87--91. "as old Simeon plain foretold," &c. Luke ii. 34, 35. IOI. "obscures" i.e. keeps unexplained. 103, 104. "My heart hath been a storehouse," &c. Luke ii. 19. III. "Into himself descended." A recollection, as Newton pointed out, of a phrase in Persius (Sat. IV. 23), “Ut nemo in sese tentat descendere." 119. "without sign of boast,". &c. In contrast to his triumphant return from tempting Adam. See Par. Lost, X. 460 et seq. 121-128. "Princes... Demonian Spirits... expulsion down to Hell." There is some difficulty in the construction of this passage. I read it thus and point accordingly: "Princes, Heaven's ancient sons, Ethereal Thrones, so called once when ye dwelt in Heaven-now rightlier called Demonian Spirits, each from that one of these nether elements which he particularly tenants and rules in ; i.e. rightlier called Powers of Fire, Air, Water, and Earth-if, indeed, it may so be that we shall hold our place and these mild seats without new trouble! Which, however, is doubtful; for an enemy is risen to invade us who threatens nothing less than our expulsion from Man's world and its elements down again to that Hell whence we ascended to possess them." A reading preferred by some editors is "Princes, Heaven's ancient sons, Ethereal Thrones, Demonian Spirits now-rightlier called Powers of Fire, &c.," which reading, however, does not so well bring out Milton's meaning. Mr. Keightley and others also prefer to take the words "So may we hold, &c.," as the expression of a wish. They may be taken so; but the reading I have adopted seems better to fit the sequel, “Such an enemy, &c.' 128. "Threatens than." In the First Edition" than " was omitted, but there was a direction in the Errata to insert it. The direction was not attended to in the Second Edition, where moreover the passage was farther marred by changing "who" of the previous line into "whom." 130. "full frequence": i.e. full assembly: [Lat. frequentia, a great company.] Shakespeare, as Newton observed, has the word, Timon, V. 2 (unless the reading there should be sequence) :— 66 "Tell Athens, in the frequence of degree, From high to low throughout." 131. "tasted him." Todd quotes several instances of this use of taste" in the sense of "try" in old English. "He began to taste his pulse" is said of a physician visiting his patient, in an old English translation of Boccaccio (1620). 134-137. "Though Adam," &c. The passage is somewhat obscure. I interpret it thus: "Though it required his wife's allurement to make even Adam fall, however inferior he to this man; who, if he be man by the mother's side, is at least adorned from heaven with more," &c. In the original edition "If he be man by mother's side at least" is read continuously as one clause. Dunster proposed the comma before "at least." 150, 151. “Belial... Amodai." See Par. Lost, I. 490 et seq., IV. 168 and VI. 365, and notes to these passages. 164. "the rugged'st brow." Dunster compares Pens. 58: "Smoothing the rugged brow of Night"; and Todd finds the phrase “rugged brow" in Spenser. 168. "the magnetic": i.e. the magnet, or loadstone. 175. "doat'st": so in the original edition, though possibly intended as a contraction for doatedst. 178-181. "Before the Flood, thou," &c. Compare Par. Lost, XI. 573 et seq. There Milton adopts the view that the "Sons of God" who are said (Gen. vi. 2) to have intermarried with the "Daughters of Men" before the Flood were Seth's posterity; but here he makes them the Fallen Angels. 182-191. "Have we not seen . . . Calisto, Clymene, &c. ... Satyr, or Faun, or Silvan?" One of those summaries from the ancient mythology in which Milton delights, and here recollected chiefly from Ovid. Calisto, according to the legend, was one of Diana's nymphs, seduced by Jupiter; Clymene, one of the Nereids, mother of Mnemosyne by Jupiter; Daphne, a nymph wooed by Apollo, and changed into a laurel when pursued by him; Semele, the mother of Bacchus by Jupiter; Antiopa, a nymph wooed by Jupiter in the form of a Satyr; Amymone, a nymph beloved by Neptune; Syrinx, a nymph chased by Pan, and changed into a reed in the pursuit." Too long," ie. too long to enumerate." scapes," an old word, meaning "frolics" or "escapades." 