Hushed

admiration and reverential joy.

And the yellow-skirted fays

Fly after the night-steeds,* leaving their moon-loved maze.

27. But see, the Virgin blest

Hath laid her Babe to rest!

Time is, our tedious song should here have ending:
Heaven's youngest teemed star

Hath fixed her polished car,

Her sleeping Lord with handmaid lamp attending;
And all about the courtly stable

Bright harnessed angels sit in order serviceable.

*Night-steeds, the steeds that draw the chariot of night. See Comus, 553.--Maze. See Paradise Lost, Book 1., 781-787. The superstitious belief, expressed in this stanza, is akin to that stated in Shakespeare as follows:

So the ghost retreats as morning approaches, and, at parting, says to Hamlet:

'Fare thee well at once.

The glow-worm shows the water to be near,

And 'gins to pale his uneffectual fire."—Hamlet, Act 1., sc. 5.

Harnessed, clad in armor. So Macbeth, Act v., sc. 5, says,

"At least we 'll die with harness on our back."

Serviceable. Acc. 1st and 3d syl. "The tendency of English accentuation has been to get as far back in words as it is possible for it to go. Corson. Thus character was once accented on the 2d syl. A multitude of illustrations of this tendency may be found in comparing the language of the old English writers with that of the modern.

Write an essay on this ode, showing its origin, its beauties, its peculiarities. Supposing its author entirely sincere, what kind of man, mentally and morally, does this ode show him to have been? Write an essay on Milton's college life; on lyric poetry. (See Masson's Milton.)

COMUS: A MASK.

The loftiest poem in praise of female purity in any language.-Emerson.

The first Scene discovers a wild wood. The attendant Spirit descends or enters.

1. Before the starry threshold of Jove's court

My mansion is; where those immortal shapes
Of bright aerial spirits live insphered*

In regions mild of calm and serene air,

* Insphered, in the sphere whither departed spirits pass from earth. The opposite of unsphered in Il Penseroso.

Calm, serene, placid, tranquil, still, quiet, undisturbed, unruffled, peaceful, composed. Explain and illustrate each.

Above the smoke and stir of this dim spot

Which men call earth; and, with low-thoughted care,
Confined and pestered* in this pinfold here,
Strive to keep up a frail and feverish being,
Unmindful of the crown that virtue gives,
10. After this mortal change, to her true servants,
Amongst the enthroned gods on sainted seats.
Yet some there be that, by due steps, aspire
To lay their just hands on that golden key,
That opes the palace of eternity.

To such my errand is; and, but for such,
I would not soil these pure ambrosial weeds
With the rank vapors of this sin-worn mold.

But to my task. Neptune, besides the sway
Of every salt flood and each ebbing stream,
20. Took in by lot, 'twixt high and nether Jove,
Imperial rule of all the sea-girt isles,

That, like to rich and various gems, inlay
The unadorned bosom of the deep;
Which he, to grace his tributary gods,

By course commits to several government,

And gives them leave to wear their sapphire crowns,

And wield their little tridents. But this isle,

The greatest and the best of all the main,
He quarters to his blue-haired deities;

30. And all this tract that fronts the falling sun,
A noble peer, of mickle trust and power,
Has in his charge, with tempered awe to guide
An old and haughty nation, proud in arms:
Where his fair offspring, nursed in princely lore,
Are coming to attend their father's state

And new-intrusted sceptre. But their way

Lies through the perplexed paths of this drear wood,
The nodding horror of whose shady brows
Threats the forlorn and wandering passenger;
40. And here their tender age might suffer peril,
But that, by quick command from sovereign Jove,
I was dispatched for their defence and guard:
And listen why; for I will tell you now

What never yet was heard in tale or song,

* Pestered, crowded, encumbered.-Pinfold (pen, inclosure; fold. a sheep-pen) a pound. Golden key, virtue.-High and nether Jove. High Jove is Jupiter; nether Jove is Pluto.-By course, by methodical procedure.-Tridents, three-pronged sceptres. (Tres, three, dentes, teeth.)-Isle, England, Scotland, and Wales.-Quarters, allots.-Blue-haired, blué because the ocean is blue.-Mickle (obs., except in Scotch), much, great. Akin to Lat. magnus, Gr. μéyas, Eng. much. See Grimm's Law, pp. 23, 197.-Nation, the Welsh.-Father's. This father, the peer of mickle trust and might, is the Earl of Bridgewater, the governor of the Welsh.-State, inauguration, or entry with pomp upon the duties of his high office.

