The Complete Poems

by John Milton

  unblemished] unspotted TMS 1st reading. See below, 1009n.

  216. 1 see ye visibly In Plato’s Phaedrus (250) Socrates says that if we could see the ideal Forms (as we did before we were born), the sight would be ravishing.

  219. guardian] cherub TMS 1st reading.

  221–4. Was I deceived… night Cp. Ovid, Fasti v 549: ‘Am I deceived, or is that a clash of arms? I am not deceived, there was a clash of arms.’ Ovid is describing the descent of Mars, Rome’s glist’ring guardian.

  221–2. *cloud… silver lining OED’s earliest instance of the proverb (‘lining’ 2b).

  226. I cannot hallo Cp. The Two Noble Kinsmen III ii 8–9: ‘What if I halloed for him? / I cannot hallo.’ The speaker is the jailer’s daughter, benighted in a wood.

  230. Echo a talkative nymph condemned by Juno to repeat the last phrases of whatever she heard. She fell in love with Narcissus (237) and pined when he spurned her (Ovid, Met. iii 351–401). Echo sings in Jonson, Cynthia’s Revels (1601) I ii and Browne, Inner Temple Masque (performed 1615) 267–79. Carey notes that ‘the Lady’s loneliness is enhanced because, unusually, no echo replies’. But Martz (24) finds it ‘hard to believe that Lawes would have passed up a chance to perform this song with echoes’. The Lady says that Echo did reply (275).

  231.airy shell vault of the air.

  232. Meander a river in Phrygia.

  margent bank, margin.

  234. *love-lorn not ‘pining from love’ (as OED) but ‘ruined [OED “lorn” 1] through another’s love’. The allusion is to Philomela, who became a nightingale after her brother-in-law Tereus raped her in a forest (Ovid, Met. vi 424–674). See below, 566n.

  241. parley speech.

  241–3. Echo is daughter of the sphere because she lives in the airy shell (231) below the moon. Were she to help the Lady, Echo might be elevated to a higher level where she could answer the Music of the Spheres.

  242.translated conveyed to heaven (OED 1b).

  243.give resounding grace] hold a counterpoint TMS 1st reading, BMS. There may be a play on grace meaning ‘additional notes not essential to the harmony’ (OED 3). Line 243 is an alexandrine ‘mimicking the lengthening of heaven’s song by echo’ (Carey).

  244.mould earth as the material of the human body (OED 4).

  248. his its (the something holy of line 246).

  251.fall cadence.

  252.it smiled] 1645, 1673; she smiled TMS, BMS, 1637.

  253.Sirens sea-nymphs who drew sailors to destruction by their alluring songs (Homer, Od. xii 37–72, 167–200). Homer’s Circe warns Odysseus about the Sirens, but does not sing with them. Sirens attend Circe in Browne’s Inner Temple Masque (1–96).

  254. *kirtled wearing a skirt.

  Naiades freshwater nymphs attendant on Homer’s Circe (Od. x 348–51)

  255. potent herbs Circe transforms men with powerful drugs (potentibus herbis) in Virgil (Aen. vii 19).

  256.take the prisoned soul either ‘take the soul prisoner’ or ‘release the soul from its bodily prison’.

  257.Scylla a once beautiful nymph transformed into a monster by Circe (Ovid, Met. xiv 8–74). Even Scylla, who had most cause to hate Circe, is enraptured by her singing. Cp. Silius Italicus (xiv 476) on Daphnis’s pipe-playing: ‘Scylla’s dogs fell silent; black Charybdis stood still’. Cp. also Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream II i 149–52: ‘once I sat upon a promontory, / And heard a mermaid on a dolphin’s back / Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath / That the rude sea grew civil at her song’.

  258.barking waves Cp. Virgil, Aen. vii 588: latrantibus undis, and Fletcher, CV (1610) iii 23: ‘barking surges’. M.’s ‘barking’ suggests Scylla’s dogs.

  259.Charybdis a whirlpool opposite Scylla. See PL ii 1019–20n.

  262. *home-felt felt in one’s heart (OED). Cp. ‘native home’ (76).

  265. Hail foreign wonder Cp. Ferdinand’s first words to Miranda in Shakespeare, The Tempest I ii 422–7: ‘Most sure, the goddess / On whom these airs attend!… O you wonder!’

  267.Unless the ‘Unless (you are) the’.

  268.Sylvan Sylvanus, a Roman wood-god.

  269.unkindly unnatural.

  272.‘unattending inattentive (sole instance in OED).

  273.éxtreme shift last resource (OED ‘shift’ 5d).

  277–90. M. uses dialogue in single lines (stichomythia), common in Greek drama.

