To Carlo Dati.(Familiar Letters,No.X.)P.83.tomb of Damon:i.e.of Carolo Diodati.P.83.that poem: 'Epitaphium Damonis.'On his BlindnessP. 84.1.spent: extinguished.P. 84.2.Ere half my days:i.e.are spent; Milton was about forty-four years old when his 'light' was fully 'spent.'P. 85.8.fondly: foolishly;prevent: to come before, anticipate, forestall.P. 85.12.thousands:i.e.of 'spiritual creatures.' See 'P. L.,' iv. 677.P. 85.14.They also serve:i.e.as Verity explains, those other angels too, who, etc.To Leonard Philaras.(Familiar Letters,No.XII.)P.85.Angier(René): resident agent in Paris for the English Parliament.To Henry Oldenburg.(Familiar Letters,No.XIV.)P.87.Henry Oldenburg:b.at Bremen about 1615,d.1677; sent in 1653 by the Council of Bremen as their agent to negotiate with Cromwell some arrangement by which the neutrality of Bremen should be respected in the naval war between England and Holland ('Dict.of National Biography'); became a member and secretary of the Royal Society of London, and was afterward elected a fellow of the Society; corresponded extensively with the philosopher, Benedict Spinosa; published the 'Transactions' of the Royal Society from 1664 to 1677.P.87.'Cry' of that kind 'to Heaven': the reference is to theRegii Sanguinis Clamor ad Cœlum, adversus Parricidas Anglicanos(The Cry of the Royal Blood to Heaven against the English Parricides).P.87.Morus: Alexander More, whom Milton supposed to be the author of 'The Cry of the Royal Blood to Heaven.' Seenote, p. 248.To Leonard Philaras.(Familiar Letters,No.XV.)P.89.Phineus: seenoteon 'P. L.,' iii. 36, in this volume.P.89.Salmydessus: a town of Thrace, on the coast of the Black Sea.P.89.Argonautica: a heroic poem on the Argonautic expedition, by Apollonius Rhodius.P.89.κάρος δέ μιν ἀμφεκάλυψεν:'A darkling maze now round about him drew,The earth from underneath seemed whirling fast,In languid trance he lay bereft of speech.'Prof.Charles E. Bennett's translation.P.90.the Wise Man: Ecclesiastes xi. 8.P.90.Lynceus: the keen-sighted Argonaut.To Cyriac SkinnerP. 91.1.this three years' day: this day three years ago. Milton became completely blind in 1652, so this sonnet must have been written in 1655.though clear: see passage from Second Defence, p.13.P. 91.7.bate: from 'abate.'P. 91.8.bear up and steer right onward: the nautical sense of 'bear up,'i.e.to put the ship before the wind, is indicated by what follows.P. 91.10.conscience: consciousness.P. 91.12.talks: theTrin. Coll.Ms.reading; the word 'rings' was substituted by Phillips in his printed copy of 1694; 'talks' does not sound so well, in the verse, but it is more modest.P. 91.13.mask: masquerade.On his deceased wifeP. 91.1.my late espoused saint: his second wife, Catherine Woodcock, whom he married November 12, 1656; she died in February, 1658.P. 91.2.Alcestis: brought back to life by Herakles (Hercules).her glad husband: Admetus, King of Pheræ in Thessaly. See Browning's 'Balaustion's Adventure, including a Transcript from [the Alkestis of] Euripides.'P. 91.5.as whom: as one whom.P. 91.6.Purification: Leviticus xii.P. 91.10.her face was veiled: Alcestis was still in his mind. In Browning's 'Balaustion's Adventure,' when Hercules returns with her:'Under the great guard of one arm, there leantAshroudedsomething, live and woman-like,Propped by the heart-beats 'neath the lion coat. . . .There is no telling how the hero twitchedThe veil off: and there stood, with such fixed eyesAnd such slow smile, Alkestis' silent self!'To Emeric Bigot.(Familiar Letters,No.XXI.)P.92.Emeric Bigot: a French scholar, native of Rouen;b.1626,d.1689.P.92.King Telephus of the Mysians: wounded by Achilles and by him healed with the rust of his spear; and in return Telephus directed the Greeks on their way to Troy.Autobiographic passages in the Paradise LostP. 96.2.Or of the Eternal: or may I, unblamed, express thee as the coeternal beam of the Eternal.P. 96.6.increate: qualifies 'bright effluence.'P. 96.7.Or hearest thou rather: or approvest thou rather the appellation of pure ethereal stream; 'hearest' is a classicism: 'Matutine pater, seu Jane libentius audis' (father of the morning, or if Janus thou hearest more willingly).—Horace,Sat.II., vi. 20, cited by Bentley.P. 97.13.wing: flight.P. 97.17.With other notes: Orpheus made a hymn to Night, which is still extant; he also wrote of the creation out of Chaos. See 'Apoll.Rhodius,' i. 493. Orpheus was inspired by his mother Calliope only, Milton by theheavenly Muse; therefore he boasts that he sung withother notesthan Orpheus, though the subjects were the same.—Richardson.P. 97.21.hard and rare: evidently after Virgil's Æneid, vi. 126-129.P. 97.25.a drop serene: gutta serena,i.e.amaurosis.P. 97.26.dim suffusion: cataract.P. 97.34.So: appears to be used optatively, asLat.sic, Greekὡς, would that I were equalled with them in renown.P. 97.35.Thamyris: a Thracian bard, mentioned by Homer, Iliad, ii. 595:'he, over-bold,Boasted himself preëminent in song,Ev'n though the daughters of Olympian Jove,The Muses, were his rivals: they in wrath,Him of his sight at once and power of songAmerced, and bade his hand forget the lyre.'