186; A.S. tmcM, 'unknown' — from ««, 'not,'+a/'S, the p.p. of amnan, 'to know.' In M. it almost always means 'unfamiliar,' with the implied notion 'un- pleasant.' unharboured, Com. 423, ^y'ltldrngno harbourage^ i.e. shelter.' A harbinger was originally an officer who went in advance of an army or prince to make provision for the night's shelter. From Icelandic herbergi, 'an army shelter'; cf. the cognate Germ, words heer+bergen. F. atiberge, 'an inn,' is also from this Icelandic word. usher. Com. 279. The noun (F. hnissier, Lat. ostiarhis) meant properly 'a doorkeeper,' later 'someone who went in front of any great person in a procession ' : hence the idea ' to precede, introduce.' virtue. Com. 165, 'efficacy, power'; a frequent Elizabethan use. Cf. Luke viii. 46, "Virtue is gone out of me." So virtuous =* full of efficacy' {Cotn. 621). Lat. virtus, 'worth, manly excellence' (Lat. vir, man). wanton. Lye. 137. The radical sense is 'ill-restrained'; wan being a negative prefix expressing want, deficiency, and the latter part of the word being connected with A.S. teon, 'to draw.' For the prefix cf. the old words wanhope, 'despair,' wantrusf, 'distrust.' wassailer. Com. 179, 'a reveller.' Wassail is the old northern English wres hdl, ' be whole ' = the imperative of wesan, 'to be ' -t- hdl, the same as whole and hale. Originally a salutation in drinking, like the Gexvcv. prosit J ('may it benefit you'), used in drinking a man's health, wassail came to mean 'a drinking, carousing, revel.' Lady Macbeth promises to overcome the chamberlains "with wine and wassail" (i. 7. 64). The '■wassail- bowl ' was a great feature of the old Christmas feasting. weed, Com. 16, 84, 390, 'garments, dress'; A.S. ivdd, 'a garment.' Commonly in the plural; cf. Coriolamts, 11. 3. i6r, "With a proud heart he wore his humble weeds." Now only in the phrase 'widow's weeds,' except in poetry; cf. Tennyson, "In words like weeds I'll wrap me o'er" [In Memoriam, v.). welkin, Com. 1015, 'sky'; properly a plural word = ' clouds,' 174 COMUS AND LYCIDAS. from A.S. wolcnu, the plural of woken, 'a cloud'; cf. Germ. wolke, 'a cloud.' wizard, Lye. 55. The first part is from the root seen in wise, ivit, Germ, wissen. The suffix -ard, of Teutonic origin— cf. names like Eberhard — here has its original intensive force = 'hard, strong in, i.e. very.' Usually depreciative, as in coward, di-unkard, braggart {d softened to /). 175 APPENDIX. THE ENGLISH MASQUER In the last years of the sixteenth century England owed much to Italian culture. For the age of Spenser Italy was what France a hundred years afterwards became for the age of Dryden, the great authority and model in everything pertaining to lite- rature and art. It was from Italy that the Masque came. Hall tells us in the passage from his Chronicle quoted later on that the entertainment which struck people as so novel in 15 12 was intro- duced "after the manner of Italic." Marlowe puts these lines into the mouth of Piers Gaveston, the favourite of Edward II. : " I must have wanton poets, pleasant wits, Musicians, that with touching of a string May draw the pliant king which way I please : Music and poetry is his delight ; Therefore I'll have Italian masks by night, Sweet speeches, comedies, and pleasing shows." — Edward II. I. i. In his Chronicle History of the Stage, pp. 22, 26, Mr Fleay notes that Italians "made pastime" for the Queen in 1574; that the Records of the Revels mention an Italian interpreter; and that the speeches of a Masque played before Elizabeth in 1579 were translated from English into Italian, at the Lord Chamber- lain's direction. 1 This sketch is mainly abridged from the longer account of the Masque prefixed to the edition of Comus in the " Pitt Press '" edition, where the various sources from which information is taken are mentioned. Anyone who desires to consult a fuller (and most interesting) account of the Masque should turn to Symonds' book, ShciksJ>ere's Predecessors. 176 COMUS AND LYCIDAS. There can be no question therefore as to the Italian origin of the Masque. The earliest description of an English Masque occurs in Hall's Chronicle under the date 151 2. He says: " On the dale of the Epiphanie at night the King with xi other were disguised after the manner of Italic, called a maske, a thing not sene afore in England : thei were appareled in garments long and brode, wrought all with golde, with visers and cappes of gold ; and after the banket doen these Maskers came in with the sixe gentlemen disguised in silke, beryng staffe- torches, and desired the ladies to daunce: some were content, and some that knew the fashion of it refused, because it was not a thing commonly seen. And after thei daunced and communed together, as the fashion of the maskes is, thei toke their leave and departed ; and so did the Queene and all the ladies." The entertainment thus described was what we should call a ' masquerade ' : an entertainment, that is, in which ' masks ' or vizards were worn and dances were the chief element. Often the dances were supposed to illustrate some story, as it were in 'dumb show,' and gradually allegorical characters, e.g. Love, were brought in to explain the story to the audience, and songs were introduced. Hence from being merely a series of dances performed by masked characters, the Masque came to be a kind of play which was accompanied by a good deal of music and therefore resembled an opera. Scenery was then required, and wealthy patrons of the Masque vied with each other in the splendour of their representations. Here the Masque was in- fluenced by the Pageant. The latter was of even older origin. Mention is made as early as 1236 of the City-pageants cele- brated in London by members of the trade guilds. Of these spectacular processions, representing symbolically the various trades, which passed through the London streets at great festivities, the Lord Mayor's Show is a survival. Sometimes, e.g. in Shirley's great Masque The Triumph of Peace, a pro- cession formed the introduction to a Masque ; and the general influence of the Pageant was to foster a taste for spectacular display. This taste was not gratified in the public theatres simply because the theatrical managers could not afford the expense. But it was gratified in the Masque-performances given by the Court, great nobles, and the four legal societies APPENDIX. 177 (Inner Temple, Middle Temple, Gray's Inn and Lincoln's Inn), whose Christmas-tide festivities or ' Revels ^ ' were of a costly description. Gradually therefore the Masque developed from its simple origin as a masquerade into a complex form of entertainment scarcely distinguishable from an opera. The Masque reached its zenith in the reign of James I. Ben Jonson was the great master of the art, and his Masques may be taken as specimens of the finest type. They present these features : The characters are deities of classical mythology, nymphs and personified qualities such as *Love,' ' Harmony,' 'Delight,' ' Laughter ' (for throughout its history the Masque preserved a marked strain of allegory). The number of characters seldom exceeds six, and there are generally two bands to whom the title • Masquers ' is specially assigned and who serve as choruses, now separately and in contrast, now in union. Thus in the Masque of Hymen there are eight maidens personifying the powers exercised by Juno in her capacity of patroness of women in wedlock, and eight knights personifying the ' Humours ' and ' Affections ' of man. In the Masque of Queens there are twelve witches embodying evil qualities, such as ' Ignorance,' 'Suspicion,' and against them are set twelve queens representing the highest fame. The scenes are laid in ideal regions — Olympus, Arcadia, the Fortunate Isles, the Palace of Oceanus, and similar realms of fancy. The length of the pieces, of course, varies, but the average Masque is about equal to the first Act of The Tempest. They are written in various metres of rhymed verse, which is sometimes spoken, sometimes declaimed in recitative, and contain solos for the chief characters and part-songs and choruses. Dances, executed by the ' Masquers,' are a very important element : stately 'measures,' 'corantos,' 'galliards,' and the like, of Italian or French origin, and all new to England. Most elaborate scenery is employed, giving the representations a highly spectacular character, and the dresses of the performers are of the costliest description and symbolical. It is interesting, in passing, to remember the contrast between the bare simplicity 1 Twelfth Night was acted at the Candlemas feast (Jan. 6) of the Middle Temple in 1602. V. C. • 12 1/8 COMUS AND LYCIDAS. which characterised the representation of Shakespeare's pieces at the Globe Theatre^ and the rich display of the Masque. Generally there is a comic part called the Anti- masque. This serves as a contrast to the idealism of the Masque itself. It is a foil, an opposite : hence its name. Sometimes the Anti-masque consists of a scene or two of humorous dialogue and action, which have a satirical relation to the main subject and almost