Talis in æterno juvenis Sigeius Olympo Addideratque iras, sed et has decuisse putares; Et mihi de puero non metus ullus erat: Turba frequens, facieque simillima turba dearum, Auctaque luce dies gemino fulgore coruscat: Fallor? An et radios hinc quoque Phoebus habet? Cydoniusque mihi, &c. 25 55 Perhaps indefinitely, as the "Parthus eques," just before. The Cydonians were famous for hunting, which implies archery. If a person is here intended, he is most probably Hippolytus. Cydon was a city of Crete. 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. y Et ille, &c. Cephalus, who unknowingly shot his wife Procris.-T. WARTON, z Est etiam nobis ingens quoque victus Orion. Orion was also a famous hunter.-T. WARTON. a Nec tibi Phabæus porriget anguis opem. "No medicine will avail you: not even the serpent, which Phoebus sent to Rome to cure the city of a pestilence." Ovid, "Metam." xv. 742.-T. Warton. b Turba, &c. In Milton's youth, the fashionable places of walking in London were Hyde-Park, and Gray's-Inn Walks.-T. WARTON. Hæc ego non fugi spectacula grata severus; с Uror amans intus, flammaque totus eram. Findor, et hæc remanet: sequitur pars altera votum, Sic dolet amissum proles Junonia cœlum, Talis et abreptum solem respexit, ad Orcum Jam tuus, O! certe est mihi formidabilis arcus, Et tua fumabunt nostris altaria donis, Solus et in superis tu mihi summus eris. e Non reditura. He saw the unknown lady, who had thus won his heart, but once. The fervour of his love is inimitably expressed in the following lines.-TODD. d Deme meos tandem, verum nec deme, furores; There never was a more beautiful description of the irresolution of love. He wishes Tu modo da facilis, posthæc mea siqua futura est, HÆC ego, mente olim læva, studioque supino, Scilicet abreptum sic me malus impulit error, EPIGRAMMATUM LIBER. 10 I.-IN PRODITIONEM BOMBARDICAM. CUM simul in regem nuper satrapasque Britannos II.-IN EANDEM. SICCINE tentasti cœlo donasse Iacobum, Ille quidem sine te consortia serus adivit Et quot habet brutos Roma profana deos: to have his woe removed, but recalls his wish; preferring the sweet misery of those who love. Thus Eloisa wavers, in Pope's fine poem : Unequal task! a passion to resign For hearts so touch'd, so pierc'd, so lost, as mine.-TODD. e Hæc ego, &c. These lines are an epilogistic palinode to the last Elegy. The Socratic doctrines of the shady Academe soon broke the bonds of beauty: in other words, his return to the university. They were probably written when the Latin poems were prepared for the press in 1645.-T. WARTON. ▾ Quæ septemgemino, Bellua, &c. The Pope, called, in the theological language of the times, "The Beast."-T. WARTON. Namque hac aut alia nisi quemque adjuveris arte, III.-IN EANDEM. PURGATOREM animæ derisit Iacobus ignem, Et, si stelligeras unquam penetraveris arces, V.-IN INVENTOREM BOMBARDE. IAPETIONIDEM laudavit cæca vetustas, VI.-AD LEONORAM ROMÆ CANENTEM. ANGELUS unicuique suus, sic credite gentes, VII.-AD EANDEM. ALTERA Torquatum cepit Leonora poetam, Cujus ab insano cessit amore furens. 10 10 10 b Adriana of Mantua, for her beauty surnamed the Fair, and her daughter Leonora Baroni, the lady whom Milton celebrates in these three Latin Epigrams, were esteemed by their contemporaries the finest singers in the world. When Milton was at Rome he was introduced to the concerts of Cardinal Barberini, where he heard Leonora siLg and her mother play. It was the fashion for all the ingenious strangers, who visited Rome, to leave some verses on Leonora.-T. WARTON. Altera Torquatum cepit Leonora. This allusion to Tasso's Leonora, and the turn which it takes, are inimitably beautiful.-T. WARTON. Ah! miser ille tuo quanto felicius ævo Aurea maternæ fila movere lyræ! VIII-AD EANDEM. CREDULA quid liquidam Sirena, Neapoli, jactas, Illic, Romulidum studiis ornata secundis, IX.-IN SALMASII HUNDREDAM.S QUIS expedivit Salmasio suam Hundredam, Centum, exulantis viscera marsupii regis. Ipse, Antichristi qui modo primatum Papæ d For the story of Pentheus, a king of Thebes, see Euripides's "Bacche," where he sees two suns, &c., v. 916. But Milton, in "torsisset lumina," alludes to the rage of Pentheus in Ovid, "Metam." iii. 557:— Aspicit hunc oculis Pentheus, quos ira tremendos e Parthenope's tomb was at Naples: she was one of the sirens.-T. WARTON. t Pausilipi. The grotto of Pausilipo, which Milton no doubt had visited with delight.-TODD. This Epigram is in Milton's "Defensio" against Salmasius; in the translation of which by Richard Washington, published in 1692, the Epigram is thus anglicized, p. 187:Who taught Salmasius, that French chattering pye, To aim at English, and Hundreda cry? The starving rascal, flush'd with just a hundred An outlaw'd king's last stock.-A hundred more Would make him pimp for the antichristian whore; And in Rome's praise employ his poison'd breath, Who threaten'd once to stink the pope to death.-T. WARTÓN. h King Charles II., now in exile, and sheltered in Holland, gave Salmasius, who was a professor at Leyden, one hundred Jacobuses to write his defence, 1649. Wood asserts that Salmasius had no reward for his book: he says, that in Leyden, the king sent Dr. Morley, afterwards bishop, to the apologist, with his thanks, "but not with a purse of gold, as John Milton the impudent lyer reported."-" Athen. Oxon." ii. 770.T. WARTON. This Epigram, as Mr. Warton observes, is an imitation of part of the Prologue to Persius's Satires.-TODD. |