Ay me! I fondly dream, "Had ye been there"; for what could that have done! When, by the rout that made the hideous roar, 60 called 'the holy Dee.' See Faerie Queene, I. ix. 4, 5. Chester, from which King set sail, is on the Dee. Dee was latinized to Deva, perhaps from a notion (connected with the old superstition) that the word meant God's water (Dei aqua). Better from Gaelic da-abh (dav), double water, or confluence. 56. Ay. Equivalent to ah? Ay me, ah me! (Span. Ay de mi; Ital. Ahimé.) Not the affirmative ay. Fondly, foolishly. "I fondly dream," when I say, "Had ye been there," etc. Jerram. Old Eng. fonne, to make foolish. Fond occurs repeatedly in Shakespeare in the sense of foolish; as, "I do wonder, Thou naughty jailer, that thou art so fond To come abroad with him at his request." Merchant of Venice, III. iii. 8, 9, 10. 58. Muse. Calliope, mother of Orpheus. See Par. Lost, VII. 32-38. Orpheus. "The unparalleled singer and musician, the power of whose harp or lyre drew wild beasts, and even rocks and trees, to follow him. He was the son of the Muse Calliope; and yet, according to the legends, his was a tragic death. His continued grief for his wife Eurydice, after he had failed to recover her from the underworld, so offended the Thracian women that they fell upon him in one of their Bacchanalian orgies, and tore him to pieces. The fragments of his body were collected by the Muses and buried with all honor at the foot of Mount Olympus; but his head, having been thrown into the river Hebrus, was rolled down to the sea, and so carried to the island of Lesbos." See Ovid, Met., Book XI. Fable I. 1-61. This passage in Lycidas, from line 58 to 68, was carefully revised, as the various readings show in the original draft. Line 58 read in MS., "What could the golden-haired Calliope?" 1 61. Rout. Wedgwood (Dict. of Eng. Etymology) says that from the noise made by a crowd of people (O. Fr. route, Ger. rotte, Eng. rout) the word came to signify a noisy crowd, troop, or gang of people. Possibly from Lat. rupta ? 63. Hebrus, now the river Maritza. Milton perhaps took the phrase 'swift Hebrus' from volucrem Hebrum in Virgil's Eneid, I. 317, a reading which many critics change to volucrem Eurum. But "swiftness was a general attribute of rivers." Lesbian. Lesbos (now Mitylen, i. e. Mitylene) was an important island of the Ægean Sea, 75 or 80 miles from the mouth of the Hebrus. Alas! what boots it with uncessant care To sport with Amaryllis in the shade, Or with the tangles of Neæra's hair? Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise 65 70 The Lesbians piously buried the head, and were rewarded with pre-eminence in song! The fate of Orpheus is briefly told in Par. Lost, VII. 34–37. 64, Boots, profits. A.-S. betan, to improve; bôt, compensation. In the prologue to the Canterbury Tales Chaucer says of his Doctor of Physic, "Anon he gave to the sick man his boot," i. e. remedy. Uncessant. This is Milton's word, which has been changed to incessant. The forns were interchangeable. See 'unperfect,' Ps. cxxxix. 16. 65. Tend the homely, slighted shepherd's trade, to practise poetry. Spenser, in his pastoral allegory, The Shepherd's Calendar, June, has the phrase 'scorn of homely shepherd's quill.' The quiet and seclusion of a shepherd's life afford ample opportunity for the composition of poetry. 66. Strictly meditate the thankless Muse, diligently practise minstrelsy that gives no recompense. Thankless, as in the phrase 'thankless task.' See note on 1. 33. See also Comus, 1. 547. The student will note Milton's adoption of classical phrases; as, 'So thick a drop serene.' Paradise Lost, III. 25. 67. Use, are wont to do. This alludes to the fashionable love-poetry of the day. 68. Amaryllis and Neæra are girls loved by shepherds in Virgil's Eclogues, and in other pastorals. Ariosto mentions them both (Orlando Furioso, XI. 12). They figure also in the amatory verses of George Buchanan (1506– 1582). In Buchanan's last Elegy Cupid cuts a lock from Neæra's head while she sleeps, and with it binds the old poet, who, thus entangled, is delivered a prisoner' to the fair Neæra. Lovelace (1618-1658) recollects Buchanan or Milton in one of his verses To Althea, 'When I lie tangled in her hair.' Amaryllis ('Aμápuλλes, from áμapúσow) is the 'sparkling one.' She is the subject of one of the Idyls of Theocritus. 