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The first Scene discovers a wild Wood.

The ATTENDANT SPIRIT descends or enters.

BEFORE the starry threshold of Jove's court
My mansion is, where those immortal shapes
Of bright aerial spirits live insphered
In regions mild of calm and serene air,
Above the smoke and stir of this dim spot,

Which men call earth; and, with low-thoughted care
Confined, and pester'd in this pinfold here,
Strive to keep up a frail and feverish being,
Unmindful of the crown that Virtue gives,
After this mortal change, to her true servants,
Amongst the enthroned Gods on sainted seats.
Yet some there be, that by due steps aspire
To lay their just hands on that golden key,
That opes the palace of Eternity:
To such my errand is; and, but for such,
I would not soil these pure ambrosial weeds
With the rank vapours of this sin-worn mould.

But to my task. Neptune, besides the sway
Of every salt flood, and each ebbing stream,
Took in by lot 'twixt high and nether Jove

3. Insphered. In "Il Penseroso" (line 88) the spirit of Plato was to be unsphered, that is, to be called down from the sphere to which it had been allotted, where it had been insphered.-T. WARTON. 7. Pinfold is now provincial, and signifies sometimes a sheepfold, but most commonly a pound.-T. WARTON. Pester'd: crowded; Ital. pesta, a crowd.

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16. I would not soil, &c. That is, this Guardian Spirit would not have soiled the purity of his ambrosial robes with the noisome exhalations of this sin-corrupted earth. (this sin-worn mould,) but to assist those distinguished mortals, who, by a due progress in virtue, aspire to reach the golden key which opens heaven, the palace of Eternity.

Imperial rule of all the sea-girt isles,
That, like to rich and various gems, inlay
The unadorned bosom of the deep:

Which he, to grace his tributary gods,

By course commits to several government,

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And gives them leave to wear their sapphire crowns,

And wield their little tridents: but this isle,

The greatest and the best of all the main,
He quarters to his blue-hair'd deities;
And all this tract that fronts the falling sun
A noble peer of mickle trust and power
Has in his charge, with temper'd awe to guide
An old and haughty nation, proud in arms:
Where his fair offspring, nursed in princely lore,
Are coming to attend their father's state,
And new-entrusted sceptre: but their way
Lies through the perplex'd paths of this drear wood,
The nodding horrour of whose shady brows
Threats the forlorn and wandering passenger;
And here their tender age might suffer peril,
But that by quick command from sovran Jove
I was dispatch'd for their defence and guard;
And listen why; for I will tell you now
What never yet was heard in tale or song,
From old or modern bard, in hall or bower.

Bacchus, that first from out the purple grape
Crush'd the sweet poison of misused wine,
After the Tuscan mariners transform'd,
Coasting the Tyrrhene shore, as the winds listed,
On Circe's island fell: (who knows not Circe,
The daughter of the Sun, whose charmed cup
Whoever tasted, lost his upright shape,
And downward fell into a groveling swine?)
This nymph, that gazed upon his clustering locks
With ivy berries wreathed, and his blithe youth,
Had by him, ere he parted thence, a son
Much like his father, but his mother more,

Whom therefore she brought up, and Comus named:

20. High and nether, i. e. the upper and lower dominions of Jove.-27. This isle: "Albion, Prince of all the isles."-JONSON. 29. He quarters, that is, Neptune. 33. An old and haughty nation. That is, the Cambro-Britains, who were to be governed by respect mixed with awe. The Earl of Bridgewater, the noble Peer of mickle trust and power, was now go vernour of the Welsh, as lord-president of the principality.-T. WARTON.

44. What never yet, &c. The poet here insinuates that the story or fable of his Mask was new and unborrowed, although distantly founded on ancient poetical history. The allusion is to the ancient mode of entertaining a splendid assem

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bly, by singing or reciting tales.-T WARTON.

