صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني

Of riot and ill-managed merriment,
Such as the jocund flute, or gamesome pipe,
Stirs up among the loose unletter'd hinds,
When for their teeming flocks and granges full,
In wanton dance they praise the bounteous Pan,
And thank the gods amiss. I should be loth
To meet the rudeness, and swill'd insolence
Of such late wassailers; yet, O! where else
Shall I inform my unacquainted feet
In the blind mazes of this tangled wood?
My brothers, when they saw me wearied out
With this long way, resolving here to lodge
Under the spreading favour of these pines,
Stepp'd, as they said, to the next thicket-side,
To bring me berries, or such cooling fruit
As the kind hospitable woods provide.
They left me then, when the gray-hooded Even,
Like a sad votarist in palmer's weed,

Rose from the hindmost wheels of Phoebus' wain.
But where they are, and why they came not back,
Is now the labour of my thoughts; 'tis likeliest
They had engaged their wandering steps too far;
And envious darkness, ere they could return,
Had stole them from me: else, O thievish Night,
Why shouldst thou, but for some felonious end,
In thy dark lantern thus close up the stars,
That Nature hung in heaven, and fill'd their lamps
With everlasting oil, to give due light
To the misled and lonely traveller?

This is the place, as well as I may guess,

Whence even now the tumult of loud mirth
Was rife, and perfect in my listening ear;
Yet naught but single darkness do I find.
What might this be? A thousand fantasies
Begin to throng into my memory,

Of calling shapes, and beckoning shadows dire,

175

180

185

190

195

200

205

177. Amiss. How much is expressed peare in "As you Like it," and Fletcher in this one little word!

178. Swill'd insolence, &c. In some parts of England it is still customary for a company of mummers to go about, in the evening of the Christmas-holidays, carousing from house to house, who are called wassailers. In Macbeth, "wine and wassel" mean, in general terms, feasting and drunkenness.-T. WARTON. Swill'd insolence is similar to flown with insolence. Par. Lost, i. 502. To swill, is to drink grossly or greedily; and hence swill'd insolence is insolence caused by intemperate drinking.

187. Hospitable woods. By laying the scene of his Mask in a wild forest, Milton secured to himself a perpetual fund of picturesque description, which, result ing from situation, was always at hand. The same happy choice of scene supplied Sophocles in "Philoctetes," Shaks

in the "Faithful Shepherdess," with frequent and even unavoidable opportunities of rural delineation, and that of the most romantic kind. But Milton has had additional advantages: his forest is not only the residence of a magician, but is exhibited under the gloom of midnight.T. WARTON.

195. Thierish night. In the present age, would Milton have introduced this passage, where thievish Night is supposed, for some felonious purpose, to shut up the stars in her dark lantern? Certainly not. But in the present age, correct and rational as it is, had "Comus" been written, we should not perhaps have had some of the greatest beauties of its wild and romantic imagery.-T. WARTON.

207. Calling shapes, &c. The old books of voyages and travels, in which Milton

And aery tongues that syllable men's names
On sands, and shores, and desart wildernesses.
These thoughts may startle well, but not astound
The virtuous mind, that ever walks attended
By a strong-siding champion, Conscience.-
O, welcome, pure-eyed Faith; white-handed Hope,
Thou hovering angel, girt with golden wings;
And thou, unblemish'd form of Chastity!

I see ye visibly, and now believe

That He, the Supreme Good, to whom all things ill
Are but as slavish officers of vengeance,
Would send a glistering guardian, if need were,
To keep my life and honour unassail'd.
Was I deceived, or did a sable cloud
Turn forth her silver lining on the night?
I did not err; there does a sable cloud
Turn forth her silver lining on the night,
And casts a gleam over this tufted grove:
I cannot halloo to my brothers, but

Such noise as I can make to be heard farthest,
I'll venture; for my new-enliven'd spirits
Prompt me: and they perhaps are not far off.

SONG.

Sweet Echo, sweetest nymph, that liv'st unseen
Within thy aery shell,

By slow Meander's margent green,

And in the violet-embroider'd vale,

Where the love-lorn nightingale

Nightly to thee her sad song mourneth well;

Canst thou not tell me of a gentle pair

That likest thy Narcissus are?

O, if thou have

Hid them in some flowery cave,

Tell me but where,

Sweet queen of parly, daughter of the sphere!
So mayst thou be translated to the skies,

And give resounding grace to all Heaven's harmonies.

