The Project Gutenberg eBook of Milton's Comus, by William Bell, M.A..

“By this the eternal lamps, wherewith high Jove
Doth light the lower world, were half yspent:”

also Macbeth, ii. 1. 5, “There’s husbandry in heaven; Their candles are all out.” There is here an irregularity of syntax. “That Nature hung in heaven” is a relative clause co-ordinate in sense with the next clause; but by a change of thought the phrase “and filled their lamps” is treated as a principal clause, and a new object is introduced: comp. l. 6.

204. single darkness, darkness only. Single is from the same base as simple; comp. l. 369.

205. What might this be? This is a direct question about a past event, and has the same meaning as “what should it be?” in line 482: see note there. A thousand fantasies, etc. On this, passage Lowell says: “That wonderful passage in Comus of the airy tongues, perhaps the most imaginative in suggestion he ever wrote, was conjured out of a dry sentence in Purchas’s abstract of Marco Polo. Such examples help us to understand the poet.” Reference may also be made to the Anat. of Mel.: “Fear makes our imagination conceive what it list, ... and tyrannizeth over our fantasy more than all other affections, especially in the dark”; also to the song prefixed to the same work, “My phantasie presents a thousand ugly shapes,” etc. On the power of imagination or phantasy, Shakespeare says:

“As imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen
Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.“—

M. N. D. v. 1. 14.

“Break, Phant’sie, from thy cave of cloud,
And spread thy purple wings;
Now all thy figures are allow’d,
And various shapes of things:
Create of airy forms a stream ...
And though it be a waking dream,” etc.

212. siding champion, Conscience. To side is to take a side, and hence to assist: comp. Cor. iv. 2. 2: “The nobles who have sided in his behalf.” ‘Conscience’ (here a trisyllable) is used in its current sense: in Son. xxii. 10 it means consciousness. Comp. Hen. VIII. iii. 2. 379: “A peace above all earthly dignities, A still and quiet Conscience.”

213. pure-eyed Faith. Comp. Lyc. 81, “those pure eyes And perfect witness of all-judging Jove”; also the Scriptural words, “God is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity.” The maiden, whose safeguard is her purity, calls on Faith, Hope, and Chastity, each being characterised by an epithet denoting purity of thought and act, viz. ‘pure-eyed,’ ‘white-handed,’ and ‘unblemished.’ The placing of Chastity instead of Charity in the trio is significant: see i. Cor. xiii.

214. hovering angel. Hope hovers over the maiden to protect her. The word ‘hover’ is found frequently in the sense of ‘shelter.’ girt, surrounded. golden wings. In Il Pens. 52, Contemplation “soars on golden wing.”

216. see ye visibly, i.e. you are not mere shapes, but living presences. Ye: here the object of the verb. “This confusion between ye and you did not exist in old English; ye was always used as a nominative, and you as a dative or accusative. In the English Bible the distinction is very carefully observed, but in the dramatists of the Elizabethan period there is a very loose use of the two forms” (Morris). It is so in Milton, who has ye as nominative, accusative, and dative; comp. lines 513, 967, 1020; also Arc. 40, 81, 101. It may be noted that ye can be pronounced more rapidly than you, and is therefore frequent when an unaccented syllable is required.

217. the Supreme Good. God being the Supreme Good, if evil exists, it must exist for God’s purposes. Evil exists for the sake of ‘vengeance’ or punishment.

219. glistering guardian, i.e. one clad in the ‘pure ambrosial weeds’ of l. 16. Glister, glisten, glitter, and glint are cognate words.

221. Was I deceived? There is a break in the construction at the end of line 220. The girl’s trust in Heaven is suddenly strengthened by a glimpse of light in the dark sky. Warton regards the repetition of the same words in lines 223, 224 as beautifully expressing the confidence of an unaccusing conscience.

223. does ... turn ... and casts. Comp. Il Pens. 46, ‘doth diet’ and ‘hears.’ When two co-ordinate verbs are of the same tense and mood the auxiliary verb should apply to both. The above construction is due probably to change of thought.

225. tufted grove. Comp. L’Alleg. 78: “bosomed high in tufted trees.”

226. hallo. Also hallow (as in Milton’s editions), halloo, halloa, and holloa.

228. new-enlivened spirits, i.e. my spirits that have been newly enlivened: for the form of the compound adjective comp. note, l. 36.

