hush, hist, &c. Then whist is used as a verb to say whist-i.e. to silence. It is also used to be silent, as in Surrey's Translation of Virgil: "They whisted all, with fixed face intent." Comp. hush. Whisper is from the same root. There is a provincial form whister = whisper. (Halliwell.) Then we have whist for the name of a game at cards, where the players are supposed to keep silence (it was frequently called whisk); whist, as an adjective, as in Euphues and his England: "So that now all her enimies are as whist as the bird attagen," &c. (H. & W.'s Nares.) The forms whish and whisht are also found. 8. 68. birds of calm = halcyons. See the story of Alcyone, told by Ovid, one of Milton's favourite authors, in Metam. xi. There was an ancient belief, that during the seven days preceding and the seven succeeding the shortest day of the year, at which time the alcyon was breeding, a great tranquillity prevailed at sea. When it "sat brooding," the "wave was charmed." Frequent allusions to this belief occur in the Classics, as in Aristophanes' Birds and his Frogs, in Theocritus, &c. &c. The Greeks spoke of "alcyon days” (aλкvovides uépa); the Latins, of Alcedonia, the halcyon time, alcedo being the old Latin name for the bird. Thus the Prologue-speaker of Plautus' play, the Casina: "There is a calm. All about the forum [= pretty much our "the City "] 'tis halcyon-tide;" i.e. there is no bustling and tumult. See "halcyon beaks" in Lear, II. ii. 84; "halcyon days,” 1 Hen. VI. I. ii. 131. 70. stedfast. Fast, in the form fæst, is an Anglo-Saxon word, denoting firm. Soothfast = firm in truth, &c. In the modern editions of our Bible translation shamefast is corrupted into shamefaced, and shamefastness into shamefacedness. Rootfast has become obsolete. 71. influence. Here used in its original sense of the rays, or glances, or aspects, flowing from the stars to the earth. These aspects were believed to have a great mysterious power over the fortunes of men; and hence influence came to have its modern meaning. "The astrologers," says Bacon (Essay ix.), "call the evill influences of the starrs evil aspects.' Fob xxxviii. 31: "Canst thou bind the sweet influences of the Pleiades?". Paradise Lost, ii. 1034: "But now at last the sacred influence Of light appears." Measure for Measure, III. i.: "the skiey influences." King Lear, I. ii. 135: "planetaryinfluence." Comp. L'Allegro, l. 122. Other astrological terms still surviving are "disastrous," "ill-starred," ascendency," "lord of the ascendant,” “jovial," "saturnine," "mercurial." (See Trench's Study of Words.) See what Gloucester and Edmund respectively say of the old faith, in King Lear, I. ii.; and this verse in Fletcher's lines Upon an Honest Man's Fortune (quoted in Bible Word-Book): "Man is his own star, and the soul that can Render an honest and a perfect man So also Paradise Lost, x. 659. Fuller's Scripture Observations, xviii. 73. for = in spite of, notwithstanding. So frequently, as in Davies (apud Johnson): "But as Noah's pigeon, which return'd no more, Probably the full phrase would be "for all the flood, or the morning light, or &c. &c could do." Certainly, the all does not qualify "the flood," or "the morning light," or &c. 74. often. As if Lucifer gave several separate admonitions, instead of, by his very appearance, one long one. 8. 75. Comp. Midsummer Night's Dream, III. ii. 61: "Venus in her glimmering sphere." 76. bespake = spake. So Lycid. 112; Paradise Lost, i. 43. has its transitive-making force, as e.g. when Dryden writes: "Then staring on her with a ghastly look Sometimes the prefix be Paradise Lost, ii. 849: "No less rejoiced His mother bad, and thus bespake her sire." Comp. bewail, bemoan, &c. So Paradise Lost, In the case of the bid. The weak preterite is here preferred to the strong form. ii. 514. The form bidde occurs in The Vision of Piers Ploughman. preterite of bite the weak form has with us altogether superseded the strong form. Ploughman we have boot, Ed. Wright, l. 2642: In Piers "That he boot hise lippes." In that same poem both the forms sitte and sat are found. 77. Comp. Spenser's Shep. Cal. April. 78. her may refer either to shady gloom, i.e. night, or to day. 79. withheld. Comp. withdraw. 