29. quarters. 'Divides' is the simple interpretation; perhaps a literally fourfold division is meant, although this seems hardly likely. Such a division might be England and Scotland, the Northern counties and Wales, as Keightley suggests. But these quarters are not mutually exclusive. No explanation, however, is quite satisfactory. The word 'But,' in 1. 27, seems to introduce an antithesis between Neptune's disposal of the other seagirt isles and his disposal of Britain. That antithesis, if it exists, should appear in 1. 29; but the line suggests no such interpretation.

30. This tract. Wales.

31. A noble Peer. The Earl of Bridgewater.

34. princely. Used figuratively.

35. state. Cf. L'All. 60.

37. perplexed. Entangled, not perplexing; save as perplexity follows complexity.

44. What follows, the story of Comus's parentage, was, indeed, purely a Miltonic invention.

45. hall and bower. An expression frequently met with in poetry; meaning literally, as here, the hall of the castle (the great dining and living room of the whole household), and the private or ladies' apartments; figuratively, as in Wordsworth's sonnet on Milton (London, 1802), 1. 4, standing for the whole home life of the days of chivalry.

46. Bacchus. The god of wine.

48. Cf. the Latin construction, post conditam urbem. The story of the transformation into dolphins of the mariners who having seized Bacchus would have sold him into slavery, is told in the Homeric Hymn to Bacchus and by Ovid, Metamorphoses III. 660. Keightley points out that the sea was the Ægean, and the sailors Tyrrhenians.

49. Tyrrhene. The Tyrrhene sea is between Italy, Sicily, and Sardinia.

as the winds listed. Cf. John iii. 8.

50. Circe. An enchantress whom Ulysses met (Odyssey x. 133 f.), and whose magic potions changed men into beasts,-wolves, lions, and swine. Her island was Ææa in the Tyrrhene Sea.

55. youth. Youthfulness.

57. Comus does, indeed, resemble Circe more than Bacchus.

58. Comus. Comus, as a god, does not belong to the regular classical mythology. No commentator that I have noted refers to an earlier authority than Philostratos the Elder (Verity quotes from the Imagines I. ii.), who lived in the third century A. D.: Philostratos describes a picture in which Comus is represented as drunk and asleep. Ben Jonson, in his mask of Pleasure Reconciled to Virtue (1619), presents Comus as the 'god of cheer or the Belly,' a character not at all akin to Milton's Comus. A Latin work by Hendrik van der Putten (Puteanus), entitled Comus, probably first published in 1608, and later, strangely enough, in Oxford in 1634, has as its main character a figure more like Milton's Comus than like Jonson's. Whether Milton paid much attention to these works cannot be determined. His own Comus is distinctive enough to be regarded as a Miltonic creation; but at the same time, it seems very likely that Milton was acquainted with the work of the Dutch professor. For a fuller discussion of this point, cf. Introd.

59. frolic. Cf. Ger. fröhlich.

60. France and Spain.

61. ominous. Full of omens, or portents. 65. orient. Bright.

67. fond. Foolish.

68. count'nance. So in 1645. To spell it in full would suggest an Alexandrine.

72. A variation of the Circean bodily transformation, which was complete. Newton ingeniously suggested a

good reason for the difference: that the crew of Comus could be much more easily presented on the stage if only the heads were changed. Indeed, it is not impossible that Milton originally conceived the bodily transformation as complete, and later made the alteration. Homer allows no change in the minds of Circe's victims,-they can see and lament their 'foul disfigurement'; the mental degradation of Comus's followers is complete.

79. adventurous. Dangerous.

83. Iris' woof. Iris, the rainbow goddess; and 'woof,' the threads that run crosswise in the weaver's frame. The 'sky-robes' were woven out of the rainbow.

86. Lawes himself is the subject of the compliment. Cf. the sonnet to Lawes, p. 103.

87. Cf. the construction of Lycidas, 1. 10-11.

88. Nor of less faith. Understand: than skill.

89. office. Duty, function.