230. Echo. In classical mythology she was a nymph whom Juno punished by preventing her from speaking before others or from being silent after others had spoken. She fell in love with Narcissus, and pined away until nothing remained of her but her voice. Compare the invocation to Echo in Ben Jonson’s Cynthia’s Revels, i. 1.

The lady’s song, which has been described as “an address to the very Genius of Sound,” is here very naturally introduced. The lady wishes to rouse the echoes of the wood in order to attract her brothers’ notice, and she does so by addressing Echo, who grieves for the lost youth Narcissus as the lady grieves for her lost brothers.

231. thy airy shell; the atmosphere. Comp. “the hollow round of Cynthia’s seat,” Hymn Nat. 103. The marginal reading in the MS. is cell. Some suppose that ‘shell’ is here used, like Lat. concha, because in classical times various musical instruments were made in the form of a shell.

233. the violet-embroidered vale. The notion that flowers broider or ornament the ground is common in poetry: comp. Par. Lost, iv. 700: “Under foot the violet, Crocus, and hyacinth, with rich inlay Broidered the ground.” In Lyc. 148, the flowers themselves wear ‘embroidery.’ The nightingale is made to haunt a violet-embroidered vale because these flowers are associated with love (see Jonson’s Masque of Hymen) and with innocence (see Hamlet, iv. 5. 158: “I would give you some violets, but they withered all when my father died”). Prof. Hales, however, thinks that some particular vale is here alluded to, and argues, with much acumen, that the poet referred to the woodlands close by Athens to the north-west, through which the Cephissus flowed, and where stood the birthplace of Sophocles, who sings of his native Colonus as frequented by nightingales. The same critic regards the epithet ‘violet-embroidered’ as a translation of the Greek ἰοστέφανος (= crowned with violets), frequently applied by Aristophanes to Athens, of which Colonus was a suburb. Macaulay also refers to Athens as “the violet-crowned city.” It is, at least, very probable that Milton might here associate the nightingale with Colonus, as he does in Par. Reg. iv. 245: see the following note.

234. love-lorn nightingale, the nightingale whose loved ones are lost: comp. Virgil, Georg. iv. 511: “As the nightingale wailing in the poplar shade plains for her lost young, ... while she weeps the night through, and sitting on a bough, reproduces her piteous melody, and fills the country round with the plaints of her sorrow.” Lorn and lost are cognate words, the former being common in the compound forlorn: see note, l. 39. Milton makes frequent allusion to the nightingale: in Il Penseroso it is ‘Philomel’; in Par. Reg. iv. 245, it is ‘the Attic bird’; and in Par. Lost viii. 518, it is ‘the amorous bird of night.’ He calls it the Attic bird in allusion to the story of Philomela, the daughter of Pandion, King of Athens. Near the Academy was Colonus, which Sophocles has celebrated as the haunt of nightingales (Browne). Philomela was changed, at her own prayer, into a nightingale that she might escape the vengeance of her brother-in-law Tereus. The epithet ‘love-lorn,’ however, seems to point to the legend of Aēdon (Greek ἀηδών, a nightingale), who, having killed her own son by mistake, was changed into a nightingale, whose mournful song was represented by the Greek poets as the lament of the mother for her child.

235. her sad song mourneth, i.e. sings her plaintive melody. ‘Sad song’ forms a kind of cognate accusative.

237. likest thy Narcissus. Narcissus, who failed to return the love of Echo, was punished by being made to fall in love with his own image reflected in a fountain: this he could never approach, and he accordingly pined away and was changed into the flower which bears his name. See the dialogue between Mercury and Echo in Cynthia’s Revels, i. 1. Grammatically, likest is an adjective qualified adverbially by “(to) thy Narcissus”: comp. Il Pens. 9, “likest hovering dreams.”

238. have hid. This is not a grammatical inaccuracy (as Warton thinks), but the subjunctive mood.

241. Sweet Queen of Parley, etc. ‘Parley is conversation (Fr. parler, to speak): parlour, parole, palaver, parliament, parlance. etc., are cognate. Daughter of the Sphere, i.e. of the sphere which is her “airy shell” (l. 231): comp. “Sphere-born harmonious sisters, Voice and Verse” (At a Solemn Music, 2).

243. give resounding grace, etc., i.e. add the charm of echo to the music of the spheres.

The metrical structure of this song should be noted: the lines vary in length from two to six feet. The rhymes are few, and the effect is more striking owing to the consonance of shell, well with vale, nightingale; also of pair, where with are and sphere; and of have with cave. Masson regards this song as a striking illustration of Milton’s free use of imperfect rhymes, even in his most musical passages.

