'polluted,' etc. See Trench, Eng. Past and Present, vi.; also Prof. Masson's Essay on Milton's English, and Abbott, § 342. Compare whist,' line 64, and note.

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41. sinful blame. ‘Blame' = crime, fault (comp. Macb. iv. 3. 124); as 'blameful' = guilty, and 'blameless' innocent. All Nature is here regarded as guilty: comp. Spenser's Hymn of Heavenly Love, 218, "Then rouse thyself, O Earth, out of thy soil... Unmindful of that dearest Lord of thine."

42. saintly veil. Comp. Par. Lost, ix. 1054, "Innocence that, as a veil, Had shadowed them from knowing ill, was gone," etc.

maiden white, unsullied purity. See Latham's Dictionary for examples of maiden' applied to (a) flowers and weapons, e.g. 'maiden sword,' 1 Hen. ÎV. v. 4. 134; (b) a fortress that has never been taken; (c) an oration ('maiden speech'); (d) assizes where no one is condemned : etc.

44. so near, so closely. This is a more natural interpretation than to regard the phrase as = he being so near.

45. cease, put an end to, cause to cease. See note on Lyc. 133: and compare Cymb. v. 5, "would cease The present power of life"; Timon of Ath. ii. 1, "Be not ceased with slight denial." Compare the force of the word in such imperatives as "Cease then this impious rage," Par. Lost, v. 845.

46. meek-eyed. Comp. Comus, 213, “pure-eyed Faith, whitehanded Hope.'

47. olive green. Comp. 3 Hen. VI. iv. 6: "An olive branch and laurel crown, As likely to be blest in peace and war."

48. the turning sphere. What Spenser (H. of Heavenly Love, 25) calls "that mighty bound which doth embrace the rolling spheres," the allusion being to the old cosmology which regarded the universe as a frame-work of sphere within sphere, the Earth being at the centre. See note, line 125.

49. harbinger. Here used in its radical sense = one preparing a lodging or 'harbour' for another: its current meaning is 'forerunner,' in which the essence of the original signification is lost. The M.E. is herbergeour (A.S. here, an army, and beorgan, to shelter) = one who prepares lodgings for an army: comp. Bacon's Apophthegms, 54, "There was a harbinger who had lodged a gentleman in a very ill room.' The origin of the word is disguised by the intrusion of the letter n, as in 'messenger' from message, 'porringer' from porridge, etc. See Trench's Select Glossary and comp. Milton's Song on May Morning, 1; Macb. i. 4. 46; Haml. i. 1. 122; Morris, Outlines; etc.

50. turtle wing. The name 'turtle' belongs originally to a species of dove: comp. M. W. of W. iii. 3, "We'll teach him to know turtles from jays"; Chaucer, Cant. Tales, 10013, "The

turtle's voice is heard, mine owen sweet"; and No. XLVII., line 14. The name is from Lat. tur-tur, a word which imitates the coo of the dove. 'Turtle' applied to the sea-tortoise is the same word: "the English sailors having a difficulty with the Portuguese tartaruga, a tortoise or a turtle, and the Span. tortuga, a tortoise, overcame that difficulty by substituting the Eng. turtle with a grand disregard of the difference between the two creatures." (Skeat). The turtle-dove is a type of true love.

51. myrtle. According to Dr. Johnson, the emblem of supreme command.' At this time there was peace throughout the Roman dominions; hence the plant may here be the symbol of peace.

52. strikes, produces suddenly and as if by enchantment. Comp. the procedure of the enchanter Comus (line 659), “If I but wave this wand, Your nerves are all chained up," etc. Latham quotes Dryden's lines: "Take my caduceus!... And strike a terror through the Stygian strand." Dunster sees in Milton's use of 'strike' a recollection of the Lat. phrase foedus ferire, to strike a bargain, but there is no thought of a compact here: the idea is the suddenness of the result, as in the phrases 'struck dumb,' 'awe-struck,' etc.

53. No war. Of lines 53-84 Landor says that they form "the noblest piece of lyric poetry in any modern language that I am conversant with."

55. idle spear... hung. Here Milton, as he often does, introduces a custom of chivalry into classical times; comp. Sams. Agon. 1736, where Samson's father resolves to build his son a monument "with all his trophies hung"-the hanging up of trophies over the tomb of a hero being a practice of Gothic chivalry. See also Rich. III. i. 1, "Our bruised arms hung up for monuments." For a similar mixture of elements which, in other hands than those of Milton, might be incongruous, compare the blending of classical mythology and Christianity in Lycidas.

