COMUS,

A MASK:

Presented at Ludlow Castle, 1634, before the Earl of Bridgewater, then President of Wales.

THE PERSONS.

The attendant Spirit,
afterwards in the habit
of Thyrsis.

Comus with his crew.

The Lady.

First Brother.

Second Brother.

Sabrina, the Nymph.

The chief persons who presented were,

The Lord Brackley.

Mr. Thomes Egerton, his brother.
The Lady Alice Egerton

The first Scene discovers a wild wood.

The attendant Spirit descends or enters.

BEFORE the starry threshold of Jove's court
My mansion is, where those immortal shapes
Of bright aerial Spirits live insphered
In regions mild of calm and serene air,
Above the smoke and stir of this dim spot,

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Which men call Earth, and with low-thoughted care
Confined, and pester'd in this pin-fold here,
Strive to keep up a frail and feverish being,
Unmindful of the crown that Virtue gives
After this mortal change to her true servants
Amongst the enthroned Gods on sainted seats.
Yet some there be that by due steps aspire

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1. This exquisite little drama is, next to Paradise Lost, te mos splendid offspring of Milton's genius. Never were the loveliest graces of natural description more felicitously employed, or the union of what is beautiful in the moral and imaginative of poetry 100PE complete.

To lay their just hands on that golden key
That opes the palace of Eternity :

To such my errand is: and but for such,
I would not soil these pure ambrosial weeds
With the rank vapours of this sin-worn mould.
But to my task Neptune, besides the sway
Of every salt flood, and each ebbing stream,
Took in by lot 'twixt high and nether Jove
Imperial rule of all the sea-girt isles,
That like to rich and various gems inlay
The unadorned bosom of the deep,

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Which he to grace his tributary gods

By course commits to several government,

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And gives them leave to wear their sapphire crowns,
And wield their little tridents: but this isle,
The greatest and the best of all the main,
He quarters to his blue-hair'd deities;
And all this tract that fronts the falling sun
A noble peer of mickle trust and power
Has in his charge, with temper'd awe to guide
An old and haughty nation proud in arms:
Where his fair offspring nursed in princely lore
Are coming to attend their father's state,
And new intrusted sceptre; but their way

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Lies through the perplex'd paths of this drear wood,

The nodding horror of whose shady brows
Threats the forlorn and wand'ring passenger;
And here their tender age might suffer peril,
But that by quick command from sovereign Jove

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I was dispatch'd for their defence and guard;
And listen why, for I will tell you now
What never yet was heard in tale or song,
From old or modern bard, in hall or bower.
Bacchus, that first from out the purple grape
Crush'd the sweet poison of mis-used wine,
After the Tuscan mariners transform'd,
Coasting the Tyrrhene shore, as the winds listed,
On Circe's island fell: (who knows not Circe
The daughter of the Sun? whose charmed cup

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48. The Tuscan Mariners; they were transformed by Bacchus, whom they had angered, into ships and delphins.-See Ovid, Met. iii. 8. The story of Circe and her transformations is well knowu.-Homer, Odyss. x.

Whoever tasted, lost his upright shape,

And downward fell into a grovelling swine:)

This nymph, that gazed upon his clust'ving locks,
With ivy berries wreath'd, and his blithe youth, 55
Had by him, ere he parted thence, a son
Much like his father, but his mother more,

Whom therefore she brought up, and Comus named;

Who ripe, and frolic of his full grown age,
Roving the Celtic and Iberian field,

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At last betakes him to this ominous wood,
And in thick shelter of black shades imbower'd
Excels his mother at her mighty art,

Offering to every weary traveller
His orient liquor in a crystal glass,

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[taste

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To quench the drought of Phoebus, which as they
(For most do taste through fond intemp'rate thirst)
Soon as the potion works, their human count'nance,
Th' express resemblance of the gods, is changed
Into some brutish form of wolf, or bear,
Or ounce, or tiger, hog, or bearded goat,
All other parts remaining as they were;
And they, so perfect is their misery,
Not once perceive their foul disfigurement,

But boast themselves more comely than before,
And all their friends and native home forget,
To roll with pleasure in a sensual sty.
Therefore when any favour'd of high Jove
Chances to pass through this advent'rous glade,
Swift as the sparkle of a glancing star

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I shoot from heav'n, to give him safe convoy,

As now I do but first I must put off
These my sky robes spun out of Iris woof,
And take the weeds and likeness of a swain,
That to the service of this house belongs,

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Who, with his soft pipe, and smooth-dittied song,
Well knows to still the wild winds when they roar,
And hush the waving woods, nor of less faith,
And in this office of his mountain watch,
Likeliest, and nearest to the present aid

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Of this occasion.

But I hear the tread

Of hateful steps. I must be viewless now.

60. Celtic and Iberian field; France and Spain.
83. Par. Los!, xi. 274.

Comus enters with a charming rod in one hand, his glass in the other; with him a rout of monsters, headed like sundry sorts of wild beasts, but otherwise like men and women, their apparel glittering ; they come in making a riotous and unruly noise, with torches in their hands.

Com. The star that bids the shepherd fold,

Now the top of Heav'n doth hold,

Meanwhile welcome Joy and Feast,
Midnight Shout and Revelry,

Lead in swift round the months and years.

The sounds and seas, with all their finny drove, 115
Now to the moon in wavering morrice move;

And on the tawny sands and shelves

Trip the pert faeries and the dapper elves.
By dimpled brook and fountain brim,
The wood-nymphs deck'd with daisies trim,
Their merry wakes and pastimes keep:

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93. It would be impossible, perhaps, to find a more exquisite plece of musical versification than the following. The beauty and variety of the imagery are equally unsurpassed.

10s. It would be useless to point out the many trifling alterations which appear in the manuscript and first editions of this poem; a few, however, are worth observing, and among them, that of this line, which originally stood

And quick law with her scrupulous head.

117. Tawny; originally, yellow.

י.