parody it ; the characters being drawn from contemporary Elizabethan life. Sometimes the Anti-masque is merely a grotesque interlude. One moment personifications of Delight, and Harmony, and Love move across the scene, chanting some rhythmic choral strain to a slow recitative: the next all is confusion: the Anti- masquers rush forward, grotesque in dress and movement, execute fantastic dances and movements, and retire. Milton does not attempt to work out an Anti-masque in Comus ; very wisely, as he had little humour in his nature. But it may he conjectured that had Ben Jonson been the author of Covins at least two episodes in the poem would have been treated as burlesque interludes. These would have occurred at line 93, where Comus first appears, and at line 957 : the Anti-masquers being in the one case the "rout of monsters," and in the other the "Country Dancers," with their clumsy "ducks and nods." We have nothing in our own day that corresponds precisely with the Masque of the reign of James I, It was like an opera, because so much music was introduced ; like a ballet, because there was so much dancing ; like a pageant, because the scenery, setting and costumes were devised on so splendid a scale. It was certainly the forerunner of the opera, and composers like Lawes and Lock, to whom we owe our earliest operas, had in their youth written the incidental music of the latest Masques. The Masque was a private form of entertainment, much patronised by the Court of James I. The Laureate l^en Jonson would write the libretto; the Court-composer Alfonso Ferra- bosco often furnished the music, which would be rendered by the Court-orchestra and the choirs of the Chapels Royal ; and the Court-architect, Inigo Jones, designed tiie scenery. Great nobles too, as we have said, and the legal societies gave Masque- performances. The Masque was peculiarly suited to be a form * Cf. the fust rrolugiic to lliiity V. APPENDIX. 179 of private theatricals because little skill in acting was required. The Queen and her maids of honour and courtiers could render the songs and execute the dances and rhythmic movements with all due effect, and satisfy the slender demands on their skill as players ; though professional actors were sometimes employed for the Anti-masque, and professional musicians (usually the singers at the Chapels Royal) when the solo parts presented great difficulty. Great ceremonies and occasions were signalised by Masque- performances, such as the Twelfth Night festivities at Whitehall, royal visits to noblemen's houses and weddings. Of course, the subject and allegory of a Masque were suited to the occasion for which it was composed. Thus in a Wedding-Masque the characters are Juno, Venus, Hymen, the Graces, etc., powers whose blessing is invoked on the wedded pair. And there is often, as in Comiis, an element of personal compliment and local allusion. The Masque declined somewhat on the death of James in 1625. Charles I. indeed was equally devoted to amusements. He was a good actor. As a boy he had played in several of Jonson's pieces, and Love's Triumph through Callipolis (1630) was perfoimed " by his Majesty, with the Lords and Gentlemen Assisting. " But the novelty was gone. An art or taste which depends on the whims of wealth and fashion has no element of permanence : what is in vogue to-day is voted ol>solete to-morrow. Moreover the Masque had become too costly. We are told that Daniel's Masque Hyme/t's Triumph cost about ^3000 ; Jonson's Masque of Blackness also about ;[^3000, and his Htie and Cry of Cupid nearly ^^4000 ; while the expense of producing Shirley's Triumph of Peace reached the fabulous amount of ^21,000 (which we must multiply by 4 to get its modern equivalent). Entertainments which swallowed up a sum equivalent to the revenue of a small country could not be matters of frequent occurrence, especially when the royal purse was none too full. Moreover, as literature, the Masque had suffered inevitably by the mania for elaborate scenery, dresses and the like features of representation. Ben Jonson indeed insisted that the words were . the real life and anima of the Masque: that the poetry should have the place of honour, and the other arts — music, sculpture, painting — serve as her handmaids. But this was not the popular 12 2 l8o COMUS AND LYCIDAS. view. Even his contemporary and fellow writer of Masques, Daniel in the preface to the Masque of Tethys declared that the poet's share in a Masque was "the least... and of least note : the only life consists in show, the art and invention of the archi- tect gives the greatest graces, and is of the most importance." The Masque in fact has come to be regarded as merely a peg whereon to hang costly extravagance. " Painting and carpentry are the soul of Masque " was Ben Jonson's final and bitterly ironical summing up of the whole matter. Just so nowadays a piece may attract by the splendour of its stage-spectacle rather than by any merit in the drama itself. Curiously enough, when the period of its decadence was far advanced the Masque had a sudden and passing revival of life. This happened just before the composition of Comus. " In 1633 the Puritan hatred to the theatre had blazed out in Prynne's Histriomastix, and as a natural consequence, the loyal and cavalier portion of society threw itself into dramatic amusements of every kind. It was an unreal revival of the Mask, stimulated by political passion, in the wane of genuine taste for the fantastic and semi-barbarous pageant, in which the former age had delighted" — (Mark Pattison). This revival was marked by the production of the famous Masque already mentioned, Shirley's Triumph of Peace, and of Carew's Ccehim Britaunicinn. The former was acted on Feb. 3, 1634, by the four legal societies, who desired, says a writer of that period, to express thereby " their love and duty to their majesties... and to manifest the difference of their opinion from Mr Prynne's new learning." Carew's Masque was given by the Court a fortnight later. Probably Milton was then busy with the composition of Comus, acted some months after. Each of these Masques has some association with Comus, as Lawes wrote the music for each, while two of the performers in the Ccelum Brilaunii urn \\Qxe.W?,co\\ni Brackley and Mr Thomas Egerton, the "Brothers" of Milton's Masque. The occasional representations of Masques after the Restoration, and even in this century, have merely an antiquarian interest. As a form of dramatic art the Masque lost its identity in the opera. Ben Jonson's primacy in masque- writing stands unchallenged, bul the art counted other distinguished exponents — e.g. Beaumont and Fletcher ; Dekkcr and Middleton, who wrote city-pageants ; Daniel, Chapman and Marston, patronised mainly by the Court APPENDIX. l8l and nobles ; and Shirley and Carew, the representatives of its waning glories. Nor was Shakespeare uninfluenced by the Masque. A Mid- sum nier- Night's Dream is rather a Masque-comedy than comedy proper. The classical characters and locality, the super- natural beings, the picturesque scenery required, the fanciful story, the rhymed and various types of verse, the large element of music and dance, the comic "interlude" of Bottom and his friends, who not only serve as contrasts to the classical characters of Theseus and his courtiers and to the fairies, but also parody in their " tragical mirth " the love-element of the serious scenes : all these are features in which Shakespeare's play reveals its kinship with the Masque. The pageant of Hymen in As Vou Like It, V. 4, is an episode which might have been detached from an ordinary Masque; and so is the Vision in Cymbeline, v. 4. The Masquerade in Henry VI 11. i, 4, reminds us of the simple type of Masque described by Hall. The Masque in the fourth Act of The Tempest, though brief, contains the characteristic features. The theme is an allegory of marriage-bliss. The characters are taken from my- thology. The Nymphs and Reapers represent the bands of ' Masquers.' Their dresses^ are emblematical. There are songs, a "graceful dance," music. The verse is rhymed and varied. And the interlude akin to a Masque in the third Act, scene 3, illustrates the use of scenery and stage-machinery. II. PASTORAL POETRY. We must go back to the Greek poet Theocritus- for the beginnings of pastoral poetry such as Lycidas. Theocritus was born at Syracuse (a Greek colony) in Sicily, early in the third century B.C. It should be remembered that the Greek colonies in Sicily were as much ' Greek ' then in civilization and culture 1 Thus the "Nymphs" of the brooks are bidden to come with their " sedged crowns," iv. 129, sedge being symbolical of water-deities (cf Lye. 104), and the " Reapers" are " properly habited" (Stage-direction). 2 "The first head and welspring" of pastoral verse, as Spenser's frienl said; see "Globe"' Spenser, p. 444. 