196. "that Pellean conqueror": i.e. Alexander the Great, born at Pella, in Macedonia. The allusion is to his treatment of the wife and daughters of Darius, and other captive Persian ladies, after the battle of Issus, when he was twenty-three years of age. 199. "he surnamed of Africa": i.e. Scipio Africanus, whose conduct in restoring, when in his twenty-fifth year, a young Spanish lady to her family, was considered so unusually generous and self-denying by the ancient writers. 210. "vouchsafe." So spelt in original edition: not "voutsafe" as in Par. Lost. 216, 217. "How would one look from his majestic brow, seated," &c. A not unfrequent construction with Milton, the "his" taken as equivalent to "ejus" or "of him" and "seated” taken as agreeing with that pronoun. 217. "Virtue's hill." Perhaps an allusion, as Newton thought, to the rocky eminence on which the Virtues are placed in the Пivas of Cebes, a book which Milton recommends in his Tract on Education. Keightley supposes rather a recollection of Hesiod, Erg. 287–289. 222-224. cease to admire, and all her plumes fall flat," &c. An allusion to the peacock, and probably, as Dunster has pointed out, a recollection of Ovid's lines (De Arte Am. i. 627): "Laudatas ostentat avis Junonia pennas; 236, 237. "Then forthwith," &c. 259. "hungering more to do," &c. Matt. xii. 45. (Dunster.) 262. "hospitable covert." Dunster quotes Horace, Od. II. iii. 9, where the pine and poplar form "umbram hospitalem." 266. "Him thought": i.e. "it seemed to him." An old construction, like "methinks," "methought." Todd quotes an example from Fairfax's Tasso : "Him thought he heard the whistling wind." On the word "methinks" Dr. Latham writes (Eng. Lang. 5th edit. p. 611), "In the Anglo-Saxon there are two forms-thencan, to think, and thincan, to seem. It is from the latter that the verb in methinks comes. The verb is intransitive; the pronoun dative." 266-278. by the brook of Cherith... Elijah . . . Daniel." See 1 Kings xvii. 5, 6, and xix. 4, and Daniel i. 11, 12. 269. "Though ravenous," &c. A line hypermetrical by two syllables. 289. "a bottom," a sunken spot, or depression. 295. "Nature's own work it seemed (Nature taught Art)." The meaning seems to be, "It seemed the work of Nature herself-of Nature instructed in Art." Another possible meaning is, "It seemed the work of Nature herself (for Nature is the teacher of Art)." Todd, by printing "Nature-taught" as a compound word with a hyphen, suggests a third reading-"It was the work of Nature herself of Art taught by Nature;" which, however, is inadmissible. As a parallel passage Dunster quotes Spenser, F. Q., 11. xii. 59. See also a speech of Polixenes on Art and Nature in Shakespeare's Winter's Tale, IV. 4. 302. "officious," ready to do service. 306-314. "Others of some note," &c. i.e. first Hagar and her son Ishmael (here called Nebaioth by a strange license, that being the name of Ishmael's eldest son, Gen. xxv. 13); then the wandering Israelites; and lastly the prophet, Elijah, here called " native of Thebez" by mistake, Mr. Keightley thinks, Thisbe in Gilead being the Prophet's native place, whereas Thebez was in Ephraim. See note to Book I. 353, 354. It has been remarked by Dunster that Elijah was a favourite character with Milton, and is frequently referred to by him. Among Milton's proposed subjects for Scriptural Dramas was one to be entitled Elias Polemistes. 309. "found here relief." Instead of "here," the First Edition has "he"; so has the Second; but "here" seems indubitably the true reading. 