70. Clear = Latin clarus, illustrious, noble. So, repeatedly, in Shakespeare, as in Merchant of Venice, II. ix. 42, we have 'clear honor,' i. e. 'honor bright.' But Jerram thinks the 'clear spirit' is the spirit 'purified by elevation into a clearer atmosphere.' Spur. Spenser, in Tears of the Muses, has the line 'Due praise, that is the spur of doing well.' 'Spirit' is said by most critics to be a monosyllable here, like 'sprite'; but is it necessary so to regard it? May not an anapest take the place of an iambus? (That last infirmity of noble mind) 75 71. That last infirmity of noble mind. So Tacitus has, Etiam sapientibus cupido gloriæ novissima exuitur, which Sir Henry Wotton had in mind in his Panegyric on James I., addressed to King Charles, "I will not deny his appetite for glory, which generous minds do ever latest part from." "Pride," says Bishop Hall (1574–1656), “is the inmost coat, which we put on first and put off last." In the Deipnosophists of Athenæus (B. XI. sec. 116) we find the passage, "Plato said, "The last tunic, the desire of glory, we lay aside in death itself, Ἔσχατον τὸν τῆς δύξης χίτωνα ἐν τῷ θανάτῳ αὐτῷ ἀποδυόμεθα.” 72. The Clarendon Press edition quotes on this line the following from Milton's Academical Exercise, VII., "Not to wait for glory when one has done well, - that is above all glory." 73. Guerdon (Low Latin widerdonum, from Old High German widar, again, and Lat. donum, gift; Old French guerdon), reward, requital. It was in use in Chaucer's time; then seems to have become obsolete, but was revived and in common use in the Elizabethan period; but nearly obsolete again in the 18th century. (A.-S. wither, against, in return for; lean, reward.) 74. Think to burst out. Think we shall burst out'? or, "think it will burst out'? Blaze. So Pindar, Nemean Odes, X. 4, "Argos is enkindled (i. e. burns, glows, shines) by countless glorious deeds." So Nem. Odes, VI. 66. See Par. Regained, III. 47. 75. Fury. Milton here takes the liberty of calling Atropos (destiny) a fury. In Mythology the Furia (Erinnyes) were very different from the Fates (Parcæ, or Greek Moîpai). Atropos, one of the three Fates, was represented as standing with shears ready to cut the thread of life which her sister Clotho was spinning on the distaff; while the third sister, Lachesis, was pointing to the horoscope, which determined the length of the thread. See 'Horoscope,' in Webs. Unabridged Dict. Tennyson calls time, 'a maniac scattering dust,' and life, 'a Fury, slinging flame.' (In Memoriam, xlix. 2.) Why 'blind'? Abhorred shears, called by Spenser the 'cursed knife.' Faerie Queene, IV. ii. 48. 76. Slits. Is this word properly applicable to 'praise'? What is zeugma ? 77. Phoebus, Apollo, the god of prophecy and song. In Virgil's sixth Eclogue, of which we see other traces in Lycidas, we find, "Cum canerem reges et prælia, Cynthius aurem "Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil, Set off to the world, nor in broad rumor lies; Of so much fame in Heaven expect thy meed.” 80 85 'When I would sing of kings and battles, the Cynthian Apollo [i. e. Phœbus] twitched my ear and admonished me.' Masson thinks that here is an allusion to the popular notion of a tingling sensation in one's ears, indicating that people are talking of him; as if Milton felt at the moment that absent people were weighing his words, and calculating his chances of immortal fame. "Conington (on Virgil's lines above-quoted) remarks that touching the ear was a symbolical act, the ear being the seat of memory." 78-84. "The answer Milton would give to the critics imagined in the preceding note.' Masson. 