1 82 COMUS AND LYCIDAS. as the capitals of Greater Eritain — Toronto, say, and Sydney — are 'British' now. The works therefore of Theocritus represent Greek literature exactly as if he had been born in Greece itself. Theocritus spent part of his life at Alexandria, the great centre of culture and refinement at that time. His extant works, written in the Doric ^ dialect of Greek, consist of some thirty Idyls and a few Epigrams. His fame rests on his Idyls. They are called Idyls'^, 'little pictures,' from their highly- wrought, picturesque manner. About a third of them are pastoral or rural. They depict different aspects of rural life, more par- ticularly shepherd -life, in Sicily and Southern Italy, and are partly cast in the form of a dialogue followed by a singing-match between two shepherds. The character of the Idyls will be best understood by those who are unacquainted with them if we give summaries of two or three from Mr Andrew Lang's translation. Idyl N. "This Idyl begins with a debate between two hirelings, who, at last, compete with each other in a match of pastoral song. No other idyl of Theocritus is so frankly true to the rough side of rustic manners. The scene is in Southern Italy." IX. "Daphnis and Menalcas, at the bidding of the poet, sing the joys of the neatherd's and of the shepherd's life. Both receive the thanks of the poet, and rustic prizes — a staff, and a horn, made of a spiral shell." X. " The sturdy reaper, Milon, as he levels the swathes of corn, derides his languid and love-worn companion, Battus. The latter defends his gipsy love.... Milon replies with the song of Lityerses — a string, apparently, of popular rural couplets, such as Theocritus may have heard chanted in the fields." What distinguishes the Idyls of Theocritus from all later pastoral poetry is their reality, their fidelity to fact. The rural life of his poems is a genuine thing, idealised somewhat and represented with consummate art, but still genuine at bottom ; not the fiction and mere literary convention which other bucolic verse gives us. Professor Jebb says : " His [Theocritus's] rural ' Syracuse was a Dorian colony. - (Jf. Tennyson's use of the title. APPENDIX. 183 idyls are no sham pastorals, but true to the sights and sounds of his native Sicily. The Sicilian sunshine is there, the shade of oak-trees or pine, the * couch, softer than sleep,' made by ferns or flowers ; the ' music of water falling from the high face of the rock,' the arbutus shrubs, with their bright red berries, above the sea-cliffs, whence the shepherds watch the tunny-fishers on the sea below, while the sailors' song floats up to them ; and if the form given to the strains of shepherd and goatherd is such as finished poetry demands, this is a very different thing from the affectation of the mock pastoral, as it existed, for instance, at the court of Louis XIV. The modern love-songs of Greek shepherds warrant the supposition that their ancient prototypes commanded some elegance of expression ; and whatever may be the degree in which Theocritus has idealised his Sicilian peasants, at any rate we hear the voice and breathe the air of nature." The first of these Idyls has a peculiar interest for the student of Lycidas. It is not merely a pastoral, but a pastoral elegy. Mr Lang summarises it thus : " The shepherd Thyrsis meets a goatherd, in a shady place beside a spring, and at his invitation sings the Song of DapJuiis. This ideal hero [viz, Daphnis] of Greek pastoral song had won for his bride the fairest of the Nymphs. Confident in the strength of his passion, he boasted that Love could never subdue him to a new affection. Love avenged himself by making Daphnis desire a strange maiden, but to this temptation he never yielded, and so died a constant lover. The song tells how the cattle and the wild things of the wood bewailed him, how Hermes gave him counsel in vain, and how with his last breath he retorted the taunts of the implacable Aphrodite. The scene is in Sicily." This Song is the model on which Lycidas and all other pastoral elegies are framed, consciously or unconsciously. Two other poets associated with Sicily lived about the same time as Theocritus and wrote, in Doric, Idyls of which a few are extant, viz. Bion and Moschus. Each wrote a poem of lament that may be compared with Theocritus's Song of Daphnis '. Bion Xhe Lament for Adonis, and Moschus the Lament for Bion. The latter is a very close parallel to Lycidas. Moschus was the pupil of Bion, and in his lament he mourns for his friend and master under the same pastoral allegory which Milton uses in 1 84 COMUS AND LYCIDAS. Lya'das, i.e. as one shepherd mourning for another. Now this introduction of allegory into the pastoral marks the second stage in its history — the decline from its original reality and truth. For Theocritus's Song of Daphnis is, in kind if not exactly in form, a lament such as one shepherd might really have uttered over another ; whereas in the Lament for Bion pastoralism is merely the imaginative garb in which one poet clothes his grief at the loss of another. Henceforth the drift of pastoral verse, whether descriptive or elegiac, is towards artificiality. This characteristic is very pronounced in Vergil. His pastoral poems, the Eclogues'^, are close, almost servile, imitations of Theocritus. His aim is not to paint in his own way the rural life of his own Mantuan land, but to repaint the pictures of Theocritus, with all their characteristic Sicilian features, whether appropriate to Italian scenes or not. Thus pastoralism ceases to be a faithful represen- tation of shepherd-life, and becomes rather a literary exercise, and the Eclogues are admirable primarily for the same qualities as Lycidas — that is, qualities of art, not reality. At the Renaissance the renewed interest in the classics brought the pastoral into vogue, especially in Italy. The re- vival of learning, says Professor Hales, "put fresh models before men, greatly modified old literary forms, originated new. The classical influence impressed upon Europe was by no means an unmixed good ; in some respects it retarded the natural de- velopment of the modern mind by overpowering it with its prestige and stupefying it with a sense of inferiority; while it raised the ideal of perfection, it tended to give rise to mere imitations and affectations. Amongst these new forms was the Pastoral. When Virgil, Theocritus, 'Daphnis and Chloe,' and other writers^ and works of the ancient pastoral literature once 1 Latin Eclogce, select poems; from Gk. exAoy^, a selection, especially a selection of poems. Note that the term for pastoral verse which prevailed among the earlier English poets was Eclogue, not Idyl — mainlj-, I suppose, because Vergil was a stronger influence than Theocritus. Every educated man knew Latin, but Greek (and that the Doric dialect) would be a mystery to most. Moreover, the common old spelling y^glogue shows that the word was supposed to be connected with Greek aif, a goat, and therefore very appropriate to a class of poem in which goatherds often appear. Cf. "The General Argument" to The Shephenrds Calender, lines 9 et seq. in the "Globe" edition; and see Conington's Vergil, i. pp. 17, 18. ^ Latin pastoral writers later than Vergil are of little importance. APPENDIX. 185 more gained the ascendency, then a modern pastoral poetry began to be. This poetry flourished greatly in Italy in the sixteenth century. It had been cultivated by Sannazaro, Guarini, Tasso^. Arcadia had been adopted by the poets for their country. In England numerous Eclogues'^ made their appearance. Amongst the earliest of these were Spenser's [i.e. the twelve Eclogues, one for each month of the year, of The Shepheards Calender\ It would perhaps be unjust to treat this modern pastoral literature as altogether an affectation. How- ever unreal, the pastoral world had its charms — a pleasant feeling imparted of emancipation, a deep quietude, a sweet tranquillity." Nevertheless, 'unreal' and 'artificial' are, in varying degrees, just descriptions of practically all pastoral verse since Theocritus. For whereas Theocritus depicted shepherd-life from the life — as he saw it lived by the shepherds of his native land — other pastoral writers, from Vergil onwards, have depicted it from poetic tradition, Vergil, as we saw, copied Theocritus, Italian writers copied Vergil, the English copied the Italians plus the classical poets. Thus from successive imitations of imitations arose a poetic tradition as to what shepherd-life should be, and pastoralism became neither more nor less than a literary form. The essential unreality of the modern pastoral is shown by the very fact that it generally "adopted" for its scene an ideal "Arcadia" where all was innocence and bliss. The invention of this Arcadia of pastoral verse, in which the characteristics of the Golden Age were supposed to be revived, was due to Sannazaro. The scene of Milton's own poem Arcades is laid in Arcadia, as the name shows ('the Arcadians'). One thing, it ^ Each produced works which had a great influence in diffusing a taste for the pastoral, viz. Sannazaro the Arcadia, 1504, describing scenes and pursuits of pastoral life, and (in Latin) Piscatory Eclogues, 1520, imitated closely from Vergil ; Tasso the dramatic pastoral ^ ;;;/«^rt, 1573; and Guarini, the Pastor Fido, 1585. These are the three writers to be mentioned in connection with the Italian pastoral. 