Chapter 9
The occasion of the poem was the coming of the Earl of Bridgewater to Ludlow Castle, to enter upon his official residence there as Lord President of Wales. The person chiefly concerned in the scenic, musical, and histrionic preparations of the mask was Milton's esteemed friend, the most accomplished musical composer of the day, Henry Lawes. Lawes composed the music and arranged the stage business. He seems to have taken upon himself the part of the Attendant Spirit. Lawes knew to whom to apply for the all-important matter of the book, the words, or the poetry, of the piece, for he had learned to know Milton's qualifications as a mask-poet in the fragment which we have under the name _Arcades_. With good music even for commonplace lyric verse, and with sprightly declamation even of conventional dialogue, the thing, as we know from modern instances, might have been carried off by gorgeous costumes and shrewdly devised scenic effects. Most of the masks of the time fell at once into oblivion. But Lawes had secured for his poet John Milton; and the consequence thereof is that the Earl of Bridgewater is now chiefly heard of because at Ludlow Castle there was enacted, in the form of a mask written by Milton, a drama which is still read and reread by every English-speaking person who reads any serious poetry, though Ludlow Castle has long been a venerable ruin.
For his plot, the poet feigned that the young children of the earl, two sons and a daughter, in coming to Ludlow, had to pass unattended through a forest, in which the boys became separated from the girl and she fell into the hands of the enchanter Comus. The Attendant Spirit appears to the youths with his magic herb, and with the further assistance of the water-nymph Sabrina, at last makes all right, and the children are restored to their parents in the midst of festive rejoicing.
The poem is dramatic, because it is acted and spoken or sung in character by its persons. It is allegorical, because it inculcates a moral, and more is meant than meets the ear. In parts it is pastoral, both because the chief personage appears in the guise of a shepherd, and because its motive largely depends on the superstitions and traditions of simple, ignorant folk. In the longer speeches, where events are narrated with some fulness, it becomes epic. Lastly, in its songs, in the octosyllables of the magician, and in the adjuration and the thanking of Sabrina, it is lyric. With iambic pentameter as the basis of the dialogue, the poet varies his measures as Shakespeare does his, and with very similar ends in view.
The name _Comus_ Milton found ready to his hand. As a common noun, the Greek word _comus_ signifies carousal,--wassail. In the later classic period it had become a proper name, standing for a personification of nocturnal revelry, and a god Comus was frequently depicted on vases and in mural paintings. Philostratus, in his _Ikones_,--or _Pictures_,--gives an interesting description of a painting of this god. See Encyclopædia Britannica, article _Comus_. Ben Jonson, in his mask, _Pleasure Reconciled to Virtue_, played in 1619, presents a Comus as "the god of cheer, or the belly, riding in triumph, his head crowned with roses and other flowers, his hair curled." The character and the name were the common property of mask-writers.
The great distinction of Comus is its beauty, maintained at height through a thousand lines of supremely perfect verse. Greatly dramatic it of course is not. It yields its meaning to the most cursory reading; it has no mystery. It is simply beautiful, with a sustained beauty elsewhere unparalleled.
The following letter of Sir Henry Wotton to the Author deserves to be read both for its engaging style as a piece of English prose and for its exquisite characterization of Comus. Wotton was a versatile scholar, diplomat, and courtier, seventy years old at the time of this letter, with a reputation as a kindly and appreciative literary critic. He was now residing at Eton College, where he held the office of Provost. Milton, thirty years of age, the first edition of his Comus recently published anonymously, had good cause for elation over such a testimonial from such a source.
"From the College, this 13 of April, 1638.
"Sir,
"It was a special favour when you lately bestowed upon me here the first taste of your acquaintance, though no longer than to make me know that I wanted more time to value it and to enjoy it rightly; and, in truth, if I could then have imagined your farther stay in these parts, which I understood afterwards by Mr. H., I would have been bold, in our vulgar phrase, to mend my draught (for you left me with an extreme thirst), and to have begged your conversation again, jointly with your said learned friend, over a poor meal or two, that we might have banded together some good Authors of the ancient time; among which I observed you to have been familiar.
