The clotted gore. I, with what speed the while Will send for all my kindred, all my friends, Home to his father's house: there will I build him And to his faithful champion hath in place His uncontrollable intent : His servants He, with new acquist1 Of true experience, from this great event 16 'Acquist:' acquisition. 1732 1740 1750 1760 COMUS: A Mask. PRESENTED AT LUDLOW CASTLE, 1634, BEFORE JOHN, EARL OF BRIDGEWATER,' THEN PRESIDENT OF WALES. TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE JOHN LORD VISCOUNT BRACKLEY," SON AND HEIR APPARENT TO THE EARL OF BRIDGEWATER, ETC. 3 MY LORD, This poem, which received its first occasion of birth from yourself and others of your noble family, and much honour from your own person in the performance, now returns again to make a final dedication of itself to you. Although not openly acknowledged by the author, yet it is a legitimate offspring, so lovely, and so much desired, that the often copying of it hath tired my pen to give my several friends satisfaction, and brought me to a necessity of producing it to the public view; and now to offer it up in all rightful devotion to those fair hopes, and rare endowments of your much pro mising youth, which give a full assurance, to all that know you, of a future excellence. Live, sweet Lord, to be the honour of your name, and receive this as your own, from the hands of him, who hath by many favours been long obliged to your most honoured parents, and as in this representation your attendant Thyrsis, so now in all real expression, Your faithful and most humble Servant, H. LAWES.* 1 John Earl of Bridgewater,' before whom Comus was first presented, and whose sons and daughter performed the characters of the Brothers and the Lady. It is said that these latter had been benighted in Haywood Forest, and that Milton founded Comus on this incident. Earl John died 1649. He was a royalist. 2 'Lord Brackley:' he became Earl of Bridgewater, and died in 1686. 3 'Not openly acknowledged' till 1645. 4 'H. Lawes :' a celebrated musician, who composed the music for Comus. He was an amiable man, and, though a royalist, an intimate friend of Milton's, who dedicated to him his 13th Sonnet. He composed an immense variety of sacred and other music. The first Scene discovers a wild Wood. Which men call Earth; and, with low-thoughted care 10 1 Thomas Egerton:' the fourth son of the Earl. He died at the age of twenty-three.The Lady Alice,' as her portraits testify, was very beautiful. She became the Countess of Carbery.-Pester'd:' i. e., crowded.— ♦ 'Pinfold:' i. e., sheepfold. To lay their just hands on that golden key, To such my errand is; and, but for such, By course commits to several government, 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, 13 20 30 40 ''High and nether:' i. e., the upper and the lower dominions of Jove.-'Peer: ' Earl of Bridgewater, then President of Wales and the Marches. What never yet was heard in tale or song, Bacchus, that first from out the purple grape And downward fell into a grovelling swine?) At last betakes him to this ominous wood; Offering to every weary traveller To quench the drouth of Phœbus; which as they taste But boast themselves more comely than before; 44. 50 60 70 Tuscan mariners: changed into beasts; see Ovid, Met. lib. iii.2 'Circe:' see the Odyssey.-3 Celtic and Iberian:' France and Spain. |