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daughters of Zeus. The sager' singers of 1. 17 seem to be Milton's invention.

19. Zephyr

Dawn.'

Aurora: 'the West wind and the

20. a-Maying: the first of May was celebrated by all the young people getting up before daybreak and going out into the fields to gather the may; this they brought home to decorate their houses. A similar festival called Floralia was celebrated for five days by the ancient Romans.

23. Fill'd her with thee: 'made her pregnant,' ' made her thy mother.'

24. buxom and blithe had much the same meaning in the 17th century, viz. ‘merry," lively.' The former word is now used rather in the sense of 'plump,' comfortable-looking.'

debonair:' disposition.']

genial.' [French, de bonne aire, of good

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27. Quips: defined by Lyly in 1584 as a short saying of a sharp wit, with a bitter sense in a sweet word."

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wreathed: properly twisted,' wreathe being cognate with writhe." The act of smiling makes curved lines in the face.

29. Hebe's: see above, note to No. 86, 1. 10.

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34. fantastic: arbitrarily used by Milton for: Making" fantastic" movements (in the dance)' N.E.D. The movements were the product of the dancers' fancy.

36. mountain nymph, sweet Liberty: it is a common notion of the poets-which history does something to support that the spirit of Freedom is more commonly found in mountainous countries, doubtless because they are easier to defend. But the fen-lands were the last refuge of the English against the Normans, and the Low Countries showed unsurpassed heroism in their struggle with Philip of Spain.

43. watch-tower: this is of course a metaphor for that part of the sky in which the lark hovers as he sings.

45. Then to come: this may be taken (1) as depending

on

* admit me ? (1. 38); it is then co-ordinate with To live' and 'To hear,' and the poet is pictured as wakened by the lark in the early morning, getting out of bed, and going to the window to bid good morning to the sun, or the day, or possibly to the lark. Others take it (2) as depending on To hear' (1. 41), and co-ordinate with 'begin' and 'startle.'. The idea then is that the poet hears the lark come to his window to bid him good-morning-a sufficiently improbable action on the lark's part, to say nothing of the fact that there is a 'to' before come,' and none before the ex hypothesi co-ordinate words begin' and 'startle.' in spite of sorrow in defiance of sorrow'; these words in their usual sense seem equally inappropriate to the cheerful man and to the lark. True, the poet might have had a bad night, but that would be only an additional reason for getting a draught of good morning air.

as

48. eglantine: apparently taken by Milton 'honeysuckle.' The usual meaning is sweetbriar.' 62. dight: arrayed.' This line is in the absolute construction; the verb to dight' is now obsolete, its past participle only being found in poetry.

67. tells his tale: probably relates his story,' a sense in which the phrase has been used since the 13th century; rather than counts up the sum' [of his sheep], which sense of the phrase is not found before the 19th, though the separate words are used in such senses earlier. See N.E.D. s.v. tell,' 17.

71. Russet: 'reddish-brown.'

space in the middle of trees.

A lawn is any open

fallows: 'fields which have been ploughed and harrowed, but not sown.'

74. labouring: teeming, heavy with rain.'.

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75. pied: variegated,' qualifying meadows."

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78. Bosom'd either (1) ‘standing out like a bosom,” or (2) enclosed as in a bosom'; high' suggests the former.

80. Cynosure: (1) the constellation Ursa Minor in which comes the Pole Star, (2) in metaphoric sense, a' guiding star,' (3) the centre of attraction.

83. Corydon and Thyrsis: two shepherds from Virgil's seventh Eclogue.

85. messes: in its earliest sense a mess is a portion

of food'; it is from the Old French mes, whose modern form mets=viand, dish.

86. Phillis, or rather Phyllis, was a shepherdess in Virgil's third Eclogue; from this line of Milton's the name has come to be commonly applied to a

waitress.

88. Thestylis: a shepherdess from the second Eclogue. Of course all these names are used in a general sense for country lads and lasses.

89. if the earlier season lead: if it is earlier in the year, so that she is summoned to the hay, rather than the corn.'

91. secure :

92. invite

free from care'; the Latin securus. appeal to our fancy.'

93. ring round: 'ring in succession.'

94. rebecks: a kind of old-fashioned fiddle.

98. holy-day and holiday were originally the same word; the meaning here is that of the latter.

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99. live-long is merely an emotional intensive of long' (N.E.D.); the first syllable is a corruption of lief (=dear).