"Since your going, you have charged me with new obligations, both for a very kind letter from you dated the 6th of this month, and for a dainty piece of entertainment which came therewith. Wherein I should much commend the tragical part, if the lyrical did not ravish me with a certain Doric delicacy in your Songs and Odes, whereunto I must plainly confess to have seen yet nothing parallel in our language: _Ipsa mollities_. But I must not omit to tell you that I now only owe you thanks for intimating unto me (how modestly soever) the true artificer. For the work itself I had viewed some good while before with singular delight; having received it from our common friend Mr. R., in the very close of the late R.'s Poems, printed at Oxford: whereunto it was added (as I now suppose) that the accessory might help out the principal, according to the art of Stationers, and to leave the reader _con la bocca dolce_.
"Now, Sir, concerning your travels; wherein I may challenge a little more privilege of discourse with you. I suppose you will not blanch Paris in your way: therefore I have been bold to trouble you with a few lines to Mr. M. B., whom you shall easily find attending the young Lord S. as his governor; and you may surely receive from him good directions for the shaping of your farther journey into Italy where he did reside, by my choice, some time for the King, after mine own recess from Venice.
"I should think that your best line will be through the whole length of France to Marseilles, and thence by sea to Genoa; whence the passage into Tuscany is as diurnal as a Gravesend barge. I hasten, as you do, to Florence or Siena, the rather to tell you a short story, from the interest you have given me in your safety.
"At Siena I was tabled in the house of one Alberto Scipioni, an old Roman courtier in dangerous times; having been steward to the Duca di Pagliano, who with all his family were strangled, save this only man that escaped by foresight of the tempest. With him I had often much chat of those affairs, into which he took pleasure to look back from his native harbour; and at my departure toward Rome (which had been the centre of his experience), I had won his confidence enough to beg his advice how I might carry myself there without offence of others or of mine own conscience. '_Signor Arrigo mio_,' says he, '_I pensieri stretti ed il viso sciolto_ will go safely over the whole world.' Of which Delphian oracle (for so I have found it) your judgment doth need no commentary; and therefore, Sir, I will commit you, with it, to the best of all securities, God's dear love, remaining
"Your friend, as much to command as any of longer date,
"Henry Wotton."
_Postscript._
"Sir: I have expressly sent this my footboy to prevent your departure without some acknowledgment from me of the receipt of your obliging letter; having myself through some business, I know not how, neglected the ordinary conveyance. In any part where I shall understand you fixed, I shall be glad and diligent to entertain you with home-novelties, even for some fomentation of our friendship, too soon interrupted in the cradle."
The Latin phrase, _ipsa mollities_, may be translated,--it is the very perfection of delicacy. The Italian words below mean,--My dear Henry, thoughts close, face open.
1. Before the starry threshold of Jove's court. The attendant spirit not only announces himself as a dweller in heaven, but he specifies his particular function among the celestials: he is doorkeeper in the house of God.
3. insphered. Compare Il Penseroso 88.
7. Confined and pestered. _Pester_ has its primitive meaning, to clog or encumber. In this pinfold here. _Pinfold_ is probably not connected with the verb to pen, but is a shortened form of poundfold, and means, literally, an enclosure for stray cattle.
10. After this mortal change: after this life on earth, which is subject to death.
11. Amongst the enthroned gods. Make but two syllables of _enthroned_, and accent the first.
The long sentence ending with line 11 is very loose in construction: the _and_ in line 7 is a coördinate conjunction, but does not connect coördinate elements.
13. To lay their just hands on that golden key. Compare Lycidas 110.
16. these pure ambrosial weeds. Ambrosial has its proper meaning,--pertaining to the immortals.
20. by lot 'twixt high and nether Jove. Neptune drew lots with Jupiter and Pluto. To Jupiter fell the region of the upper air, to Pluto the lower world, and to Neptune the sea. The ancient poets sometimes spoke of Jupiter and Pluto as the upper and the lower Jove.
25. By course commits to several government: in due order he assigns the islands to his tributaries, giving them an island apiece.
27. But this Isle is so large that he has to divide it.
29. Consider quarters to mean nothing more than divides. his blue-haired deities. The epithet is conventional, taken from the Greek poets, and probably has no special significance in this passage.
