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 wood. 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 ShakspeareThat 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. Wassail, from the Anglo-Saxon was hal, "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 wassail-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, And in their cups their cares are drown'd. I cannot halloo to my brothers, but Such noise as I can make to be heard farthest, Song.1 Sweet Echo, sweetest nymph, that livest unseen By slow Meander's margent green, Where the love-lorn nightingale Nightly to thee her sad song mourneth well; That likest thy Narcissus are? O if thou have Hid them in some flowery cave, Tell me but where, Sweet queen of parley, daughter of the sphere! And give resounding grace to all heaven's harmonies. Enter Comus. Comus. Can any mortal mixture of earth's mould How sweetly did they float upon the wings 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!? 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 acknowledge 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 compo sition, compared with what it is."-Lord Montoddo. Forbidding every bleak unkindly fog To touch the prosperous growth of this tal. wood. Not any boast of skill, but extreme shift Compell'd me to awake the courteous Echo To give me answer from her mossy couch. Com. What chance, good lady, hath bereft you thus? Lady. Dim darkness, and this leavie labyrinth. Com. Could that divide you from near-ushering guides? Lady. To seek i' the valley some cool friendly spring. Lady. They were but twain, and purposed quick return. Com. Perhaps forestalling night prevented them. Lady. How easy my misfortune is to hit! Com. Imports their loss, beside the present need? Lady. No less than if I should my brothers lose. Com. Were they of manly prime, or youthful bloom? Lady. As smooth as Hebe's their unrazor'd lips. Com. Two such I saw, what time the labor'd ox In his loose traces from the furrow came, And the swink'd hedger at his supper sat; I saw them under a green mantling vine, That crawls along the side of yon small hill, Plucking ripe clusters from the tender shoots: Their port was more than human as they stood: I took it for a faery vision 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, Without the sure guess of well-practised feet. Com. I know each lane, and every alley green, Dingle, or bushy dell of this wild wood, But loyal cottage, where you may be safe 1 "Swink'd," 1. e. tired, fatigued. Lady. Shepherd, I take thy word, And trust thy honest offer'd courtesy, Which oft is sooner found in lowly sheds I cannot be, that I should fear to change it.- 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 Taught by the heavenly Muse to venture down Those other two equall'd with me in fate, 1 "This celebrated complaint, with which Milton opens the third book, deserves all the praises which have been given it."-Addison. 2 That is, may I, without blame, call thee the co-eternai beam of the Eternal God. • 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 " 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,1 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. Into a liquid plain, then stood unmoved, A shape within the watery gleam appear'd, Mine eyes till now, and pined with vain desire, 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 " |