And, like a quivered nymph with arrows keen,
May trace huge forests, and unharboured heaths,
Infamous hills, and sandy perilous wilds;
Where, through the sacred rays of chastity,
No savage fierce, bandit, or mountaineer,
Will dare to soil her virgin purity:

Yea, there where very desolation dwells,

By grots and caverns shagged with horrid shades,
She may pass on with unblenched majesty,
Be it not done in pride, or in presumption.
Some say, no evil thing that walks by night,
In fog or fire, by lake or moorish fen,
Blue meagre hag, or stubborn unlaid ghost
That breaks his magic chains at curfew time,
No goblin, or swart faery of the mine,
Hath hurtful power o'er true virginity.

423. Unharboured heaths, &c.] The word unharboured means having no retreat or shelter. Infamous hills, i.e., hills noted for danger; an expression probably suggested by Horace's Infames scopulos. Od. I. iii. 20. 425. Rays of chastity.] See Note on l. 782.

429. Horrid.] Bristling, rugged. Compare Pope's Elois. Abel. 20, 'Ye grots and caverns shagged with horrid thorn.'

430. Unblenched.] Undaunted, To blench is to shrink or cause to shrink.

435. At curfew time.] At the close of the day, as announced by the curfew bell, when ghosts, &c., were permitted to be at large till the time of cock-crowing.

436. Swart faëry of the mine.] It was believed among miners that mines were haunted by a particular kind of spirits that pretended to work like the miners

425

430

435

X

Do ye believe me yet, or shall I call
Antiquity from the old schools of Greece
To testify the arms of chastity?

Hence had the huntress Dian her dread bow,
Fair silver-shafted queen, for ever chaste,
Wherewith she tamed the brinded lioness
And spotted mountain-pard, but set at nought
The frivolous bolt of Cupid; gods and men

440

445

Feared her stern frown, and she was queen of the woods.
What was that snaky-headed Gorgon shield

That wise Minerva wore, unconquered virgin,

Wherewith she freezed her foes to congealed stone,
But rigid looks of chaste austerity,

And noble grace that dashed brute violence

450

With sudden adoration and blank awe? Una v the Lion

So dear to Heaven is saintly chastity,

That, when a soul is found sincerely so,
A thousand liveried angels lackey her,
Driving far off each thing of sin and guilt,
And, in clear dream and solemn vision,
Tell her of things that no gross ear can hear;
Till oft converse with heavenly habitants
Begin to cast a beam on the outward shape,

455

460

453. So dear to Heaven, &c.] Kings lackeying by his triumphal cha

So Spenser (F. Q., III. viii. 29.):

But, sith that none of all her knights is
nigh,

See how the heavens, of voluntary
grace,

And sovereign favour towards chastity,
Do succour send to her distressed case:
So much High God doth innocence em-
brace!

The word so, in l. 454, is un-
grammatical.

455. Lackey her.] A lackey was a foot-boy who ran or walked by the side of his master.

O that our power Could lackie or keep wing with our desires!

Marston, Prol. to Antonio's Revenge.

riot.

Massinger's Virgin Martyr, i. 1.

To drive you so on foot, unfit to tread
And lackey by him, 'gainst all woman-
head.

Spenser's Faerie Queene, VI. ii. 15.

463. Oft.] Here an adjective signifying frequent, as it does in the expressions, oft-times, many a time and oft, &c. The adverb oft, or often is, indeed, an abridgment of the preposition phrase at oft, or often, times.

The jolly wassail walks the often round.
B. Jonson's Forest, 3.
'Often infirmities.' 1 Tim. v, 23.

c 2

The unpolluted temple of the mind,

And turns it by degrees to the soul's essence,
Till all be made immortal. But when lust,
By unchaste looks, loose gestures, and foul talk,
But most by lewd and lavish act of sin,
Lets in defilement to the inward parts,
The soul grows clotted by contagion,
Imbodies and imbrutes, till she quite lose
The divine property of her first being.

Such are those thick and gloomy shadows damp,
Oft seen in charnel vaults and sepulchres,
Lingering and sitting by a new-made grave,
As loth to leave the body that it loved,
And linked itself by carnal sensuality
To a degenerate and degraded state.

Sec. Br. How charming is divine philosophy!
Not harsh and crabbed, as dull fools suppose;
But musical as is Apollo's lute,

And a perpetual feast of nectared sweets,

Where no crude surfeit reigns.

El. Br.

