Page:The Complete Poetical Works of John Milton.djvu/426

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��APPENDIX

��whether Milton understood or rightly valued Shakespeare's genius.

136. Lydian airs; the Lydian music was melting and voluptuous, in contrast with the " Dorian mode," which was solemn and mar- tial.

139. Bout; originally spelled "bought," means bend, turn, or involution. Spenser uses it of the folds of a dragon's tail. It is con- nected with the verb " bow."

150. His half-regained Eurydice ; an allusion to the well-known story of the poet Orpheus, who obtained from Pluto the release of his wife from the lower regions, on condition that he should not look back at her until they reached the upper air. When near the entrance he for- got the condition, and looked behind to see if she was following, whereupon she vanished from his sight.

151-152. These lines are a reminiscence from Marlowe's Passionate Shepherd :

" If these delights thy mind may move, Then lire with me and be my love."

Page 28. It, PENSEROSO.

3. Bested ; help, profit.

4. Toys ; trifles, vanities.

6. Fond ; in the old sense of "foolish." 10. Pensioners of Morpheus' 1 train; Queen Elizabeth kept a body of picked noblemen, of great wealth and personal beauty, about her as " gentlemen pensioners," whose duties were similar to those of the present Queen's body- guard. Cf. Shakespeare's " The cowslips tall her pensioners be."

18. Prince Memnon's sister; Memnon was famous for his beauty, Odysseus saying of Eury- pylus that he was the most beautiful man he had ever seen, except divine Memnon. Milton transfers this repute for beauty to Memnon's sister, though no such sister is mentioned by name in the legends.

19. Starred Ethiop queen ; Cassiopeia, who boasted that not her own, but her daughter Andromache's beauty was greater than that of the Nereids. In revenge they persuaded Posei- don to send a sea-monster to ravage the coun- try. Both Cassiopeia and Andromache were set in the heavens as constellations after their death ; hence the epithet "starred."

23, 24. By assigning to Melancholy this par- entage, Milton implies that melancholy is the outgrowth of solitude and youthful purity or sanctity of life ; or possibly of solitude and gen- ius.

29. Ida's inmost grove ; Mount Ida in Crete, where the infant Jove was nurtured.

33. Grain; see note to Par. Lost, V. 285. Here the word probably means dark blue or purple.

35. Stole ; usually a long, flowing garment, here evidently a kind of shawl or wimple.

Cypress lawn ; cypress and lawn were usually distinct, the former being black, the latter white, as in Autolycus's song in Winter's Tale:-

��" Lawn as white aa driven snow, Cyprus black as e'er was crow."

Here the two words taken together mean "black crepe." 36. Decent ; comely, from Latin, deceus.

42. Forget thyself to marble; of. Ep. on Shak., " make us marble with too much conceiving."

43. Sac? ; sober, serious, with no suggestion of grief.

52-54. Milton has here in mind the descrip- tion in Ezekiel of the sapphire-coloured throne- chariot of which the four wheels were four Cherubim, and in the midst of which burned a great fire. He singles out one of these Cheru- bim as the guide of the chariot. It is to be re- membered that in mediaeval speculation the Cherubim had as their especial gift insight into divine mysteries.

55. Hist ; an imperative, meaning " usher along or bring along with finger on lip, saying " Hist ! "

59. Cynthia checks her dragon-yoke; the dra- gon-team does not properly belong to the moon, but to Ceres or Demeter. Milton breaks with the classic tradition in this respect, not only here but in his Latin poems. See his verses on the death of the Bishop of Ely, In Obitum Prsesulis Eliensis, 11. 56-58.

65. Unseen; unlike L' Allegro, II Penseros* prefers to have no witness of his walks abroad.

65,66.

And, missing thee, I walk unseen On the dry smooth-shaven green;

The English nightingale is said to cease its singing about the time that the grass is mown. If this is true, these lines show a delicacy of observation unusual in Milton.

74. Curfew; from French couvre-feu, a bell formerly rung at eight or nine o'clock as a sig- nal that lights should be extinguished.

87. Outwatch the Bear; as the constellation of the Bear never sets, this implies watching until the stars faded away at dawn.

88. Thrice great Hermes ; Hermes Trismegis- tus, a mythical philosopher and magician, con- nected perhaps with the Egyptian king and philosopher Thot. Various books of mysticism and magic, written by the Alexandrian Nep- platonists and others, went under his name in the Middle Ages.

88, 89. Unsphere the spirit of Plato, i. e. call down his spirit from the heavenly sphere which it inhabits.

93-96. Mediaeval speculation established vari- ous relations between astrology and demonol- ogy, here vaguely hinted at.

99, 100. Milton has in mind such plays as the Seven Against Thebes of ^Eschylus, the (Edi- pus Tyrannus and Antigone of Sophocles, the Electra and Iphigenia of Euripides, the Hecuba, and the Troades.

102. Buskined stage, i. e. tragic stage ; see note to L' Allegro, 1. 132. The fact that Milton speaks of examples of noble modern tragedy as " rare," shows that he was out of sympathy with the Elizabethan dramatic movement.

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