31. A noble Peer. This connects the poem with actual persons and announces its occasion. The noble peer is the Earl of Bridgewater, and the event which is to be celebrated is his appointment to the Vice-royalty of Wales.
33. The old and haughty nation are the Welsh.
34. his fair offspring are two sons and a daughter, who are to play the parts of the Two Brothers and the Lady in the mask.
37. the perplexed paths of this drear wood. Compare Par. Lost IV 176.
41. sovran. See note on Hymn on the Nativity 60.
45. in hall or bower. Hall and bower are conventionally coupled by the poets to signify the dwellings, respectively, of the gentry and the laboring classes.
46. The transformation by Bacchus of the treacherous Tuscan sailors into dolphins belongs to the established myths of that god. But Milton exercises his right as a poet to add to the classic story whatever suits his purposes.
48. After the Tuscan mariners transformed; a Latinism, meaning, after the transformation of the Tuscan mariners.
50. fell: chanced to land.
For the story of Circe, see the Odyssey X.
58. Understand that no such distinct character as Comus belongs to the received mythology. Milton is a myth-maker.
59. frolic is used as an adjective, as in L'Allegro 18.
60. the Celtic and Iberian fields. The god traversed Gaul and Spain, on his way to Britain.
61. ominous: abounding in mysterious signs of danger.
65. His orient liquor. See line 673 of this poem.
72. Note that only the countenance is changed.
87. Well knows to still the wild winds. The poem moves throughout in the realm of romance. The swain Thyrsis is in his own character a practitioner of magic.
88. nor of less faith. Thyrsis has just been described as a person of great skill.
90. Likeliest: most likely to be.
93. The transition from the stately mood of the Attendant Spirit's exordium to the noisy exhilaration of Comus is marked by appropriate changes in the verse. Comus speaks in a lyric strain, and his tone is exultant. When he comes to serious business, in line 145, he also employs blank-verse. The lyric lines, 93-144, rhyme in couplets, and vary in length, most of them having four accents, while some have five. The four-accent lines vary between seven and eight syllables, many of them dropping the initial light syllable, or anakrusis (Auftakt). These seven-syllable lines have a trochaic effect, but are to be scanned as iambic, the standard rhythm of the poem. The star that bids the shepherd fold. So Collins, in his ode To Evening,--"For when thy folding-star arising shows His paly circlet." See also Measure for Measure IV 2 218.
96. doth allay: doth cool.
97. The epithet steep is applied to the ocean, though really it is the course of the downward-moving sun that is steep.
99-101. Milton uses pole, as the poets were wont to do, to mean the sky; and the passage means,--the sun, moving about the earth in his oblique course, now shines upon that part of the heavens which, when it is daylight to us, is in shadow.
105. with rosy twine; with twined, or wreathed, roses.
108-109. Advice ... Age ... Severity. For these abstract terms substitute their concretes.
110. their grave saws. So Hamlet I 5 100, "all saws of books."
116. in wavering morrice. See M. N. Dream II 1 98; All's Well II 2 25.
118. the dapper elves. _Dapper_ is akin to the German _tapfer_, but with a very different connotation.
124. Love: the Latin Amor, the Greek Eros, and our Cupid.
129. Dark-veiled Cotytto was a Thracian goddess, whose worship was connected with licentious frivolity.
133. makes one blot of all the air. Compare line 204 of this poem.
135. thou ridest with Hecat'. _Hecate_ was a goddess of the lower world, mistress of witchcraft and the black arts.
139. The nice Morn. _Nice_ is used in a disparaging sense, meaning over particular, minutely critical.
140. From her cabined loop-hole peep. As if morn dwelt in a cabin and clandestinely peeped from a small window.
141. descry must here mean reveal.
144. In a light fantastic round. Recall L'Allegro 34. Comus and his crew are now dancing.
147. shrouds: hiding-places. See the verb, line 316.
151. my wily trains. _Trains_ are tricks, as in Macbeth IV 3 118.
154. The air is spongy because it absorbs his magic dust.
155. blear, usually applied to eyes, here refers to the effect of seeing objects with blear eyes.
174. the loose unlettered hinds. The hinds are farm-servants, usually with an implication of rudeness and rusticity, and they are loose because unrestrained in speech and act by considerations of propriety.
