Page images
PDF
EPUB

CHAPTER VII.

John Milton. 1608-1674. (History, pp. 114-122.)

91. From the HYMN ON THE NATIVITY.

The remarkable passage, from which this is an extract, is a poetical expansion of the well-known Christian tradition, that the prophetic virtues-devil-inspired, it was believed-of the various Pagan oracles ceased at once upon the birth of Christ.

The oracles are dumb,

No voice or hideous hum

Runs through the arched roof in words deceiving.
Apollo from his shrine

5 Can no more divine,

With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving.
No nightly trance, or breathed spell,

Inspires the pale-eyed priest from the prophetic cell.

The lonely mountains o'er

10 And the resounding shore,

A voice of weeping heard and loud lament;

From haunted spring and dale,

Edged with poplar pale,

The parting Genius is with sighing sent;

15 With flower-inwoven tresses torn,

The Nymphs, in twilight shade of tangled thickets, mourn.

4. Shrine: O. E. scrín, Lat. scrinium, meant a chest or casket for keeping precious relics in.

7. Trance, Sp. trance, It. transito, Lat. transitus, the state that one is in when passing from life to death.

8. Priest: 0. E. preost, is a shortened form of presbyter, Gk. πрeσßутepos. In another poem Milton says

"New presbyter is but old priest writ large."

In consecrated earth,

And on the holy hearth,

The Lars and Lemures moan with midnight plaint;

20 In urns and altars round,

A drear and dying sound

Affrights the Flamens at their service quaint;
And the chill marble seems to sweat,

While each peculiar Power foregoes his wonted seat.

[blocks in formation]

30

Hath laid her Babe to rest;

[blocks in formation]

Time is, our tedious song should here have ending:
Heaven's youngest-teemed star

Hath fix'd her polish'd car,

Her sleeping Lord with handmaid lamp attending;
And all about the courtly stable

Bright-harness'd angels sit in order serviceable.

19. Lars and Lemures: the Lemures were the departed souls of men, of whom the good were worshipped under the name of Lares.

22. Flamens: these, strictly speaking, were priests devoted to the service of one particular god; but our poet seems to use it here of priests in general.

in Shakespeare's "my quaint Ariel."

28. Youngest-teemed, youngest (latest) born. To teem fr. O. E. team, progeny, line, means to bring forth, as in King Lear, iv. 1

"If she must teem, create her child of

spleen."

32. Bright-harnessed, in radiant armour. Serviceable, whereby they might promptly render services as they are

Quaint, curiously ordered, fr. Fr. coint, Lat. comptus, or, according to Diez. Lat. cognitus. It means also neat, pretty, as required.

5

92. From COMUS.
SONG.

Sweet Echo, sweetest nymph, that livest 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;

3. Margent, an older form of margin. 5. Love-lorn, that hath lost her love. Lorn is an old part. of lose, seen still in forlorn, s and being interchangeable

letters.

6. Sad song mourneth: pours forth ber sad song mournfully-a classical idiom.

[blocks in formation]

Sweet queen of parley, daughter of the sphere!
So mayst thou be translated to the skies,
And give resounding grace to all heaven's harmonies.
12. Parley, speech, Fr. parole.

93. From LYCIDAS.

Alas! what boots it with incessant care
To tend the homely, slighted shepherd's trade,
And strictly meditate the thankless Muse?
Were it not better done, as others use,

5 To sport with Amaryllis in the shade,
Or with tangles of Neæra's hair?

Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise,
(That last infirmity of noble mind)

To scorn delights, and live laborious days;
10 But the fair guerdon when we hope to find,
And think to burst out into sudden blaze,

Comes the blind Fury with the abhorred shears,
And slits the thin-spun life.
"But not the praise,"
Phoebus replied, and touch'd my trembling ears;
15 "Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil,
Nor in the glistering foil

1. What boots it, of what advantage is it? Boot, O. E. bót, meant remedy, advantage, profit; and in this sense is still found in bootless. "There is no boot" in Richard II, is equivalent to "there is no help for it."