—Earl of Derby's Translation, 692-697.P. 97.35.Mæonides: a patronymic of Homer.P. 97.36.Tiresias: the famous blind soothsayer of Thebes, 'cui profundum cæcitas lumen dedit' (to whom his blindness gave deep sight), says Milton, in hisDe Idea Platonica, v. 25.P. 97.36.Phineus: a blind soothsayer, who, according to some authorities, was king of Salmydessus, in Thrace. By reason of his cruelty to his sons, who had been falsely accused, he was tormented by the Harpies, until delivered from them by the Argonauts, in return for prophetic information in regard to their voyage.P. 97.39.darkling: in the dark.P. 97.42.Day: note the emphasis imparted to this initial monosyllabic word, which receives the ictus and is followed by a pause; Milton felt that the loss of sight was fully compensated for by an inward celestial light.P. 98.1.Urania: the Heavenly Muse invoked in the opening of the poem.P. 98.4.Pegaséan wing: above the flight of 'the poet's winged steed' of classical mythology.P. 98.5.the meaning, not the name: Urania was the name of one of the Grecian Muses; he invokes not her, but what her name signifies, the Heavenly one. Seevv.38, 39.P. 98.8.Before the hills appeared:Prov.viii. 23-31.P. 98.10.didst play: the King James's version,Prov.viii. 30, reads, 'rejoicing always before him'; the Vulgate, 'ludenscoram eo omni tempore.'P. 98.15.thy tempering: the empyreal air was tempered for, adapted to, his breathing, as a mortal, by the Heavenly Muse.P. 98.17.this flying steed:i.e.this higher poetic inspiration than that represented by the classical Pegasus;unreined: unbridled,infrenis.P. 98.18.Bellerophon: thrown from Pegasus when attempting to soar upon the winged horse to heaven.P. 99.19.Aleian field: in Asia Minor, where Bellerophon, after he was thrown from Pegasus, wandered and perished;πεδίον τὸ Ἀλήïον, Iliad, vi. 201, land of wandering (ἄλη).P. 99.20.erroneous there to wander: to wander without knowing whither;Lat.erroneus;forlorn: entirely lost; 'for' is intensive.P. 99.21.Half yet remains unsung: 'half of the episode, not of the whole work, . . . the episode has two principal parts, the war in heaven, and the new creation; the one was sung, but the other remained unsung, . . .but narrower bound, . . . this other half is not rapt so much into the invisible world as the former, it is confined in narrower compass, and bound within the visible sphere of day.'—Newton.narrower: more narrowly.P. 99.26.on evil days though fallen: a pathetic emotional repetition; note the artistic change in the order of the words. Macaulay justly characterizes the thirty years which succeeded the protectorate as 'the darkest and most disgraceful in the English annals. . . . Then came those days never to be recalled without a blush—the days of servitude without loyalty, and sensuality without love, of dwarfish talents and gigantic vices, the paradise of cold hearts and narrow minds, the golden age ofthe coward, the bigot, and the slave. The king cringed to his rival [Louis XIV.] that he might trample on his people, sunk into a viceroy of France, and pocketed, with complacent infamy, her degrading insults and her more degrading gold. The caresses of harlots, and the jests of buffoons regulated the measures of a government which had just ability enough to deceive, and just religion enough to persecute. The principles of liberty were the scoff of every grinning courtier, and the Anathema Maranatha of every fawning dean. . . . Crime succeeded to crime, and disgrace to disgrace, till the race, accursed of God and man, was a second time driven forth, to wander on the face of the earth, and to be a by-word and a shaking of the head to the nations.'P. 99.33.Bacchus and his revellers: Charles II. and his Court, from whom Milton had reason to fear a similar fate to that of the Thracian bard, Orpheus, who was torn to pieces by the Bacchanalian women of Rhodope.P. 99.38.so fail not thou:i.e.to defend me as the Muse Calliope failed to defend her son, Orpheus.P. 99.1.no more of talk:i.e.as in the foregoing episode.P. 99.5.venial: allowable, fitting.P. 100.14-19.the wrath of stern Achilles . . . Cytherea's son: these are not the arguments (subjects) proper of the three epics, the Iliad, the Odyssey, and the Æneid; as Newton pointed out, the poet mentions certain angers or enmities, the wrath of Achilles, the rage of Turnus, Neptune's and Juno's ire; 'the anger, etc. (v. 10) of Heaven which he is about to sing is an argument more heroic, not only than the anger of men, of Achilles and Turnus, but than that even of the gods, of Neptune and Juno;'his foe: Hector;Turnus: king of the Rutuli when Æneas arrived in Italy;Lavinia: daughter of King Latinus, betrothed to Turnus, but afterward given in marriage to Æneas;the Greek: Ulysses;Cytherea's son: Æneas; Cytherea, a surname of Venus, from the island Cythera, famous for her worship.P. 100.19.Perplexed the Greek: a respective construction, 'perplexed the Greek' looks back to 'Neptune's ire,' 'Cytherea's son,' to Juno's ire. Bentley's note is remarkable: 'Juno's that long perplexed the Greek: when, contrary, theGreekwas her favourite all along.'P. 100.20.answerable: corresponding to the high argument.P. 100.21.my celestial Patroness: Urania, the Heavenly Muse.P. 100.23.inspires: Milton regarded himself as inspired by the Holy Spirit in the composition of 'Paradise Lost.'P. 100.25.Since first this subject: Milton, as has been seen, had meditated, as early as 1638, an epic poem to be based on legendary British history, with King Arthur for its hero, a subject which it appears he abandoned in the course of two or three years. While still undecided, he jotted down ninety-nine different subjects, sixty-one Scriptural, thirty-eight from British history. Among the former, 'Paradise Lost' appears first of all. These jottings occupy seven pages of the CambridgeMss.It is evident that by 1640, Milton was quite decided as to the subject of 'Paradise Lost,' but not as to the form of his work. It was first as a tragedy that he conceived it, on the model of the Grecian drama with choruses. His nephew, Edward Phillips, informs us that several years before the poem was begun (about 1642, according to Aubrey), Satan's