244. mortal mixture ... divine enchanting ravishment. The words mortal and divine are in antithesis: comp. Il Pens. 91, 92, “The immortal mind that hath forsook Her mansion in this fleshly nook.” The lines embody a compliment to the Lady Alice: read in this connection lines 555 and 564. ‘Ravishment,’ rapture (a cognate word) or ecstasy: comp. Il Pens. 40, “Thy rapt soul sitting in thine eyes”; also l. 794.

248. his = its: see note, l. 96. The pronoun refers to ‘something holy.’

253. Circe ... Sirens three. In the Odyssey the Sirens are two in number and have no connection with Circe. They lived on a rocky island off the coast of Sicily and near the rock of Scylla (l. 257), and lured sailors to destruction by the charm of their song. Circe was also a sweet singer and had the power of enchanting men; hence the combined allusion: see also Horace’s Epist. i. 2, 23, Sirenum voces, et Circes pocula nôsti. Besides, the Sirens were daughters of the river-god Achelous, and Circe had Naiads or fountain-nymphs among her maids.

254. flowery-kirtled Naiades: fresh-water nymphs dressed in flowers, or having their skirts decorated with flowers. A kirtle is a gown; Skeat suggests that it is a diminutive of skirt.

256. sung. “The verbs swim, begin, run, drink, shrink, sink, ring, sing, spring, have for their proper past tenses swam, began, ran, etc., preserving the original a; but in older writers (sixteenth and seventeenth centuries) and in colloquial English we find forms with u, which have come from the passive participles.” (Morris). take the prisoned soul, i.e. would take the soul prisoner; ‘prisoned’ being used proleptically.

257. lap it in Elysium. Lap is a form of wrap: comp. L’Alleg. 136, “Lap me in soft Lydian airs.” Elysium: the abode of the spirits of the blessed; comp. L’Alleg. 147, “heaped Elysian flowers.” Scylla ... Charybdis. The former, a rival of Circe in the affections of the sea-god Glaucus, was changed into a monster, surrounded by barking dogs. She threw herself into the sea and became a rock, the noise of the surrounding waves (”multis circum latrantibus undis,” Aen. vii. 588) resembling the barking of dogs. The latter was a daughter of Poseidon, and was hurled by Zeus into the sea, where she became a whirlpool.

260. slumber: comp. Pericles, v. 1. 335, “thick slumber Hangs upon mine eyes.”

261. madness, ecstasy. The same idea is expressed in Il Pens. 164: “As may with sweetness, through mine ear, Dissolve me into ecstasies, And bring all heaven before mine eyes.” In Shakespeare ‘ecstasy’ occurs in the sense of madness; see Hamlet, iii. 1. 167, “That unmatched form and feature of blown youth, Blasted with ecstasy”; Temp. iii. 3. 108, “hinder them from what this ecstasy May now provoke them to”: comp. also “the pleasure of that madness,” Wint. Tale, v. 3. 73. See also l. 625.

263. waking bliss, as opposed to the ecstatic slumber induced by the song of Circe.

265. Hail, foreign wonder! Warton notes that Comus is universally allowed to have taken some of its tints from the Tempest, and quotes, “O you wonder! If you be maid, or no?” i. 2. 426.

267. Unless the goddess, etc. = unless thou be the goddess that in rural shrine dwells here. Here, as often in Latin, we have ‘unless’ (Lat. nisi, etc.) used with a single word instead of a clause: and, also as in Latin, the verb in the relative clause has the person of the antecedent.

268. Pan or Sylvan: see l. 176: also Il Pens. 134, “shadows brown that Sylvan loves,” and Arc. 106, “Though Syrinx your Pan’s mistress were.” Sylvanus, the god of fields and forests, as denoted by his name which is corrupted from Silvan (Lat. silva, a wood).

269. Forbidding, etc. These lines recall the language of Arcades, in which also a lady is complimented as “a deity,” “a rural Queen,” and “mistress of yon princely shrine” in the land of Pan. There is a reference also to her protecting the woods through her servant, the Genius: Arc. 36-53, 91-95.

271. ill is lost. A Latin idiom (as Keightley points out) = male perditur: Prof. Masson, however, would regard it as equivalent to “there is little loss in losing.”

274. my severed company: a condensed expression = the companions separated from me. Comp. l. 315: this figure of speech is called Synecdoche.

