Down the swift Hebrus to the Lesbian shore? Alas! what boots it with incessant care Were it not better done as others use, 65 To sport with Amaryllis in the shade, Or with the tangles of Neæra's hair? Fame is the spur that the clear spi'rit doth raise (That last infirmity of noble mind) 63. Down the swift Hebrus to the Lesbian shore.] In calling Hebrus swift, Milton, who is avaricious of classical authority, appears to have followed a verse in the Æneid, i. 321. -Volucremque fuga prævertitur He brum. But Milton was misled by a wrong, although a very ancient, reading. Even Servius blames his author for attributing this epithet to Hebrus, "Nam quietissimus est, etiam cum per hyemem crescit." [See Burman's Virgil, vol. i. p. 95. col. i. edit. 1746. 4to.] Besides, what was the merit of the amazon huntress Harpalyce to outstrip a river, even if uncommonly rapid? The genuine reading might have been Eurum, as Rutgersius proposed. -Volucremque fuga prævertitur Eu rum. T. Warton. 66. And strictly meditate the thankless Muse?] Meditate the Muse, Virg. Ecl. i. 2. Musam meditaris. The thankless Muse, that earns no thanks, is not thanked by the ungrateful world: as ingratus in Latin is used in a passive as well as active signification. Sallust, Cat. xxxviii. 70 otium ingrato labori prætulerat. Virg. Æn. vii. 425. I nunc, ingratis offer te, irrise, periclis. 68. To sport with Amaryllis in the shade, Or with the tangles of Neæra's hair?] Amaryllis, a country lass in Theocritus and Virgil. Neæra, Ægon's mistress in Virgil's third Eclogue. Peck. But Mr. Warton shews, that in all probability Milton is here glancing at Buchanan, whose addresses to Amaryllis and Neæra were well known at the time. See note at the end of the Elegies. E. 69. Or with the tangles &c.] So corrected in the Manuscript from Hid in the tangles &c. 70. Fame is the spur &c.] The reader may see the same sentiment inlarged upon in the Paradise Regained, iii. 25. and confirmed in the notes by numerous quotations from the heathen philosophers. 71. That last infirmity of noble mind.] Abate Grillo, in his Lettere, has called " questa sete di "fama et gloria, ordinaria infir"mita degli animi generosi." To scorn delights, and live laborious days; 75 Milton here has made the Fates the same with the Furies; which is not quite destitute of authority, for so Orpheus in his hymns, two of which are addressed to these Goddesses, styles them, Αλλα θεαι μοιραι οφιοπλόκαμοι πολυμοςфоло Sympson. In Shakespeare are the shears K. John, a. iv. s. 2. of Destiny, with more propriety. Think you I bear the shears of destiny? Milton, however, does not here confound the Fates and the Furies. He only calls Destiny a Fury. In Spenser, we have blind Fury. Ruins of Rome, st. xxiv. If the blinde Furie which warres breedeth oft. And in Sackville's Gordobucke, a. v. s. 3. O Jove, how are these people's hearts abus'd, And what blind Fury headlong carries them ? See Observations on Spenser's Faery Queen, vol. ii. p. 255. edit. 2. T Warton. 77. Phœbus replied, and touch'd my trembling ears;] Virgil, Ecl. vi. 3. -Cynthius aurem. Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil, Nor in the glist'ring foil Set off to th' world, nor in broad rumour lies, But lives and spreads aloft by those pure eyes, Of so much fame in heav'n expect thy meed. O fountain Arethuse, and thou honour'd flood, And listens to the herald of the sea 79. Nor in the glist'ring foil] Spenser, Faery Queen, b. iv. cant. v. st. 15. As guileful goldsmith that by secret skill With golden foil doth finely overspread Some baser metal, &c. 85. O fountain Arethuse, &c.] Now Phoebus, whose strain was of a higher mood, has done speaking, he invokes the fountain Arethuse of Sicily the country of Theocritus, and Mincius, the river of Mantua, Virgil's country, which river he calls honoured flood to shew his respect to that poet, and describes much in the same manner as Virgil himself has done, Georg. iii. 14. -tardis ingens ubi flexibus errat Mincius, et tenera prætexit arundine ripas. It was the more necessary for him to call to mind these two famous pastoral poets, as now his own oaten pipe proceeds. 85. In giving Arethusa the distinctive appellation of Foun 80 85 tain, Milton closely and learnedly attends to the ancient Greek writers. See more particularly the scholiast on Theocritus, Idyll. i. 117. And Servius on Virgil, Æn. iii. 694. Ecl. x. 4. Homer says, Odyss. xiii. 408. Επι τε ΚΡΗΝΗ Αρεθούση. Compare Hesychius, and his annotators, v. ΚΟΡΑΚΟΣ, ΑΛΦΕΙΟΣ ΑΡΕΘΟΥEA. And Stephanus Byzant. Berkel. p. 162. T. Warton. 