address to the sun (Book iv. 32-41) was shown him as designed for the beginning of the tragedy. The composition of the poem was begun, according to Phillips, about 1658, the poet being then fifty years of age. The student should read, in connection with this subject, the thirteenth chapter of Mark Pattison's 'Life of Milton.'P. 100.35.Impresses: 'devices or emblems used on shields or otherwise.' Keightley alludes to the enumeration of the devices of the nobles of England, in the tenth Canto of the 'Orlando Furioso.'P. 100.36.bases: 'the base was a skirt or kilt which hung down from the waist to the knees of the knight when on horseback.'P. 100.37.marshalled feast: 'from Minshew's "Guide into Tongues," it appears that the marshal placed the guests according to their rank, and saw that they were properly served; the sewer marched in before the meats and arranged them on the table, and was originally calledAsseourfrom the Frenchasseoir, to set down, or place; and theSeneshalwas the household-steward.'—Todd.P. 100.41.Me . . . higher argument remains:i.e.for me.P. 101.44.an age too late: Milton might well feel, in the reign of the 'merry monarch,' that he was treating his high argument in an age too late.P. 101.45, 46.my intended wing depressed: 'wing' is used, by metonymy, for 'flight.' Keightley incorrectly puts a comma after 'wing,' 'intended wing depressed' being a case of the placing of a noun between two epithets, usual with Milton, the epithet following the noun qualifying the noun as qualified by the preceding epithet. Rev. James Robert Boyd, in his edition of the 'P. L.,' explains 'intended,' 'stretched out'; but the word is undoubtedly used in its present sense of 'purposed.'Letter to Peter Heimbach.(Familiar Letters,No.XXXI.)P.102.a country retreat: 'a pretty box,' secured for him by his Quaker friend, Elwood, at Chalfont St. Giles; the house still exists, having undergone little or no change.I hardly like to express in the text a fancy that has occurred to me in translating the letter and studying it in connection with Heimbach's, to wit, that Milton may not merely have been ironically rebuking Heimbach for his adulation and silly phraseology, but may also have been suspicious of the possibility of some trap laid for him politically. Certainly, if this letter of Milton's to a Councillor of the Elector of Brandenburg had been intercepted by the English government, it is so cleverly worded that nothing could have been made of it. But Heimbach may have been as honest as he looks. Even then, however, Milton, knowing little or nothing of Heimbach for the last nine years, had reason to be cautious.—Masson.Passages in which Milton's Idea of True Liberty is Set ForthP.104.Deep versed in books: Milton would, I conceive, have thus characterized his old antagonist, Salmasius.—Dunster.P.104.trifles for choice matters: as choice matters.P.104.worth a spunge: deserving to be wiped out. So in his 'Areopagitica': 'sometimes five imprimaturs are seen together, dialogue-wise, in the piazza of one title-page, complimenting and ducking each to other with their shaven reverences, whether the author, who stands by in perplexity at the foot of his epistle, shall to the press or to the spunge.'P.111.Uzza: see 2Sam.vi. 3-8.P.112.Whom do we count a good man:'Vir bonus est quis?—Qui consulta patrum, qui leges juraque servat;Quo multæ magnæque secantur judice lites;Quo res sponsore, et quo causæ teste tenentur.Sed videt hunc omnis domus et vicinia totaIntrorsùs turpem, speciosum pelle decorâ.'—Epistolarum Liber, i. 16,vv.40-45,Ad Quinctium.P.118.Crescentius Nomentanus: Roman patrician, a native of Nomentum (now La Mentana), tenth century, was at the head of the Italian party against the Germans and the popes, with title of Consul; was besieged in the Castle St. Angelo, and finally capitulated on terms honorable to himself, but was basely put to death by Otho III.,A.D.998.P.118.Nicholas Rentius: Rienzi, or Rienzo (Niccolo Gabrini), or Cola di Rienzi, 'the last of the Roman Tribunes,'b.about 1313,d.1354.'Then turn we to her latest tribune's name,From her ten thousand tyrants turn to thee,Redeemer of dark centuries of shame—The friend of Petrarch—hope of Italy—Rienzi! last of Romans! while the treeOf Freedom's withered trunk puts forth a leaf,Even for thy tomb a garland let it be—The forum's champion, and the people's chief—Her new-born Numa thou—with reign, alas! too brief.'—Byron's Childe Harold, Canto iv.St.cxiv.P.120.the resentment of Achilles: the subject of the Iliad.P.120.the return of Ulysses: the subject of the Odyssey.P.120.the coming of Æneas into Italy: the subject of the Æneid.P.121.As when those hinds: he compares the reception given it [the doctrine of his Divorce pamphlets] to the treatment of the goddess Latona and her newly born twins by the Lycian rustics. These twins afterward 'held the sun and moon in fee' (i.e.in full possession), for they were Apollo and Diana; and yet, when the goddess, carrying them in her arms, and fleeing from the wrath of Juno, stooped in her fatigue to drink of the water of a small lake, the rustics railed at her and puddled the lake with their hands and feet; for which, on the instant, at the goddess's prayer, they were turned into frogs, to live forever in the mud of their own making (Ovid,Met., vi. 335-381).—Masson.Wordsworth uses the phrase, 'in fee,' in the same way in the opening verse of his sonnet on the 'Extinction of the Venetian Republic': 'Once did She hold the gorgeous east in fee.'P.121.lapse: fall.P.121.twinned: as a twin.P.121.dividual: separate.P.121.undeservedly: without right or merit; no thanks to them.P.121.virtue, which is reason: 'Virtus est recta ratio, et animi habitus, naturæ modo, rationi consentaneus.'