19. 59. dragon yoke. Night's, not the Moon's, dragons are often spoken of, as in Shakspere, Midsummer Night's Dream, III. ii. 379: "Night's swift dragons." Troilus and Cressida, V. viii. 17: "The dragon wing of night." Cymbeline, II. ii. 48: "Yon dragons of the night." By the Latin poets Ceres is described as dragon-drawn: see Ovid, Fast. iv. 497 : "frenatos curribus angues jungit;" and 561: "inque dracones transit." Not only here does Milton give the moon dragons; see in his Silvarum Liber the lines, In obitum præsulis Eliensis, 1. 56: "Vidi triformem dum coercebat suos Frenis dracones aureis." Ovid speaks of the moon's snow-white horses (Fast. i. 374). 60. th' accustom'd oke. The article seems to show that the poet has in his mind some particular landscape. 61. noise. See note, Hymn Nat. 97. 63. chauntress. Wotton calls birds "yon curious chanters of the wood." Comp. Chanticleer. 64. eeven-song. Comp. the cock's matin, L'Allegro, 114. 65. unseen. Contrast L'Allegro, 57. 66. smooth-shaven green. Comp. "short-grass'd green," Shakspere's Tempest, IV. i. 83. Shakspere uses both participial forms: shaved in 1 Henry IV. III. iii. 68 ; shaven in Much Ado about Nothing, III. iii. 145. 67. the wandring moon. Comp. Shelley's "Art thou pale for weariness," &c. 68. neer her highest noon = nearly full. Or perhaps rather in the middle of the night— that is, of the moonlit hours of the night; near her highest point of ascension. 73. plat is a various form of plot. form, plate. 74. curfeu = strictly, fire-cover. See Bacon apud Johnson: "But now for pans, pots, curfews, counters, and the like, the beauty will not be so much respected so as the compound stuff is like to pass." It was commonly used for the fire-cover bell-i.e. the bell at whose ringing all household fires were to be put out for the night, as in Tempest, V. i. 40; Lear, III. iv. 120. In Romeo and Juliet, IV. iv. 4, curfew bell is used generally for a bell. [What part of speech is sound here?] river. 75. over some shore and the wide piece of water it edges. wide-water'd. Our older writers often speak of "a water," meaning a lake or a See Morte D'Arthur. Tennyson has revived the phrase in his Morte D'Arthur: "On one side lay the ocean, and on one Milton here may be thinking of the Thames. = 80. Comp. Paradise Lost, i. 62-4. 83. The belman present police system. bellman: " the watchman of a later time, down to the establishment of the Herrick in one of his poems blesses his friends in the character of a "From noise of scare fires rest ye free, From murders benedicite ; From all mischances that may fright Mercie secure ye all and keep For other "bellman's verses," see Chambers' Book of Days, i. 496. = 19. 83. nightly during the night, not night by night See note on Hymn Nat. 179. 88. thrice great Hermes Hermes Trismegistus = the Egyptian Thot or Theut, with whom the Greek Hermes was identified. This Egyptian Hermes was held in great reverence by the Neo-Platonists; he was the Word (ó Aóyos) incarnate; he was the source of Plato's knowledge, and of that of Pythagoras. Certain works ascribed to him (really written probably in the fourth century of our æra) were much pored over. The Hermetical Philosophy was so called after him. Probably Milton here is thinking of his Pamander, a work discussing the creation of the world, the deity, the human soul, &c. unsphear: so unthrone, Paradise Lost, ii. 231, &c. 90. See Plato's Phæd. passim. 91. forsook. See note, Hymn Nat. 98. 20. 93. Salamanders, sylphs, nymphs, and gnomes. See Rape of the Lock, i. 60-4. 95. consent. Compare Shakspere, 1 Henry VI. I. i. 2-4: Hor. Od. II. xvii. 22. "Ye comets, scourge the bad revolting stars That have consented unto Henry's death." 96. with planet. There was a very general belief in astrology throughout the seventeenth century. Then lived Dee, Forman, Napier, Lilly, and others of like pretensions. See Shakspere, passim; Butler's Hudibras, &c. Dryden was a believer in the art. See Disraeli's Curiosities of Literature. 98. scepter'd pall = royal robe; scepter'd may answer to Horace's "honesta" (Ars Poet. 278). Or perhaps the phrase = with sceptre and with pall-i.e. two things are expressed as one, just as often one thing is expressed as two, which latter figure is called Hendiadys. The former figure is dúo d' évós. Comp. above, 1. 