  278. Dim darkness ‘Dim darkness’ covers the earth in Shakespeare’s The Rape of Lucrece (118), when Lucrece greets Tarquin, not knowing that he plans to rape her.

  286.hit guess.

  287.Imports their loss ‘Does their loss matter?’

  290. Hebe goddess of youth.

  *unrazored.

  291–2. what time… came i.e. at evening: the time for unyoking oxen (Homer, Il. xvi 779, Virgil, Ecl. ii 66).

  292.traces straps securing a draught animal (OED sb21).

  293.*swinked wearied (from swink, labour; the normal past-participle was swonk).

  hedger workman who trims hedges.

  294.mantling *spreading, covering (OED 2).

  297. port bearing.

  more than human Cp. Euripides, Iphigenia in Tauris 260–74, where a herdsman mistakes Orestes and Pylades for gods.

  299.element sky, atmosphere (OED 10).

  301. plighted contracted into folds.

  *awe-strook.

  312.Dingle wooded hollow.

  313.bosky bourn bushy stream.

  315.attendance attendants.

  316.shroud seek shelter (OED v1 2c).

  317.low-roosted Larks build their nests on the ground.

  318.thatched pallet straw nest.

  if otherwise if you prefer.

  322–5. courtesy… princes Cp. Ariosto, Orl. Fur. xiv 62 and Harington’s translation (1591) xiv 52: ‘curtesie oftimes in simple bowres / Is found as great as in the stately towres’. Cp. also Aeschylus, Agamemnon 772f.: ‘Justice shines in smoky hovels… she turns her eyes from proud halls’, and contrast Marlowe, Hero and Leander (1598) i 394–5: ‘lofty Pride that dwells / In towered courts is oft in shepherds’ cells’.

  325. first was named ‘Courtesy’ derives from ‘court’. Cp. Spenser, FQVI i 1: ‘Of Court it seemes, men Courtesie doe call’.

  326. yet is most pretended ambiguous. If yet means ‘still’ and pretended means ‘aspired to’ (OED 9), the courtiers still genuinely aspire to the courtesy that was named for them. If yet means ‘nevertheless’ and pretended means ‘feigned’, the courtiers merely pretend to be courteous.

  327. warranted protected from danger (OED v1).

  329. Eye me ‘Keep your (protective) watch over me’.

  square adapt.

  trial ordeal and test.

  331. Unmuffle *remove a muffling (OED’s earliest intransitive use). Cp. Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet V iii 21: ‘Muffle me, night’.

  332.wont’st are used to.

  benison blessing.

  333.Stoop *bow the head (OED 8a).

  334.disinherit Chaos dispossess primeval darkness. Moonlight in John Fletcher’s The Faithful Shepherdess (c. 1609) gives ‘day / Again from Chaos’ (II ii 59–60).

  335.shades trees.

  336.influence light flowing like astral influences (Nativity 71n).

  338. rush candle candle made by dipping a rush in tallow (which gave a weak light).

  wicker hole window filled with wicker-work (instead of glass).

  339.clay habitation wattle hut plastered with clay.

  340.rule *shaft of light (OED 18c).

  341. star of Arcady Arcturus (in Bootes) by which Greek navigators steered.

  Boötes was a stellification of the Arcadian prince Areas. See Ovid, Fasti ii 153–92

  342. Cynosure the North Star, in Ursa Minor. The Phoenicians steered by it (hence Tyriarn).

  344.wattled cotes sheepfolds made of plaited branches.

  345.pastoral reed shepherd’s pipe. stops finger-holes.

  349. close confined (OED 3), enclose
d with darkness (OED 5).

  355.*unpillowed.

  356.amazement stupefaction, frenzy (OED 1).

  357–65. Or rehile… delusïon These lines are not in TMS or BMS, which instead have the following three lines (deleted in TMS): ‘So fares as did forsaken Proserpine / When the big rolling flakes of pitchy clouds / And darkness wound her in’. See PL iv 268–71 on Pluto’s rape of Proserpine.

  358. savage hunger hunger of wild beasts.

  savage heat lust of cruel men. Centaurs pursue nymphs ‘with savage heat’ in Marlowe, Hero and Leander (1598) i 115.

  359.*over-exquisite over-precise (not in OED).

  360.cast forecast (OED 41).

  361.be so ‘be as you imagine them’ (i.e. evils).

  362.forestall *think of before the proper time; ‘to meet (misfortune etc.) halfway’ (OED 7).

  365.* self-delusion.

  366.so to seek so deficient.

  367.*unprincipled not instructed (OED 1).

  368.bosoms carries in its bosom (OED 4).

  369.single mere.

  370.trust] TMS, 1637, 1645, 1673; hope BMS.

  372. misbecoming unbecoming.