—Cicero.P. 123.424.his son Herod: king of Judea when Christ was born.P. 123.439.Gideon, and Jephtha; seeJudgesvi.-viii. and xi., xii.;the shepherd-lad: David; see theBooks of Samuel.P. 123.446.Quintius: Quintius Cincinnatus:Fabricius: the patriotic Roman who was proof against the bribes of Pyrrhus;Curius:Curius Dentatus: who would accept no public rewards;Regulus: after dissuading the Romans from making peace with the Carthaginians, returned to Carthage, knowing the consequences he would suffer.ComusP. 129.4.With Midas' ears:i.e.with the ears of an ass;committing: bringing together, setting at variance (Lat.committere). Martial says, 'Cum Juvenale meo cur me committere tentas?'i.e.'why try to match me with my Juvenal,'i.e.in a poetical contest with him.P. 129.5.exempts: separates, distinguishes; the compound subject 'worth and skill' is logically singular, and takes a singular verb.P. 129.11.story: 'the story of Ariadne, set by him to music,' as explained in a note in 'Choice Psalms,' 1648.P. 129.13.Casella: 'a Florentine musician and friend of Dante, who here ['Purgatorio,' ii. 91et seq.] speaks to him with so much tenderness and affection as to make us regret that nothing more is known of him.—Longfellow's note.milder shades:i.e.than those of the Inferno which Dante has just left.3.insphered: in their several spheres.7.pestered: here, as indicated by 'pinfold,' the word means 'clogged'; 'pester' is a shortened form of 'impester.'Fr.empêtrer(OF.empestrer) 'signifies properly to hobble a horse while he feeds afield.Mid. Lat.pastorium, a clog for horses at pasture.'—Brachet'sEtymol. Dict.of the French Language,s.v.dépêtrer.10.After this mortal change: 'mortal' I understand to be used here as a noun, the subject of 'change,' a verb in the subjunctive; there is evidently an allusion to 1Cor.xv. 52-54, in which occur the expressions, 'we shall be changed' and 'this mortal must put on immortality.'16.ambrosial weeds: immortal or heavenly garments,i.e.garments worn by an immortal. Gk.Ἀμβρόσιος, lengthened form ofἄμβροτος, immortal. Seev.83.20.high and nether Jove: by metonymy for the realms of Jove and Pluto.23.unadornèd:i.e.but for 'the sea-girt isles.'25.several: separate;by course: in due order.29.quarters: not literally, but simply, divides, distributes.30.this tract that fronts the falling sun: Wales.31.a noble Peer: the Earl of Bridgewater, Lord President of Wales, before whom 'Comus' was presented at Ludlow Castle, 1634.32.tempered awe:i.e.tempered with mercy; 'mercy seasons justice.'34.nursed in princely lore: nurtured in high learning.38.horror: ruggedness, shagginess. Seev.429. . . . 'densis hastilibus horrida myrtus.'—Virgil'sÆneid, iii. 23.brows: overarching branches.39.forlorn and wandering: entirely lost and, consequently, straying at random.48.After the Tuscan mariners transformed: a Latinism; so, 'since created man.'—P. L., i. 573. The allusion is to the story of the Etruscan or Tyrrhenian pirates, who attempted to carry off Bacchus, sell him as a slave, and were by him changed into dolphins.—Ovid,Met., 660et seq.49.listed: pleased.50.On . . . fell: happened upon.59.of: from, by reason of.60.Celtic and Iberian fields: France and Spain.61.ominous: portentous.65.orient: bright. The word was used independently of the idea of 'eastern.' In the ode 'On the Nativity,' v. 231, thesettingsun 'pillows his chin upon an orient wave.' Fuller, in his 'Holy War,' Book ii.Chap.I., says of Godfrey of Bouillon, 'His soul was enriched with many virtues, but the mostorientof all was his humility, which took all men's affections without resistance.'66.the drouth of Phœbus: the thirst caused by the sun's heat.67.fond: foolish.88.nor of less faith:i.e.than of musical power; 'faith' means the fidelity of his service.90.Likeliest: the best suited for impersonation by the Attendant Spirit, by reason of his office of mountain watch over the flocks. He would therefore be supposed to be near at hand if aid were needed.92.viewless: invisible.93.The star that bids the shepherd fold: the evening star cannot be said to hold the top of heaven,i.e.be in the meridian; any star, the earliest to appear, must be meant.101.his chamber in the east: an allusion to Psalm xix. 5.110.saws: sayings, maxims; 'grave' is used contemptuously by Comus.116.to the moon in wavering morrice move: the sounds and seas beneath the moon reflect dancing lights; 'morrice,' a rapid Moorish dance, once common in England.129.Cotytto: the goddess of shameless and licentious orgies. Her priests were calledBaptæ.
P.83.tomb of Damon:i.e.of Carolo Diodati.
P.83.that poem: 'Epitaphium Damonis.'
P. 84.1.spent: extinguished.
P. 84.2.Ere half my days:i.e.are spent; Milton was about forty-four years old when his 'light' was fully 'spent.'
P. 85.8.fondly: foolishly;prevent: to come before, anticipate, forestall.
P. 85.12.thousands:i.e.of 'spiritual creatures.' See 'P. L.,' iv. 677.
P. 85.14.They also serve:i.e.as Verity explains, those other angels too, who, etc.
P.85.Angier(René): resident agent in Paris for the English Parliament.
P.87.Henry Oldenburg:b.at Bremen about 1615,d.1677; sent in 1653 by the Council of Bremen as their agent to negotiate with Cromwell some arrangement by which the neutrality of Bremen should be respected in the naval war between England and Holland ('Dict.of National Biography'); became a member and secretary of the Royal Society of London, and was afterward elected a fellow of the Society; corresponded extensively with the philosopher, Benedict Spinosa; published the 'Transactions' of the Royal Society from 1664 to 1677.