277. What chance, etc. In lines 277-290 we have a reproduction of that form of dialogue employed in Greek tragedy in which question and answer occupy alternate lines: it is called stichomythia, and is admirable when there is a gradual rise in excitement towards the end (as in the Supplices of Euripides). In Samson Agonistes, which is modelled on the Greek pattern, Milton did not employ it.

279. near ushering, closely attending. To usher is to introduce (Lat. ostium, a door).

285. forestalling, anticipating. ‘Forestall,’ originally a marketing term, is to buy up goods before they have been displayed at a stall in the market in order to sell them again at a higher price: hence ‘to anticipate.’ prevented. ‘Prevent,’ now used in the sense of ‘hinder,’ seems in this line to have something of its older meaning, viz., to anticipate (in which case ‘forestalling’ would be proleptic). Comp. l. 362; Par. Lost, vi. 129, “half-way he met His daring foe, at this prevention more Incensed.”

286. to hit. This is the gerundial infinitive after an adjective: comp. “good to eat,” “deadly to hear,” etc.

287. Imports their loss, etc.: ‘Apart from the present emergency, is the loss of them important?’

289. manly prime, etc.: ‘Were they in the prime of manhood, or were they merely youths?’ With Milton the ‘prime of manhood’ is where ‘youth’ ends: comp. Par. Lost, xi. 245, “prime in manhood where youth ended”; iii. 636, “a stripling Cherub he appears, Not of the prime, yet such as in his face Youth smiled celestial.” Spenser has ‘prime’ = Spring.

290. Hebe, the goddess of youth. “The down of manhood” had not appeared on the lips of the brothers.

291. what time: common in poetry for ‘when’ (Lat. quo tempore). Compare Horace, Od. iii. 6: “what time the sun shifted the shadows of the mountains, and took the yokes from the wearied oxen.” laboured: wearied with labour.

293. swinked, overcome with toil, fatigued (A.S. swincan, to toil). Skeat points out that this was once an extremely common word; the sense of toil is due to that of constant movement from the swinging of the labourer’s arms. In Chaucer ‘swinker’ = ploughman.

294. mantling, spreading. To mantle is strictly to cloak or cover: comp. Temp. v. 1. 67, “fumes that mantle Their clearer reason.”

298. faery. This spelling is nearer to that of the M.E. faerie than the current form.

299. the element; the air. Since the time of the Greek philosopher Empedocles, fire, earth, air, and water have been popularly called the four elements; when used alone, however, ‘the element’ commonly means ‘the air.’ Comp. Hen. V. iv. 1. 107, “The element shows him as it doth to me”; Par. Lost, ii. 490, “the louring element Scowls o’er the darkened landscape snow or shower,” etc.

301. plighted, interwoven or plaited. The verb ‘plight’ (or more properly plite) is a variant of plait: see Il Pens. 57, “her sweetest saddest plight.” The word has no connection with ‘plight,’ l. 372. awe-strook. Milton uses three forms of the participle, viz. ‘strook,’ ‘struck,’ and ‘strucken.’

302. worshiped. The final consonant is now doubled in such verbs before -ed.

303. were = would be: subjunctive. like the path to Heaven; i.e. it would be a pleasure to help, etc. There is (probably) no allusion to the Scripture parable of the narrow and difficult way to Heaven (Matt. vii.) as in Son. ix., “labours up the hill of heavenly Truth.”

304. help you find: comp. l. 623. The simple infinitive is here used without to where to would now be inserted. This omission of the preposition now occurs with so few verbs that ‘to’ is often called the sign of the infinitive, but in Early English the only sign of the infinitive was the termination en (e.g. he can speken). The infinitive, being used as a noun, had a dative form called the gerund, which was preceded by the preposition to, and when this became confused with the simple infinitive the use of to became general. Comp. Son. xx. 4, “Help waste a sullen day.”

312. Dingle ... bushy dell ... bosky bourn. ‘Dingle’ = dimble (see Ben Jonson’s Sad Shepherd) = dimple = a little dip or depression; hence a narrow valley. ‘Dell’ = dale, literally a cleft; hence a valley, not so deep as a dingle. ‘Bosky bourn,’ a stream whose banks are bushy or thickly grown with bushes. ‘Bourn,’ a boundary, is a distinct word etymologically, but the phrase “from side to side,” as used by Comus, might well imply that the valley as well as the stream is here referred to. ‘Bosky,’ bushy. The noun ‘boscage’ = jungle or bush (M.E. busch, bush, bush). ‘See Tennyson’s Dream of F. W. 243, “the sombre boscage of the wood.”