210

215

220

225

230

235

240

delighted, were filled with superstitious | tiful compound epithet, and the combistories.

208. Syllable, to pronounce distinctly. 214. Hovering. This word is here applied with peculiar propriety to the angel Hope, in sight, on the wing.-T. WARTON.

223. There does a sable cloud. The repetition arising from the conviction and confidence of an unaccusing conscience, is inimitably beautiful. When all suc cour seems lost, Heaven unexpectedly presents the silver lining of a sable cloud to the virtuous.-T. WARTON.

231. Shell. Hurd and Warburton observe that shell means the horizon, the hollow circumference of the heavens.

233. Violet-embroider'd. This is a beau

nation of the two words that compose it, natural and easy.-J. WARTON.

234. Love-lorn, deprived of her mate. 241. Daughter of the sphere. Milton has given her a much bolder and more poetical original than any of the ancient mythologists. He supposes her to owe her first existence to the reverberation of the music of the spheres; in consequence of which he had just before called the horizon her aery shell. And from the gods (like other celestial beings of the classical order) she came down to men.-WAR

BURTON.

243. Give, &c. What an exquisite fancy this of echo in heaven redoubling the divine music!

Enter COMUS.

Coм. Can any mortal mixture of earth's mould
Breathe such divine enchanting ravishment?
Sure something holy lodges in that breast,
And with these raptures moves the vocal air
To testify his hidden residence.

How sweetly did they float upon the wings
Of silence, through the empty-vaulted night,
At every fall smoothing the raven down
Of darkness, till it smiled! I have oft heard
My mother Circe with the sirens three,
Amidst the flowery-kirtled Naiades,

Culling their potent herbs and baleful drugs;
Who, as they sung, would take the prison'd soul,
And lap it in Elysium: Scylla wept,

And chid her barking waves into attention,
And fell Charybdis murmur'd soft applause:
Yet they in pleasing slumber lull'd the sense,
And in sweet madness robb'd it of itself;
But such a sacred and home-felt delight,
Such sober certainty of waking bliss,
I never heard till now. I'll speak to her,

And she shall be my queen.-Hail, foreign wonder!
Whom certain these rough shades did never breed,
Unless the goddess that in rural shrine
Dwell'st here with Pan, or Sylvan, by bless'd song
Forbidding every bleak unkindly fog

To touch the prosperous growth of this tall wood.
LAD. Nay, gentle shepherd, ill is lost that praise,
That is address'd to unattending ears:

Not any boast of skill, but extreme shift
How to regain my sever'd company,

Compell'd me to awake the courteous Echo

To give me answer from her mossy couch.

COM. What chance, good Lady, hath bereft you thus?
LAD. Dim darkness, and this leafy labyrinth.

245

250

255

260

265

270

275

Coм. Could that divide you from near-ushering guides?
LAD. They left me weary on a grassy turf.
Cом. Вy falsehood, or discourtesy, or why?

254. Flowery-kirtled, so called, because they were employed in collecting flowers. Newton remarks here, that kirtle is a woman's gown.

256. Would take the prison'd soul. The mermaidens of modern tale and story inherit all the powers of the sirens of classic song: they are described as women to the waist, and fair, with bright eyes, and locks which they are continually braiding; and they are represented as having great power to charm every beholder.

267. Unless the goddess. Comus' address to the lady is in a very high style of classical gallantry. As Cicero says of Plato's language, that if Jupiter were to speak

[ocr errors]

280

Greek, he would speak as Plato has written, so we may say of this language of Milton, that if Jupiter were to speak English, he would express himself in this manner. The passage is exceedingly beautiful in every respect; but all readers of taste will acknowledge that the style of it is much raised by the expres sion, unless the goddess, an elliptical expression, unusual in our language, though common enough in Greek and Latin. But if we were to fill it up, and say, "unless thou beest the goddess," how flat and insipid would it make the composition, compared with what it is.— LORD MONBODDO.

LAD. To seek in the valley some cool friendly spring.
Coм. And left your fair side all unguarded, Lady?
LAD. They were but twain, and purpos'd quick return.
Cом. Perhaps forestalling night prevented them.
LAD. How easy my misfortune is to hit!
Coм. Imports their loss, beside the present need?
LAD. No less than if I should my brothers lose.
Coм. Were they of manly prime, or youthful bloom?
LAD. As smooth as Hebe's their unrazor'd lips.
Coм. Two such I saw, what time the labour'd ox

In his loose traces from the furrow came,
And the swink'd hedger at his supper sat;

I saw them under a green mantling vine,

That crawls along the side of yon small hill,
Plucking ripe clusters from the tender shoots:
Their port was more than human, as they stood:
I took it for a faery vision

Of some gay creatures of the element,
That in the colours of the rainbow live,

And play in the plighted clouds. I was awe-struck,
And, as I pass'd, I worshipp'd; if those you seek,
It were a journey like the path to heaven,
To help you find them.