48. Tuscan mariners. This story alludes to the punishments inflicted by Homer (in his Hymn to Bacchus) on the Tyrrhene pirates, by transforming them into various animals.-Jos. WARTON.

50. Circe, is the celebrated enchantress, whose story as related by Homer is doubtless intended as an allegorical representation of the brutalizing effects of the intoxicating cup.

58. Comus. Newton observes, that Comus is a deity of Milton's own making; but Warton shows that he had before been a dramatic personage in one of Ben Johnson's Masks. An immense cup is carried before him, and he is crowned

Who, ripe and frolick of his full-grown age,
Roving the Celtick and Iberian fields,

At last betakes him to this ominous wood;

And, in thick shelter of black shades imbower'd,
Excels his mother at her mighty art,
Offering to every weary traveller

His orient liquor in a crystal glass,

To quench the drouth of Phoebus; which as they taste,
(For most do taste through fond intemperate thirst,)
Soon as the potion works, their human countenance,
The express resemblance of the gods, is changed
Into some brutish form of wolf, or bear;
Or ounce, or tiger, hog, or bearded goat,
All other parts remaining as they were;
And they, so perfect is their misery,
Not once perceive their foul disfigurement,

But boast themselves more comely than before;
And all their friends and native home forget,
To roll with pleasure in a sensual stye.
Therefore, when any, favour'd of high Jove,
Chances to pass through this adventurous glade,
Swift as the sparkle of a glancing star

I shoot from heaven, to give him safe convoy,
As now I do: but first I must put off
These my sky-robes spun out of Iris' woof,
And take the weeds and likeness of a swain

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That to the service of this house belongs,
Who with his soft pipe, and smooth-dittied song,
Well knows to still the wild winds when they roar,

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And hush the waving woods; nor of less faith,
And in this office of his mountain watch
Likeliest, and nearest to the present aid
Of this occasion. But I hear the tread
Of hateful steps; I must be viewless now.

with roses and other flowers. His at tendants carry javelins wreathed with ivy; and he enters, riding in triumph from a grove of ivy, to the wild music of flutes, talors, and cymbals. At length the grove of ivy is destroyed,

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that lie in so small a compass.-T. WAR

ΤΟΝ.

83. Iris' woof. Milton has frequent allusion to the colours of the rainbow. In the "Ode on the Nativity," (stanza XV.,) Truth and Justice are not only orbed in a rainbow, but are apparelled in its colours.

84. Likeness of a swain. This refers to Henry Lawes, the musician, who performed the combined characters of the Spirit and Thyrsis, in this drama. He was the son of Thomas Lawes, a vicarchoral of Salisbury cathedral, and was

And the voluptuous Comus, god of cheer, Beat from his grove. But how many would have known any thing of this god of revellings and drunkenness from the neglected and almost forgotten Masks of Johnson, had not the genius of Milton, by drawing such a moral from his story, and clothing it in such exquisite poetry, given him an un-perhaps, at first, choir-boy of that church. dying celebrity.

60. Celtick and Iberian: France and Spain.

61. Ominous: Dangerous, inauspicious. 65. Orient: Richly bright, from the radiance of the East.

80. Swift as the sparkle of a glancing star. There are few finer comparisons

He afterwards rose to great distinction as a composer of music, but his name would have been buried in oblivion had he not, by setting to music the songs of Comus, associated his name for ever with this immortal poem. He was also no mean poet himself, as Milton's commendation of him, in his Sonnet, clearly shows.

Comus enters with a charming rod in one hand, his glass in the other; with him a rout of monsters, headed like sundry sorts of wild beasts, but otherwise like men and women, their apparel glistering: they come in, making a riotous and unruly noise, with torches in their hands.

Coм. The star, that bids the shepherd fold,
Now the top of heaven doth hold;

And the gilded car of day

His glowing axle doth allay

In the steep Atlantick stream;

And the slope sun his upward beam
Shoots against the dusky pole,
Pacing toward the other goal
Of his chamber in the East.
Meanwhile welcome joy, and feast,
Midnight shout, and revelry,
Tipsy dance, and jollity.