2 One of the earliest English writers of pastorals was Barnabe Googe, whose volume of miscellaneous poems, Eglogs, Epytaphes, and Sottettes (see Arber's Reprint), appeared in 1563. It contains eight pastoral poems, mostly in dialogue form: the speakers, shepherds and shepherdesses; the themes discussed, love, the evils of towns, the country-life, etc. ; the verse full of old-fashioned alliteration. 1 86 COMUS AND LYCIDAS. should be added, in Lycidas whicli heightens the effect of un- reality is the introduction of Christianity in the person of St Peter after the pagan deities Neptune and /Eolus. But parallels might be quoted from earlier pastoral poems. Lycidas was the last notable pastoral of the movement to which The Shepheards Calender had given a great impetus. The period between Spenser's poem and Milton's produced many specimens of the various types of pastoral — descriptive, dramatic, elegiac. The best known of these works were Spenser's own pastoral elegy Astrophel on the death of Sir Philip Sidney, and the Spenserian poems inspired by the same event; Browne's descriptive idyls entitled Britannia' s Pastorals and the Shepherd'' s Pipe, Phineas Fletcher's Piscatorie Eclogues^, and part of (iiles Fletcher's verse ; and in that sphere of dramatic pastoral where Tasso's Aniinta was the approved model, John Fletcher's Faithful Shepherdess, Ben Jonson's Sad Shepherd, and Milton's Arcades. All these works illustrate aspects of Lycidas, and the Faith fnl Shepherdess bears a peculiar relation to it. Of pastoral verse written after Lycidas it is not necessary to speak. III. "SABRTNA FAIR": Coniiis, 824—842. The story of Sabrina, the "nymph" of the Severn, had been previously told by several poets: by Drayton in the Polyolbion, Sixth Song, by Warner in Albioii's Eui^land, and Spenser in 77/^ Faerie Queene, II. ro. 14 — 19, and in the old play Locrine (absurdly attributed at one time to Shakespeare). The first presentment, however, of the legend occurs in the Latin History of the Britons by Geoffrey of Monmouth (made Bishop of St Asaph in 1152). This Milton reproduced in his own prose History of England. lie relates how l!rulus the great-grandson of iEneas, landed in Albion, built Troja Nova ' The title is copied from Sannazaro's Latin Eclogues, as that of John Fletcher's pastoral drama from Gnarini's Pastor Fido. Such iinitntions, even in the matter of a title, are cliaracteristic of the relation of the English pastoral school to the Italian. APPENDIX. 187 (afterwards called Trinovantum = London), and at his death divided his territory^ between Locrine, Albanact, and Camber, his three sons. Locrine later on defeated Humber, king of the Huns, who had invaded Britain, and, says Milton, "among the spoils of his camp and navy were found certain young maids, and Estrildis above the rest, passing fair, the daughter of a king in Germany ; whom Locrine, though before contracted to the daughter of Corineus [a Trojan warrior who accompanying Brutus to Britain had received Cornwall], resolves to marry. But being forced and threatened by Corineus, whose authority and power he feared, Guendolen the daughter he yields [consents] to marry, but in secret he loves the other [Estrildis] : and had by her a daughter equally fair, whose name was Sabra. But when once his fear was off by the death of Corineus, divorcing Guendolen, he makes Estrildis now his queen. Guendolen, all in rage, de- parts into Cornwall, where Madan, the son she had by Locrine, was hitherto brought up by Corineus his grandfather. And gathering an army of her father's friends and subjects, gives battle to her husband by the river Sture [i.e. Stour]; wherein Locrine, shot with an arrow, ends his life. But not so ends the fury of Guendolen : for Estrildis, and her daughter Sabra, she throws into a river : and, to leave a monument of revenge, proclaims that the stream be thenceforth called after the damsel's name ; which, by length of time, is changed now to Sabrina, or Severn" — P. W. v. 173, 174. Cf. Spenser (ii. 10. 19) describing how Guendolen, having taken "the faire Sabrina" (cf. Coiftiis, 859) and her mother prisoners, slew the latter, "But the sad Virgin, innocent of all, Adoune the rolling river she did poure, Which of her name now Severne men do call : Such was the end that to disloyall love did fall." So also at the close of the play Locrini' (v. 5), where Sabren drowns herself, and Guendolen says: ' ' because this river was the place Where little Sabren resolutely died, Sabren for ever shall this stream be call'd." Milton had hinted at the legend previously ; cf. the Vacation Exercise^ 96, " Or Severn swift, guilty of maiden's death." i88 CRITICAL OPINIONS ON COMUS AND LYCIDAS. COMUS. [JOHNSON : LIFE OF MILTON.} "The greatest of his juvenile performances is the 'Masque of Comus,' in which may very plainly be discovered the dawn or twilight of Paradise Lost. Milton appears to have formed very early that system of diction, and mode of verse, which his maturer judgment approved, and from which he never endeavoured nor desired to deviate. Nor does Comus afford only a specimen of his language; it exhibits likewise his power of description and his vigour of sentiment, employed in the praise and defence of virtue. A work more truly poetical is rarely found ; allusions, images, and descriptive epithets, embellish almost every period with lavish decoration. As a series of lines, therefore, it may be considered as worthy of all the admiration with which the votaries have received it. As a drama it is deficient. The action is not probable. A masque, in those parts where supernatural intervention is admitted, must indeed be given up to all the freaks of imagin- ation, but so far as the action is merely human, it ought to be reasonable, which can hardly be said of the conduct of the two brothers; who, when their sister sinks with fatigue in a pathless wilderness, wander both away together in search of berries too far to find their way back, and leave a helpless lady to all the sadness and danger of solitude. This, however, is a defect overbalanced by its convenience- CRITICAL OPINIONS. 1 89 What deserves more reprehension is, that the prologue spoken in the wild wood by the attendant Spirit is addressed to the audience ; a mode of communication so contrary to the nature of dramatic representation, that no precedents can support it. The discourse of the Spirit is too long; an objection that may be made to almost all the following speeches; they have not the sprightliness of a dialogue animated by reciprocal contention, but seem rather declamations deliberately composed, and formally repeated, on a moral question. The auditor there- fore listens as to a lecture, without passion, without anxiety. The song of Comus has airiness and jollity; but, what may recommend Milton's morals as well as his poetry, the invitations to pleasure are so general, that they excite no distinct images of corrupt enjoyment, and take no dangerous hold on the fancy. The following soliloquies of Comus and the Lady are elegant but tedious. The song must owe much to the voice, if it ever can delight. At last the Brothers enter with too much tran- quillity; and, when they have feared lest their Sister should be in danger, and hoped that she is not in danger, the elder makes a speech in praise of chastity, and the younger finds how fine it is to be a philosopher. Then descends the Spirit in form of a shepherd ; and the Brother, instead of being in haste to ask his help, praises his singing, and inquires his business in that place. It is remarkable, that at this interview the Brother is taken with a short fit of rhyming. The Spirit relates that the Lady is in the power of Comus; the Brother moralises again; and the Spirit makes a long narration, of no use because it is false, and therefore unsuitable to a good being. In all these parts the language is poetical, and the sentiments are generous; but there is something wanting to allure attention. The dispute between the Lady and Comus is the most animated and affecting scene of the drama, and wants nothing but a brisker reciprocation of objections and replies to invite attention, and detain it. The songs are vigorous and full of imagery; but they are harsh in their diction, and not very musical in their numbers. Throughout the whole the figures are too bold, and the IQO COMUS AND LYCIDAS. language too luxuriant for dialogue. It is a drama in the epic style, inelegantly splendid, and tediously instructive." IMACAULAY; ESSAY ON MILTON.\ "Milton attended in the Comus to the distinction which he afterwards neglected in the Samson [Agonisfes]. He made his Masque what it ought to be, essentially lyrical, and dramatic only in semblance. He has not attempted a fruitless struggle against a defect inherent in the nature of that species of composition; and he has therefore succeeded, wherever success was not impossible. The speeches must Vje read as majestic soliloquies; and he who so reads them will be enraptured with their eloquence, their sublimity, and their music. The interruptions of the dialogue, however, impose a constraint upon the writer, and break the illusion of the reader. The hnest passages are those which are lyric in form as well as in spirit. 