315. stray attendance = strayed attendants; abstract for concrete, as in line 274. Comp. Par. Lost, x. 80, “Attendance none shall need, nor train”; xii. 132, “Of herds, and flocks, and numerous servitude” (= servants).

316. shroud, etc. Milton first wrote “within these shroudie limits”: see note, l. 147.

324. tapestry halls. Halls hung with tapestry, tapestry being “a kind of carpet work, with wrought figures, especially used for decorating walls.” The word is said to be from the Persian.

325. first was named. The meaning is: ‘Courtesy which is derived from court, and which is still nominally most common in high life, is nevertheless most readily found amongst those of humble station.’ This sentiment is becoming in the mouth of Lady Alice when addressed to a humble shepherd. ‘Courtesy’ (or, as Milton elsewhere writes, courtship) has, like civility, lost much of its deeper significance. Comp. Spenser, F. Q. vi. 1. 1:

“Of Court it seems men Courtesy do call,
For that it there most useth to abound.”

327. less warranted, i.e. when I have less guarantee of safety. Guarantee and warrant, like guard and ward, guile and wile, are radically the same.

329. Eye me, i.e. look on me. To eye a person now usually implies watching narrowly or suspiciously. square, accommodate, adjust. The adj. ‘proportioned’ is here used proleptically, denoting the result of the action indicated by the verb ‘square.’ Comp. M. for M. v. 1: “Thou ’rt said to have a stubborn soul, ... And squar’st thy life accordingly.” Exeunt, i.e. they go out, they leave the stage.

331. Unmuffle, uncover yourselves. To muffle is to cover up, e.g. ‘to muffle the throat,’ ‘a muffled sound,’ etc. Muffle (subst.) is a diminutive of muff.

332. wont’st, i.e. art wont. Wont’st is here apparently the 2nd person singular, present tense, of a verb to wont = to be accustomed; hence also the participle wonted (Il Pens. 37, “keep thy wonted state”). But the M.E. verb was wonen, to dwell or be accustomed, and its participle woned or wont. The fact that wont was a participle being forgotten, it was treated as a distinct verb, and a new participle formed, viz., wonted (= won-ed-ed); from this again comes the noun wontedness. Milton, however, uses wont as a present only twice in his poetry: as in modern English he uses it as a noun (= custom) or as a participial adj. with the verb to be (Il Pens. 123, “As she was wont”). benison, blessing: radically the same as ‘benediction’ (Lat. benedictio).

333. Stoop thy pale visage, etc. Comp. l. 1023 and Il Pens. 72, “Stooping through a fleecy cloud.” ‘Visage,’ a word now mostly used with a touch of contempt, in Milton simply denotes ‘face’: see Il Pens. 13, “saintly visage”; Lyc. 62, “His gory visage down the stream was sent.” amber: comp. L’Alleg. 61, “Robed in flames and amber light,” and Tennyson:

“What time the amber morn
Forth gushes from beneath a low-hung cloud.”

334. disinherit, drive out, dispossess. Comp. Two Gent. iii. 2. 87, “This or else nothing, will inherit (i.e. obtain possession of) her.”

336. Influence ... dammed up. The verb here shows that influence is employed in its strict sense, = a flowing in (Lat. in and fluo): it was thus used in astrology to denote “an influent course of the planets, their virtue being infused into, or their course working on, inferior creatures”; comp. L’Alleg. 112, “whose bright eyes Rain influence”; Par. Lost, iv. 669, “with kindly heat Of various influence.” Astrology has left many traces upon the English language, e.g. influence, disastrous, ill-starred, ascendant, etc. See also l. 360.

338. though a rush candle, i.e. ‘though it be only a rush-candle’; a rush light, obtained from the pith of a rush dipped in oil.

340. long levelled rule; straight horizontal beam of light: comp. Par. Lost, iv. 543, “the setting sun ... Levelled his evening rays.” The instrument with which straight lines are drawn is called a rule or ruler.

341. star of Arcady Or Tyrian Cynosure; here put by synecdoche for ‘lode-star.’ More particularly, the star of Arcady signifies any of the stars in the constellation of the Great Bear, by which Greek sailors steered; and ‘Tyrian Cynosure’ signifies the stars comprising that part of the constellation of the Lesser Bear which, from its shape, was called Cynosura, the dog’s tail (Greek κυνὸς οὐρά), and by which Phoenician or Tyrian sailors steered. See L’Alleg. 80, “The cynosure of neighbouring eyes,” where the word is used as a common noun = point of attraction. Both constellations are connected in Greek mythology with the Arcadian nymph Callisto, who was turned by Zeus into the Great Bear while her son Arcas became the Lesser Bear. Milton follows the Roman poets in associating these stars with Arcadia on this account.