2. Shepherd's trade: see preliminary note to extract 75.

3. Meditate, practise, Lat. meditor. 4. Use, are wont; only employed at present with this sense in the pret. used. 7. Clear, stainless, innocent, or, perhaps, intelligent.

10. Guerdon, reward. The O. Fr.

guerredon, It. guiderdone, comes from L. L. widerdonum, which is a corruption (caused by an attempt to connect the word with Lat. donum) of O. H. G. widarlón, O. E. widherlean, from widher, back, and lean, loan (Diez).

14. To remind him that an important consideration yet remained. The lobe of the ear was once believed to be the seat of the memory.

16. Glistering foil: the foil was the leaf (Lat. folium) of metal in which jewels were set to show off their lustre.

Set off to the world, nor in broad rumour lies;
But lives and spreads aloft by those pure eyes,
And perfect witness of all-judging Jove:
20 As he pronounces lastly on each deed,

Of so much fame in Heaven expect thy meed."

94. From IL PENSEROSO.

Come, pensive nun, devout and pure,
Sober, stedfast, and demure,
All in a robe of darkest grain,
Flowing with majestic train,
5 And sable stole of Cyprus lawn,
Over thy decent shoulders drawn.
Come, but keep thy wonted state,
With even step and musing gait ;
And looks commèrcing with the skies,
10 Thy rapt soul sitting in thine eyes:
There, held in holy passion still,
Forget thyself to marble, till

With a sad leaden downward cast

Thou fix them on the earth as fast:

15 And join with thee calm Peace and Quiet,
Spare Fast, that oft with gods doth diet,
And hears the Muses in a ring

Aye round about Jove's altar sing:

2. Demure: this word, which is generally derived from de mœurs, formerly suggested nothing of the affectation of modesty, but was invariably used in a good sense. Mr. Wedgwood takes it from meure (Lat. maturus), in the sense of discreet, in which case it would be a remnant of some such phrase as "de mure conduite."

3. Darkest grain: grain, fr. Lat. granum (the coccus insect having been so called from the shape of its body), from being a particular expression for a bright scarlet, came eventually to be

applied to any radiant colour whatsoever, or indeed any indelible dye. It here means a violet shade of purple. See Manual of English Language, pp. 56-62. 5. Cyprus, sometimes spelt cipres, crape which indeed is supposed by some to be the same word, through Fr. crêpe, crespe.

6. Decent, comely, its derivative sense; and so used even by Pope.

11. Passion: once used to express any kind of inward emotion.

13. Sad: see note to line 29, extract 26.

And add to these retired Leisure,

20 That in trim gardens takes his pleasure.
But first, and chiefest, with thee bring
Him that yon soars on golden wing,
Guiding the fiery-wheeled throne,
The cherub Contemplation;

25 And the mute Silence hist along,
'Less Philomel will deign a song,
In her sweetest saddest plight,
Smoothing the rugged brow of Night,
While Cynthia checks her dragon yoke,

30 Gently o'er the accustom'd oak:

Sweet bird, that shunn'st the noise of folly,

Most musical, most melancholy!

Thee, chantress, oft, the woods among,

I woo, to hear thy even song;

35 And, missing thee, I walk unseen
On the dry smooth-shaven green,
To behold the wandering moon
Riding near her highest noon,
Like one that had been led astray
40 Through the heaven's wide pathless way;
And oft, as if her head she bow'd,
Stooping through a fleecy cloud.
Oft, on a plat of rising ground,
I hear the far-off Curfew sound,
45. Over some wide-water'd shore,
Swinging slow with sullen roar.

38. Noon: the fifth division of the ecclesiastical day was called none (fr. Lat. nona, the ninth hour after six in the morning). Noon should then mean three o'clock, P.M.; but for some imper

fectly ascertained reason, it was transferred to mid-day. Milton's use of the word in this passage seems peculiar to himself.

From PARADISE LOST. (Book I. 50.)
95. HELL.

Nine times the space that measures day and night
To mortal men, he with his horrid crew

« ՆախորդըՇարունակել »