102. Faery Mab: Mab was the midwife of the fairies, i.e. the fairy who brought men's dreams into being; she had a special predilection for cream and other dairy produce. Thus Ben Jonson in his Entertainment at Althorpe says:

This is Mab, the mistress fairy,

That doth nightly rob the dairy.'

103, 104. She... he: one of them another.' Friar's lantern: 'the will-o'-the-wisp,' or ignis fatuus, a phosphorescent light occasionally seen on marshy ground. Milton seems to have originated this name for the phenomenon.

105. Tells: another' must be supplied as subject. The semicolon at the end of the preceding line is a correction for the comma of the original. With this comma the subject of tells' is the "he' in that line; but such a punctuation confuses the two incidents. There is no point in saying that a man who had been led astray by a will-o'-the-wisp tells how his housework had been done by fairy aid.

the drudging Goblin: Robin Goodfellow, a domestic fairy or brownie, who does household work in the

night and takes as his reward a bowl of cream duly set out for him.

sweat the past tense; in modern English, sweated.' 108. shadowy: the flail is so called presumably because it was plied in the darkness. :

110. lies him down: this use of lie' with a reflexive pronoun is possibly due to a confusion, by no means obsolete to-day, with the transitive verb 'to lay.'

lubber: defined by Phillips in 1706 as a mean Servant that does all base Services in a house; a Drudge.' There is no idea of clumsiness about this

use of the word.

111. all the chimney's length: the old-style hearth was six or eight feet from side to side, or often more, with projecting walls forming the chimney corner.'

112. Basks in the transitive sense of 'to expose to the warmth' this word does not appear to have been used since Pope.

113. crop-full: having eaten his fill. The crop is properly the enlarged part of a bird's gullet.

114. his matin : his morning call.'

117. please us then: i.e. when the rustics have gone to bed the poet loves to sit and read of the doings in great cities.

120. weeds: 'garments.'

122. Rain influence: sc. on the competitors.

123. both: i.e. both wit and arms.

124. her grace, whom all commend: the favour of the Queen of Beauty.'

125. Hymen: the god of Marriage, who was represented in a yellow robe and carrying a torch.

128. mask, in the sense of a dramatic entertainment, is now spelt 'masque.'

132. Jonson's learned sock: for Jonson, see above, note to No. 73. The sock was the light shoe worn by the ancient comic actor, as the buskin was the high boot of the tragedian. Sock and buskin' is often used for Comedy and Tragedy.

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134. his native wood-notes wild: the contrast is between the learning of Jonson and the untaught natural style of Shakespeare, who had little Latin and less Greek.' Milton must have had As You Like It or A Midsummer Night's Dream in his mind, as suited

L'Allégro; there is very little 'warbling of woodnotes in King Lear or Hamlet.

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135. against eating cares: 'to shield me from cares that eat the heart,' Horace's curas edaces,' Od. II. xi. 18. 136. Lapenfold'; from the noun lap,' meaning the fold of a garment.

Lydian in the oldest Greek music there were three chief modes' or scales, the Dorian, the Lydian and the Phrygian. (The number was afterwards increased to thirteen or fifteen.) Of these the Lydian was 'soft and effeminate,' the Dorian 'simple and solemn,' and the Phrygian warlike' (N.E.D.).

138. the meeting soul: the soul which lends itself to the music.'

139. bout a 'phrase ' in music.

141. I.e. performed playfully, yet carefully, with bewildering rapidity, and yet with technical skill.

143, 144. The harmony in a man's soul is looked on as being bound by the chains of the external world and only set free by the influence of music.

145. That: i.e. [so beautiful a strain] that

Orpheus: see above, on No. 66, 1. 58. His wife Eurydice having died and gone to the abode of Hades, he followed her and by the magic of his music prevailed on Pluto to give her up, provided he could refrain from looking back upon her as she followed him from the Lower World. In the eagerness of his love he turned as he reached the threshold, and she was carried again into the realm of Hades.

146. golden see note on No. 45, 1. 5.

147. Elysian: Elysium was the abode of good men after death in classical mythology; Homer depicts it as a far from comfortable locality, but English writers have always used the term to denote a place of perfect happiness.

113

See note to the last poem.

Penseroso: the 16th century form of the modern Italian pensieroso.'

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,,

2. without father bred: they had no double parentage, but sprang from Folly only.

3. bestead: 6 avail.