"Certiùs et graviùs tela nocere mea. "Me nequit adductum curvare peritiùs arcum, "Qui post terga solet vincere, Parthus eques: Cydoniúsque mihi cedit venator, et ille 66 66 "Inscius uxori qui necis author erat. "Est etiam nobis ingens quoque victus Orion, "Herculeæque manus, Herculeúsque comes. Jupiter ipse licèt sua fulmina torqueat in me, "Hærebunt lateri spicula nostra Jovis. "Cætera, quæ dubitas, meliùs mea tela docebunt, "Et tua non levitèr corda petenda mihi. “Nec te, stulte, tuæ poterunt defendere Musæ, "Nec tibi Phœbæus porriget anguis opem." 35 40 45 Ver. 37. Cydoniúsque mihi &c.] Perhaps indefinitely as the Parthus eques, just before. The Cydonians were famous for hunting, which implies archery. Ovid has, Metam. viii. 22. "Cydoneasque pharetras." And Callimachus, KYAQNION τóžov, Hymn. Dian. v. 81. If a person is here intended, he is most probably Hippolytus. Cydon was a city of Crete. See Euripides, Hippol. v. 18. But then he is mentioned here as an archer. Virgil ranks the Cydonians, with the Parthians, for their skill in the bow. En. xii. 852. T. WARTON. Ibid. his wife Procris. et ille &c.] Cephalus, who unknowingly shot T. WARTON. Ver. 39. Est etiam nobis ingens quoque victus Orion,] Orion was also a famous hunter. But for his amours we must consult Ovid, Art. Amator. i. 731. "Pallidus in Lyricen sylvis errabat Orion." 1 See Parthenius, Erotic. cap. xx. T. WARTON. Ver. 46. Nec tibi Phœbæus porriget anguis opem.] "No medicine will avail you. Not even the serpent, which Phœbus sent to Rome to cure the city of a pestilence." Ovid, Metam. xv. 742. Dixit; et, aurato quatiens mucrone sagittam, Evolat in tepidos Cypridos ille sinus. At mihi risuro tonuit ferus ore minaci, Et mihi de puero non metus ullus erat. Et modò quà nostri spatiantur in urbe Quirites, "Huc se de Latiâ pinu Phœbeius anguis 66 Contulit," &c. Where see the fable at large. T. WARTON. 50 Ver. 47. Dixit; et, aurato quatiens mucrone sagittam, Evolat in tepidos Cypridos ille sinus.] Statius, Syl. "Here Love his golden shafts employs, here lights "His constant lamp, and waves his purple wings." Where, by the way, as Mr. Steevens has observed to me, there is a palpable imitation of Jonson, Hymenai, vol. v. p. 291. 66 Marriage Love's object is, at whose bright eyes "He lights his torches, and calls them his skies; "For her he wings his shoulders," &c. But our author has a reference to Ovid's Cupid, who has a golden dart with a sharp point, which is attractive; and one of lead and blunted, which is repulsive, Metam. i. 470. "Quod facit, auratum est, et cuspide fulget acuta." So again, of faithless love, Straight his [Love's] arrows lose their golden heads," Divorce. B. i. cho vi. T. WARTON. The passage of Jonson, cited in the preceding note, is an imitation of Tibullus: “Illius ex oculis, quum vult accendere divos, JOHN WARTON. 55 Et modò villarum proxima rura placent. Turba frequens, faciéque simillima turba dearum, Splendida per medias itque reditque vias: Auctáque luce dies gemino fulgore coruscat ; Fallor? An et radios hinc quoque Phoebus habet? Hæc ego non fugi spectacula grata severus ; Impetus et quò me fert juvenilis, agor; Lumina luminibus malè providus obvia misi, Ver. 53. Turba &c.] See El. i. 53. In Milton's youth the fashionable places of walking in London, were Hyde-Park, and Gray's-Inn walks. This appears from sir A. Cokain, Milton's contemporary, Poems, Lond. 1662. 12mo. Written much earlier. A young lady, he says, p. 35. "Frequents the theaters, Hide Park, or els talkes "Away her precious time in Gray's Inn walkes." See also, p. 38, p. 39, and p. 48. T. WARTON. Hyde Park was rendered attractive also by races. See Gayton's Notes on Don Quirote, 1654, p. 44. But the fashionable places of walking were not in Milton's youth confined, as Mr. Warton. would insinuate, to Hyde Park and Gray's Inn. For, see Partheneia Sacra, published in 1633, under the Discourse of the Garden, p. 11. "I speake not heer of the Couent Garden, the Garden of the Temple, nor that of the Charter-house, or of Grayes-Inne Walkes, to be had and enioyed at home; nor of the Garden of Padua," &c. TODD. Ver. 55. Auctáque luce dies &c.] Spenser, describing Britomart" onely venting up her umbriëre, and so letting her goodly visage to appere," most elegantly compares her beauty to the moon shining through a cloud in darksome night, and concludes with a couplet which was evidently now in Milton's memory. See Faer. Qu. iii. i. 43. ،، Such was the beautie and the shining ray, "With which fayre Britomart gave light unto the day." TODD. Neve oculos potui continuisse meos. Ast ego progredior tacitè querebundus, et excors, 60 65 70 75 Findor, et hæc remanet: sequitur pars altera votum, Sic dolet amissum proles Junonia cœlum, Talis et abreptum solem respexit, ad Orcum Ver. 76. 80 non reditura,] He saw the unknown lady, The fervour of his love is who had thus won his heart, but once. inimitably expressed in the following lines. TODD. Ver. 84. Vectus ab attonitis Amphiaräus equis.] An echo to a pentameter in Ovid, Epist. Pont. iii. i. 52. "Notus humo mersis Amphiaraus equis." Quid faciam infelix, et luctu victus? Amores Ponar in exemplo primus et unus ego. Jam tuus O! certè est mihi formidabilis arcus, Nate deâ, jaculis, nec minùs igne, potens : Et tua fumabunt nostris altaria donis, Solus et in superis tu mihi summus eris. Deme meos tandem, verùm nec deme, furores; See Statius, Theb. vii. 821. "Illum ingens haurit specus, et transire parantes Mergit equos; non arma manu, non frena remisit: "Sicut erat, rectos defert in Tartara currus ; Respexitque cadens cœlum, campumque coire "Ingemuit," &c. 85 90 95 The application is beautiful from a young mind teeming with classical history and imagery. The allusion, in the last couplet, to Vulcan, is perhaps less happy, although the compliment is greater. In the example of Amphiaraus, the sudden and striking transition from light and the sun to a subterraneous gloom, perhaps is more to the poet's purpose. T. WARTON. Ver. 89. Forsitan et duro non est adamante creata,] See Theocritus, Idyll. iii. 39. Καὶ κέ μ' ἴσως ποτίδοι· ἐπεὶ οὐκ ἀδαμαντίνα ἐντί. TODD. Ver. 99. Deme meos tandem, verùm nec deme, furores; Nescio cur, miser est suavitèr omnis amans:] There never was a more beautiful description of the irresolution of love. |