  373–4. Virtue… light Cp. Jonson, Pleasure Reconciled to Virtue (performed 1618, printed 1640) 339–42: ‘[Virtue] still herself refines, / By her owne light’. Spenser’s Redcrosse Knight is also confident that ‘Vertue gives her selfe light’, but in Errour’s den his armour makes only ‘A litle glooming light, much like a shade’ (FQ I i 12–14).

  375.flat including ‘lifeless, dull’.

  376.seeks resorts.

  377–8. Contemplation… wings Cp. Plato on the soul’s ‘wings’ (Phaedrus 249). Cp. also Marvell, The Garden 52–6.

  378. plumes *preens (OED 6, first recorded instance 1821). Cp. ‘Letter 8’ (to Charles Diodati): ‘What am I doing? Growing my wings and practising flight’ (YP 1. 327).

  380. to-ruffled ruffled up (to-is an intensive prefix).

  382. th’ centre of the earth.

  384–5. Benighted… dungeon TMS first had (and BMS retains): ‘Walks in black vapours, though the noontide brand / Blaze in the summer solstice’.

  385. Himself is his own dungeon Cp. SA 155–6.

  386. affects is drawn to (OED 2).

  387. secrecy retirement, seclusion (OED 2b).

  389. senate-house implying the protection of the law as well as the safety of a public place.

  390. weeds clothing.

  391. beads rosary.

  maple dish wooden bowl.

  393. Hesperian tree a tree bearing golden apples. Ge (Earth) gave it as a wedding-present to Hera, who planted it in the Garden of the Hesperides and set a dragon to guard it. Heracles killed the dragon and stole the apples. The tree is associated with female beauty by Marlowe (Hero and Leander ii 297–300), Shakespeare (Pericles I i 20–30), John Fletcher (The Faithful Shepherdess II iv 30–32), and Jonson (Every Man in his Humour III i 16–23).

  395. *unenchanted Heracles put the dragon to sleep.

  398. unsunned hidden. Cp. Spenser’s Mammon ‘Sunning his threasure’ (FQ. II vii Arg.).

  401. Danger power to do injury (OED 1b).

  wink on overlook.

  403. *surrounding OED’s earliest participial instance.

  404. it recks me not I am not concerned.

  406. *ill-greeting that greets with evil intent.

  touch a euphemism for sexual contact (OED 1b).

  attempt try to ravish (OED 9c).

  407. unownèd *lost (OED’s sole instance of this figurative sense).

  408. Infer draw a conclusion.

  409. or controversy] 1637, 1645, 1673; or question, no TMS, BMS.

  410. equal poise equilibrium. The metaphor is of a balance.

  411. arbitrate th’ event decide the outcome.

  413. squint suspicïon Cp. Francis Quarles, Feast for Worms (1620) 1482: ‘squint-eyed Suspition’.

  421. in cómplete steel fully armed. ‘Complete armour’ was a common term, but cómplete steel recalls the ghost in Shakespeare’s Hamlet (I iv 52). The Elder Brother sees chastity as armour against ghosts and evil things that walk by night (432–7).

  422. * quivered nymph a nymph whose arrows mark her as one of Diana’s attendants (see 441–6). The Elder Brother is overconfident. Diana’s nymphs were not immune to assault. Daphne and Syrinx escaped ravishment only by being metamorphosed, and Callista did not escape. Syrinx’s and Callisto’s arrows only added to Pan’s and Jupiter’s lust (Ovid, Met. i 695–8, ii 409–16), and Callisto almost forgot to pick up her quiver after Jove raped her (Met. ii 439–40).

  423. trace traverse.

  unharboured *affording no shelter.

  426. mountaineer mountain savage. Shakespeare coined the word and always used it of criminals. Cp. Sandys’ Ovid, i 512, where Apollo assures the fleeing Daphne that he is ‘No Mountainere’.

  429. shagged *covered with scrub (OED 2b).

  horrid bristling.

  430. *unblenched undismayed (OED 1).

  431. Be it not ‘So long as it is not’.

  432–7. Some say… true virginity Cp. John Fletcher, The Faithful Shepherdess I i 111–17: ‘Yet I have heard (my mother told it me) / And now I do believe it, if I keepe / My virgin flower uncropt, pure, chaste, and faire, / No Goblin, Wood-god, Faiery, Elfe, or Fiend, / Satyr or other power that haunts the groaves / Shall hurt my body, or by vaine illusion / Draw me to wander after idle fiers’. Cp. also Browne, Britannia’s Pastorals (1613–16) I ii 29–38, and Shakespeare, Hamlet I i 120–23: ‘Some say… no spirit dare stir abroad’.

  433. fire the will-o’-the-wisp.

  moorish marshy.