From old or modern bard, in hall* or bower.
Bacchus, that first from out the purple grape
Crushed the sweet poison of misused wine,
After the Tuscan mariners transformed,

Coasting the Tyrrhene shore, as the winds listed,
50. On Circe's island fell. (Who knows not Circe,
The daughter of the Sun, whose charmed cup
Whoever tasted, lost his upright shape,

And downward fell into a grovelling swine?)
This nymph, that gazed upon his clustering locks
With ivy berries wreathed, and his blithe youth,
Had by him, ere he parted thence, a son
Much like his father, but his mother more.
Whom, therefore, she brought up, and Comus named:
Who, ripe and frolic of his full-grown age,

60. Roving the Celtic and Iberian fields,

At last betakes him to this ominous wood,

And, in thick shelter of black shades imbowered,
Excels his mother at her mighty art,

Offering, to every weary traveller,
His orient liquor in a crystal glass,

To quench the drought of Phœbus; which as they taste,
(For most do taste, through fond intemperate thirst,)
Soon as the potion works, their human countenance,
The express resemblance of the gods, is changed

70. Into some brutish form, of wolf, or bear,

Or ounce, or tiger, hog, or bearded goat,
All other parts remaining as they were;
And they, so perfect is their misery,
Not once perceive their foul disfigurement,
But boast themselves more comely than before,
And all their friends and native home forget,
To roll with pleasure in a sensual sty.
Therefore, when any, favored of high Jove,

Chances to pass through this adventurous glade,

* In hall. "The allusion is to the ancient mode of entertaining a splendid assembly, by singing or reciting tales." T. Warton.-Bacchus, the god of wine and revelry. See p. 77. Tuscan mariners transformed. A Latinism (post nautus Tyrrhenos mutatos), after the transformation of the Tuscan mariners, the Tyrrhene pirates, who are represented as having been transformed into dolphins by Bacchus. Tyrrhene, the same as Tuscan.-Circe personifies the brutalizing power of the intoxicating cup. She occupies a large space in ancient myths and legends.--Ivy was a favorite plant with Bacchus. In L'Allegro we have ivycrowned Bacchus.-Blithe (A. S. blidhe, gây, merry), joyous, sprightly.-Comus (Gr. κôμos, a revel, fr. kóμŋ, a village, whence comedy?), in the latter age of Rome a god of festive mirth and joy. But Milton has forever stamped his character as that of a reveller and vile enchanter. Celtic and Iberian, French and Spanish.-Orient (Lat. oriens, the rising of the sun, the east), radiant, bright.-Phoebus (Gr. páw, to shine; Phœbus, the shining one, the sun-god, Apollo), the sun.-Drought (A. S. drugadh, from dryge, Eng, dry), aridity, dryness.-Is changed. In the tenth book of Homer's Odyssey, the companions of Ulysses are changed by Circe to swine by a stroke of her wand, after they have drunk of her wine.-Ounce (Lat. uncia felis), an animal resembling the leopard.

Liquor, liquid, juice, humor, fluid. Explain, etc.

80. Swift as the sparkle* of a glancing star

I shoot from heaven, to give him safe convoy;

As now I do. But first I must put off

These my sky-robes, spun out of Iris' woof,
And take the weeds and likeness of a swain
That to the service of this house belongs,
Who, with his soft pipe, and smooth-dittied song,
Well knows to still the wild winds when they roar,
And hush the waving woods; nor of less faith,
And in this office of his mountain watch,
90. Likeliest, and nearest to the present aid
Of this occasion. But I hear the tread

Of hateful steps: I must be viewless now.

COMUS enters with a charming-rod in one hand, his glass in the other; with him a rout of monsters, headed like sundry sorts of wild beasts, but otherwise like men and women, their apparel glistering. They come in, making a riotous

and unruly noise, with torches in their hands.

Comus. The star that bids the shepherd fold,
Now the top of heaven doth hold;

And the gilded car of day

His glowing axle doth allay
In the steep Atlantic stream;

And the slope sun his upward beam
Shoots against the dusky pole,
100. Pacing toward the other goal
Of his chamber in the east.
Meanwhile, welcome joy and feast,
Midnight shout and revelry,
Tipsy dance and jollity.

Braid your locks with rosy twine,
Dropping odors, dropping wine.