177. amiss: in wrong or unseemly ways.
178. swilled is a very contemptuous word.
179. wassailers. See Macbeth I 7 64. The word has an interesting etymology.
188. the grey-hooded Even. Milton is fond of applying the epithet _gray_ to the evening and the dawn. See Par. Lost IV 598, Lycidas 187.
189. Like a sad votarist in palmer's weed. The votarist is one who has made a vow. In this case he goes on a pilgrimage, carrying a palm branch, and wearing the pilgrim garb.
203. the tumult of loud mirth was rife. As to the meaning of _rife_ compare Sam. Ag. 866 and Par. Lost I 650.
204. Yet nought but single darkness do I find. The darkness is unbroken by any ray of light.
210. may startle well, but not astound. _Astound_ is a strong word. See Par. Lost I 281.
212. a strong siding champion: a champion who sides with the virtuous mind.
222. her silver lining. Note Milton's avoidance of the possessive _its_. In all his verse he uses _its_ but three times.
231. Within thy airy shell. The _airy shell_ in which Echo lives must be the "hollow round" of the atmosphere. Compare Hymn on the Nativity 100-103.
232. The Meander is the river of Asia Minor, famous for its windings.
233-237. The mention of the nightingale and Narcissus in this passage suggests that it may be a reminiscence of the chorus in the Oedipus Coloneus,--"Of this land of goodly steeds, O stranger."
237. Echo's passion for the beautiful Narcissus was not requited, and she pined away till she became a mere voice, which she could not utter till she was spoken to.
241. Daughter of the Sphere: daughter of the air, which forms a hollow sphere about the earth.
243. And give resounding grace to all Heaven's harmonies: by echoing back the music of the spheres.
249-252. Even darkness smiled, as if acknowledging itself agreeably caressed by the strains of the lady's song.
251. At every fall. _Fall_, as a musical term, is "a sinking down or lowering of the note or voice; cadence" (New Eng. Dict.).
253. the Sirens dwelt on an island near Sicily, and by their sweet song allured mariners to destruction. See Odyssey XII.
254. the Naiades were nymphs attendant on Circe and the Sirens.
257. And lap it in Elysium. Compare L'Allegro 136.
257-259. Scylla and Charybdis were dangerous rocks and whirlpools on opposite sides of the strait of Messina. They were personified as cruel sea-monsters.
260. Yet they: Circe and the Sirens.
267. Unless the goddess. Supply _thou art_.
273. extreme shift: a pressing necessity of devising some expedient.
289. Were they of manly prime or youthful bloom? Were they in the prime of adult manhood, or in the bloom of youth?
277-290. These fourteen lines are an instance of "stichomythia, or conversation in alternate lines, which was always popular on the Attic stage. This scheme of versification is used chiefly in excited discussions, where the speakers are hurried along by the eagerness of their feelings."--Haigh, _The Tragic Drama of the Greeks_.
292. An ox in traces would now be a rare sight.
294. a green mantling vine. See Par. Lost IV 258.
299. gay creatures of the element: creatures of the air,--supernatural beings.
301. And play i' the plighted clouds. Probably the poet means the _plaited_, or _pleated_, clouds, conceiving the clouds as appearing folded together. I was awe-strook. See Hymn on the Nativity 95.
316. Or shroud within these limits. _Shroud_ as a noun we saw above, line 147.
318. From her thatched pallet rouse. The lark builds on the ground, seeking a spot protected by overarching stems of grass or grain, which may be called a natural thatch; and if this protection is destroyed by mowers or reapers, the bird will at once take pains to build a roof or thatch over the nest, completely covering it, and for a door will make an opening on the side.
325. where it first was named. The derivation of the words _courteous_ and _courtesy_ from _court_ is obvious.
327. Less warranted than this, or less secure. The lady says that she cannot be in any place less guaranteed than this against evil, and that she cannot anywhere be less free from anxiety. Her situation she conceives to be as bad as it can be.
329. square my trial To my proportioned strength: make my trial proportionate to my strength.
