20. 111. See Chaucer, 10,340: "This noble Kyng, this Tartre, this Cambynskan, Hadde tuo sones by Eltheta his wyf, A doughter had this worthi King also That yongest was, and highte Canace," &c. 112. to wife. Comp. Hamlet, I. ii. 14; Exod. ii. 1; Bunyan: "He hath a pretty young man to his son;" Faerie Queene, I. i. 28: "With God to friend;" I. x. 66: 113. vertuous. "Whereof Georgos he thee gave to name," &c. See Mark v. 30, Luke vi. 19. Com. 165, "The virtue of this magic by the power of. dust," &c. We still say "by virtue of" By virtue of the ring the wearer could understand the language of birds and the medicinal power of all herbs. The mirror would reflect the falseness of subjects and of lovers. The steed could convey any one who knew how to manage it any distance in one day. Besides these wonders there was a sword which could cut through anything, and the wounds inflicted by which could be healed only by being stroked with the flat of it. 115. did ride. "The words do and did, which so much degrade in present estimation the line that admits them, were in the time of Cowley little censured or avoided." (Johnson.) 116. great bards beside = Boiardo, Ariosto, Tasso, Spenser, &c. Milton in his youth was deeply read in these poets of romance: he purposed to adopt a romantic subject for his own great poem; see his Latin poem to Mansus in his Sylvarum Liber. His acquaintance with these writers appears often; see Paradise Lost, i. 580-7, ix. 25-43. 120. See Spenser's Letter to Sir W. Raleigh, "expounding his whole intention in the course of the Faerie Queene. Milton, in his Areopagitica, speaks of Spenser as our sage and serious Spenser, whom I dare be thought to hold a better teacher than Scotus or Aquinas.” The Italian romantic poets profess a high moral purpose. "Both Tasso and Ariosto pretend to an allegorical and mysterious meaning; and Tasso's Enchanted Forest, the most conspicuous fiction of the kind, may have been here intended." (Warton.) Bowle quotes from Seneca, Epist. 114: "In quibus plus intelligendum est quam audiendum." 121. pale career. Comp. "pale rage," Adonais, 70, &c. Strictly speaking, these epithets are placed with the wrong substantives. Comp. Eschylus' Agam. 152: νεικέων τέκτονα σύμφυτον,” &c. Locke 122. Contrast L'Allegro, 61, 6a. See Romeo and Juliet, III. ii. 10: "Come, civil night, Thou sober-suited matron all in black," &c. 123. trickt. See Lyc. 170. Sandys apud Johnson: "Their heads are trickt with tassels and with flowers." "People lavish it profusely in tricking up their children in fine cloathes, and yet starve their minds." "Trick't and blaz'd" is a heraldic phrase; see Beaumont and Fletcher's Night-Walker, II. vii. frounc't = frizzled and curled. See Faerie Queene, I. iv. 14: "Some frounce their curled heare in courtly guise ; French froncer, to wrinkle, plait; originally perhaps to wrinkle the brow, from Latin frons Flounce is but another form of frounce. In the Romaunt of the Rose, 860, we have "her forehead frounceles." = 20. 124. Attick boy Cephalus. See Ovid's Metam. vii. 701-4. = See Merry Wives of Windsor, III. iii. 62: “A plain kerchief, Sir John; my brows become nothing else." 127. usher'd. See Paradise Lost, iv. 355. 128. [What part of the sentence is his fill?] = 132. flaring strictly, fluttering. Comp. German flackern. Comp. flaunt. Chaucer (Assembly of Fowles, 175), and Spenser after him "the builder oak." See v. 121. 135. monumental oake. (Faerie Queene, I. i. 8), calls it 21. 136. with heaved stroke. 140. profaner somewhat, or at all profane; = profan-ish, if there were such a word. Such is frequently the force in Latin also of what is called the comparative degree: thus senior somewhat old, elderly, &c. = 141. gareish. See Romeo and Juliet, III. ii. 25: "the garish sun." Lilly, Drayton, and others use the word in a good sense. (See Halliwell.) There is an old English verb gare, "It is a favourite word with Drayton." (Todd.) to stare. 142. See the description of the sleep-enticements in the palace of Morpheus, Faerie Queene, I. i. 41. Amongst these there is a See Virg. Ecl. i. 56. 'Murmuring winde, much like the sowne Of swarming bees." Comp. Paradise Regained, iv. 247. 144. sing. This verb has a very comprehensive force. Comp. Shaksp. Rich. II. II. .. 253: 145. consort. "We hear this fearful tempest sing." See Hymn Nat. 132. [Who are they?] 146. Comp. Ovid, a favourite author with Milton, Metam. xi. 602-4: "Saxo tamen exit ab imo Rivus aquæ Lethes, per quem cum murmure labens dewy-feather'd. For dewy comp. Shakspere's "golden dew of sleep" (Richard III. IV. i. 84), "the honey-heavy dew of slumber" (Julius Cæsar, II. i. 230), &c. Explain this metaphor. For feathered, comp. Virgil's "volucris somnus," Æn. ii. 794, vi. 702. Ovid (Met. xi. 650) speaks of the noiseless wings of Morpheus, who in his account is one of the subalterns of Somnus: "Ille volat, nullos strepitus facientibus alis, These wings are in ancient bas-reliefs sometimes those of a butterfly (some say, a bat), sometimes those of an eagle; they are sometimes attached to Sleep's temples as well as his shoulders. See a paper by Bishop