P.87.'Cry' of that kind 'to Heaven': the reference is to theRegii Sanguinis Clamor ad Cœlum, adversus Parricidas Anglicanos(The Cry of the Royal Blood to Heaven against the English Parricides).
P.87.Morus: Alexander More, whom Milton supposed to be the author of 'The Cry of the Royal Blood to Heaven.' Seenote, p. 248.
P.89.Phineus: seenoteon 'P. L.,' iii. 36, in this volume.
P.89.Salmydessus: a town of Thrace, on the coast of the Black Sea.
P.89.Argonautica: a heroic poem on the Argonautic expedition, by Apollonius Rhodius.
P.89.κάρος δέ μιν ἀμφεκάλυψεν:
'A darkling maze now round about him drew,The earth from underneath seemed whirling fast,In languid trance he lay bereft of speech.'
'A darkling maze now round about him drew,The earth from underneath seemed whirling fast,In languid trance he lay bereft of speech.'
'A darkling maze now round about him drew,
The earth from underneath seemed whirling fast,
In languid trance he lay bereft of speech.'
Prof.Charles E. Bennett's translation.
P.90.the Wise Man: Ecclesiastes xi. 8.
P.90.Lynceus: the keen-sighted Argonaut.
P. 91.1.this three years' day: this day three years ago. Milton became completely blind in 1652, so this sonnet must have been written in 1655.though clear: see passage from Second Defence, p.13.
P. 91.7.bate: from 'abate.'
P. 91.8.bear up and steer right onward: the nautical sense of 'bear up,'i.e.to put the ship before the wind, is indicated by what follows.
P. 91.10.conscience: consciousness.
P. 91.12.talks: theTrin. Coll.Ms.reading; the word 'rings' was substituted by Phillips in his printed copy of 1694; 'talks' does not sound so well, in the verse, but it is more modest.
P. 91.13.mask: masquerade.
P. 91.1.my late espoused saint: his second wife, Catherine Woodcock, whom he married November 12, 1656; she died in February, 1658.
P. 91.2.Alcestis: brought back to life by Herakles (Hercules).her glad husband: Admetus, King of Pheræ in Thessaly. See Browning's 'Balaustion's Adventure, including a Transcript from [the Alkestis of] Euripides.'
P. 91.5.as whom: as one whom.
P. 91.6.Purification: Leviticus xii.
P. 91.10.her face was veiled: Alcestis was still in his mind. In Browning's 'Balaustion's Adventure,' when Hercules returns with her:
'Under the great guard of one arm, there leantAshroudedsomething, live and woman-like,Propped by the heart-beats 'neath the lion coat. . . .There is no telling how the hero twitchedThe veil off: and there stood, with such fixed eyesAnd such slow smile, Alkestis' silent self!'
'Under the great guard of one arm, there leantAshroudedsomething, live and woman-like,Propped by the heart-beats 'neath the lion coat. . . .There is no telling how the hero twitchedThe veil off: and there stood, with such fixed eyesAnd such slow smile, Alkestis' silent self!'
'Under the great guard of one arm, there leant
Ashroudedsomething, live and woman-like,
Propped by the heart-beats 'neath the lion coat. . . .
There is no telling how the hero twitched
The veil off: and there stood, with such fixed eyes
And such slow smile, Alkestis' silent self!'
P.92.Emeric Bigot: a French scholar, native of Rouen;b.1626,d.1689.
P.92.King Telephus of the Mysians: wounded by Achilles and by him healed with the rust of his spear; and in return Telephus directed the Greeks on their way to Troy.
P. 96.2.Or of the Eternal: or may I, unblamed, express thee as the coeternal beam of the Eternal.
P. 96.6.increate: qualifies 'bright effluence.'
P. 96.7.Or hearest thou rather: or approvest thou rather the appellation of pure ethereal stream; 'hearest' is a classicism: 'Matutine pater, seu Jane libentius audis' (father of the morning, or if Janus thou hearest more willingly).—Horace,Sat.II., vi. 20, cited by Bentley.
P. 97.13.wing: flight.
P. 97.17.With other notes: Orpheus made a hymn to Night, which is still extant; he also wrote of the creation out of Chaos. See 'Apoll.Rhodius,' i. 493. Orpheus was inspired by his mother Calliope only, Milton by theheavenly Muse; therefore he boasts that he sung withother notesthan Orpheus, though the subjects were the same.—Richardson.
P. 97.21.hard and rare: evidently after Virgil's Æneid, vi. 126-129.
P. 97.25.a drop serene: gutta serena,i.e.amaurosis.
P. 97.26.dim suffusion: cataract.
P. 97.34.So: appears to be used optatively, asLat.sic, Greekὡς, would that I were equalled with them in renown.
P. 97.35.Thamyris: a Thracian bard, mentioned by Homer, Iliad, ii. 595:
'he, over-bold,Boasted himself preëminent in song,Ev'n though the daughters of Olympian Jove,The Muses, were his rivals: they in wrath,Him of his sight at once and power of songAmerced, and bade his hand forget the lyre.'
'he, over-bold,Boasted himself preëminent in song,Ev'n though the daughters of Olympian Jove,The Muses, were his rivals: they in wrath,Him of his sight at once and power of songAmerced, and bade his hand forget the lyre.'
'he, over-bold,
Boasted himself preëminent in song,
Ev'n though the daughters of Olympian Jove,
The Muses, were his rivals: they in wrath,
Him of his sight at once and power of song
Amerced, and bade his hand forget the lyre.'
—Earl of Derby's Translation, 692-697.
P. 97.35.Mæonides: a patronymic of Homer.
P. 97.36.Tiresias: the famous blind soothsayer of Thebes, 'cui profundum cæcitas lumen dedit' (to whom his blindness gave deep sight), says Milton, in hisDe Idea Platonica, v. 25.