81. as. So commonly in modern English we should say as if; but in older English, when the force of the subjunctive was livelier, the if was not needed. 84. axle-tree. Comp. Comus, 95-7. Tree in Old English dore-tree= door-post, Piers Ploughman, roof-tree, &c. = wood, beam, &c. So Lawn seems to denote So launde in Piers 9. 85. lawn = pasture; commonly any open grassy space. radically a clear or cleared space, where the view is unobstructed. Ploughman. Comp. lane, an opening, a passage between houses or fields (see Wedgewood). Comp. Paradise Lost, iv. 252, where the groves of Eden are described : 86. or ere before ever. See Daniel vi. 24; Hamlet, I. ii. 147; Psalm xc. 2. From the same root as or come our ere, erst, early. Or is common enough in Old English, as in Mirror for Magistrates: "And, or I wist, when I was come to land." This same form occurs in Tempest, I. ii. 11; King John, IV. iii. 20 (Ed. 1623), &c. As for in or ere, it probably stands for ever: it increases the force of the adverbial clause of time in which it appears; thus in King Lear, II. iv. : ere, where the ere gives intensity. Ere in this and such cases has the same grammatical value as twice, in Measure for Measure, IV. iii. 92: "Ere twice the sun hath made his journal greeting To the under generation, you shall find Or yet in Paradise Lost, x. 584: now, "Ere yet Dictæan Jove was born." 99.66 ere I.e. ever is an adverb of time. Hence the phrase or ere, = our mod. 66 ere ever," is nearly invariably used with a clause, and not as a preposition. We could say "6 ere long," "but not ere ever long," ," "ere ever now." The phrase in our text is to be explained as parallel to "for all the morning light,' against their bridal day;" where the full construction would demand a verb. (See notes, l. 73, and Prothal. 1. 17.) It is, so far as we know, unique. Others interpret the ere in or ere as, in fact, a mere reiteration, the ere added as a sort of gloss, when the meaning of or had ceased to be generally known. In Greek, πρίν and πρότερον are found in the same sentence, πротероν antecedent; but this is obviously no parallel. Nor can the phrase "an if," which appeared for a time in our language, be said to justify the above explanation. Moreover, can we not say, "before ever," as "before ever he knew him, he acted nobly"? Does "ever" translate "before"? 92. was. The idea of the subject is singular, though the form is plural. So "the wages of sin is death," &c. silly. A.-S. sælig, happy; then simple, then foolish. Cf. German selig. form seely is found in the Faerie Queene, &c. ; sely in Chaucer, Leg. of Fair W.: "O sely woman, full of innocence: and in Piers Ploughman. For the degradation of meaning, comp. simple, innocent. Trench's Study of Words, and Select Gloss. Comp. euntis. The See 95. strook, i.e. strook out. Of course, the word more properly applies to the notes of stringed instruments, as in Dryden's Alexander's Fest, 99: "Now strike the golden lyre again." Other forms of the participle are stricken, strucken, struck. The form strook is found in Piers Ploughman, &c. Comp. the participial forms, took, forsook, &c. as, though seemingly, is not really the relative, nor yet the subject, in this and such phrases. The relative is in fact omitted, as is not uncommon. The full phrase would be " as (music) which never was, &c." 96. divinely warbled voice. Voice = something uttered by the voice, as often Latin Vox. Or perhaps, better, warbled = trilled, made to trill or quaver. Comp. Arcad. 87: "Follow me, as I sing, And touch the warbled string." In Com. 854 it means trilled forth, sung: "If she be right invoked in warbled song.” So, in the active form, in Midsummer Night's Dream, III. ii. 206: "Both warbling of one song." 9. 96. Observe s sharp and s flat, according to our present pronunciation, rhyming together. 97. noise. Comp. Faerie Queene, I. xii. 39: "During the which there was an heavenly noise Or perhaps here in its not uncommon Elizabethan sense of "a set or company of musicians. (Nares.) See"Sneak's noise," 2 Henry IV. II. iv. ra Ben Jonson's Masq. of Gyps.: "The King has his noise of gypsies as well as of bear-wards and other minstrels," &c. 99. loth in oldest English, hateful, our "loathed." Comp. loathsome. So loathly, Shakspere, &c. 100. close. So Dryden, Fables: "At every close she made, th' attending throng Shakspere, Richard II. II. i. 12. So Herrick, The Church: "Sweet spring! full of sweet days and roses, A box where sweets compacted lie, My music shows you have your closes, And all must die." 102. As if the moon was but a bright spherical shell. 