List, list; I hear

Some far-off halloo break the silent air.

For certain

Sec. Br. Methought so too; what should it be?
El Br.
Either some one like us night-foundered here,

468. Imbodies and imbrutes, 1 Becomes carnal and brutish. Milton is here reproducing a portion of the philosophy of Plato's Phado, 69, in which Socrates is describing souls that have so cultivated communion with the body, and served and loved it, and been bewitched by it through desires and pleasures, as to have become contaminated, impregnated with that which is corporeal, and thus at the death

465

47C

475

480

of the body rendered unfit to soar to heaven, but weighed down to earth, and wandering as shadowy visible phantoms amongst monuments and tombs.

473. That it loved.] The pronoun it refers to the soul, but is rather awkwardly involved in syntax with the noun shadows.

482. For certain.] See Note on 7. 266.

483. Night-foundered.] Con founded or overpowered by dark

Or else some neighbour woodman; or, at worst,

Some roving robber calling to his fellows.

485

Sec. Br. Heaven keep my sister. Again, again, and near ! Best draw, and stand upon our guard.

El. Br.

I'll halloo :

If he be friendly, he comes well; if not,
Defence is a good cause, and Heaven be for us.

Enter THE ATTENDANT SPIRIT, habited like a Shepherd.

That halloo I should know; what are you? speak;
Come not too near; you fall on iron stakes else.

490

Spir. What voice is that? my young lord? speak again.
Sec. Br. O brother, 'tis my father's shepherd, sure.
El. Br. Thyrsis? whose artful strains have oft de-

layed

The huddling brook to hear his madrigal,

495

And sweetened every musk-rose of the dale?

How camest thou here, good swain? hath any ram
Slipt from the fold, or young kid lost his dam,
Or straggling wether the pent flock forsook?
How couldst thou find this dark sequestered nook?
Spir. O my loved master's heir, and his next joy,

I came not here on such a trivial toy

As a strayed ewe, or to pursue the stealth
Of pilfering wolf; not all the fleecy wealth

That doth enrich these downs is worth a thought
To this my errand, and the care it brought.
But, O my virgin lady, where is she?

ness. So, in Par. Lost, i. 204:

"The pilot of some small night-foundered bark.'

"They were bred in such soft employments, that they were

presently foundered.'
Holy War, ii. 40.

503

505

Fuller's

501. His next joy.] This refers to the second brother.

506. The care it brought.] The anxiety it involved.

How chance she is not in your company?

El. Br. To tell thee sadly, shepherd, without blame Or our neglect, we lost her as we came.

Spir. Ay me unhappy! then my fears are true.

510

El. Br. What fears, good Thyrsis? Pr'ythee briefly shew. Spir. I'll tell ye: "Tis not vain or fabulous

(Though so esteemed by shallow ignorance)

What the sage poets, taught by the heavenly muse,
Storied of old, in high immortal verse,

515

Of dire chimeras, and enchanted isles,

And rifted rocks whose entrance leads to hell;
For such there be, but unbelief is blind.

Within the navel of this hideous wood, Immured in cypress shades a sorcerer dwells,— Of Bacchus and of Circe born, great Comus, Deep skilled in all his mother's witcheries,— And here to every thirsty wanderer

By sly enticement gives his baneful cup,

With many murmurs mixed, whose pleasing poison
The visage quite transforms of him that drinks,

508. How chance.] How happens it. The word chance in old authors often means it chances or happens.

If chanee the radiant sun, with farewell
sweet,

Extend his evening beam.
Par. Lost, ii. 492.
How chance you went not with Master
Slender?

Shakspeare's Merry Wives, v. 4.

'How chance you go not to the service upon the holy-days?' Latimer's Sermon on 1st Sund. after Epiph.

509. Sadly.] Truly or seriously. 511. Ay me.] This is the original form of the exclamation ah me! and is of common occurrence in the old writers.

520

525

517. Dire chimeras.] See Par. Lost, ii. 628. The Chimæra was a fire-vomiting monster, slain by Bellerophon.

518. Rifted rocks.] In Greece, the entrance to hell was supposed to be by a deep gloomy cavern near the promontory Tænarus, the southern extremity of the country. In Italy, a cave near the Campanian lake Avernus had the same reputation.

520. Navel.] Heart, or midst : a Grecian use of the word. Pindar calls Apollo's temple at Delphi the navel of the earth.

526. With many murmurs.] That is, with many muttered incantations.