344. wattled cotes: enclosures made of hurdles, i.e. frames of plaited twigs. Cote, cot, and coat are varieties of the same word = a covering or enclosure.

345. oaten stops: see Lyc. 33, “the oaten flute”; 88, “But now my oat proceeds”; 188, “the tender stops of various quills.” The shepherd’s pipe, being at first a row of oaten stalks, “the oaten pipe,” “oat,” etc., came to denote any instrument of this kind and even to signify “pastoral poetry.” The ‘stops’ are the holes over which the player’s fingers are placed, also called vent-holes or “ventages” (Ham. iii. 2. 372). See also note on ‘azurn,’ l. 893.

346. whistle ... lodge, i.e. the sound of the shepherd calling his dog by whistling. Or it may be used in the same sense as in L’Alleg. 63, “the ploughman whistles o’er the furrowed land.”

347. Count ... dames: comp. L’Alleg. 52, “the cock ... Stoutly struts his dames before”; 114, “Ere the first cock his matin rings.” Grammatically, ‘count’ (infinitive) forms with ‘cock’ the complex object of ‘might hear.’

349. innumerous, innumerable (Lat. innumerus). Comp. Par. Lost, vii. 455, “Innumerous living creatures”; ix. 1089.

350. hapless, unfortunate. Many words, such as happy, lucky, fortunate, etc., which strictly refer to a person’s hap or chance, whether good or bad, have become restricted to good hap: in order to give them an unfavourable meaning a negative prefix or suffix is necessary.

With reference to the word fortune, Max Müller says: “We speak of good and evil fortune, so did the French, and so did the Romans. By itself fortuna was taken either in a good or a bad sense, though it generally meant good fortune. Whenever there could be any doubt, the Romans defined fortuna by such adjectives as bona, secunda, prospera, for good; mala or adversa for bad fortune ... Fortuna came to mean something like chance.”

352. burs; burrs, prickly seed-vessels of certain plants, e.g. the burr-thistle, the burdock (= the burr-dock), etc.

355. leans. As Milton frequently omits the nominative, we may supply she: otherwise leans would be intransitive and its nominative ‘head’: see note, l. 715. fraught, freighted, filled. Freight is itself a later form of fraught: in Sams. Agon., 1075, fraught is a noun (Ger. fracht, a load). See line 732.

356. What, etc. The ellipses may be supplied thus: “What (shall be done) if (she be) in wild amazement?”

359. over-exquisite, i.e. too curious, over-inquisitive. Exquisite is here used in the sense of inquisitive; in modern English ‘exquisite’ has a passive sense only, while ‘inquisitive’ has an active sense (Lat. quaero, to seek): see note, l. 714.

“The dialogue between the two brothers is an amicable contest between fact and philosophy. The younger draws his arguments from common apprehension, and the obvious appearance of things; the elder proceeds on a profounder knowledge, and argues from abstracted principles. Here the difference of their ages is properly made subservient to a contrast of character” (Warton).

360. To cast the fashion, i.e. to prejudge the form. ‘To cast’ was common in the sense of to calculate or compute; see Shakespeare, ii. Henry IV. i. 1. 166, “You cast the event of war.” Some think, however, that the word has here its still more restricted sense as used in astrology, e.g. “to cast a nativity”; others see in it a reference to the founder’s art; and others to medical diagnosis.

361. Grant they be so: a concessive clause = granted that the evils turn out to be what you imagined. The alternative is given in l. 364.

362. What need, etc., i.e. why should a man anticipate his hour of sorrow. ‘What’ = for what (Lat. quid): comp. l. 752; also On Shakespeare, 6, “What need’st thou such weak witness of thy name?” On the verb need Abbott, § 297, says: “It is often found with ‘what,’ where it is sometimes hard to say whether ‘what’ is an adverb and ‘need’ a verb, or ‘what’ an adjective and ‘need’ a noun. ‘What need the bridge much broader than the flood?’ M. Ado, i. 1. 318; either ‘why need the bridge (be) broader?’ or ‘what need is there (that) the bridge (be) broader?’”