56. hooked chariot; the covinus or falcatae quadrigae (Livy, i. 37, 41) of the Romans, who seem to have adopted it from the Kelts, the name covinus being Keltic. The wheels or axle-trees were armed with cutting instruments or hooks: comp. F. Q. v. 8. 28, “With iron wheels and hooks armed dreadfully."

59. awful, awe-struck. Here used subjectively: comp. Rich. II. iii. 3. 76, "To pay their awful duty to our presence. Contrast with the objective sense = awe-inspiring: 2 Hen. VI. v. 1. 98, "An awful princely sceptre"; also No. LXV., line 19. Similarly

awesome and aweless occur in both senses.

60. sovran Milton's spelling of the word 'sovereign,' in which the g is due to a mistaken notion that the last syllable is cognate with reign. It is from Lat. superanum = chief (Ital. sovrano, O.F. souverain). Comp. Comus, 41, 639. Milton only once

has 'sov'raign (Par. Reg. i. 84) while 'sovran' occurs nineteen times.

64. whist, hushed: see note, Il Pens. 55. In Tempest, i. 2.379; "the wild waves whist"; Sandys, Trans. of Ovid's Meta, "In dead of night, when all was whisht and still.' 'Whist,' originally an interjection, was used as a verb, 'to whist' to command silence, the participle 'whist' (for 'whisted,' Abbott, § 342) being equivalent to 'silenced.'

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65. kist. Comp. M. of Ven. v. 1, "When the sweet wind did gently kiss the trees." The spelling kist is due to the final sharp consonant: when this is doubled, as in pass, kiss, smell, etc., one of the letters is dropped before t; hence past, kist, smelt.

66. Oceán: read as O-ce-an. Comp. M. of Ven. v. 1. 1, "tossing on the oceán"; T. A. iv. 2. 101.

67. Who. Here used of an irrational thing, which, by pathetic fallacy, is endowed with forgetfulness: comp. Rape of Luc. 1805, "The dispers'd air who answered"; Abbott, § 264.

forgot, forgotten. This use of the past tense for the past participle was common in Elizabethan English: comp. Abbott, § 343. It is due to the fact that the A.S. past participle was formed by prefixing ge- to all verbs (see note, line 155), and affixing en or ed. When the prefix ge was weakened to i- or yor dropped altogether, and the suffix reduced to -e silent, the past participle sometimes corresponded with the past tense, and the form of the past tense came to be used for the participle.

68. birds of calm, halcyons; the fable being that the sea was always calm while these birds were breeding-during the seven days preceding and the seven succeeding the shortest day of the year. In classical mythology Alcyone or Halcyone was the daughter of Aeolus and wife of Ceyx: husband and wife having called themselves Zeus and Hera, they were for their presumption metamorphosed into birds. Another version is that the husband perished at sea, and the grief-stricken wife having drowned herself the two were changed into birds: see Ovid's Meta. xi. 745, "Perque dies placidos hiberno tempore septem Incubat Halcyone pendentibus aequore nidis"; 1 Hen. VI. i. 2. 131, "Halcyon days" (called in Greek aλkvovides nuépaι and in Latin alcyonei dies or Alcedonia). In the phrases 'halcyon beaks' (King Lear, ii. 2. 84), halcyon bill' (Marlowe, Jew of Malta), 'halcyon with her turning breast' (Stover, Life and Death of Wolsey), the allusion is not to tranquillity but to the old belief that a halcyon, when suspended, shows which way the wind blows. In scientific nomenclature the unaspirated forms are employed to denote certain zoophytes: alcyonium, alcyonic, alcyonite, alcyonoid,

etc.

brooding. Comp. Par. Lost, vii. 243, "On the watery

calm His brooding wings the Spirit of God outspread"; also L'Alleg. 6, and note there. There is no doubt that in the present case 'brooding' is to be taken literally.

69. amaze. The use of 'amaze' as a substantive is almost obsolete, its place being taken by 'amazement': comp. Addison's Cato, iv. 3. 58, "With pleasure and amaze I stand transported." See further, No. LVIII., 1.

70. Every word in this line intensifies the notion of 'fixedness.' On 'steadfast,' see notes Il Pens. 32, and line 111, below.

