33. 25. Comp. Virg. Æn. ix. 501: "At tuba terribilem sonitum procul ære canoro with which Servius compares Ennius' "At tuba terribili sonitu tara tantara dixit." See Shakspere's Richard II. I. iii. 134: "With boisterous untuned drums, With harsh-resounding trumpets' dreadful bray." 28. [What does mortal mean here? See Trench's Select Glossary, s. v. Comp.: "Come, thou mortal wretch." (Antony and Cleopatra, V. i. 63.)] The floyte" is mentioned in the House of Fame. See Chappell's Popular Music of the Olden Time, i. 33-6. 34. [What does dying mean? Comp. Twelfth Night, I. i.4. discovers = simply uncovers. So Merchant of Venice, II. vii. 1: "Go draw aside the curtain, and discover Comp. disrobe, dispeople, dismantle, &c. [In what sense do we use the word discover?] 35. [How does the sense of hopeless here differ from that in Shakspere's Richard II. "The hopeless word of 'never to return"? Quote parallels.] I. iii. 152, 35. The lute was once the most popular instrument in Europe, although now rarely to be seen except represented in old pictures. . . . It has been superseded by the guitar," &c. (See Chappell's Popular Music of the Olden Time, i. 102-3.) See Shakspere, passim; Drummond's Sonnet To his Sister (in the Golden Treasury); Paradise Lost, v. 151; Com. 478; Ode on the Passion: "Me softer airs befit, and softer strings Of lute or violl still more apt for mournful things." Sonnet XV. Pope follows Dryden in his "In a sadly pleasing strain Let the warbling lute complain." 37. violins. Violin (= violino) is a dim. of viol, as violoncello of violin. The violin completely replaced the viol in the reign of Charles II. See Chappell's Pop. Mus. ii. 467 -9. 41. dame. Comp. Milton's Paradise Lost, ix. 612 : So often in Shakspere. iii. 98, "Sovran of creatures, universal dame." 44. organs. See Milton's Paradise Lost, i. 708, vii. 596; Shakspere's Tempest, III. "the thunder--that deep and dreadful organ-pipe." The older English poets gene rally speak of organs, or a pair (= set) of organs : that is, the word organ denotes but a single pipe. Thus Sandys: "Praise with timbrels, organs, flutes; Praise with violins and lutes." See Chappell's Pop. Mus. i. 49, &c. Father Schmidt and other famous organ-builders flourished in the latter half of the seventeenth century. The organ in the Temple Church, London, was built by Schmidt in Charles II.'s time. 33. 47. The audacity of this line may be regarded as a sign of the times, which were not reverent nor humble-minded. See Dryden's Ode to the Memory of Mrs. Anne Killegrew, passim. Comp. Absal. and Achit. Part I. 831, of the Duke of Ormond's son: Comp. Waller's "Snatched in manhood's prime By unequal fates and Providence's crime." They now assist the choir songs admire." Of angels, who their 48. Orpheus. See Shakspere's Two Gentlemen of Verona, III. ii. 78–81; Henry VIII. III. i. 3, &c.; Hor. Od. I. xii. 7-12, &c. 50. Sequacious. Comp. Sid. Carm. xvi. 3: "Quæ [chelys] saxa sequacia flectens.” Comp. Ovid's "saxa sequentia,” Met. xi. 2. 52. [What is meant by vocal breath?] 53. Comp. Alex. Feast, 170. straight. See L'Allegro, 69. 34. 55. See note on l. 1, and on Hymn Nat. 125. 60. Comp. Shakspere's Tempest, IV. i. 151-6. 63. untune destroy the harmony, i.e. the vivifying principle, of. THIS Song was written in 1697, in a single night, according to St. John, afterwards Lord Bolingbroke. He states that Dryden said to him when he called upon him one morning : “I have been up all night my musical friends made me promise to write them an Ode for their Feast of St. Cecilia, and I was so struck with the subject which occurred to me that I could not leave it till I had completed it; here it is, finished at one sitting." 66 34. 1. 'Twas at, &c. There is here a sort of rhetorical ellipse. He means, It was at the royal feast that what follows happened," or, The scene of the subject of our Ode was the hall of the royal feast ;' but he boldly omits the explanatory clause. In the well-known words, "We met, 'twas in a crowd," the explanatory clause, in fact, precedes; but it is often omitted altogether, as here, especially in the beginning of a tale or poem. Comp. Moore's "'Tis the last rose of summer." [What does for mean here? What other meanings has it?] [When was Persia "won"? See Hist. Greece.] 7. At a Greek banquet the guests were garlanded with roses and myrtle leaves. 9. Thais. See Smith's larger Biog, and Mythol. Dict. Athenæus is our chief informant about her. According to him, she was after Alexander's death married to Ptolemy Lagi. She was as famous for her wit as her beauty. "Her name is best known from the story of her having stimulated the Conqueror (Alexander), during a great festival at Persepolis, to set fire to the palace of the Persian kings; but this anecdote, immortalized as it has been by Dryden's famous Ode [see ll. 123-50], appears to rest on the sole authority of Cleitarchus, one of the least trustworthy of the historians of Alexander, and is in all probability a mere fable." 34. 11. [In what two ways may youth in this line be parsed? Which is the better?] 12. pair and peer (1. 6) are etymologically identical. 16. Timotheus. See Smith's larger Biog. and Mythol. Dict. This Timotheus is said to have been a Theban. Suidas tells us he "flourished under Alexander the Great, on whom his music made so powerful an impression that once, in the midst of a performance by Timotheus of an Orthian poem to Athena, he started from his seat and seized his arms." The more celebrated Timotheus, "the musician and poet of the later Athenian dithyramb," a native of Miletus, died some thirty years before Alexander's conquest of Persia. 