363. Compare Hamlet’s famous soliloquy, “rather bear those ills we have,” etc.; and Pope’s Essay on Man, “Heaven from all creatures hides the book of fate,” etc.

366. to seek, at a loss. Compare Par. Lost, viii. 197: “Unpractised, unprepared, and still to seek.” Bacon, in Adv. of Learning, has: “Men bred in learning are perhaps to seek in points of convenience.”

367. unprincipled in virtue’s book, i.e. ignorant of the elements of virtue. A principle (Lat. principium, beginning) is a fundamental truth; hence the current sense of ‘unprincipled,’ implying that the man who has no fixed rules of life is the one who will readily fall into evil. Comp. Sams. Agon. 760, “wisest and best men ... with goodness principled.”

368. bosoms, holds within itself. The nom. is ‘goodness.’ ‘Peace’ is governed by ‘in,’ l. 367.

369. As that, etc. This is an adverbial clause of consequence to ‘unprincipled’; in modern English such a clause would be introduced by ‘that,’ and in Elizabethan English either by ‘as’ or ‘that.’ Here we have both connectives together. single: see note, l. 204. noise, sound.

370. Not being in danger, i.e. she not being in danger: absolute construction. This parenthetical line is equivalent to a conditional clause—‘if she be not in danger, the mere want of light and noise need not disquiet her.’

372. misbecoming: see note on ‘misused,’ l. 47. plight, condition. Skeat derives this word from A.S. pliht, danger; others connect it with pledge. It is distinct from plight, l. 301.

373. Virtue could see, etc. The best commentary on this line is in lines 381-5: comp. Spenser: “Virtue gives herself light through darkness for to wade,” F. Q. i. 1. 12.

375. flat sea: comp. Lyc. 98, “level brine”: Lat. aequor, a flat surface, used of the sea.

376. seeks to, applies herself to. This use of seek is common in the English Bible: see Deut. xii. 5, “unto his habitation shall ye seek”; Isaiah, viii. 19, xi. 10, xix. 3; i. Kings, x. 24.

377. her best nurse, Contemplation. The wise man loves contemplation and solitude: comp. Il Penseroso, 51, where “the Cherub Contemplation” is the “first and chiefest” of Melancholy’s companions. In Sidney’s Arcadia, “Solitariness” is “the nurse of these contemplations.”

378. plumes. Some would read prunes, both words being used of a bird’s smoothing or trimming its feathers—or (more strictly) picking out damaged feathers. See Skeat’s Dictionary, and compare Pope’s line, “Where Contemplation prunes her ruffled wings.”

379. various, varied: comp. l. 22. The ‘bustle of resort’ is in L’Allegro the ‘busy hum of men.’

380. all to-ruffled. Milton wrote “all to ruffled,” which may be interpreted in various ways: (1) all to-ruffled, (2) all too ruffled, (3) all-to ruffled. The first of these is given in the text as it is etymologically correct: to is an intensive prefix as in ‘to-break’ = to break in pieces; ‘to-tear’ = to tear asunder, etc.; while all (= quite) is simply an adverb modifying to-ruffled. But about 1500 A.D. this idiom was misunderstood, and the prefix to was detached from the verb and either read along with all (thus all-to = altogether), or confused with too (thus all-to = too too, decidedly too). It is doubtful in which sense Milton used the phrase; like Shakespeare, he may have disregarded its origin. See Morris, § 324; Abbott, §§ 28, 436.

381. He that has light, etc. Comp. Par. Lost, i. 254: ‘The mind is its own place,’ etc.

382. centre, i.e. centre of the earth: comp. Par. Lost i. 686, “Men also ... Ransacked the centre”; and Hymn Nat. 162, “The aged Earth ... Shall from the surface to the centre shake.” Sometimes the word ‘centre’ was used of the Earth itself, the fixed centre of the whole universe according to the Ptolemaic system. The idea here conveyed, however, is not that of immovability (as in Par. Reg. iv. 534, “as a centre firm”) but of utter darkness.

385. his own dungeon: comp. Sams. Agon. 156, “Thou art become (O worst imprisonment!) The dungeon of thyself.”

386. most affects: has the greatest liking for. It now generally denotes rather a feigned than a real liking: comp. pretend. Lines 386-392 may be compared with Il Pens. 167-174.

393. Hesperian tree. An allusion to the tree on which grew the golden apples of Juno, which were guarded by the Hesperides and the sleepless dragon Ladon. Hence the reference to the ‘dragon watch’: comp. Tennyson’s Dream of Fair Women, 255, “Those dragon eyes of anger’d Eleanor Do hunt me, day and night.” See also ll. 981-983.