75. pall is called ξυστίς. the Latin palla. See Hor. Ars Poet. 8. The great tragedy robe was 99. Edipus and Pelops and their respective houses, and the various heroes who fought before Troy, formed the three most popular subject-matters of Attic Tragedy. 100. [What is meant by the epithet of divine applied to Troy ?] 101. It may be supposed that Milton has in his mind's eye Othello, King Lear, Hamlet. 102. buskind = Latin cothurnatus. The Greek Kółoрvos, Latin cothurnus, was a boot with high heels designed to add to the stature, and so to the dignity, of the Tragic Actor. The comic soccus was a sort of slipper. Horace uses these words to represent the dramas to which they respectively belonged; as in Ars Poetica, 80: "Hunc socci cepere pedem grandesque cothurni.” i.e. both comedy and tragedy adopted the iamb. See Ib. 280, 1 Sat. I. v. 64. or buskin was also worn by hunters, and so by Diana and her nymphs. buskin'd nymphs" in Arcades, 33. 104. from his bower. Comp. "the Muses' bower" in Sonnet III. 105. Orpheus. See L'Allegro, 145. 109. Chaucer's Squire's Tale breaks off in the middle. The cothurnus Hence "silver Spenser continues and finishes the story in his own style in Faerie Queene, IV. ii. and iii. It was also finished by one John Lane, a friend of Milton's father; of which version there are MS. copies in the British and in the Ashmolean Museums. (See Masson's Life of Milton, p. 42.) This tale, then, must have been particularly well known to Milton. Amongst the Canterbury Tales it is conspicuous for a certain Oriental richness of invention and of ornament. 110. Cambuscan. The accentuation of this word here is strange. Of course the word = Cambus Khan. Chaucer, though he writes the two words as one, gives no accen to the middle syllable, e.g.;, "This noble King was cleped Cambuscan." 19. 59. dragon yoke. Night's, not the Moon's, dragons are often spoken of, as in Shakspere, Midsummer Night's Dream, III. ii. 379: “Night's swift dragons." Troilus and Cressida, V. viii. 17: "The dragon wing of night." Cymbeline, II. ii. 48: “Yon dragons of the night." By the Latin poets Ceres is described as dragon-drawn: see Ovid, Fast. iv. 497: "frenatos curribus angues jungit;" and 561: "inque dracones transit.' Not only here does Milton give the moon dragons; see in his Silvarum Liber the lines, In obitum præsulis Eliensis, 1. 56: "Vidi triformem dum coercebat suos Frenis dracones aureis.' Ovid speaks of the moon's snow-white horses (Fast. i. 374). 60. th' accustom'd oke. The article seems to show that the poet has in his mind some particular landscape. 61. noise. See note, Hymn Nat. 97. 63. chauntress. Wotton calls birds "yon curious chanters of the wood." Comp. Chanticleer. 64. eeven-song. Comp. the cock's matin, L'Allegro, 114. 65. unseen. Contrast L'Allegro, 57. 66. smooth-shaven green. Comp. "short-grass'd green," Shakspere's Tempest, IV. i. 83. Shakspere uses both participial forms: shaved in 1 Henry IV. III. iii. 68 ; shaven in Much Ado about Nothing, III. iii. 145. 67. the wandring moon. Comp. Shelley's "Art thou pale for weariness," &c. 68. neer her highest noon = nearly full. Or perhaps rather in the middle of the night— that is, of the moonlit hours of the night; near her highest point of ascension. 73. plat is a various form of plot. We still speak of a "grass plat." Comp. flat, platform, plate. = 74. curfeu strictly, fire-cover. See Bacon apud Johnson: "But now for pans, pots, curfews, counters, and the like, the beauty will not be so much respected so as the compound stuff is like to pass.' It was commonly used for the fire-cover bell-i.e. the bell at whose ringing all household fires were to be put out for the night, as in Tempest, V. i. 40; Lear, III. iv. 120. In Romeo and Juliet, IV. iv. 4, curfew bell is used generally for a bell. [What part of speech is sound here?] 75. over some shore and the wide piece of water it edges. wide-water'd. Our older writers often speak of "a water," meaning a lake or a river. See Morte D'Arthur. Tennyson has revived the phrase in his Morte D'Arthur: "On one side lay the ocean, and on one Milton here may be thinking of the Thames. 80. Comp. Paradise Lost, i. 62-4. 