'I should much commend,' says the excellent Sir Henry Wotton in a letter to Milton, 'the tragical part if the lyrical did not ravish me with a certain dorique delicacy in your songs and odes, whereunto, I must plainly confess to you, I have seen yet nothing parallel in our language.' The criticism was just. It is when Milton escapes from the shackles of the dialogue, when he is discharged from the labour of uniting two incongruous styles, when he is at liberty to indulge his choral raptures without reserve, that he rises even above himself. Then, like his own good genius bursting from the earthly form and weeds of Thyrsis, he stands forth in celestial freedom and beauty." [HALLAM: LITERATURE OF EUROPE.] "Ct^w/^j" was sufficient to convince anyone of taste and feeling that a great poet had arisen in England, and one partly formed in a different school from his contemporaries. Many of them had produced highly beautiful and imaginative passages ; but none had evinced so classical a judgment, none had aspired to so regular a perfection. Johnson had learned much frimi the ancients ; but there was a grace in their best models which he did not quite attain. Neither his Suii Shepherd nor the Faithful Shepherdess of I'lelcher has the elegance or dignity of CRITICAL OPINIONS. I9I Cotnus. A noble virgin and her young brothers, by whom this masque was originally represented, required an elevation, a purity, a sort of severity of sentiment, which no one in that age could have given but Milton. He avoided, and nothing loath, the more festive notes which dramatic poetry was wont to mingle with its serious strain. But for this he compensated by the brightest hues of fancy and the sweetest melody of song. In Comtis we find nothing prosaic or feeble, no false taste in the incidents, and not much in the language, nothing ever which we should desire to pass on a second perusal. The want of what we may call personality, none of the characters having names, except Comus himself, who is a very indefinite being, and the absence of all positive attributes of time and place, entrance the ideality of the fiction by a certain indistinctness not unpleasing to the imagination." [BAGEHOT: LITERARV STUDIES.^ "The power of Counts is in its style. A grave and firm music pervades it : it is soft, without a thought of weakness; harmonious, and yet strong ; impressive, as few such poems are, yet covered with a bloom of beauty and a complexity of charm that few poems have either. We have, perhaps, light literature in itself better, that we read oftener and more easily, that lingers more in our memories; but we have not any, we question if there ever will be any, which gives so true a conception of the capacity and the dignity of the mind by which it was produced. The breath of solemnity which hovers round the music attaches us to the writer. Every line, here as elsewhere, in Milton excites the idea of indefinite power." [R. GARNETT: LIFE OF MILTON.] '■^ Comtis, the richest fruit of Milton's early genius, is the epitome of the man at the age at which he wrote it. It bespeaks the scholar and idealist, whose sacred enthusiasm is in some danger of contracting a taint of pedantry for want of acquaintance with men and afiairs. The Elder Brother's dialogues with his junior reveal the same solemn insensibility to the humorous which characterises the kindred genius of Wordsworth, and 192 COMUS AND LYCIDAS. would have provoked the kindly smile of Shakespeare. It is singular to find the inevitable flaw of Paradise Lost prefigured here, and the wicked enchanter made the real hero of the piece. These defects are interesting, because they represent the nature of Milton as it was then, noble and disinterested to the height of imagination, but self-assertive, unmellovved, angular. They disappear entirely when he expatiates in the regions of exalted fancy, as in the introductory discourse of the Spirit, and the invocation to Sabrina. They recur when he moralizes ; and his morality is too interwoven with the texture of his piece to be other than obtrusive. What glorious morality it is no one need be told ; nor is there any poem in the language where beauties of thought, diction, and description spring up more thickly than in Cotnus... It is, indeed, true that many of these jewels are fetched from the mines of other poets : great as Milton's obligations to Nature were, his obligations to books were greater. But he has made all his own by the alchemy of his genius, and borrows little but to improve." [DOWDEN: TRANSCRIPTS AND STUDIES.] " Comiis is the work of a youthful spirit, enamoured of its ideals of beauty and of virtue, zealous to exhibit the identity of moral loveliness with moral severity. The real incident^ from which the mask is said to have originated disengages itself, in the imagination of Milton, from the world of actual occurrences, and becomes an occasion for the dramatic play of his own poetical abstractions. The young English gentlemen cast off their identity and individuality, and appear in the elementary shapes of 'First Brother' and 'Second Brother.' The Lady Alice rises into an ideal impersonation of virgin strength and virtue. The scene is earth ; a wild wood ; but earth, as in all the poems of Milton, with the heavens arching over it — a dim spot, in which men 'strive to keep up a frail and feverish being' set below the 'starry threshold of Love's Court.'... From its first scene to the last the drama is a representation of the trials, difficulties, and dangers to which moral purity is exposed in this ' Referring to the popular but very doubtful tradition as to the genesi.s of Comus ; .sec the Introduction. CRITICAL OPINIONS. 193 world, and of the victory of the better principle in the soul, gained by strenuous human endeavour aided by the grace of God. In this spiritual warfare the powers of good and evil are arrayed against one another; upon this side the Lady, her brothers (types of human helpfulness weak in itself, and liable to go astray), and the supernatural powers auxiliar to virtue in heaven and in earth — the Attendant Spirit and the nymph Sabrina. The enchanter Comus is son of Bacchus and Circe, and inheritor of twofold vice. If Milton had pictured the life of innocent mirth in L* Allegro, here was a picture to set beside the other, a vision of the genius of sensual indulgence. Yet Comus is inwardly, not outwardly foul; no grim monster like that which the mediaeval imagination conjured up to terrify the spirit and disgust the senses. The attempt of sin upon the soul as conceived by Milton is not the open and violent obsession of a brute power, but involves a cheat, an imposture. The soul is put upon its trial through the seduction of the senses and the lower parts of our nature. Flattering lies entice the ears of Eve^; Christ is tried^ by false visions of power and glory, and beneficent rule; Samson is defrauded of his strength by deceitful blandishment^. And in like manner Comus must needs possess a beauty of his own, such beauty as ensnares the eye untrained in the severe school of moral perfection.... He is sensitive to rich forms and sweet sounds, graceful in oratory, possessed, like Satan, of high intellect, but intellect in the service of the senses; he surrounds himself with a world of art which lulls the soul into forgetfulness of its higher instincts and of duty; his palace is stately, and 'set out with all manner of deliciousness.' Over against this potent enchanter stands the virginal figure of the Lady, who is stronger than he... Something of weakness belongs to the Lady, because she is a woman, accustomed to the protection of others, tenderly nurtured; but when the hour of trial comes she shows herself strong in power's of judgment and of reasoning, strong in her spiritual nature, in her tenacity of moral truth, in her indignation against sin. Although alone, and encompassed by evil and danger, she is fearless, and so ^ Paradise Lo^t, ix. 532 — 732. ^ Paradise Regained, iii. iv. 3 Samson Agonistes, 392 — 411. V. c. 13 194 COMUS AND LYCIDAS. clear-sighted that the juggling practice of her antagonist is wholly ineffectual against her. There is much in the Lady which resembles the youthful Milton himself, and we may well believe that the great debate concerning temperance was not altogether dramatic (where, indeed, is Milton truly dramatic?), but was in part a record of passages in the poet's own spiritual history. Milton admired the Lady as he admired the ideal which he projected before him of himself." LYCIDAS. [JOHNSON : LIFE OF MIL TON.'] "Those who admire the beauties of this great poet sometimes force their own judgment into false approbation of his little pieces, and prevail upon themselves to think that admirable which is only singular. All that short compositions can com- monly attain is neatness and elegance. Milton never learned the art of doing little things with grace; he overlooked the milder excellence of suavity and softness ; he was a ' lion ' that had no skill in 'dandling the kid.' One of the poems on which much praise has been bestowed is Lycidas ; of which the diction is harsh, the rhymes un- certain, and the numbers unpleasing. What beauty there is we must therefore seek in the sentiments and images. It is not to be considered as the effusion of real passion ; for passion runs not after remote allusions and obscure opinions. Passion plucks no berries from the myrtle and ivy, nor calls upon Arethuse and Mincius, nor tells of rough ' satyrs ' and ' fauns with cloven heel.' Where there is leisure for fiction, there is little grief. In this poem there is no nature, for there is no truth ; there is no art, for there is nothing new. Its form is that of a pastoral ; easy, vulgar, and therefore disgusting ; whatever images it can supply are long ago exhausted ; and its inherent improbability always forces dissatisfaction on the mind. When Cowley tells of Ilervey, that they studied together, it is easy to suppose how much he must miss the companion of his labours, and the partner CRITICAL OPINIONS. 