17. tuneful See St. Cecilia's Day, 6. 35. 21. began from Jove. See St. Cecilia's Day, 2. 22. seats. So, in Latin, sedes is used in the plural. In 24. [What is meant by bely'd the god? Comp. Shakspere's Richard II. II. ii. 76–7.] For this wild story see Plutarch's Alex. &c. See Paradise Lost, ix. 494-510. the medieval romances about Alexander it was not Jove, but one Nectanebus, a refugee king of Egypt, who was the father of the prince: see e. g. the fragment of Alisa under edited by Mr. Skeat for the Early English Text Society. 25. radiant spires. Comp. Milton's "circling spires." [Which is the better word with which to connect on radiant spires? What does rode mean?] 26. Her name was Olympias. See Class. Dict. 31. a present deity. Comp. Hor. Od. III. v. 2; Psalm xlvi. 1. The Latin numen means originally a nod (as in Lucret. ii. 633). 38. Bacchus. See Class. Dict. See Keats' Endymion, IV.; Catull. Ixiv. 251-64. 43. honest face = handsome face. The epithet is taken from Virgil (Georg. ii. 392): "Quocunque deus [Bacchus] circum caput egit honestum." Comp. Georg. iii. 81, and En. x. 133. Honest-like is used in Scotland for "goodly, as regarding the person." (Jamieson.) Comp. Absalom and Achit. Part I. 72: "Seams of wounds dishonest to the sight." 44. hautboys = oboes (French, hautbois, that is haut-bois). 53. [What battles had he fought ?] [Is fought a "strong" pret. or a "weak"?] [What is meant by to fight over a battle?] 56. ardent eyes. See Cicero's speech in Verr. II. iv. 66, of one Theomnastus' madness: "Nam quum spumus ageret in ore, oculis arderet, voce maxima vim me sibi adferre clamaret, copulati in jus pervenimus." [To whom does the former his refer? To whom the latter?] 36. 59. Muse. So Hor. Sat. II. vi. 16, 17: Ergo ubi me in montes et in arcem ex urbe removi, Quid prius illustrem satiris musaque pedestri?" It is sometimes used for a poet. See note, Prothal. 159. 36. 61. [Was there ever any difference between sung and sang? See Latham's English Grammar.] 65. weltring. See Hymn Nat. 124. [What word is omitted here?] Comp. A. Phillips To Charlotte Pulteney Gn the Golden Treasury): &c. &c. 68. expos'd cast out. "And thou shalt in thy daughter see This picture once resembled thee." Comp. Latin exponere, Greek EKTIOévaι. 69. Comp. Pope's Elegy on an Unfortunate Lady: Virg. Æn. ix. 487. "By foreign hands thy dying eyes were closed: With not a friend. A here has its older force; it = one, a single; see note to at a birth," L'All. 14. Not a is, in fact, a stronger form of none or no. The negative in this phrase is sometimes never. [What is the force of with here ?] = 71. revolveing : Latin revolvens; as in Ov. Fast. iv. 667: "Excutitur terrore quies; Numa visa revolvit." 73. a sigh he stole of the Shrew, III. ii. 142: he sighed privily, or it may be silently. See Shakspere's Taming ""Twere good, methinks, to steal our marriage." Comp. the phrase "to steal a march." So in Greek, кλéπтεw to do anything in a thievish, a secret, an underhand manner; see Sophocles' Ajax, 189: “ εἰ δ ̓ ὑποβαλλόμενο. κλέπτουσι μύθους οἱ μεγάλοι βασιλῆς," κ.τ.λ. El. 37: dóλoiai kλévai opayás, &c. Comp. Cymb. I. v. 66: "He furnaces The thick sighs from him;" which is explained by "the lover sighing like furnace" in As You Like It, II. vii. 143. 77. 'Twas, &c. See above, 1. 1. [What does but mean here? What other meanings has it?] to move. Comp. Virg. Æn. x. 163, " Cantusque movete." Strictly, the verb applies to the striking or stirring of the strings. Comp. song in Cowley's Davideis: "Hark! how the strings awake! And though the moving hand approach not near," &c. 79. [What does sweet here qualify ?] Lydian measures. See L'Allegro, 136. Conversely, love melts the soul to pity, in Two Gentlemen of Verona, IV. iv. 101. 82. See Falstaff's catechism, 1 Henry IV. V. i. 83. [What is it that is never ending, &c.? What fighting still, &c. ?] 85. worth winning. So (6 'worth nothing," "worth ambition," "worth thy sight," "worth inquiry," ," "worth while.” (With "worthy" the preposition is generally inserted, but in Shakspere, Coriol. III. i. 299, we have "worthy death.") This construction may be explained in this way: the Ang. -Sax. inflection which marked the word governed by weorth fell out of use, and its omission was not compensated for by the introduction of the preposition. 96. [What is the force of at once here? What does it qualify?] 37. 98. [Why does he say again ?] 100. bands of sleep. Comp. "bands of death," "the bands of those sins" (Collect for the 24th Sunday after Trinity), &c. The notes that rouse him are to be very different from those which are to make Orpheus "heave his head" in L'Allegro. 108. see the snakes that they rear, &c. In Æn. vi. 571-3, Tisiphone's left hand is filled with snakes: 117. crew. "Continuo sontes ultrix, accincta flagello, Tisiphone quatit insultans, torvosque sinistra See L'Allegro, 38. 122. flambeau. French words were much affected by the English in the latter part of the seventeenth century. See Butler; "For though to smatter words of Greek And Latin be the rhetorique Of pedants counted and vainglorious, To smatter French is meritorious." See Macaulay's History of England, I. chap. iii. 125. [How far does this parallel between Thais and Helen hold good 129. [What is the force of to here?] = the speaking structure. 133. the vocal frame 38. 137. [What is the force of with here?] |