ས ་ There flow'ry hill Hymettus with the sound's Of bees industrious murmur oft invites in To studious musing; there Ilissus rolls His whisp❜ring stream: within the walls then view 250 the summer advances, in his fifty-first sonnet; and Milton himself describes it singing While the jolly hours lead on pro pitious May, in his Sonnet to the Nightingale: but in various other places the song of the nightingale is one of his favourite circumstances of description, when he is painting a summer's night. Dunster. 247. There flow'ry hill Hymettus &c.] And so Valerius Flaccus calls it Florea juga Hymetti, Argonaut. v. 344. and the honey was so much esteemed and celebrated by the ancients, that it was reckoned the best of the Attic honey, as the Attic honey was said to be the best in the world. The poets often speak of the murmur of the bees as inviting to sleep, Virg. Ecl. i. 56. Sæpe levi somnum suadebit inire su surro: drus on the banks and at the spring of this pleasant river.χαρίεντα γουν και καθαρα και διαφανη τα ύδατια φαινεται, Nonne hinc aquulæ puræ ac pellucidæ juSerr. vol. iii. p. 229. The philocundo murmure confluunt? Ed. sophical retreat at the springhead is beautifully described by Socrates and Phædrus are reprePlato in the next page, where shaded with a spreading plantain, sented sitting on a green bank of which Cicero hath said very prettily, that it seemeth to have grown not so much by the water which is described, as by Plato's eloquence; quæ mihi videtur non tam ipsa aquula, quæ describitur, quam Platonis oratione crevisse. 'De Orat. 1. 7. 253. Lyceum there, and painted Stoa next:] Lyceum was another gymnasium of the Athenians, and was the school of Aristotle, who had been tutor to Alexander the Great, and was the founder of the sect of the Peripatetics, so called απο του περιπατειν from his walking and teaching philosophy. Stoa was the school of Zeno, whose disciples from the place had the name of Stoics; and this Stoa or portico, being adorned with variety of paintings, was called in Greek Пanian or various, and here by Milton very There thou shalt hear and learn the secret power By voice or hand, and various-measur'd verse, And his who gave them breath, but higher sung, properly the painted Stoa. See 253. That the Lyceum stood without the walls clearly appears from the beginning of Plato's Lysis; see also Strabo, 1. ix. p. 397. Its establishment has been attributed both to Pisistratus and 255 painted, principally by Polygno- Quæque docet sapiens, braccatis illita Porticus The porch, with trowser'd Persians pictur'd o'er. [Howes.] On the origin of the name of the Peripatetics see the note below on v. 278. Dunster. 257. Eolian charms and Dorian lyric odes,] Eolian charms, Eolia carmina, verses such as those of Alcæus and Sappho, who were both of Mitylene in Lesbos, an island belonging to the Eolians. Hor. Od. iii. xxx. 13. Princeps Æolium carmen ad Italos Fingent Eolio carmine nobilem. Dorian lyric odes, such as those of Pindar, who calls his gran guyya the Dorian harp, Olymp. i. 26. Awgio widiaw Dorian buskin, Olymp. iii. 9. Ang zou Dorian hymn, Pyth. viii. 29. Pericles. (See Meursius, Athenæ Od. iv. iii. 12. 257. -charms] Our English word charm is derived from carmen; as are inchant and incantation from canto. Dunster, 258. And his who gave them breath, &c.] Our author agrees with those writers, who speak of Homer as the father of all kinds Blind Melesigenes thence Homer call'd, of poetry. Such wise men as Dionysius the Halicarnassean, and Plutarch, have attempted to shew, that poetry in all its forms, tragedy, comedy, ode, and epitaph, are included in his works. See the ingenious author of the Inquiry into the life and writings of Homer enlarging upon this subject, sect. 12. Blind Melisigenes thence Homer called; our author here follows Herodotus in his account of the life of Homer, that he was born near the river Meles, from whence he had the name of Melesigenes, Tiberas παιδι Μελεσιγενεκ, απο του ποταμου την επωνυμίαν λαβουσα, and because he was blind, thence he was called Homer, open ogwv, evreude δε και τουνομα Όμηρος επεκράτησε τῷ Μελησιγενεί απο της συμφορης oi γαρ Κυμαίοι τους τυφλους όμηρους λεγου όνομα του σιν. Whose poem Phoebus challenged for his own, alluding to a Greek epigram in the first book of the Anthologia, Ηειδον · μεν εγων, εχαρασσε δε θειος Όμηρος, which Mr. Fenton has enlarged and applied to Mr. Pope's English Iliad. 261. the lofty grave trage dians,] These are the epithets usually applied to tragedy by the ancients, as Quintilian, 1. x. c. 1. Claudian, De Mall. Theod. Cons. 314. Ovid, Trist. l. ii. el. i. 381. and 553. Horace, in his Ode to Asinius Pollio. And 260 thus Milton in his Preface to Sams. Agon. "Tragedy, as it was anciently composed, hath ever been held the gravest, moralest, and most profitable of all other poems, &c." Dunster. 262. In Chorus or Iambic,] These may be said to be the two constituent parts of the ancient tragedy, which was written either in lambic verse, or in verses of various measures, whereof the Chorus usually consisted. And the character here given of the ancient Greek tragedy is very just and noble; and the English reader cannot form a better idea of it in its highest beauty and perfection than by reading our author's Samson Agonistes. 