Rigor now is gone to bed;

* Sparkle. A beautiful simile.-Iris, the goddess of the rainbow.-Woof (A. S. wefan, to weave), the threads across the warp; cloth. So, in the Hymn on the Nativity, Milton represents Truth, Justice, and Mercy, as wearing rainbow colors.-Swain (A. S. swan), a young rustic. The name of the person who acted the part of the Attendant Spirit and of the swain Thyrsis, has come down to us. It was Thomas Lawes, a musician and poet, immortalized in Milton's Eighth Sonnet.-Less faith (than skill in magical music).Top of heaven, the zenith.-Glowing axle. In Hymn on the Nativity, we have "burning axle-tree."- Allay, etc., abate the intense heat of the sun-god's chariot-axle, cool the "burning axle-tree."-Atlantic stream. Around the earth, which was supposed to be flat and circular, the ocean-stream was said to flow. On the western coast of Europe it flowed from south to north; then, passing east along the Arctic lands, it afterwards flowed south along the eastern coast of Asia. Those who lived in the far we-t were said to sometimes hear the hiss of the burning wheels, as they dipped at sunset in the ocean-stream. Some would have it that a winged boat conveyed the sun-god from the western horizon round by the northern part of the earth, and back to his place of rising.--Steep, sloping at a great angle with the plane of the horizon; hence, very swift.—Slope sun, sun travelling on an inclined plane, or in an oblique direction.

Sparkle, flash, gleam, glitter, glow, scintillation, glimmer, glisten, glare. Distinguish, etc. Odors, smell, scent, perfume, fragrance. Differentiate, etc.

And Advice, with scrupulous head,

Strict Age, and sour Severity,

110. With their grave saws,* in slumber lie. We, that are of purer fire,

Imitate the starry quire,

Who, in their nightly watchful spheres,
Lead in swift round the months and years.

The sounds and seas, with all their finny drove,
Now to the moon in wavering morrice move;
And, on the tawny sands and shelves,

Trip the pert fairies and the dapper elves.
By dimpled brook and fountain-brim,

120. The wood-nymphs, decked with daisies trim,
Their merry wakes and pastimes keep:
What hath night to do with sleep?
Night hath better sweets to prove:
Venus now wakes, and wakens Love.

Come, let us our rites begin:

'Tis only daylight that makes sin;
Which these dun shades will ne'er report.
Hail, goddess of nocturnal sport,

Dark-veiled Cotytto! to whom the secret flame
130. Of midnight torches burns; mysterious dame,
That ne'er art called but when the dragon womb
Of Stygian darkness spits her thickest gloom,
And makes one blot of all the air;

Stay thy cloudy ebon chair,

Wherein thou ridest with Hecate, and befriend
Us, thy vowed priests, till utmost end

Of all thy dues be done, and none left out;
Ere the blabbing eastern scout,

The nice Morn, on the Indian steep,

140. From her cabined loop-hole peep,

And to the tell-tale sun descry,

Our concealed solemnity.

་་

* Saws. Sayings, maxims. So Shakespeare in As You Like It, "full of wise saws. Purer fire. The deities were supposed to have bodies made of a fiery essence, an "empyreal substance. See Paradise Lost, i., 117, 11., 215. Morrice (Sp. morisco, Fr. moresque, from Moro, a Moor), morris, a Moorish dance, first brought into England on the return of John of Gaunt from Spain in the time of Chaucer.-Dapper (Ger. tapfer, valiant), little and active; spruce, smart.-Wakes, vigils; night-revels; sitting up late for solemn or festive purposes. A. S. wacan; Ger. wachen, to wake; Lat. vigiläre, to watch. See Grimm's Law, p. 240.-'Tis only daylight that makes sin. "A sentiment worthy of Comus."--Cotytto, the goddess of licentiousness, worshipped with rites of the grossest indecency in private at Athens.Stygian, "of, or pertaining to, Styx, fabled by the ancients to be a river of hell; hence, hellish.' Webster-Makes one blot. So Shakespeare's "making the green one red," in Macbeth. II., 1, p. 131.-Hecate. As Diana personifies the moonlight splendor, so Hecate represents night's darkness and terrors. See Cynthia, pp. 79, 246. and Phœbe, p. 74.-Blabbing, talkative, taletelling. Shakespeare (Henry VI., Part 2, Act Iv., Scene 1, first line) speaks of "the gaudy, blabbing, and remorseful day."-Nice, fastidious.-Loop-hole. The scout, on the top of one of the steep mountains of India, looks from the loop-hole of a fortification which is no larger than a cabin or tent. But see cabined, p. 145.