P. 97.36.Phineus: a blind soothsayer, who, according to some authorities, was king of Salmydessus, in Thrace. By reason of his cruelty to his sons, who had been falsely accused, he was tormented by the Harpies, until delivered from them by the Argonauts, in return for prophetic information in regard to their voyage.
P. 97.39.darkling: in the dark.
P. 97.42.Day: note the emphasis imparted to this initial monosyllabic word, which receives the ictus and is followed by a pause; Milton felt that the loss of sight was fully compensated for by an inward celestial light.
P. 98.1.Urania: the Heavenly Muse invoked in the opening of the poem.
P. 98.4.Pegaséan wing: above the flight of 'the poet's winged steed' of classical mythology.
P. 98.5.the meaning, not the name: Urania was the name of one of the Grecian Muses; he invokes not her, but what her name signifies, the Heavenly one. Seevv.38, 39.
P. 98.8.Before the hills appeared:Prov.viii. 23-31.
P. 98.10.didst play: the King James's version,Prov.viii. 30, reads, 'rejoicing always before him'; the Vulgate, 'ludenscoram eo omni tempore.'
P. 98.15.thy tempering: the empyreal air was tempered for, adapted to, his breathing, as a mortal, by the Heavenly Muse.
P. 98.17.this flying steed:i.e.this higher poetic inspiration than that represented by the classical Pegasus;unreined: unbridled,infrenis.
P. 98.18.Bellerophon: thrown from Pegasus when attempting to soar upon the winged horse to heaven.
P. 99.19.Aleian field: in Asia Minor, where Bellerophon, after he was thrown from Pegasus, wandered and perished;πεδίον τὸ Ἀλήïον, Iliad, vi. 201, land of wandering (ἄλη).
P. 99.20.erroneous there to wander: to wander without knowing whither;Lat.erroneus;forlorn: entirely lost; 'for' is intensive.
P. 99.21.Half yet remains unsung: 'half of the episode, not of the whole work, . . . the episode has two principal parts, the war in heaven, and the new creation; the one was sung, but the other remained unsung, . . .but narrower bound, . . . this other half is not rapt so much into the invisible world as the former, it is confined in narrower compass, and bound within the visible sphere of day.'—Newton.
narrower: more narrowly.
P. 99.26.on evil days though fallen: a pathetic emotional repetition; note the artistic change in the order of the words. Macaulay justly characterizes the thirty years which succeeded the protectorate as 'the darkest and most disgraceful in the English annals. . . . Then came those days never to be recalled without a blush—the days of servitude without loyalty, and sensuality without love, of dwarfish talents and gigantic vices, the paradise of cold hearts and narrow minds, the golden age ofthe coward, the bigot, and the slave. The king cringed to his rival [Louis XIV.] that he might trample on his people, sunk into a viceroy of France, and pocketed, with complacent infamy, her degrading insults and her more degrading gold. The caresses of harlots, and the jests of buffoons regulated the measures of a government which had just ability enough to deceive, and just religion enough to persecute. The principles of liberty were the scoff of every grinning courtier, and the Anathema Maranatha of every fawning dean. . . . Crime succeeded to crime, and disgrace to disgrace, till the race, accursed of God and man, was a second time driven forth, to wander on the face of the earth, and to be a by-word and a shaking of the head to the nations.'
P. 99.33.Bacchus and his revellers: Charles II. and his Court, from whom Milton had reason to fear a similar fate to that of the Thracian bard, Orpheus, who was torn to pieces by the Bacchanalian women of Rhodope.
P. 99.38.so fail not thou:i.e.to defend me as the Muse Calliope failed to defend her son, Orpheus.
P. 99.1.no more of talk:i.e.as in the foregoing episode.
P. 99.5.venial: allowable, fitting.
P. 100.14-19.the wrath of stern Achilles . . . Cytherea's son: these are not the arguments (subjects) proper of the three epics, the Iliad, the Odyssey, and the Æneid; as Newton pointed out, the poet mentions certain angers or enmities, the wrath of Achilles, the rage of Turnus, Neptune's and Juno's ire; 'the anger, etc. (v. 10) of Heaven which he is about to sing is an argument more heroic, not only than the anger of men, of Achilles and Turnus, but than that even of the gods, of Neptune and Juno;'his foe: Hector;Turnus: king of the Rutuli when Æneas arrived in Italy;Lavinia: daughter of King Latinus, betrothed to Turnus, but afterward given in marriage to Æneas;the Greek: Ulysses;Cytherea's son: Æneas; Cytherea, a surname of Venus, from the island Cythera, famous for her worship.
P. 100.19.Perplexed the Greek: a respective construction, 'perplexed the Greek' looks back to 'Neptune's ire,' 'Cytherea's son,' to Juno's ire. Bentley's note is remarkable: 'Juno's that long perplexed the Greek: when, contrary, theGreekwas her favourite all along.'
P. 100.20.answerable: corresponding to the high argument.
P. 100.21.my celestial Patroness: Urania, the Heavenly Muse.
P. 100.23.inspires: Milton regarded himself as inspired by the Holy Spirit in the composition of 'Paradise Lost.'
P. 100.25.Since first this subject: Milton, as has been seen, had meditated, as early as 1638, an epic poem to be based on legendary British history, with King Arthur for its hero, a subject which it appears he abandoned in the course of two or three years. While still undecided, he jotted down ninety-nine different subjects, sixty-one Scriptural, thirty-eight from British history. Among the former, 'Paradise Lost' appears first of all. These jottings occupy seven pages of the CambridgeMss.It is evident that by 1640, Milton was quite decided as to the subject of 'Paradise Lost,' but not as to the form of his work. It was first as a tragedy that he conceived it, on the model of the Grecian drama with choruses. His nephew, Edward Phillips, informs us that several years before the poem was begun (about 1642, according to Aubrey), Satan's address to the sun (Book iv. 32-41) was shown him as designed for the beginning of the tragedy. The composition of the poem was begun, according to Phillips, about 1658, the poet being then fifty years of age. The student should read, in connection with this subject, the thirteenth chapter of Mark Pattison's 'Life of Milton.'