Braid

your

locks with rosy twine, Dropping odours, dropping wine.

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Rigour now is gone to bed,

And Advice with scrupulous head:

Strict Age, and sour Severity,

With their grave saws, in slumber lie.

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We, that are of purer fire,

Imitate the starry quire,

Who, in their nightly watchful spheres,

Lead in swift round the months and years.

The sounds and seas, with all their finny drove,

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Now to the moon in wavering morrice move;

And, on the tawny sands and shelves,

Trip the pert faeries and the dapper elves.
By dimpled brook and fountain-brim,
The wood-nymphs, deck'd with daisies trim,
Their merry wakes and pastimes keep:
What hath night to do with sleep?
Night hath better sweets to prove;

Venus now wakes, and wakens Love.

Come, let us our rights begin;
'Tis only day-light that makes sin,

Which these dun shades will ne'er report.—
Hail, goddess of nocturnal sport,

Dark-veil'd Cotytto! to whom the secret flame
Of midnight torches burns; mysterious dame,
That ne'er art call'd but when the dragon woom
Of Stygian darkness spets her thickest gloom,

108. Advice. It was in character for Comus to call Advice scrupulous: to depreciate and ridicule it at the expense of truth and propriety.-T. WARTON.

110. Saws: Sayings, maxims.

116. Morrice. The Morrice or Moorish dance was first brought into England in Edward Third's time, when John of Gaunt returned from Spain.-PECK.

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126. 'Tis only day-light that makes sin. A sentiment worthy of Comus; meaning, that sin consists not in the act, but in the discovery of it.

129. Cotytto: The goddess of Licentiousness, celebrated with great indecency in private at Athens, at midnight, and hence called dark-veild.

132. Spets: Used by the old writers for

119. Fountain-brim: The edge or brink spits. of a fountain.

And makes one blot of all the air;

Stay thy cloudy ebon chair,

Wherein thou rid'st with Hecate, and befriend

Us thy vow'd priests, till utmost end

Of all thy dues be done, and none left out;

Ere the blabbing eastern scout,

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Break off, break off; I feel the different pace

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Of some chaste footing near about this ground.

Run to your shrouds, within these brakes and trees;

Our number may affright: some virgin sure
(For so I can distinguish by mine art)

Benighted in these woods. Now to my charms,
And to my wily trains: I shall ere long
Be well-stock'd with as fair a herd as grazed
About my mother Circe. Thus I hurl
My dazzling spells into the spungy air,
Of power to cheat the eye with blear illusion,
And give it false presentments, lest the place
And my quaint habits breed astonishment,
And put the damsel to suspicious flight;

Which must not be, for that's against my course:
I, under fair pretence of friendly ends,

And well-plac'd words of glozing courtesy
Baited with reasons not unplausible,
Wind me into the easy-hearted man,

And hug him into snares. When once her eye
Hath met the virtue of this magick dust,

I shall appear some harmless villager,

Whom thrift keeps up about his country gear.
But here she comes: I fairly step aside,

And hearken if I may, her business here.

The LADY enters.

LAD. This way the noise was, if mine ear be true,
My best guide now: methought it was the sound

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138. Blabbing. So Shakspeare, King | "The Measure") has just been begun, Hen. VI. p. 2. Act iv. Scene 1:

The gaudy, blabbing, and remorseful day. Comus is describing the morning contemptuously, as unfriendly to his secret revels.

139. Nice. A finely-chosen epithet, expressing at once the curious and squeamish.-HURD.

145. Break off. A dance (here called

which the Magician almost as soon breaks off, on perceiving the approach of some chaste footing, from a sagacity appropri ate to his character.-T. WARTON.

147. Shrouds: Recesses, harbours, hiding-places.

157. Quaint: That is, strange habits. 161. Glozing: Flattering, deceitful. 168. Fuirly: That is, softly.

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