LAD.

Gentle villager,

What readiest way would bring me to that place?
Coм. Due west it rises from this shrubby point.
LAD. To find out that, good shepherd, I suppose,

In such a scant allowance of star-light,
Would overtask the best land-pilot's art,

Without the sure guess of well-practised feet.

285

290

295

300

305

310

Coм. I know each lane, and every alley green,

Dingle, or bushy dell of this wild wood,
And every bosky bourn from side to side,
My daily walks and ancient neighbourhood;
And if your stray attendance be yet lodged,
Or shroud within these limits, I shall know
Ere morrow wake, or the low-roosted lark
From her thatch'd pallet rouse; if otherwise,
I can conduct you, Lady, to a low

But loyal cottage, where you may be safe
Till further quest.

LAD.

315

320

Shepherd, I take thy word,

And trust thy honest offer'd courtesy,

Which oft is sooner found in lowly sheds

certain airy elemental beings are most

291. What time, a pure Latinism, quo | braided or embroidered clouds, in which tempore; and this notation of time is in the pastoral manner of Virgil and Ho-poetically supposed to sport, thus pro

race.

293. Swink'd, tired, fatigued. 299. Element, used for the sky. 301. Plighted clouds. The lustre of Milton's brilliant imagery is half ob scured, while plighted remains unexplained. We are to understand the

ducing a variety of transient and dazzling colours. I may observe that the modern word is "plaited."-T. WARTON.

313. Bosky bourn. Bosky is, woody or rather bushy, and a bourn is a winding, deep, and narrow valley, with a rivulet at the bottom.

With smoky rafters, than in tap'stry halls
And courts of princes, where it first was named,
And yet is most pretended: in a place
Less warranted than this, or less secure,

I cannot be, that I should fear to change it.-
Eye me, bless'd Providence, and square my trial

325

To my proportion'd strength!-Shepherd, lead on. [Exeunt.

Enter the Two BROTHERS.

EL. BR. Unmuffle, ye faint stars; and thou, fair moon,

That wont'st to love the traveller's benison,

Stoop thy pale visage through an amber cloud,

And disinherit Chaos, that reigns here

In double night of darkness and of shades;
Or, if your influence be quite damm'd up
With black usurping mists, some gentle taper,
Though a rush-candle from the wicker hole
Of some clay habitation, visit us

With thy long-levell'd rule of streaming light;
And thou shalt be our star of Arcady,

Or Tyrian cynosure.

SEC. BR.

Or, if our eyes

Be barr'd that happiness, might we but hear
The folded flocks penn'd in their wattled cotes,
Or sound of pastoral reed with oaten stops,
Or whistle from the lodge, or village cock
Count the night watches to his feathery dames,
"Twould be some solace yet, some little cheering,
In this close dungeon of innumerous boughs.
But, O, that hapless virgin, our lost sister!
Where may she wander now, whither betake her
From the chill dew, among rude burs and thistles?
Perhaps some cold bank is her bolster now,
Or 'gainst the rugged bark of some broad elm
Leans her unpillow'd head, fraught with sad fears.
What, if in wild amazement and affright;

Or, while we speak, within the direful grasp

Of savage hunger, or of savage heat?

EL BR. Peace, brother; be not over-exquisite

332

335

340

345

350

355

To cast the fashion of uncertain evils:

For grant they be so, while they rest unknown,
What need a man forestall his date of grief,
And run to meet what he would most avoid?
Or if they be but false alarms of fear,
How bitter is such self-delusion!

340. With thy long-levell'd rule of streaming light. What a perfect, as well as picturesque, description of a beam of light!

341. Our star of Arcady, &c. Our greater or lesser bear-star. Calisto, the daughter of Lycaon, King of Arcadia, was changed into the greater bear, called also

360

365

Helice, and her son Arcas into the lesser, called also Cynosura, by observing which the Tyrians and Sidonians steer'd their course, as the Grecian mariners did by the other.-NEWTON.

360. To cast the fashion: so in astrology "to cast a nativity"-to predict, to prefigure, to compute.-T. WARTON.

« السابقةمتابعة »