  434. Blue *the colour of things hurtful (OED a 8).

  hag evil spirit (OED 1), or witch.

  unlaid by exorcism.

  435. curfew the evening bell, rung at nine o’clock.

  436. swart black (OED 1), malignant (OED 3).

  439. schools of Greece Greek philosophers.

  440. arms of chastity The Elder Brother’s beliefs suit an idealistic eleven-year-old, but the twenty-five-year-old M. knew of one famous occasion when Diana’s bow (441) and Minerva’s shield (447) failed to save a virgin. Pluto prevailed over both weapons when he seized Proserpine (Claudian, De Rapt. Pros, ii 204–32). M. had likened the Lady to Proserpine in an earlier version of 357–65 (see note).

  442. silver-shafted both ‘armed with silver arrows’ and ‘shining like the moon’.

  443. brinded tawny.

  444. pard panther or leopard.

  445. bolt arrow.

  447. Gorgon shield The virgin goddess Minerva wore on her shield the head of the Gorgon Medusa, with which she froze her enemies to stone. The Elder Brother takes comfort in Minerva’s shield, but Medusa’s own story is not comforting. Minerva had turned Medusa into a Gorgon to punish her for being raped by Neptune in Minerva’s temple (Ovid, Met. iv 798–803). The Elder Brother also takes comfort in Minerva’s power to freeze her foes, but in the event it is Comus who will freeze the Lady (658–61, 817–18).

  452. blank *prostrating the whole faculties (OED 6).

  454. sincerely in a pure or perfect degree (OED 4).

  455. *liveried wearing the uniform of (Heaven’s) servants.

  458. no gross ear can hear Cp. Arcades 72–3.

  459. oft converse frequent communion.

  461. temple of the mind John 2. 21 and I Cor. 3. 16.

  462. turns it… soul’s essence The conversion of body to soul was a Neo-Platonic rather than a Platonic doctrine. See Fallon (82) and cp. M.’s monism at PL v 469–503.

  465. lavish licentious.

  465–75. But most… state The argument follows Plato’s Phaedo 81: virtuous souls are liberated at death, but souls who have lived only for the body are ‘dragged down again into the visible world’, where they are seen ‘prowling about tombs and sepulchres’, still ‘craving after the corporeal’.

  466. the inward parts Cp. Ps. 51. 6: ‘Thou desirest truth in the inward par
ts’.

  468. Embodies *takes on a sensual character (OED 2).

  *imbrutes sinks to the level of a brute.

  472. Lingering] 1645, 1673; Hovering TMS, BMS, 1637.

  474. sensualty] TMS, 1643; sensuality BMS, 1637, 1673.

  478. musical as is Apollo’s lute Cp. Shakespeare, Love’s Labour’s Lost IV iii 339–40, where love (not philosophy) is ‘sweet and musical / As bright Apollo’s lute’.

  479. nectared sweet and heavenly (the food of the gods).

  480. crude indigestible (OED 3).

  483. night-foundered engulfed in night.

  491. iron stakes swords.

  493. father’s] TMS, BMS; father 1637, 1645, 1673.

  494. Thyrsis a common name in pastoral poetry, where it is used of shepherd singers (Theocritus i, Virgil, Ecl. vii).

  495. huddling *hurrying in disorder (OED v 7, earliest instance 1646). Madrigal Lawes composed madrigals (part-songs for three or more voices), but here M. means ‘song’ (OED 2b), with a play on the pastoral etymology (Italian mandra, ‘a flock’).

  495–512. The shift to couplets signals a shift to the pastoral mood of such dramas as John Fletcher’s The Faithful Shepherdess and Jonson’s Sad Shepherd.

  497. swain] 1637, 1645, 1673; shepherd TMS, BMS.

  499. wether castrated ram.

  501. next nearest.

  502. toy trifle.

  506. To this compared with this.

  509. sadly gravely, in earnest (OED 7).

  513. vain devoid of significance.

  fabulous mere fables.

  517. Chimeras fire-breathing monsters with a lion’s head, goat’s body and dragon’s tail (Homer, Il. vi 179–82).

  520. navel centre.

  530. Charáctered engraved like a face on a coin (notice mintage), with overtones of ‘face or features as betokening moral qualities’ (OED sb 10).

  531. crofts enclosed ground used for tillage or pasture (OED 1).

  532. *brow be on the brow of (OED 1), hence ‘overlook’.

  534. *stabled wolves either ‘wolves in their lairs’ (cp. PL xi 752) or ‘wolves in the fold’. Cp. Virgil, Ecl. iii 80: Triste lupus stabilis (‘The wolf is a bane to the fold’).

  535. Hecate goddess of witchcraft (see line 135).

  538. inveigle beguile, entice, entrap.

  invite try to attract.

  539. unweeting unsuspecting.