Thirlwall in Philolog. Mus. ii. 471, on the address to Sleep in the Philoctetes of Sophocles. Though the words dewy and feathered are printed as one, yet it is possible they may not make a compound idea. In other words, dewy is not an epithet of feathers contained in feathered, but rather a co-equal epithet of sleep. Comp. Com. 553, where drowsy does not qualify or modify frighted, but is, co-ordinately with frighted, an epithet of steeds. It is possible, however, that a compound idea may be meant ; i.e. dewy-feather'd sleep sleep with dewy feathers, that is, with feathers that scatter or besprinkle with dew, like the sleep god's bough in Æn. v. 854: "Lethæo rore madens vique soporatus Stygia." Comp. Paradise Lost, v. 285-7: "Like Maia's son he stood And shook his plumes, that heavenly fragrance fill'd See 21. 147. Sleep is generally described by poets as sending forth Dreams as his ministers. Ovid, Met. xi. sub fin. ; Spenser's Faerie Queene, I. i. 39–44. (In Macbeth. II. i. 50, Dreams and Sleep are in opposition.) Here he comes himself, attended by a Dream. This Dream he bears on his wings, just as the Sprite sent by Archimago bears the Dream with which Morpheus provides him (F. Q. I. i. 44): "And on his litle wings the dreame he bore In hast unto his Lord." As he stands over the reposing poet, the Dream is to hover to and fro before him, and present various images to the eyes of the sleeper. Such seems to be the meaning of this extremely difficult passage; but it does not satisfactorily explain at his wings. If only it were possible, it would be better to take the whole four lines as referring to the Dream only, i.e. to take his wings the Dream's wings, and displayed as qualifying wings; but at makes a seemingly insuperable impediment. Wave at could scarcely be used for "wave at me" = wave near. Warton proposes to strike out at! Budgell, who in Spect. No. 425 quotes admiringly this passage, writes wave with his wings," without authority. See a valuable note by Mr. Payne in Notes and Queries for July 1868. 151. [What part of the verb is breathe here?] Lycid. 184.] What substantive does it qualify? See 154. See Arcades, where a "Genius of the Wood" describes his functions, and also sweet music breathes" in two songs. = 155. [What is the force of due here?] 156. the studious cloysters pale the precincts of some retirement which is devoted, or should be so, to study and learning, and also, as he goes on to describe, to religious services → a university, or a cathedral establishment. He is probably thinking of old St. Paul's. St. Paul's cloisters in the strict sense of the word (described by Stowe) were pulled down in 1549, by orders of the Duke of Somerset, who, it is said, wanted the stones from them for a palace in the Strand (the old Somerset House). pale = enclosure. We still speak of "the English pale" in Ireland, and of "the pale of the Church." 157. [What is the grammatical subject of love?] high embowed roof, &c. Is he thinking of old St. Paul's, or of Westminster Abbey? The details scarcely suit King's College Chapei. Milton was one of the latest true lovers of Gothic architecture when the taste for it was declining, as Gray was one of the earliest when the taste was reviving. 21. 157. Comp. a once widely popular passage of Congreve's Mourning Bride: "How reverend is the face of this tall Pile, Whose ancient Pillars rear their marble heads To bear aloft its arch'd and pond'rous roof, By its own weight made stedfast a::d immoveable, 158. massy. Milton and Shakspere do not use the form massive. proof, i.e. proof against (= able to bear) the enormous weight of the roof. Comp. Coriolanus, I. iv. 25, with hearts more proof than shields." Sometimes with an adverb or adjective so used, as in Samson Agonistes, 134, of "a frock of mail," "adamantean proof:" with which compare Paradise Regained, iv. 533: "Proof against all temptation as a rock Of adamant.' 66 " Some editors read in the text massy-proof. More commonly, that against which what is spoken of is proof is mentioned, as 'shame-proof," Love's Labour Lost, V. ii. 513; “starproof," Arcad. 88: see also Paradise Lost, ix. 298; x. 882, &c. 159. storied. See Com. 516; Shakespere, Cymb. I. iv. 36. dight. See L'Allegro, 62. 160. [What is meant by religious here?] Collins borrows the word in his Ode to Evening. He speaks of evening's "religious gleams." 161. the pealing organ. See Paradise Lost, i. 708-9; xi. 560; Hymn Nat. 130. blow. See Hymn Nat. 130. 163. anthems. This word radically is identical with antiphons chanting. 164. as such as, or in such a way as. = amœbean or alternate 168. the. The article is here used generically, as in v. 156, as in our phrase "he went up to the university." Hermits and hermitages are perpetually mentioned in the old romances. See Morte D'Arthur (Globe Ed.), p. 423, &c.; Faerie Queene, &c. 172. See Epitaph. Damon. 150. 