83. The belman = the watchman of a later time, down to the establishment of the present police system. Herrick in one of his poems blesses his friends in the character of a bellman: "From noise of scare fires rest ye free, From murders benedicite ; From all mischances that may fright Your pleasing slumbers in the night; Mercie secure ye all and keep The goblin from ye, while ye sleep. For other "bellman's verses," see Chambers' Book of Days, i. 496. = 19. 83. nightly during the night, not night by night See note on Hymn Nat. 179. 88. thrice great Hermes = Hermes Trismegistus the Egyptian Thot or Theut, with whom the Greek Hermes was identified. This Egyptian Hermes was held in great reverence by the Neo-Platonists; he was the Word (ó Móyos) incarnate; he was the source of Plato's knowledge, and of that of Pythagoras. Certain works ascribed to him (really written probably in the fourth century of our æra) were much pored over. The Hermetical Philosophy was so called after him. Probably Milton here is thinking of his Pamander, a work discussing the creation of the world, the deity, the human soul, &c. unsphear: so unthrone, Paradise Lost, ii. 231, &c. 90. See Plato's Phæd. passim. 91. forsook. See note, Hymn Nat. 98. 20. 93. Salamanders, sylphs, nymphs, and gnomes. See Rape of the Lock, i. 60-4. 95. consent. Compare Shakspere, 1 Henry VI. I. i. 2-4: Hor. Od. II. xvii. 22. "Ye comets, scourge the bad revolting stars That have consented unto Henry's death." 96. with planet. There was a very general belief in astrology throughout the seventeenth century. Then lived Dee, Forman, Napier, Lilly, and others of like pretensions. See Shakspere, passim; Butler's Hudibras, &c. Dryden was a believer in the art. See Disraeli's Curiosities of Literature. 98. scepter'd pall = royal robe; scepter'd may answer to Horace's "honesta" (Ars Poet. 278). Or perhaps the phrase = with sceptre and with pall-i.e. two things are expressed as one, just as often one thing is expressed as two, which latter figure is called Hendiadys. The former figure is δύο δι' ἑνός. Comp. above, 1. 75. pall is the Latin palla. called ξυστίς. See Hor. Ars Poet. 8. The great tragedy robe was 99. Edipus and Pelops and their respective houses, and the various heroes who fought before Troy, formed the three most popular subject-matters of Attic Tragedy. 100. [What is meant by the epithet of divine applied to Troy?] 101. It may be supposed that Milton has in his mind's eye Othello, King Lear, Hamlet. 102. buskind Latin cothurnatus. The Greek Kó@opvos, Latin cothurnus, was a boot with high heels designed to add to the stature, and so to the dignity, of the Tragic Actor. The comic soccus was a sort of slipper. Horace uses these words to represent the dramas to which they respectively belonged; as in Ars Poetica, 80: "Hunc socci cepere pedem grandesque cothurni." i.e. both comedy and tragedy adopted the iamb. See Ib. 280, 1 Sat. I. v. 64. or buskin was also worn by hunters, and so by Diana and her nymphs. buskin'd nymphs" in Arcades, 33. 104. from his bower. Comp. "the Muses' bower" in Sonnet III. 105. Orpheus. See L'Allegro, 145. 109. Chaucer's Squire's Tale breaks off in the middle. The cothurnus Hence "silver Spenser continues and finishes the story in his own style in Faerie Queene, IV. ii. and iii. It was also finished by one John Lane, a friend of Milton's father; of which version there are MS. copies in the British and in the Ashmolean Museums. (See Masson's Life of Milton, p. 42.) This tale, then, must have been particularly well known to Milton. Amongst the Canterbury Tales it is conspicuous for a certain Oriental richness of invention and of ornament. word 110. Cambuscan. The accentuation of this word here is strange. Of course the Cambus Khan. Chaucer, though he writes the two words as one, gives no accen to the middle syllable, e... This noble King was cleped Cambuscan.” 20. 111. See Chaucer, 10,340: "This noble Kyng, this Tartre, this Cambynskan, Hadde tuo sones by Eltheta his wyf, Of which the eldest highte Algarsyf, 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: "Whereof Georgos he thee gave to name," &c. = by the Com. 165, "The virtue of this magic power of. 113. vertuous. See Mark v. 30, Luke vi. 19. 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, 62. 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 ; Some pranke their ruffes; and others trimly dight French froncer, to wrinkle, plait; originally perhaps to wrinkle the brow, from Latin frons |