1660-1685.] MILTON. Thus sang the uncouth swain to the oaks and rills, SCENE FROM COMUS.1 A wild wood. The lady enters. Lady. This way the noise was, if mine ear be true, Such as the jocund flute, or gamesome pipe, In the blind mazes of this tangled wood? 190 L. 188. By "stops" Milton here means what we now call the holes of a flute or any species of pipe. L. 189. This is a Doric lay, because Theocritus and Moschus had respectively written a bucolic on the deaths of Daphnis and Bion. 1 The fable of Comus is this. A beautiful lady, attended by her two brothers, is journeying through a dreary wool. The brothers become separated from their sister, who is met by Comus, the god of low pleasures, who, with his followers, holds his orgies in the night. He addresses her in the disguised character of a peasant, but she resists all his arts, and Comus and his crew are put to flight by the brothers, who come in time to rescue their sister. The object of the poem is to show the full power of true virtue and chastity to triumph over all the assaults of wickedness; or, in the language of Shakspeare That virtue never will be moved, Though lewdness court it in a shape of heaven. "Comus," says Sir Egerton Brydges, "is the invention of a beautiful fable, enriched with shadowy beings and visionary delights: every line and word is pure poetry, and the sentiments are as exquisite as the images. It is a composition which no pen but Milton's could have produced." It seems that an accidental event which occurred to the family of Milton's patron, John Egerton, Earl of Bridgewater, then keeping his court at Ludlow castle, gave birth to this fable. The earl's two sons and daughter, Lady Alice, were benighted, and lost their way in Heywood-forest; and the two brothers, in the attempt to explore their path, left the sister alone, in a track of country rudely inhabited. On these simple facts the poet raised a superstructure of such fairy spells and poetical delight as has never since been equalled. 2 Wassail, from the Anglo-Saxon was hæl, "be in health." It was anciently the pledge word in drinking, equivalent to the modern "your health." The bowl in which the liquor was presented was called the waxtail-bowl, and as it was peculiar to scenes of revelry and festivity, the term wassail in time became synonymous with feasting and carousing. Thus, in Shakspeare, Lady Macbeth de clares that she will "convince (that is, overpower) the two chamberlains of Duncan with wine and wassel," and Ben Jonson, giving an account of a rural feast, says: The rout of rural folk come thronging in, Comus. Can any mortal mixture of earth's mould How sweetly did they float upon the wings Culling their potent herbs and baleful drugs; And chid her barking waves into attention, I never heard till now.-I'll speak to her, And she shall be my queen-Hail, foreign wonder! 2 Unless the goddess that in rural shrine Dwell'st here with Pan, or Sylvan; by blest song 1 "The songs of this poem are of a singular felicity; they are unbroken streams of exquisite ima very, either imaginative or descriptive, with a dance of numbers which sounds like aërial music: for Instance, the Lady's song to Echo."-Brydges. 2 "Comus's address to the lady is exceedingly beautiful in every respect; but all readers will ac knowledge that the style of it is much raised by the expression 'unless the goddess,' an elliptical expression, unusual in our language, though common enough in Greek and Latin. But if we were to fill it up and say, 'unless thou beest the goidess,' how flat and insipid would it make the composition, compared with what it is."-Lord Mondoddo. Forbidding every bleak unkindly fog To touch the prosperous growth of this tall wood. Lady. Nay, gentle shepherd, ill is lost that praise Not any boast of skill, but extreme shift To give me answer from her mossy couch. Com. What chance, good lady, hath bereft you thus? Com. Could that divide you from near-ushering guides? Com. By falsehood, or discourtesy, or why? Lady. To seek i' the valley some cool friendly spring. Lady. They were but twain, and purposed quick return. Com. Imports their loss, beside the present need? Of some gay creatures of the element, That in the colors of the rainbow live, And play in the plighted clouds. I was awe-struck, To help you find them. Lady. Gentle villager, What readiest way would bring me to that place? Would overtask the best land-pilot's art, Com. I know each lane, and every alley green, But loyal cottage, where you may be safe 1 "Swink'd," 1. e. tired, fatigued. INVOCATION TO LIGHT.1 Hail, holy Light! offspring of heaven first-born, May I express thee unblamed ?2 since God is light, Escaped the Stygian pool, though long detain'd That wash thy hallow'd feet, and warbling flow, Nightly I visit: nor sometimes forget So were I equall'd with them in renown, 1 "This celebrated complaint, with which Milton opens the third book, deserves all the praisen which have been given it."-Addison. 2 That is, may I, without blame, call thee the co-eternai beam of the Eternal God. s Or rather dost thou hear this address, dost thou rather to be called, pure ethereal stream? 4 As in Job xxxviii. 19, "Where is the way where light dwelleth " 6 Kedron and Siloa. "He still was pleased to study the beauties of the ancient poets, but his highest delight was in the Songs of Sion, in the holy Scriptures, and in these he meditated day and night. This is the sense of the passage stripped of its poetical ornaments."--Newton. Blind Thamyris, and blind Mæonides,' Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn, Of nature's works, to me expunged and rased, Shine inward, and the mind through all her powers Of things invisible to mortal sight. Paradise Lost, III. 1. EVE'S ACCOUNT OF HER CREATION. That day I oft remember, when from sleep Under a shade, on flowers, much wondering where A shape within the watery gleam appear'd, Whose image thou art: him thou shalt enjoy 1 Mæonides is Homer. Thamyris was a Thracian, and invented the Doric mood or measure Tiresias and Phineus, the former a Theban, the latter a king of Arcadia, were famous blind bards of antiquity. Milton uses the word "prophet" in the sense of the Latin vates, which unites the character of prophet and poet. Indeed, throughout Milton's poetry there are words and phrases perpetu ally occurring that are used in their pure Latin sense, the beauties of which none but a classical scholar can fully appreciate. This, of itself, is a sufficient answer, if there were not a dozen others, to the senseless question so often asked, "What is the use of a girl's studying Latin ?" |