1 95 of his discoveries ; but what image of tenderness can be excited by these lines ? — ' We drove afield, and both together heard What time the grey fly winds her sultry horn, Battening our flocks with the fresh dews of night.' We know that they never drove afield, and that they had no flocks to batten ; and though it be allowed that the representa- tion may be allegorical, the true meaning is so uncertain and remote, that it is never sought, because it cannot be known when it is found. Among the flocks, and copses, and flowers, appear the heathen deities ; Jove and Phoebus, Neptune and Aeolus, with a long train of mythological imagery, such as a college easily supplies. Nothing can less display knowledge, or less exercise invention, than to tell how a shepherd has lost his companion, and must now feed his flocks alone, without any judge of his skill in piping; and how one god asks another god what is become of Lycidas, and how neither god can tell. He who thus grieves will excite no sympathy ; he who thus praises will confer no honour. This poem has yet a grosser fault. With these trifling fictions are mingled the most awful and sacred truths, such as ought never to be polluted with such irreverend combinations. The shepherd likewise is now a feeder of sheep, and afterwards an ecclesiastical pastor, a superintendent of a Christian flock. Such equivocations are always unskilful ; but here they are indecent, and at least approach to impiety, of which, however, I believe the writer not to have been conscious. Such is the power of reputation justly acquired, that its blaze drives away the eye from nice examination. Surely no man could have fancied that he read Lycidas with pleasure, had he not known its author." [HALLAM: LITERATURE OF EUROPE.^ " It has been said, I think very fairly, that Lycidas is a good test of a real feeling for what is peculiarly called poetry. Many, or perhaps we might say, most readers, do not taste its excellence; nor does it follow that they may not greatly admire Pope and Dryden, or even Virgil and Homer. It is, however, somewhat 196 COMUS AND LYCIDAS. remarkable that Johnson, who has committed his critical reputa- tion by the most contemptuous depreciation of this poem, had in an earlier part of his life selected the tenth eclogue of Virgil for peculiar praise ; the tenth eclogue, which, beautiful as it is, belongs to the same class of pastoral and personal allegory, and requires the same sacrifice of reasoning criticism as the Lycidas itself. In the age of Milton the poetical world had been accustomed by the Italian and Spanish writers to a more abundant use of allegory than has been pleasing to their posterity; but Lycidas is not so much in the nature of an allegory as of a masque ; the characters pass before our eyes in imagination, as on the stage ; they are chiefly mythological, but not creations of the poet. Our sympathy with the fate of Lycidas may not be much stronger than for the desertion of Gallus^ by his mistress ; but many poems will yield an exquisite pleasure to the imagination that produce no emotion in the heart ; or none at least except through associations independent of the subject. The introduction of St Peter after the fabulous deities of the sea has appeared an incongruity deserving of censure to some admirers of this poem. It would be very reluctantly that we could abandon to this criticism the most splendid passage it presents. But the censure rests, as I think, on too narrow a principle. In narrative or dramatic poetry, where something like illusion or momentary belief is to be produced, the mind requires an objective possibility, a capacity of real existence, not only in all the separate portions of the imagined story, but in their coherency and relation to a common whole. Whatever is obviously incongruous, whatever shocks our previous knowledge of possibility, destroys to a certain extent that acquiescence in the fiction which it is the true business of the fiction to produce. But the case is not the same in such poems as Lycidas. They pretend to no credibility, they aim at no illusion ; they are read with the willing abandonment of the imagination to a waking dream, and require only that general possibility, that combination of images, which common experience does not reject as incom- patible, without which the fancy of the poet would be only like that of the lunatic. And it had been so usual to blend sacred with mythological personages in allegory, that no one probably in Milton's age would have been struck by the objection." * The shepherd in the tenth Eclogue. CRITICAL OPINIONS. 197 [MARK PATTISON: LIFE OF MILTON.-\ " In Lycidas (1637) we have reached the high-water mark of Enghsh Poesy and of Milton's own production. A period of a century and a half was to elapse before poetry in England seemed, in Wordsworth's Ode on Itufnortalily '{x^o*]), to be rising again towards the level of inspiration to which it had once attained in Lycidas. And in the development of the Miltonic genius this wonderful dirge marks the culminating point. As the twin idylls^ of 1632 show a great advance upon the Ode on the Nativity (1629), the growth of the poetic mind during the five years which follow 1632 is registered in Lycidas. Like the V Allegro and // Penseroso, Lycidas is laid out on the lines of the accepted pastoral fiction; like them it offers exquisite touches of idealised rural life. But Lycidas opens up a deeper vein of feeling, a patriot passion so vehement and dangerous, that, like that which stirred the Hebrew prophet, it is compelled to veil itself from power, or from sympathy, in utterance made purposely enigmatical. The passage which begins 'Last came and last did go,' raises in us a thrill of awe-struck expectation which I can only compare with that excited by the Cassandra of .-Eschylus's Agamemnon. For the reader to feel this, he must have present in memory the circumstances of England in 1637. He must place himself as far as possible in the situation of a colemporary. The study of Milton's poetry compels the study of his time; and Professor Masson's six volumes'^ are not too much to make us to understand that there were real causes for the intense passion which glows underneath the poet's words — a passion which unexplained would be thought to be intrusive. The historical exposition must be gathered from the English history of the period, which may be read in Professor Masson's excellent summary. All I desire to point out here is, that in Lycidas, Milton's original picturesque vein is for the first time crossed with one of quite another sort, stern, determined, obscurely indicative of suppressed passion, and the resolution to do or die. The fanaticism of the covenanter and the sad 1 L' Allegro and // Penseroso. They may be called idyls, being short but elaborately wrought descriptive poems. Gk. eiSuMioj' = a short, descrip- tive poem. 2 His great Life of Milton. 