173. do, subjunctive. So above, ll. 44 and 122. In L'Allegro, 44, there is the indicative. LYCIDAS. INTRODUCTION. Lycidas was written in the autumn of 1637, and published at Cambridge in the following year, along with other In Memoriam poems, some in Latin, some in Greek, some in English, by various members of the University. It would seem, from the opening lines, that Milton had previously formed a resolution to write no more poetry for the present-to write no more till he thought himself better fitted to do so; but "bitter constraint and sad occasion dear made him break that resolution. Probably, the last piece he had produced was Comus, which was "presented" at Ludlow Castle in 1634. He whose untimely death he laments in Lycidas was one King, a fellow-collegian and an intimate friend. King, too, was something of a poet (only Latin pieces by him are extant). See 1. 10. He was a fellow and tutor of his college, and otherwise, it would seem, a notable member of his university; hence Father Cam is one of his chief mourners. He was designed for holy orders, as Milton himself had been once; hence St. Peter's grief for his loss. He was drowned crossing over to Ireland. The account given in the Cambridge In Memoriam volume is that "haud procul a littore Britannico, navi in scopulum allisa et rimis ex ictu fatiscente, dum alii vectores vitæ mortalis frustra satagerent, immortalem anhelans in genu provolutus oransque una cum navigio ab aquis absorptus, animam deo reddidit iiii. eid. Sextilis anno Salutis MDCXXXVII. Etatis xxv." = not far from the British shore, when the ship was dashed on to a rock, and through the blow leaked and gaped, while the other voyagers busied themselves in vain with mortal life, he, aspiring after the immortal, threw himself upon his knees, and as he so prayed was swallowed up by the waters along with the vessel, and gave his life to God, on the 10th of August, in the year of salvation 1637, of his life twenty-five." The account Milton appears to follow in his Elegy is, that the vessel was unseaworthy, and foundered in a tranquil ocean. This poem is full of biographical and historical, besides its high poetic, interest. It reflects clearly the dark and threatening condition of things ecclesiastical; it portrays the frivolous state of literature; but most especially it brings before us the poet in the great transitional stage of his life. Milton's earlier style and his later are both visible in this poem; the author of Comus is perceivable, but so also is the author of Paradise Lost; there may be heard the sweetness of his youthful, the grandeur of his maturer notes. 22. 1. MILTON'S conceptions of a poet's work, and of the preparation needed for it, were of the highest. He was ever striving after "inward ripeness" (see Sonnet II.), and conscious how far he was from attaining it. This sense of his unfittedness to perform as yet a poet's high duties had determined him to write no more till he was sensible of being maturer-till "the mellowing year " had dawned. But the death of his dear friend forced him to intermit this resolve. Therefore "yet once more" would he write; he would yet again play the poet, though he knew well his proper hour had not yet come. This seems to be the true interpretation of these often misunderstood lines. As to that resolution to preserve a poetical silence for a time, see what he says even as late as 1641, in his Reason of Church Government: "Neither doe I think it shame to covnant with any knowing reader, that for some few yeers yet I may go on trust with him toward the payment of what I am now indebted, as being a work not to be rays'd from the heat of youth, or the vapours of wine, like that which flows at wast from the pen of some vulgar amorist, or the trencher fury of a riming parasite; nor to be obtain❜d by the invocation of Dame Memory and her Siren daughters, but by devout prayer to that eternall Spirit who can enrich with all utterance and knowledge, and sends out His seraphim with the hallow'd fire of His altar, to touch and purify the lips of whom He pleases. To this must be added industrious and select reading, steddy observation, insight into all seemly and generous arts and affaires; till which in some measure be compast, at mine own peril and cost, I refuse not to sustain this expectation from as many as are not loath to hazard so much credulity upon the best pledges that I can give them." " A little attention will show how these opening words cannot well be taken to mean, as by some readers and editors they are taken, "I am about to write another In Memoriam poem.' It is true Milton had written a piece On the Death of a fair Infant dying of a Cough, and also An Epitaph on the Marchioness of Winchester; but there is no manner of allusion to either of those poems here: laurels, and myrtles, and ivy are not funereal emblems. He should "I come to pluck your leaves, cypresses," if he wished to mention some sad sepulchral property: or "I come to cull flowers that sad embroidery wear.' .." What he does say must mean, "Once more I must wear the poet's garland." (Comp. Reas. of Ch. Gov.: "For although a poet, soaring in the high reason of his fancies, with his garland and singing robes about him," &c.) say, yet once more. Comus was acted at Ludlow Castle in 1634; Arcades at Harefield Court, probably a little earlier. |