P. 100.35.Impresses: 'devices or emblems used on shields or otherwise.' Keightley alludes to the enumeration of the devices of the nobles of England, in the tenth Canto of the 'Orlando Furioso.'
P. 100.36.bases: 'the base was a skirt or kilt which hung down from the waist to the knees of the knight when on horseback.'
P. 100.37.marshalled feast: 'from Minshew's "Guide into Tongues," it appears that the marshal placed the guests according to their rank, and saw that they were properly served; the sewer marched in before the meats and arranged them on the table, and was originally calledAsseourfrom the Frenchasseoir, to set down, or place; and theSeneshalwas the household-steward.'—Todd.
P. 100.41.Me . . . higher argument remains:i.e.for me.
P. 101.44.an age too late: Milton might well feel, in the reign of the 'merry monarch,' that he was treating his high argument in an age too late.
P. 101.45, 46.my intended wing depressed: 'wing' is used, by metonymy, for 'flight.' Keightley incorrectly puts a comma after 'wing,' 'intended wing depressed' being a case of the placing of a noun between two epithets, usual with Milton, the epithet following the noun qualifying the noun as qualified by the preceding epithet. Rev. James Robert Boyd, in his edition of the 'P. L.,' explains 'intended,' 'stretched out'; but the word is undoubtedly used in its present sense of 'purposed.'
P.102.a country retreat: 'a pretty box,' secured for him by his Quaker friend, Elwood, at Chalfont St. Giles; the house still exists, having undergone little or no change.
I hardly like to express in the text a fancy that has occurred to me in translating the letter and studying it in connection with Heimbach's, to wit, that Milton may not merely have been ironically rebuking Heimbach for his adulation and silly phraseology, but may also have been suspicious of the possibility of some trap laid for him politically. Certainly, if this letter of Milton's to a Councillor of the Elector of Brandenburg had been intercepted by the English government, it is so cleverly worded that nothing could have been made of it. But Heimbach may have been as honest as he looks. Even then, however, Milton, knowing little or nothing of Heimbach for the last nine years, had reason to be cautious.—Masson.
P.104.Deep versed in books: Milton would, I conceive, have thus characterized his old antagonist, Salmasius.—Dunster.
P.104.trifles for choice matters: as choice matters.
P.104.worth a spunge: deserving to be wiped out. So in his 'Areopagitica': 'sometimes five imprimaturs are seen together, dialogue-wise, in the piazza of one title-page, complimenting and ducking each to other with their shaven reverences, whether the author, who stands by in perplexity at the foot of his epistle, shall to the press or to the spunge.'
P.111.Uzza: see 2Sam.vi. 3-8.
P.112.Whom do we count a good man:
'Vir bonus est quis?—Qui consulta patrum, qui leges juraque servat;Quo multæ magnæque secantur judice lites;Quo res sponsore, et quo causæ teste tenentur.Sed videt hunc omnis domus et vicinia totaIntrorsùs turpem, speciosum pelle decorâ.'
'Vir bonus est quis?—Qui consulta patrum, qui leges juraque servat;Quo multæ magnæque secantur judice lites;Quo res sponsore, et quo causæ teste tenentur.Sed videt hunc omnis domus et vicinia totaIntrorsùs turpem, speciosum pelle decorâ.'
'Vir bonus est quis?—
Qui consulta patrum, qui leges juraque servat;
Quo multæ magnæque secantur judice lites;
Quo res sponsore, et quo causæ teste tenentur.
Sed videt hunc omnis domus et vicinia tota
Introrsùs turpem, speciosum pelle decorâ.'
—Epistolarum Liber, i. 16,vv.40-45,Ad Quinctium.
P.118.Crescentius Nomentanus: Roman patrician, a native of Nomentum (now La Mentana), tenth century, was at the head of the Italian party against the Germans and the popes, with title of Consul; was besieged in the Castle St. Angelo, and finally capitulated on terms honorable to himself, but was basely put to death by Otho III.,A.D.998.
P.118.Nicholas Rentius: Rienzi, or Rienzo (Niccolo Gabrini), or Cola di Rienzi, 'the last of the Roman Tribunes,'b.about 1313,d.1354.
'Then turn we to her latest tribune's name,From her ten thousand tyrants turn to thee,Redeemer of dark centuries of shame—The friend of Petrarch—hope of Italy—Rienzi! last of Romans! while the treeOf Freedom's withered trunk puts forth a leaf,Even for thy tomb a garland let it be—The forum's champion, and the people's chief—Her new-born Numa thou—with reign, alas! too brief.'
'Then turn we to her latest tribune's name,From her ten thousand tyrants turn to thee,Redeemer of dark centuries of shame—The friend of Petrarch—hope of Italy—Rienzi! last of Romans! while the treeOf Freedom's withered trunk puts forth a leaf,Even for thy tomb a garland let it be—The forum's champion, and the people's chief—Her new-born Numa thou—with reign, alas! too brief.'
'Then turn we to her latest tribune's name,
From her ten thousand tyrants turn to thee,
Redeemer of dark centuries of shame—
The friend of Petrarch—hope of Italy—
Rienzi! last of Romans! while the tree
Of Freedom's withered trunk puts forth a leaf,
Even for thy tomb a garland let it be—
The forum's champion, and the people's chief—
Her new-born Numa thou—with reign, alas! too brief.'
—Byron's Childe Harold, Canto iv.St.cxiv.
P.120.the resentment of Achilles: the subject of the Iliad.
P.120.the return of Ulysses: the subject of the Odyssey.
P.120.the coming of Æneas into Italy: the subject of the Æneid.