395. unenchanted, superior to all the powers of enchantment, not to be enchanted. Similarly Milton has ‘unreproved’ for ‘not reprovable,’ ‘unvalued’ for ‘invaluable,’ etc.; and Shakespeare has ‘unavoided’ for ‘inevitable,’ ‘imagined’ for ‘imaginable,’ etc. Abbott (§ 375) says: The passive participle is often used to signify, not that which was and is, but that which was and therefore can be hereafter; in other words -ed is used for -able.

396. Compare Chaucer, Doctor’s Tale, 44, “She flowered in virginity, With all humility and abstinence.”

398. unsunned, hidden. Comp. Cym. ii. 5. 13, “As chaste as unsunned snow”; F. Q. ii. 7, “Mammon ... Sunning his treasure hoar.”

400. as bid me hope, etc. The construction is, ‘as (you may) bid me (to) hope (that) Danger will wink on Opportunity and (that Danger will) let a single helpless maiden pass uninjured.’

401. Danger will wink on, etc., i.e. danger will shut its eyes to an opportunity. To wink on or wink at is to connive, to refuse to see something: comp. Macbeth, i. 4. 52, “The eye wink at the hand”; Acts, xvii. 30. Warton notes a similar argument by Rosalind in As You Like It, i. 3. 113: “Beauty provoketh thieves sooner than gold.”

404. it recks me not, i.e. I do not heed: an impersonal use of the old verb reck (A.S. récan, to care). Comp. Lyc. 122, “What recks it them.”

405. dog them both, i.e. follow closely upon night and loneliness. Comp. All’s Well, iii. 4. 15, “death and danger dogs the heels of worth.”

407. unownèd, i.e. ‘thinking her to be unowned,’ or ‘as if unowned.’ Milton thus, as in Latin, frequently condenses a clause into a participle.

408. infer, reason, argue. This use of the word is obsolete. See Shakespeare, iii. Hen. VI. ii. 2. 44, “Inferring arguments of mighty force”; K. John, iii. 1. 213, “Need must needs infer this principle”: also Par. Lost, viii. 91, “great or bright infers not excellence.”

409. without all doubt, i.e. beyond all doubt: a Latinism = sine omni dubitatione.

411. arbitrate the event, judge of the result. The meaning is ‘Where the result depends equally upon circumstances to be hoped and to be dreaded I incline to hope.’

413. squint suspicion. Compare Quarles: “Heart-gnawing Hatred, and squint-eyed Suspicion.” To look askance or sideways frequently indicates suspicion.

420. ’Tis chastity. “The passage which begins here and ends at line 475 is a concentrated expression of the moral of the whole Masque, and an exposition also of a cardinal idea of Milton’s philosophy” (Masson).

421. clad in complete steel, i.e. completely armed; comp. Hamlet, i. 4. 52, where the phrase occurs. The accent is on the first syllable.

422. quivered nymph. The chaste Diana of the Romans was armed with bow and quiver; and Shakespeare makes virginity “Diana’s livery.” So in Spenser, Belphoebe, the personification of Chastity, has “at her back a bow and quiver gay.” ‘Quivered’ is the Latin pharetrata.

423. trace, traverse, track. unharboured, affording no shelter. Radically, a harbour is a lodging or shelter.

424. Infámous, having a bad name, ill-famed: a Latinism. The word now implies disgrace or guilt. It is here accented on the penult.

426. bandite or mountaineer. ‘Bandite’ (in Shakespeare bandetto, and now bandit) is borrowed from the Italian bandito, outlawed or banned. ‘Mountaineer,’ here used in a bad sense. In modern English it has reverted to its original sense—a dweller in mountains. The dwellers in mountains are often fierce and readily become freebooters: hence the changes of meaning. See Temp. iii. 3. 44, “Who would believe that there were mountaineers Dew-lapp’d like bulls”; also Cym. iv. 2. 120, “Who called me traitor, mountaineer.”

428. very desolation. Very (as an adj.) = true or real and may be traced to Lat. verus = true: comp. l. 646.

429. shagged ... shades. ‘Shagged’ is rugged or shaggy, and ‘horrid’ is probably used in the Latin sense of ‘rough’: see note, l. 38.

430. unblenched, undaunted, unflinching. This word, sometimes confounded with ‘unblanched,’ is from blench, a causal of blink.