71. precious influence. Compare L'Alleg. 122, "Whose bright eyes Rain influence," and note there: also note on Il Pens. 24. Shakespeare has 'the skiey influences,' M. for M. iii. 1; 'planetary influence,' K. Lear, i. 2. 135; and for some of his numerous allusions to astrology see his Sonnets, 14, 15, 25, 26; Rom. and Jul. i. 4, v. 3; King Lear, i. 2, 136; ii. 2; iv. 3; Twelfth Night, i. 3, i. 4; ii. 1, ii. 5; Much Ado, i. 3; ii. 1; v. 2. See also Trench's Study of Words on the astrological element in the English vocabulary. Precious': Milton wrote pretious (Lat. pretium, value), the c being due to old French precios.

73. For all. These two words in combination are equivalent to 'notwithstanding': comp. Milton's second sonnet, On the Detraction, etc., 14, "For all this waste of wealth and loss of blood," where all does not qualify waste. It is sometimes said that, when the phrase is expanded, all is found to be the subject of an unexpressed verb, the meaning of 'notwithstanding' being expressed by for alone: this would explain the above examples, but not such as the following: Tindale, Acts, xvi. 39, "They have beaten us openly ... for all that we are Romans" John, xxi. 11, "For all there were so many"; Cymb. v. 4. 209, "For all he be a Roman"; or line 74 of this poem. See Abbott, § 154.

74. Lucifer, i.e. the planet Venus, as the morning-star or lightbringer (lux, light; fero, to bear): Milton's conceit is that daybreak is a warning for the stars to disappear. See further in the notes on No. XVIII. Grammatically 'for all' governs 'Lucifer.'

75. orbs. Either denoting the stars themselves as in M. of Ven. v. 1, "There's not the smallest orb," etc., or their orbits, as in Par. Lost, v. 860, "When fatal course had circled his full orb." Milton also has 'orb' in the sense of 'wheel' (Par. Lost, vi. 828), and 'eye' (Par. Lost, iii. 25). Comp. M. N. D. iii. 2. 61, "Venus in her glimmering sphere."

76. bespake. Not merely 'spake,' but 'spake with authority.' Milton sometimes uses the compound form as a mere equivalent for the simple verb: see note, Lyc. 112. The verb is used in Par. Lost, ii. 849; iv. 1005; and Par. Reg. i. 43.

bid, bade (the strong form being the more common). The form bode is obsolete. Bid has arisen out of the past participle

bidden: see note on 'forgot,' line 67. This is one of those verbs after which the simple infinitive (without to) is used. Such omission of to 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. speken, to speak; he can speken). The infinitive, being used as a noun, had a dative form called the gerund which was preceeded by to; and confusion between the gerundial infinitive and the simple infinitive led to the general use of to. Comp. Arcades, 13, 'Envy bid conceal the rest"; in Lyc. 22, bid is a different verb (see note there).

66

78. Had given, etc.; had given place to day. 'Her' may refer either to 'gloom' or 'day,' but comp. Milton's Vacation Exercise, 58, "To the next I may resign my room," on the analogy of which 'her' would refer to 'gloom.'

79. Compare what is said of the moon in П Pens. 59, and see also P. L. iv. 35. On wonted, see note, 1. 10.

80. hid his head, etc. Warton quotes from Spenser's Shepherds' Calendar; April, 75-83,

"I sawe Phoebus thrust out his golden hedde,

Upon her to gaze;

But, when he sawe how broade her beames did spredde,

It did him amaze.

He blusht to see another Sunne below,

Ne durst againe his fyrye face out showe:

Let him, if he dare,

His brightnesse compare

With hers, to have the overthrowe."

81. As, as if, as though. This use of 'as' to introduce a supposition is archaic: comp. Havelock the Dane, 508, “Starinde als he were wod"; 2 Hen. VI. i. 1. 103, "Undoing all, as all had never been"; Par. Reg. iv. 447, "I heard the wrack, As earth and sky would mingle"; Tennyson's Enid, 210, "As to abolish him." See Abbott, §§ 101, 107.

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82. new enlighten'd: adj. compounded of a participle and a simple adverb. Comp. "new-intrusted," Comus, 36; newenlivened," ibid. 228; "new-spangled," Lyc. 170; "new-created," Par. Lost, iii. 89; "smooth-dittied," Comus, 86.

84. burning axletree. Comp. Comus, 95, "the gilded car of day His glowing axle doth allay": Aen. vi. 482, Atlas axem umero torquet"; Sandys, Ovid's Meta. i. 7, "And burn heaven's axletree"; Troilus and Cressida, i. 3. 65, "Strong as the axletree In which the Heavens ride." 'Axletree' = axis, M.E. axletre, was in earlier use than the simple word axle, and included all the senses of that word as well as of axis. The only surviving sense of the word is that of the fixed bar on the