79. Foil. Milton's words, says Jerram, admit of a twofold construction. By the first construction, 'foil' "must be understood of a dark substance (originally a thin leaf [folium] of metal), in which jewels were placed to 'set off' their lustre." By the second construction, which is preferred by him, 'foil' is tinsel, 'some baser metal which glitters like gold, and makes a fair show to the eye.' "Perhaps the idea of 'foil' (folium) was suggested by the word 'plant,' ,"" the metaphor reappearing in line 81. Foil set off' is, then, ‘a fair show ostentatiously displayed' to the world. Is this explanation correct? 81. Pure eyes. See Comus, 1. 213, Habak. i. 13. For this whole passage, see Paradise Regained, III. 60 to 65. 82. Jove. How about the rhyme? Meaning of 'witness' in this line? 83. Lastly, finally, like the Lat. ultimum. 84. Meed. In Faerie Queene, III. x. 31, we find the line, "Fame is my meed, and glory virtue's pay." 85. Arethuse, a famous fountain in Ortygia, an island at the mouth of the 'Great Harbor' of Syracuse in Sicily. It used to be said that a cup, thrown into the river Alpheus, would reappear in the fountain Arethusa, hundreds of miles away. See the legend of Alpheus and Arethusa in the classical dictionaries. The nymph of the fountain was regarded as the muse that inspired the Sicilian poet Theocritus, whom Virgil and Milton imitate. She was a companion of Diana. Is the word made a dissyllable by modernizing it? 86. Mincius, a stream in northern Italy, one of the tributaries of the Po, in Venetia, near Mantua, the birthplace and home of Virgil, who often mentions the stream. The river god of the Mincius might be supposed to inspire Virgil's pastorals. Smooth-sliding. An epithet used by Milton's favorite That strain I heard was of a higher mood: But now my oat proceeds, And listens to the herald of the sea, That came in Neptune's plea ; He asked the waves, and asked the felon winds, 90 "What hard mishap hath doomed this gentle swain?" And questioned every gust of rugged wings That blows from off each beakéd promontory. They knew not of his story; And sage Hippotades their answer brings, 95 Sylvester in Du Bartas, 1. 171, 'the crystal of smooth-sliding floods.' The 'reed' is from Virgil. See Jerrain's note on Lycidas, 1. 33. In Virgil's seventh. Eclogue we have Hic virides tenera prætexit arundine ripas Mincius, 'Here Mincius has fringed the green banks with the pliant reed.' In Æneid, X. 205, 206, we have 'Mincius decked with sea-green reeds,' Mincius being the name of a ship bearing the figure of the river god. 87. Higher mood. The noble words of Phoebus were loftier than the language of simple pastoral song. Mood is here musical or poetical style (Lat. modus, 'a certain arrangement of intervals in the musical scale'). See Paradise Lost, I. 550. 88. Oat. See note on 1. 33. Do not imagine a child's corn-pipe of straw! 89. Herald. Triton, the trumpeter of the waves, who now came, in the name of Neptune, to conduct a judicial inquiry into the cause of the death of Lycidas." Masson. For Triton's 'wreathed horn,' see Holmes's Chambered Nautilus, and Wordsworth's twenty-third Sonnet (Little and Brown's ed., Vol. II. p. 341). 90. Plea (Lat. placitum, that which is pleasing to the court; from placere, to please; O. French plait) behalf; 'name.' He came to hold an inquest? 91. Felon (Fr. felon; Ital. fello; perhaps akin to A.-S. fell, cruel; or from Welsh gwall, defect; fall, bad; falloni, perfidy; Gaelic feall, betray. Brachet makes it from the Low Lat. fellonem, a thief, a word which occurs but once), cruel, with the added sense of 'criminal.' What of the rhyme of lines 91, 92? 92. Doomed (Old Eng. dôm, Gothic doms, judgment, jurisdiction; A.-S. deman, to judge). Swain, a laborer, a young man. Old Eng. swán, a herdsman; Old Norse svein, a boy, a servant; Dan. svend, a bachelor. 93. Wings. Explain this metaphor, also that in the word 'beaked' in the next line. Are the gusts winged, or do the "wings of the wind" fan with gusts? Is the meaning, rough-winged gusts? Marvell calls great ships 'beaked promontories, sailed from far.' In Drayton's Poly-Olbion, 1st Song, we have 'the utmost end of Cornwall's furrowing beak.' 96. Hippotades, Eolus, the god of the winds, son of Hippotes. See Ovid's Met., XIV. 229, etc. |