Page:The Complete Poetical Works of John Milton.djvu/432

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��APPENDIX

��placing the source of the spring beneath that altar.

18. Coy excuse ; " coy " had a stronger mean- ing then than now, approaching that of "dis- dainful." Verity quotes from Ascham, "cour- tiers . . . solemne, coye, big, and dangerous of looke."

19. Muse ; poet ; so used frequently.

20. Lucky words ; words of good omen, auspi- cious.

28. What time the grey-fly winds her sultry horn ; it is not known exactly what insect Mil- ton intended by " grey-fly." The time indi- cated is noon.

29. Battening ; feeding, fattening ; usually an intransitive verb. Cf. Hamlet, "Batten on this moor."

33. Tempered to the oaten flute; " tempered " probably modifies " satyrs," not " ditties." It means, therefore, " swayed by the rhythm of," or something of the sort.

40. Gadding vine ; the epithet is a happy one to describe the luxuriant wandering of the vine. It had not in Milton's day its present deroga- tory sense.

50-55. Milton here addresses the Muses, whose haunts he places, for the purpose in hand, near the scene of King's shipwreck. The "steep" is either Penmaenmawr or the Druid sepulchres at Kerig y Druidion in Denbigh- shire ; Mona is the island of Anglesey, now bare of trees, but mentioned as covered with groves by poets previous to Milton, especially William Browne in his Britannia's Pastorals, and Michael Drayton in his Polyolbion. Deva, or the Dee, is called a "wizard stream" be- cause of a tradition that the shifting of the channel toward the Welsh or the English side portended good fortune to one or the other na- tion.

56. Fondly; vainly, foolishly.

59-63. The Muse herself, for her enchanting son, etc. ; the Muse is Calliope, mother of Or- pheus, the semi-mythical Thracian poet. Sad- dened by the loss of his wife Eurydice, Orpheus refused to join in the Bacchic orgies, and was torn in pieces by infuriated maenads.

67-69. As others use ; Milton is looking at the Cavaliers, the gay hedonists of his generation.

70. Clear spirit ; " clear " probably means "free from worldly taint."

75. Blind Fury ; Atropos, not one of the Fu- ries, but one of the Fates ; her sisters were Clo- tho and Lachesis. She is not usually repre- sented as blind.

77. Touched my trembling ears ; a gesture of deep significance, intended here to rebuke the poet and remind him of something he has for- gotten. Milton probably had in mind Virgil's

Cum canerem reges etproelia, Cynthius aurem Vellit et admonuit.

Notice how finely the broken construction above suggests the quickness of Apollo's interrup- tion.

79. Glistering foil; "foil" was the term ap- plied to a kind of gold or silver leaf placed be-

��hind a gem to throw it into relief. Some such figure is here intended.

83. Lastly ; the adverb is used emphatically, meaning " at the last Judgment."

85, 86. Arethuse was a fountain in Sicily, con- nected traditionally with the Sicilian pastoral poetry, as the River Mincius was with Virgil's Eclogues.

89, 90. The "herald of the sea" is Triton, whose business it was to summon together the marine deities. He is said to " come in Nep- tune's plea," i. e. to present Neptune's plea of innocence in the case of King's death.

96. Hippotades ; ^Eolus, son of Hippotes.

99. Panope ; one of the daughters of Nereus ; her sisters were forty-nine'in number.

100-102. This might seem to imply that King's vessel foundered merely because it was unsea- worthy. It appears from other sources that the vessel struck a rock during a gale.

103. Camus ; it had long been the custom of the Cambridge poets to personify the river Cam ; " footing slow " suggests the sluggish motion of that stream ; " inwrought with figures dim" may be meant to suggest the dim tradi- tions connected with the ancient university.

106. Sanguine flower; the hyacinth, which sprang from the blood of Hyacinthus, and was inscribed with the Greek exclamation of la- ment, ai, at.

109-111. The Pilot (i. e. fisherman) of the Galilean Lake is St. Peter, to whom was given the keys of the kingdom of Heaven. Dante gives him two keys, one gold and one silver, both of which admit to Heaven, Purg. X.

119. Blind mouths ; the immense compression of the phrase contributes to its power of sug- gesting passionate indignation. The spiritual blindness and the gluttony of the hired minis- try are the two thoughts thus powerfully welded together.

123. Lean and flashy songs ; unedif ying and insipid sermons. Flashy is not the modern word meaning "showy," but is from 0. E. flasshe, a fool. _ It means literally " watery."

126. Bank mist; false doctrine.

128. Grim Wolf with privy paw ; an allusion to the Catholic conversions, which about this time spread much consternation among the Pu- ritans.

130. Two-handed engine; this famous crux has been explained in numberless ways ; the two-handed engine has been interpreted (1) as the " axe that is laid unto the root of the tree," St. Matthew iii. 10; (2) as the two-handed sword of Revelation i. 16 ; (3) as the two Houses of Parliament ; (4) as the sword of St. Michael; (5) as the secular and the spiritual power, etc., etc. The obscurity of the figure only adds to its terror.

136. Use ; dwell, frequent.

142. Rathe ; early, whence " rather." origi- nally a comparative form of the adjective.

160. Fable of Bellerus, i. e. fabled Bellerus ; Bellerus is a name invented by Milton from Bellerium, the Latin name for Land's End in Cornwall. He first wrote Corineus, the name

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