198 COMUS AND LYCIDAS. grace of Petrarch seem to meet in Milton's monody. Yet these opposites, instead of neutralising each other, are blended into one harmonious whole by the presiding, but invisible, genius of the poet. The conflict between the old cavalier world — the years of gaiety and festivity of a splendid and pleasure-loving court, and the new puritan world into which love and passion were not to enter — this conflict which was commencing in the social life of England, is also begun in Milton's own breast, and is reflected in Lycidas. ' For we were nurs'd upon the self-same hill.' Here is the sweet niournfulness of the Spenserian time, upon whose joys Death is the only intruder. Pass onward a little, and you are in the presence of the tremendous ' Two-handed engine at the door,' the terror of which is enhanced by its obscurity. We are very sure that the avenger is there, though we know not who he is. In these thirty lines we have the preluding mutterings of the storm which was to sweep away mask and revel and song, to inhibit the drama, and suppress poetry. In the earlier poems Milton's muse has sung in the tones of the age that is passing away; the poet is, except in his austere chastity, a cavalier. Though even in V Allegro Dr Johnson truly detects ' some melancholy in his mirth.' In Lycidas, for a moment, the tones of both ages, the past and the coming, are combined, and then Milton leaves behind him for ever the golden age, and one half of his poetic genius." ^ POLITICAL AND SOCIAL ASPECTS OF MILTON'S EARLY POEMS. [STOPFORD BROOKE: "CLASSICAL ly^RITERS," MILTON.] " Puritanism, when Milton began to write, was not universally apart from literature and the fine arts. In its staid and pure ' I tliiiik that most students would regard this as somewhat an over- statement of the case. Mr Mark Pattison grudged Milton's intervention in politics and theological controversy, and perhaps rather over-estimated its evil effect on the poet and under-estimated the good. CRITICAL OPINIONS. I99 religion Milton's work had its foundation, but the temple he had begun to build upon it was quarried from the ancient and modern arts and letters of Greece and Italy and England. And filling the temple rose the peculiar incense of the Renaissance. The breath of that spirit is felt in the classicalism of the Ode to the Nativity^ in the love proclaimed for Shakespeare, in the graceful fancy of the Epitaph to Lady Winchester, and in the gaiety of the Ode to a May Morning. But a new element, other than any the Renaissance could produce, is here ; the element that filled the Psalms of David, the deep, personal, passionate religion of the Puritan, possessing, and possessed by, God. Over against the Renaissance music is set the high and devout strain of the first sonnet and of the Odes to Time and A Solemn Musick. Even while at Cambridge, the double being in Milton makes itself felt, the struggle between the two spirits of the time is reflected in his work. These contrasted spirits in him became defined as the political and social war deepened around his life. The second sonnet still is gay, fresh with the morn of love, Petrarca might have written it ; the Allegj'o does not disdain the love of nature, the rustic sports, the pomp of courts, the playhouse and the land of faery, nor does the Penseroso refuse to haunt the dim cathedral. But yet, in these two poems more than in the Cambridge poems, the deepening of the struggle is felt. Milton seems to presage in them that the time would come when the gaiety of England would cease to be shared in by serious men ; when the mirth of the Cavalier would shut out the pleasures derived from lofty Melancholy, because they shut out the devil; as the Puritan pensiveness would be driven to shut out the pleasures of Mirth, because they shut out God. While he gives full weight in the Allegro X.0 'unreproved pleasures free,' he makes it plain in the Penseroso that he prefers the sage and holy pleasures of thought- ful sadness. These best befitted the solemn aspect of the time. A few years later and the presage had come true. Milton is driven away from even the Allegro point of view. In Conius the wild licence of the Court society is set over against the grave and temperate virtue of a Puritan life. The unchastity, the glozing lies, the glistering apparel that hid moral deformity, the sloth and drunkenness, the light fantastic round of the enchanter's character and court, are (it seems likely) Milton's allegory of the Court society of his time. The stately philosophy 200 COMUS AND LYCIDAS. of the Brothers which had its root in subduing passion and its top in the love of God ; the virginal chastity of the Lady, and at the end the releasing power of Sabrina's purity, exalt and (ill up more sternly the idea of the Pcnso-oso and symbolise that noble Puritanism which loved learning and beauty only when they Avere pure, but holiness far more than either. It may be, as Mr Browne supports, that there is a second allegory within the first, of Laud and his party as the Sorcerer commending the cup of Rome by wile and threat to the lips of the Church and enforcing it by fine and imprisonment ; paralysing in stony fetters the Lady of the Church. It may be that Milton called in this poem on the few who, having resisted like the Brothers, Vjut failed to set the Church free, ought now to employ a new force, the force of Purity ; but this aspect of the struggle is at least not so clear in Comus as in Lycidas. In Lvcidas Milton has thrown away the last shreds of Church and State and is Presbyterian. The strife now at hand starts into prominence, and not to the bettering of the poem as a piece of art. It is brought in — and the fault is one which frequently startles us in Milton — without any regard to the unity of feeling in the poem. The passage on the hireling Church looks like an after- thought, and Milton draws attention to it in the argument. 'The author. ..by occasion foretells the ruin of our corrupted clergy then in their height.' But he does not leave Laud and his policy nor the old Church tenderly. When he felt strongly, he wrote fiercely. The passage is a splendid and a fierce cry of wrath, and the rough trumpet note, warlike and unsparing, which it sounds against the unfaithful herdsmen who are sped and the 'grim wolf with privy paw,' was to ring louder and louder through the prose works, and finally to clash in the ears of those very Presbyterians whom he now supported. There is then a steady progress of thought and of change in the poems. The Milton of Lycidas is not the Milton of Comas. The Milton of Comus is not the Milton of the Penscroso, less still of the Allegro. The Milton of the Pcnseroso is not the Milton of the Ode to the Nativity. Nothing of the Renaissance is left now but its learning and its art." 20I T. INDEX OF WORDS AND PHRASES. This List applies to the Notes only; words of tvhich longer explanations are given xvill be found in the Glossary. The refer- ences are to the pages. Abbreviations: 11. = noun. vb = verb. abhorred ( = detestable) 94 advanced 122 adventurous 63 affects ( = likes) 83 agate 115 airy shell 72 alabaster 100 all ear 96 all to- ruffled 82 allay 64 amain 142 amaranthus 150 amazement 80 amber 78 amber-dropping in amiss 68 appariti-6n 99 arbitrate the event 84 aspects 101 asphodil no at the door (= ready at hand) 147 attendance { = attendants) 78 awe-strook 77 banded ( = discussed) 50 bandite 85 bard 134 bare ( = mere) 97 barking 74 batten 131 be it not ( = provided that it be not) 85 bead 83 bell (of a flower) 148 benison 78 beryl 1 1 7 bespake 143 bier 127 blanch (=to omit) 50 blank 88 blaze 137 blear 67 blind ( = obscure) 69 blow ( = make to bloom) 120 blows (vb, = flowers) 134 blue 86 blue-haired 57 bolt 105 bolt of Cupid 87 bonnet 141 bosoms 8 1 bower 59 brimmed 116 brow (vb) 93 brown ( = dark) 125 brute 107 budge (fur) 102 build 127 canker 133 canon law 108 Carpathian wizard 1 1 3 cassia 120 cast (vb) 81 cedarn 119 202 INDEX. charactered 93 Chimaera 92 clear 137 climb 143 close-curtained 95 cloudy 66 complete 85 complexion (four syllables) 104 con la bocca dolce 50 congealed 88 constant 81 converse 89 convinced ( = refuted) 107 convoy 62 comer 122 corporal rind 100 creep 143 crew 99 croft 93 crow-toe 150 crude 90, 126 crumble 97 curfew time 86 curious 102 Cynic tub 102 Cynosure 79 cypress 93 daffadillies 150 dashed 88 day-star 154 dear 126 Delphian oracle 52 descry 66 dingle 77 disinherit 79 doing rites 94 dolphin 154 Doric (Theocritean) 50, 157 draM' 145 drouth 6 1 drowsy-flighted 95, 96 Dryades 118 dun 65 each... every 77 earth-shaking 1 1 2 easy- hearted 68 ebon 66 element 77 enamelled 148 enchanting 135 ends (purposes) 67 engaged 69 engine 147 every... each 56, 140 express 61 extreme 75 eye 149 eye me 78 eyelids of the Morn 130 fabulous 92 faery 86 fairly 68 fall ( = cadence) 73 favour 129 fence 107 fill 94 flashy 145 floor 154 flowery-kirtled 74 flute 131 foil 138 fondly 135 footing 141 forced (= unwilling) 126 forgery 10 1 forsaken 149 frail 55 freaked 150 freezed 87, 88 frieze 103 frolic 60 gadding 132 gear ( = business) 68 glistering 63, 138 glowing 150 go about 100 golden key 55 good 156 governor ( = tutor) 51 grain ( = hue) 104 grange 68 gratulate 117 INDEX. 203 gray-fly 131 gray-hooded Even 69 green earth's end 122 guerdon 137 Hsemony 99 hairy 141 hall or bower 59 hearse 151 heave 114 helping in herdman 144 hermit 83 his ( = its) 116 home-felt 75 honied 149 horrid shades 85 horror 58 Hours 119 how chance? 