P.121.As when those hinds: he compares the reception given it [the doctrine of his Divorce pamphlets] to the treatment of the goddess Latona and her newly born twins by the Lycian rustics. These twins afterward 'held the sun and moon in fee' (i.e.in full possession), for they were Apollo and Diana; and yet, when the goddess, carrying them in her arms, and fleeing from the wrath of Juno, stooped in her fatigue to drink of the water of a small lake, the rustics railed at her and puddled the lake with their hands and feet; for which, on the instant, at the goddess's prayer, they were turned into frogs, to live forever in the mud of their own making (Ovid,Met., vi. 335-381).—Masson.Wordsworth uses the phrase, 'in fee,' in the same way in the opening verse of his sonnet on the 'Extinction of the Venetian Republic': 'Once did She hold the gorgeous east in fee.'
P.121.lapse: fall.
P.121.twinned: as a twin.
P.121.dividual: separate.
P.121.undeservedly: without right or merit; no thanks to them.
P.121.virtue, which is reason: 'Virtus est recta ratio, et animi habitus, naturæ modo, rationi consentaneus.'—Cicero.
P. 123.424.his son Herod: king of Judea when Christ was born.
P. 123.439.Gideon, and Jephtha; seeJudgesvi.-viii. and xi., xii.;the shepherd-lad: David; see theBooks of Samuel.
P. 123.446.Quintius: Quintius Cincinnatus:Fabricius: the patriotic Roman who was proof against the bribes of Pyrrhus;Curius:Curius Dentatus: who would accept no public rewards;Regulus: after dissuading the Romans from making peace with the Carthaginians, returned to Carthage, knowing the consequences he would suffer.
P. 129.4.With Midas' ears:i.e.with the ears of an ass;committing: bringing together, setting at variance (Lat.committere). Martial says, 'Cum Juvenale meo cur me committere tentas?'i.e.'why try to match me with my Juvenal,'i.e.in a poetical contest with him.
P. 129.5.exempts: separates, distinguishes; the compound subject 'worth and skill' is logically singular, and takes a singular verb.
P. 129.11.story: 'the story of Ariadne, set by him to music,' as explained in a note in 'Choice Psalms,' 1648.
P. 129.13.Casella: 'a Florentine musician and friend of Dante, who here ['Purgatorio,' ii. 91et seq.] speaks to him with so much tenderness and affection as to make us regret that nothing more is known of him.—Longfellow's note.
milder shades:i.e.than those of the Inferno which Dante has just left.
3.insphered: in their several spheres.
7.pestered: here, as indicated by 'pinfold,' the word means 'clogged'; 'pester' is a shortened form of 'impester.'Fr.empêtrer(OF.empestrer) 'signifies properly to hobble a horse while he feeds afield.Mid. Lat.pastorium, a clog for horses at pasture.'—Brachet'sEtymol. Dict.of the French Language,s.v.dépêtrer.
10.After this mortal change: 'mortal' I understand to be used here as a noun, the subject of 'change,' a verb in the subjunctive; there is evidently an allusion to 1Cor.xv. 52-54, in which occur the expressions, 'we shall be changed' and 'this mortal must put on immortality.'
16.ambrosial weeds: immortal or heavenly garments,i.e.garments worn by an immortal. Gk.Ἀμβρόσιος, lengthened form ofἄμβροτος, immortal. Seev.83.
20.high and nether Jove: by metonymy for the realms of Jove and Pluto.
23.unadornèd:i.e.but for 'the sea-girt isles.'
25.several: separate;by course: in due order.
29.quarters: not literally, but simply, divides, distributes.
30.this tract that fronts the falling sun: Wales.
31.a noble Peer: the Earl of Bridgewater, Lord President of Wales, before whom 'Comus' was presented at Ludlow Castle, 1634.
32.tempered awe:i.e.tempered with mercy; 'mercy seasons justice.'
34.nursed in princely lore: nurtured in high learning.
38.horror: ruggedness, shagginess. Seev.429. . . . 'densis hastilibus horrida myrtus.'—Virgil'sÆneid, iii. 23.brows: overarching branches.
39.forlorn and wandering: entirely lost and, consequently, straying at random.
48.After the Tuscan mariners transformed: a Latinism; so, 'since created man.'—P. L., i. 573. The allusion is to the story of the Etruscan or Tyrrhenian pirates, who attempted to carry off Bacchus, sell him as a slave, and were by him changed into dolphins.—Ovid,Met., 660et seq.
49.listed: pleased.
50.On . . . fell: happened upon.
59.of: from, by reason of.
60.Celtic and Iberian fields: France and Spain.
61.ominous: portentous.
65.orient: bright. The word was used independently of the idea of 'eastern.' In the ode 'On the Nativity,' v. 231, thesettingsun 'pillows his chin upon an orient wave.' Fuller, in his 'Holy War,' Book ii.Chap.I., says of Godfrey of Bouillon, 'His soul was enriched with many virtues, but the mostorientof all was his humility, which took all men's affections without resistance.'
66.the drouth of Phœbus: the thirst caused by the sun's heat.
67.fond: foolish.
88.nor of less faith:i.e.than of musical power; 'faith' means the fidelity of his service.
90.Likeliest: the best suited for impersonation by the Attendant Spirit, by reason of his office of mountain watch over the flocks. He would therefore be supposed to be near at hand if aid were needed.
92.viewless: invisible.
93.The star that bids the shepherd fold: the evening star cannot be said to hold the top of heaven,i.e.be in the meridian; any star, the earliest to appear, must be meant.
101.his chamber in the east: an allusion to Psalm xix. 5.
110.saws: sayings, maxims; 'grave' is used contemptuously by Comus.
116.to the moon in wavering morrice move: the sounds and seas beneath the moon reflect dancing lights; 'morrice,' a rapid Moorish dance, once common in England.
129.Cotytto: the goddess of shameless and licentious orgies. Her priests were calledBaptæ.