90. likeliest. Most fitting (Verity), or preferably, likeliest to be near (Trent).

93. The evening star. Keightley, followed by everybody, recalls the unfolding star calls up the shepherd,' in Meas. for Meas. IV. ii. 218.

94. top of heaven. High up, not necessarily the zenith; the roof of heaven.'

97. steep. A somewhat perplexing word, variously explained: 'deep' (Browne); as the sun's car comes to it, as it were, down a steep descent' (Keightley); Verity suggests the upward slope of the sea, as one looks at it from the shore. The last interpretation would doubtless be right, if the line had been written by a modern poet; hardly right for Milton. Perhaps the sea growing deeper and deeper-a steep descent-is meant.

98. slope. Sloped, sloping; like 'create' for 'created.' 99. dusky pole. The north is meant, as the MS. indicates.

101. Cf. Psalms xix. 4–5.

105. rosy twine. A twine of roses.

III. We that are made of a purer element,-fire.

112. quire. Usually taken literally, as if to imply the music of the spheres which are spoken of in the next line; but it may be merely figurative, the host.'

113. Spheres. Cf. Vac. Ex. 34, note, p. 183.

116. morrice. Or morris, a Moorish dance.

121. wakes.

Merely the English word for vigils. Originally a vigil kept before a church holiday; merriment made it a carousal.

129. Cotytto. A Thracian goddess of wild revelry, whose rites were secret.

132. spets. Spits. In MS., spitts.

135. Hecate. Here dissyllabic (as usually with the Elizabethans), and printed Hecat' in the 1645 edition. Hecate was a goddess (probably Thracian in origin) of witchcraft. 139. nice. Fastidious; here used contemptuously, as of one disposed to be too good to join the revels. 141. descry. Reveal.

142. solemnity. Ceremony. Cf. Arcades 7, 39.

144. round. A dance, in which, probably, circular motion was originally the main thing, e. g., one in which all the dancers joined hands and danced round a circle. Measure obviously originally indicated a dance in which the rhythm was carefully kept,-as a minuet; but here measure' and 'round' apply to the same wild, rude, and wanton antick' (MS.).

147. shrouds. Shelters.

151. trains. Allurements.

154. dazzling spells. The MS. had ' powder'd' at first, but the word was erased and 'dazling' written over it. The change may indicate that Comus was first meant to throw some powder into the air, but that later some substance was used that was capable of ignition.

spongy. Absorbing the spells like a sponge, and remaining charged with them.

155. blear illusion. Illusion that makes blear or dim to the truth the eye that observes.

157. quaint. Here used in a sense akin to the present meaning; unusual. Cf. Nativ. 194.

167. keeps up. When he might be expected to be asleep. gear. Affairs, business. As in Shakespeare. Cf. Richard III. I. iv. 158.

168. fairly. Softly.

169. The line has been read, following an erratum of the 1673 edition:

'And hearken if I may her business hear '

But the MS. and the 1645 text sanction the reading here given.

may. Can.

175. granges. Barns or granaries.

180. inform. Direct. Cf. S. A. 335.

181. blind. Obscure, dark, and leading nowhere. Cf. blind alley (Verity).

188-190. This famous image is not to be taken too literally. The incongruity of anything that resembles a sad (serious) votarist in palmer's weed rising behind Phoebus' wain is hardly to be escaped, if the visual aspect of the lines is insisted upon. Taken more simply, the image justifies its repute. Evening comes on quietly, with fading colors; hence the first part of the figure: at the close of day; and hence the second part.

hindmost wheels. One usually thinks of Phoebus' wain' as a two-wheeled chariot, which therefore has no 'hindmost' wheels.

195. stole. Stole, 1645 and 1673; stolne, MS. 203. rife and perfect. Prevalent and distinct. 204. single. Complete; nothing but darkness.

208. One thinks irresistibly of The Tempest (III. ii. 143). Browne, especially, mentions the point.

212. siding champion. A champion who sides with one.