91 if (z=even if) 84 ill-managed 68 Indian ( = eastern) 66 infamous 85 infer 84 inform 69 innumerous 80 insphered 54 intrude 143 ivy 124, 125 julep 100 just 55 knot-grass 94 knows to 62 lackey (vb) 88 lank no lap (vb) 74 lastly 139 laureate 150 laurel 124, 125 lawn 96 lean 145 leavy 76 legions (trisyllabic) 96 likeliest 63 liquid 119 litter (chariot) 95 lodge (vb) 69 looks 148 loose ( = loosed) 76 love-darting 105 low-thoughted care 54 lucky 129 mace 1 1 2 meagre 86 measure 67 meditate the Muse 136 meed 128 melancholy 94 mincing 1 1 8 mitred 142 Moly 98 monody 124 monstrous rout 93 mood 139 morrice 65 mortal change 55 mortal frailty loi mould 56 mountaineer 85 mountain-pard 87 mouth (=glutton) 144 murmur 93 Muse 129 mutual 104 myrtle 124, 125 mystery 107 nard 120 navel 93 near-ushering 76 nectared 90, no Nepenthes 101 nerve 100, 107 nether Jove 57 new-enlivened 71 new-spangled 155 night-foundered 90 not unplausible 68 notion 107 nuptial 155 204 INDEX. nursed 1 30 oat J 40 obtruding 105 ominous (dissyllabic) 61 ore 102 ounce 61 over-exquisite 81 palmer 69 pansy 150 parley 72 pastoral reed 80 pearled 110 peer 126 perfect 61 period ( = sentence) 96 perplexed ( = entangled) 58 pet 103 pledge 142 port ( = bearing) 77 potent herbs 74 pranked 105 presented ( = represented the characters) 52 presentment 67 printless 115 prisoned 74 privy paw 146 property 89 purple ( = inipurple) 149 put by 100 quarters (assigns) 57 quill 157 quivered 85 rank 145 rathe 149 reared 1 1 o recks 84 ribs of Death 96 rifted 93 rosy twine 64 rosy-bosomed 119 round (n.) 67 rout 63 rushy-fringed 115 sadly 92 sampler 104 sanguine flower 142 saw (maxim) 64 school 87 scrannel 145 scrip 98 sedge 141 seeks to 82 self-delusi-on 81 sensualty 90 serene 54 set off 107 shaggy 135 shatter ( = disturb) 126 sheen 122 shelves (banks of streams) 65 shew (rhyming with /r«<') 92 shroud ( = are sheltering) 78 shrunk 147 siding 70 simples 98 sincerely 88 single ( = mere) 81 single ( = total) 70 sire 1 41 skilled 98 slits 138 slope 64 smoke and stir 54 snaky-headed 87 so to seek 81 sorry 1 04 sour 64 sped 1 44 spots (obsolete form of s/i/s) 66 sphery clime 123 spreading favour 69 spruce 119 square 78 stabled 93 star of Arcady 79 stead ( = service) 97 steam of perfume 95 stepdamc 109 still 96 stoop 78 stops 80 INDEX. 205 store 106 stoned 92 stray 78 Stygian darkness 66 sun-clad 106 supreme 71 surcharged 103 swart star 14S sways 109 sweep 128 swilled 68 syllable (vb) 70 tapestry 78 tear 128 tease 104 tempered (=attuned) 131 tempered awe 58 temple of the mind 89 thankless 136 that { = so that) 96 then when 69 timely it8 linsel-shppered 113 to ( = compared to) gi to ( = so as to) 73 to see to ( = to behold) 08 trace 85 translated ( = raised aloft) 72 tresses i r 7 tricks r55 two-handed 147 unadorned 57 unblemished 71 unblenched 85 unblessed 116 uncontrolled ( = uncontrollable) 107 uncouth 156 ■ unexpressive 155 unharboured 85 unowned 84 unprincipled 81 unsought 103 unsunned 84 unsuperfiuous 106 unthread 97 unweeting 94 un withdrawing 102 urchin i i i urn ( = tomb) 129 use 137 use ( = dwell) 148 velvet ( = soft as velvet) 115 vermeil-tinctured 104 very ( = utter) 85 viewless 6^ virtuous 98 vizored loi vocal 139 votarist 69 vows 152 waft 154 wakes (n.) 65 wan 150 wanton 148 wardrobe 133 warranted 78 was up 94 waste 103, 117 wattled cotes 80 wavering niorrice 65 waxing 121 weanling 133 well-attired 150 well-practised 77 welter 128 what boots 1 3;6 what time ( = at the time when) 76 when r-till) 96 while ( = so long as) 100 wind 68 winding 113 winds (vb, = sounds) 131 wink on 84 without ( = beyond) 84 wont'st 78 woodbine 150 worthy 107 ye (objective) 71 206 IL GENERAL INDEX TO NOTES. abstract for concrete 78, 154 abstractions personified 64 Acheron 96, 97 adjectival and participial ter- minations, shifting use of, 80 adjective doing duty of first part of compound noun 93 Adonis no, 121 Alexandrine verse 72 alliteration 62, 79, 81, 96, 103, 109, 114, 128, 151 Amaryllis, common shepherd- ess name in pastoral verse, 137 Amphitrite 116 Anchises 116 Aphrodite 121 Arethusa, the spring typifying Greek pastoral verse, 139 Arnold, Matthew, borrows from Milton, 80 Arthurian legend, Milton's contemplated poem on, 152 Atropos, one of the Fates, 138 Bellerus 152 Brackley, Lord, 48 Branthwaite, Michael, 51 Budge-row 102 Camus 141 cardinal humours 109 Charybdis 74 Chastity, Faith, Hope and, 71 Circe 59 classical and Christian ideas blended 156 Clergy, indictment against a certain section of, 143 Coleridge imitating Milton 127 Collins's Ode to Evening re- miniscent of Milton 131 Comus typifies sensuality and magical power 60 Cotyttia 66 Cotytto, or Cotys, a Thracian goddess, 66 * courtesy, 'derived from 'court,' 78 Cynics 102 Damoetas, a common name in pastoral writers, 132 Daphne 100 Deva, the river Dee, 135 Dian, Diana, 87 'dimple' and 'dingle,' doublets, from Norwegian depil= ' a pool,' 77 Diodati 98 Diogenes 102 Druids 134 Dryden, famous lines on Mil- ton, 129 Echo 71, 72 eclipse proverbially of omen 140 -ed { = -able) 80, 94, 107 Elysium 74 emphatic repetition 97 Erebus 108 Euripides 53 evil INDEX. 207 Fates 138 Fletcher, Giles, studied closely by Milton, 141 flowers, enumeration of a num- ber of, 149 Furies 99, 138 Genius 156 Glaucus, the Boeotian fisher- man metamorphosed into a sea-god, 113 Gnomes 77 Gorgoneion 87 Graces 119 Gray, Elegy, 70 ; Progress of Poesy, 73 Great Bear 79 Greek idiom 70 Guardian Angel 88 Hales, John, 50 Harpies 97 Hebrus, the principal river of Thrace, 136 Hecate 66 Hippotades = ^olus, god of the winds, 140 Hydra 97 Iberia 6r imagery 69, 70 Ind, Inde, 97 inversion of order of words 55 -ion often treated as two syl- lables in Shakespeare and in Milton's early poems 81 Iris 120 ■ive for -ible 155 Jack-o'-the-Lanthorn 86 Keats, influence of Milton's diction very marked in, 65 King, Edward, 127 Lacrymae, collections of elegiac verse, 128 Latinism 59, 85, 108 laurel symbolises poetry in general, myrtle and ivy particular aspects of poetry, 124 Lawes, Henry, 47, 48 Lesser Bear 79 Leucothea 113 Ligea, one of the Sirens, 114 'literary' compound 115 litotes 68 Lotophagi 62 Lycidas, a common name in pastoral poetry, 124 Meander (modern Mendereh) meiosis 68, 131 Meliboeus, a pastoral name in classical poetry, 109 Mercator's Atlas 153 metaphor of darkness as a dusky bird 73 Milton, blending of Scriptural and classical associations — a great feature of his style, 55 ; early studies, description of, 106 ; great influence of the diction of his poems 119; the Ptolemaic theory of the 'spheres' studied by, 123 Mincius, the river, made to represent Latin pastoral verse, 139 Mona, the isle of Anglesey, 135 morris-dance 65 'mus'c of the spheres' 123 mythology, classical, varied by Milton, 60, 61, 74 Neoera, common shepherdess name in pastoral verse, 137 Nereus no noun placed between two qualifying words 70, 126 Nymphs 77 oaten pipe, symbolical of pas- toral music, 80 208 INDEX. Oceanus 112 Panope, one of the fifty daugh- ters of Nereus, 140 parallels in Elizabethan poets 104 Parthenia 85 Parthenojie, one of the Sirens, ri4 pastoral style 129 pathetic repetition 132 i^hoebus ( = Apollo, the Greek god of song) 138 Plato's Phcedo, passage adapted from by Milton, 89 Pope borrows from Milton 54, 76 prolepsis 73, 96 proselytism by the Roman Catholic party in England 145 Psyche 121, 122 Ptolemaic theory of the ' spheres ' i 23 Randolph, Thomas, 50 repetition of a name or word in the form of a question a favourite artifice 60 repetition of a name to heighten the pathetic effect 126 Rouse, John, 50 St Michael's Mount, off Pen- zance, 152 Salamanders 77 Saturn 108 Scriptural and classical associ- ations blended 55 Scudamore, Lord, 51 Scylla 74 Sellenger's (St Leger's) Round 67 sense and sound, agreement of, 79.88 Shakespeare, resemblances to, 66, 97, 118, 122 shearing feast 144 Shelley 54, 70, 98, 127 Sicilian Muses 147 Sirens 73 Sisters, the Nine Muses, 128 Spenser, Milton greatly in- fluenced by, 92 'Sphere' always used with some reference to the Ptole- maic idea of ten spheres or regions of space encircling the Earth 54 (TTixofxvdLa 75 Sylphs 77 Sylvan, Sylvanus, 75 Sylvester's translation of Du Bartas, Milton influenced by, 105 Tennyson, poetic tribute to Milton's memory, 129; many Miltonic echoes in early poems 1 30 Tethys 112 Thetis, one of the Nereids, Thyrsis, a traditional shepherd name, 91 traverse 99 Triton 113 V for f 76 verbal repetition 71 Vergil imitated 131, 138, 139, ' vermeil ' 104 visions ami dreams, distinction between, 88 Vulcan 99 Will-o'-the-Wisp 86 Wordsworth, poetic tribute to Milton's memory, 129 Wotton, Henry, 49 zeugma 108 CAMBRIDGE: PRINTED BY J. AND C. F. CLAY, AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS. Cambribge Seriee for Scbool6 ant) ZCraining Colleges Cambridge University Press July 1898 This Series has been prepared in the conviction that text-books simple in style and arrangement and written by authors of standing are called for to meet the needs of both pupil teachers and candidates for Certificates. Care will be taken to combine a high standard of excellence with adapta- tion to the practical needs of those for whom the Series is especially intended. To this end the general Editorship of the Series has been entrusted to Mr W. H. Woodward, of Christ Church, Oxford, now the Principal of University (Day) Training College, Liverpool, and Lecturer on Education in Victoria University. At the same time, it is believed that most of the works comprised in the Series will be well suited to the needs of Secondary and Public Schools. 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