103. Cynthia. See Proth., Il Pens., &c. 106. here Unwin: hereupon; or at this point of time, now. See Cowper's lines to Mary "Thy needles, once a shining store, For my sake restless heretofore," &c. Comp. there in Shakspere, Lover's Complaint: "Even there resolved my reason into tears.' its. This passage, Paradise Lost, i. 254, and iv. 814, are said to be the only places where Milton uses this word. See note, 1. 140. 107. [What are the two forces "alone" might have here? and which has it ?] 109. their sight them as they look. Comp. "I pursue thy lingering" in Paradise Lost, ii. 702. So "thy wiseness," Hamlet, V. i. 286. 110. globe a mass, a body; or "circular" is tautological. Comp. Hamlet's "distracted globe" (I. v. 96). III. shame-fac't. See note to stedfast, 1. 70. 112. Cherubim. In his translation of Psalm lxxx. 5, Milton uses the English plural form. Shakspere generally uses cherubim for the singular (as in Othello, IV. ii. 63); but cherub occurs in Hamlet, IV. iii. 50. Knight reads cherubims in Merchant of Venice, V. i. 62. The Authorized Version of the Bible uses cherubims. Cherubs and cherubims now differ in meaning. Perhaps he does not mean to characterize, when he speaks of the helms of the cherubim and the swords of the seraphim. It was cherubims “with a flaming sword" that guarded the gates of Eden. Both orders are differently represented in the lines At a Solemn Music. Or he may mean that the cherubim were the more purely defensive spirits, the seraphim more active. Their "sword" may mean "the sword of the Spirit." (Comp. Isaiah vi. 6.) 113. Seraphim. "The great seraphic lords," Paradise Lost, i. 794 9. 114. with wings displaied. See Il Penseroso, 149; Faerie Queene, I. xi. 20. 116. unexpressive. So in Lyc. 176. Shakspere, As You Like It, III. ii. 28. 10. 117. See Paradise Lost, vii. 565 et seq. 119. See Job xxxviii. 4–7. 122. hinges = support. See Faerie Queene, I. xi. 21: "Then gin the blustring brethren boldly threat To move the world from off his steadfast henge." Hinge is properly something to hang anything on, as a hook. Comp. Dutch hengel, a hook; German, angel. The verb to hang has the form hing in the Scotch dialect. The explanation of the two strong preterite forms which hang and many other verbs have in modern English is that originally one was the singular, the other the plural form. (See Latham.) This is exactly illustrated in this line from Chaucer's Legende of Good Women: "And thus by reporte was hir name yshove That as they zoxe in age, wax hir love." 123. Comp. the Lat. jacere fundamenta. Comp. Faerie Queene: "And shooting in the earth casts up a mount of clay." 2 Kings xix. 32; Luke xix. 43. 124. weltring. Lyc. 13; Paradise Lost, i. 78; Shelley's In the Euganean hills. Ascham uses the forms walter and waulter in his Scholemaster. Welter is radically connected with wallow, waltz, Latin volvere, &c.; perhaps also with walk. (See Wedgwood.) V. i. 151; 66 oozy. Lyc. 175; Shelley's Ode to the West Wind. Comp. oozy bed," Tempest, ooze of the salt deep," Ib. I. ii. 252. 125. If the "music of the spheres " may ever be heard, the poet would it now should be. On this music see Arcad. 62-7; Paradise Lost, v. 618; Com. 112-4, 241-3, 1,021. Comp. At a Solemn Music, "sphere-born harmonious sisters, Voice and Verse." See also Merchant of Venice, V. i. 61: "There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st But in his motion like an angel sings, Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins," &c. Twelfth Night, III. i. 120; Antony and Cleopatra, V. ii. 83 ; Pericles, V. i. 230. In Hudibras, Part II. i. 617, the widow says a poet compares his mistress' voice to "the music of the spheres, So loud it deafens mortal ears, Dryden, in his Ode to Mrs. Anne Killigrew, declares that "Thy brother-angels at thy birth Strung each his lyre and tuned it high, That all the people of the sky Might know a poetess was born on earth: And then, if ever, mortal ears Had heard the music of the spheres." |