262. teachers best Of moral prudence, &c.] This description particularly applies to Euripides, who, next to Homer, was Milton's favourite Greek author. See Quinctilian, 1. x. c. 1. And Aulus Gellius, 1. xi. c. 4. Aristotle takes almost all his examples of sentences from Euripides. (Rhetoric. ii. c. 22.) See Bp. Hurd's note on Horace's art of Poetry, v. 219. for an admirable account of the reasons why the Greek Tragic poets introduced in their pieces so great an abundance of moral precepts, and why they were with such delight received. Dunster. In brief sententious precepts, while they treat 264. Of fate, and chance, and The most usual arguments of the Greek tragic writers (and indeed of their epic poets also) were the accomplishment of some oracle, or some supposed decree of fate. But the incidents which led to the destined event, according to their system, depended on chance. Fate and chance then furnished the subject and incidents of their dramas, whilst the catastrophe produced the peripetia, or change of fortune. The history of Edipus, one of their principal dramatic subjects, was here perhaps in our poet's mind; and it affords a striking exemplification of the preceding remarks. Change in human life however might not only refer to the pathetic catastrophes of the Greek tragedy, since it sometimes formed, as in the Edipus Coloneus, the entire argument of their pieces. High actions, the xadas eau of Aristotle, refer to fate and chance, the arguments and incidents of tragedy; high passions to the peripetia, or change of fortune, which included the Talos or affecting part. Dunster. 267. Thence to the famous orators repair, &c.] How happily 265 270 does Milton's versification in this and the following lines concerning the Socratic philosophy express what he is describing! In the first we feel as it were the nervous rapid eloquence of Demosthenes, and the latter have all the gentleness and softness of the humble modest character of Socrates. Thyer. 268. Those ancient,] For Milton was of the same opinion as Cicero, who preferred Pericles, Hyperides, Eschines, Demosthenes, and the orators of their times, to Demetrius Phalereus and those of the subsequent ages. See Cicero de claris Oratoribus. And in the judgment of Quintilian Demetrius Phalereus was the first who weakened eloquence, and the last almost of the Athenians who can be called an orator; is primus inclinasse eloquentiam dicitur-ultimus est fere ex Atticis qui dici possit orator. De Instit. Orat. x. 1. 270. -and fulmin'd over Greece,] Alluding (as Mr. Jortin has likewise observed) to what Aristophanes has said of Pericles in his Acharnenses, act ii. sc. 5. Εστραπτεν, εβροντα, ξυνεκυκα την Ελε λαδα. Since I have mentioned this pas sage, I will add, that Cicero has To Macedon and Artaxerxes' thronerie di Το sage philosophy next lend thine ear, Περικλέης ολυμπιος Ησραπτ', εβροντα, συνεκυκα την Ελλαδα. Cicero had at first fallen into the same mistake as Diodorus, which is often the case of writers who quote by memory; and therefore desires Atticus to correct the copies, and for Eupolis to put in Aristophanes. Cic. ad Att. xii. 6. 270. See Kuster's note on the passage in Aristophanes for the various authors who have alluded to it; but he has omitted Quinctilian, lib. ii. c. 16. and lib. xii. c. 10. In the eleventh En. 383, Virgil makes Turnus say to Drances, Proinde tona eloquio; solitum tibiCicero (Ep. ad Attic. xv. 1.) speaks of the fulmina Demosthenis; and Longinus also (c. xxxii.) says of Demosthenes, καταβροντα και καταφέγγει του απ' αιώνος ῥητοgas, x. T. λ. Dunster. 271. To Macedon and Artaxerxes' throne:] As Pericles and others fulmined over Greece to Artaxerxes throne against the Persian king, so Demosthenes was the orator particularly, who fulmined over Greece to Macedon against king Philip in his orations, therefore denominated Philippics. 273. From heav'n descended to Mr. Calton thinks the author alludes to Juv. Sat. xi. 27. e caelo descendit γνωθι σεαυτον, as this famous Delphic precept was the foundation of Socrates's philosophy, and so much used by him, that it hath passed with some for his own. Or as Mr. Warburton and Mr. Thyer conceive, the author here probably alludes to what Cicero says of Socrates, Socrates autem primus philosophiam devocavit e cœlo, et in urbibus collocavit, et in domus etiam introduxit. Tusc. Disp. v. 4. But he has given a very different sense to the words either by design or mistake, as Mr. Warburton observes. It is properly called the low-roofed house; for I believe, said Socrates, that if I could meet with a good purchaser, I might easily get for my goods and house and all five pounds. Eya esv opar (εφη ο Σωκρατης) ει αγαθου ωνητου Exitxo, Evgen av for one by oxide και τα όντα παντα πανυ ραδίως πεντε μνας. Xenophon, Economic. five minas or Attic pounds were better than sixteen pounds of our money, a mina, according to Barnard, being three pounds eight shillings and nine pence. |