344. "Grisamber-steamed": i.e. steamed with ambergris. Perfumes were used in old English cookery-musk, for example, and ambergris, or grey amber-this last not being, as the name might suggest, a kind of amber, but quite a different substance. It is a substance of animal origin, found floating on the sea, or thrown up on the coast, in warm climates; is of a bright grey colour; and, when heated, gives off a peculiar perfume. Fuller, in his Worthies, associates ambergris with Cornwall, not as peculiar to that county, but because "the last, greatest, and best quantity thereof that ever this age did behold" had been found on the Cornish coast. He adds, "It is almost as hard to know what it is as where to find it. Some will have it the sperm of a fish, or some other unctious matter arising from them; others that it is the foam of the sea, or some excrescency thence, boiled to such a height by the heat of the sun; others that it is a gum that grows on the shore. In a word, no certainty can be collected hereon, some physicians holding one way, and some another. But this is most sure, that apothecaries hold it at five pounds an ounce, which some say is dearer than ever it was in the memory of man. It is a rare cordial for the refreshing of the spirits, and sovereign for the strengthening of the head, besides the most fragrant scent, far stronger in consort, when compounded with other things, than when singly itself."-An old lady who remembered the use of grisamber in English cookery told the antiquary Peck that it melted like butter, and was used on great occasions "to fume meat with, whether boiled, roasted or baked," and that she had eaten it herself "laid on the top of a baked pudding." There are many allusions to such culinary use of grisamber or grey amber in the old poets and dramatists; and Newton quotes one from Beaumont and Fletcher's Custom of the Country, which shows that even wines were perfumed with the substance : "Be sure The wines be lusty, high, and full of spirit, 347. "Pontus," the Euxine, celebrated for its fish; "Lucrine bay," the Lucrine Lake in Italy, celebrated for its shell-fish." Afric coast," where fish of large size were caught. 353. "Ganymed," Jupiter's cup-bearer; "Hylas," a youth attending on Hercules. 356. "Amalthea's horn." Amalthea was the Cretan nymph who nursed Jupiter, and whose horn he invested with the power of pouring out fruits and flowers. 357. "ladies of the Hesperides." In the legend the Hesperides is the name for the ladies themselves-i.e. the daughters of Hesperus, the brother of Atlas, who were keepers of the garden containing the golden fruit, the obtaining of which was one of the labours of Hercules. Milton here applies the name to the Garden itself, or the locality. 358. "or fabled since," i.e. in modern romances, and particularly in the Morte d'Arthur of Sir Thomas Malory, to which Milton proceeds to make special references. 360, 361. "By Knights of Logres, or of Lyones, Logres, Logris, or Loegria is a name in the old legends for England proper, or the main part of England after the departure of the Romans; Lyones is a name for Cornwall. Lancelot in the Morte d'Arthur is a knight of Logris, while Tristram is a knight of Lyones. Pelleas and Pellenore were also knights of Arthur's Round Table, and figure in Spenser's Faery Queene. 369-371. "These are not fruits forbidden," &c. Note the reference to the object of Adam's temptation.—“ Defends," forbids. 66 374, 375. Spirits of air," &c. There seems an echo here, as Dunster noted, from Shakespeare's Tempest. 66 384. a table in this wilderness." Ps. lxxviii. 19. (Richardson.) The form "fet" for "fetched' 401. "far-fet": i.e. "far-fetched." occurs in Chaucer, Spenser, Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, and other poets; and Milton may have preferred it, as Mr. Keightley remarks, from his dislike to the sound "sh" or "tch." 427. "Get riches first": Horace, Epist. I. i. 53, “Quærenda pecunia primum est." (Newton.) 439. "Gideon, and Jephtha." See Judges vi. 15, and xi. 1, 2. 446. "Quintius, Fabricius, Curius, Regulus." Quintius is Quintius Cincinnatus, who went from his plough to the dictatorship of Rome, and retired from the dictatorship again to his plough. Fabricius is the patriotic Roman who resisted all the bribes of King Pyrrhus, and died poor. Curius is Curius Dentatus, who refused the lands assigned him by the Senate in reward for his victories, and whom the Samnite ambassadors found sitting at the fire and roasting turnips. Regulus is the celebrated Roman who dissuaded his countrymen from peace with the Carthaginians, and then kept his word by returning to Carthage to be tortured. |