85. and thou honour'd flood, Smooth-sliding Mincius, It was at first, -and thou smooth flood, Soft-sliding Mincius; and then smooth was altered to famed, and then to honoured in the Manuscript; as soft-sliding was to smooth-sliding. 89.—the herald of the sea &c.] Triton. Hippotades, Eolus the son of Hippotas, called sage from foreknowing the weather. Panope, a sea-nymph: the word itself signifies that pure calm and tranquillity that gives an unbounded prospect over the That came in Neptune's plea ; He ask'd the waves, and ask'd the felon winds, What hard mishap hath doom'd this gentle swain? They knew not of his story, And sage Hippotades their answer brings, That not a blast was from his dungeon stray'd, Sleek Panope with all her sisters play'd. It was that fatal and perfidious bark Built in th' eclipse, and rigg'd with curses dark, 90 95 100 smooth and level brine; there- enchantments in Macbeth, a. iv. fore sleek Panope. Richardson. 94.-euch beaked promontory ;] Drayton has "The utmost end "of Cornwall's furrowing beak." Polyolb. s. i. vol ii. p. 657. T. Warton. 101. Built in th' eclipse, &c.] Horace speaks much in the same spirit concerning the tree by whose fall he was in danger of being killed. Od. ii. xiii. 1. Ille et nefasto te posuit die &c. And so of a ship, Epod. x. 1. Mala soluta navis exit alite. And the misfortune is ascribed to the ship according to the Latin inscription at the beginning of the poem, navi in scopulum allisa, et rimis et ictu fatiscente. 101. Although Horace has two passages similar to this, yet how much more poetical and striking is the imagery of Milton, that the ship was built in the eclipse, and rigged with curses. Dr. J. Warton. Evidently with a view to the s. 1. 101. Mr. Warton adds, that "the ship, a very crazy vessel, "struck on a rock, and suddenly "sunk to the bottom with all "that were on board, not one "escaping." A more correct account of this disaster, given by Hogg, who in 1694 published a Latin translation of Lycidas, informs us, that several escaped in the boat from the sinking vessel; but that Mr. King and some others, fatally unmoved by the importunities of their associates, continued on board and perished. Dr. Symmons, Life of Milton, p. 108. That sunk so low that sacred head of thine. 103. Next Camus, reverend sire, &c.] The river Cam is fitly introduced upon this occasion, and is called reverend sire, as both Mr. King and Milton were educated at Cambridge; and is described according to the nature of that river. Went footing slow, as it is a gentle winding stream, according to Camden, who says the British word Cam signifies crooked. It abounds too with reeds and sedge, for which reason his mantle is hairy, and his bonnet sedge, which as a testimony of his grief and mourning was inwrought with figures dim, and on the edge like to a hyacinth, that sanguine flower, as it sprung according to the poets from the blood of the boy Hyacinthus or of Ajax, inscribed with woe as the leaves were imagined to be marked with the mournful letters A. A. For these particulars you may consult the poets, and especially Ovid, Met. x. 210. Ecce cruor, qui fusus humi signave rat herbam, Desinit esse cruor; Tyrioque niten tior ostro 105 105. Inwrought with figures dim,] In the Manuscript it was first written Scrawl'd o'er: Inwrought is the marginal reading there. 105. figures dim,] Alluding to the fabulous traditions of the high antiquity of Cambridge. But how Cam was distinguished by a hairy mantle from other rivers, I know not. Warburton. It is very probable, that the hairy mantle, being joined with the sedge-bonnet, may mean his rushy or reedy banks. See Notes on El. i. 89. It would be difficult to ascertain the meaning of figures dim. Perhaps the poet himself had no very clear or determinate idea: but, in obscure and mysterious expressions, leaves something to be supplied or explained by the reader's imagination. T. Warton. 107. Ah! Who hath reft, quoth he, my dearest pledge ?] Mr. Bowle the Rime spirituali of Angelo compares this line with one in Grillo, fol. 7. a. It is a part of the Virgin's lamentation on the Passion of Christ. Deh, disse, ove ne vai mio caro pegno ? "Alas, quoth she, where goest "thou, my dear pledge?" And he cites also Spenser's Daphnaida, where the subject is the same. |