332. That wont'st to love. _Wont'st_, in the present tense, means, as we say, art wont.
333. Stoop thy pale visage. Stoop is thus used, transitively, Richard II. III 1 19, "myself ... have stooped my neck."
334. And disinherit Chaos, that reigns here. _Chaos_, "the formless void of primordial matter," is personified by Milton here and, much more conspicuously, in Par. Lost III.
338. a rush-candle: a candle made with a rush for a wick,--the cheapest kind of light. from the wicker hole Of some clay habitation. Imagine a hut whose walls are made of wattled twigs plastered with clay. This clay when dry is apt to fall off in spots, leaving holes through which the light within can be seen from without. A wicker hole is a hole in the wicker-work, perhaps made intentionally, to serve as a window.
341-342. The star of Arcady is the constellation of the Greater Bear, and the Tyrian Cynosure that of the Lesser Bear. Stars in these constellations served as guides to Greek and Tyrian mariners.
345. Or sound of pastoral reed with oaten stops. Compare Collins's Ode to Evening,--_If aught of oaten stop, or pastoral song_. The shepherds of the Greek idylls made their musical pipes of reeds or oat-straws, and the oat has therefore been adopted by the pastoral poetry of all ages.
349. innumerous boughs. Compare Par. Lost VII 455.
358. Of savage hunger, or of savage heat: of hungry savages, or of lustful savages.
361. grant they be so: grant that they are real evils.
365. Make four syllables of delusion.
366. I do not think my sister so to seek: I do not think she has her seeking, or learning, still to do: I do not think her so inexperienced.
373-375. Is this practical doctrine?
377. Make five syllables of Contemplation.
380. Were all to-ruffled. The particle _to_--Anglo Saxon _tô_, Modern German _zer_--has disappeared from Modern English. In Old English it was often used with the force of the Latin _dis_. So still in Chaucer, _to-bete, to-cleve, to-rende_, and many others.
386. affects: likes, has an affection for.
390. weeds, as in line 84.
393. the fair Hesperian tree. See line 983.
394. had need the guard. An elliptical expression. _Need_ is a noun, but is treated as if it were a verb.
395. The dragon Ladon was not able to defend the apples of Hesperides against Hercules.
401. will wink on Opportunity: will fail to see its chance.
404. it recks me not. The verb is thus used, impersonally, also in Lycidas 122.
407. The line has two hypermetric syllables, one after the third foot, and one at the end.
413. squint suspicion. An epithet applicable only to a physical infirmity is applied to a mental act.
422. quivered: bearing a quiver.
423. unharbored: furnishing no shelter.
424. Infamous hills. Accent _infamous_ as we do now and as Milton does elsewhere. Verses thus beginning with trochees are common.
429. Look up the origin of the word grots.
430. unblenched: unstartled.
434. Blue meagre hag. The _hag_ has the livid hue of hunger.
436. swart faery of the mine. A malignant demon dwelling under ground,--a gnome.
441. the huntress Dian. The powerful goddess Diana, or Artemis, twin sister of Apollo, was figured bearing a bow and arrows.
448. wise Minerva. Minerva, or Pallas Athene, is usually represented as wearing on her breast the ægis with a border of snakes and the Gorgon's head in the centre.
460-462. Note the different modes in begin and turns, where we should look for similar constructions.
487. The ellipsis of _we had_ is readily supplied. Draw and stand are infinitives.
494. Thyrsis, a stock shepherd-name. The spirit henceforth appears to his fellow-actors in the mask as the shepherd with whom they are familiar.
495-512. These lines express sudden emotion, and approximate lyric in character. Hence the rhyme.
508. How chance she is not. Supply the ellipsis.
517. Chimeras is here used vaguely in the plural to mean dangerous monsters.
526. With many murmurs mixed. The enchanter spoke or sang forms of incantation over his mixing and brewing. Recall Macbeth.
529. The word mintage has an interesting history. The human countenance is conceived as an imprint, like the characters on a coin.
530. Charactered in the face. The _noun character_ Milton pronounces with accent on the first syllable, as does Shakespeare. Probably he also agrees with Shakespeare in pronouncing the _verb_ with the accent on the second syllable, as this verse suggests.
531. crofts. The word is still in use in England, meaning a small farm.
540. by then the chewing flocks: by the time when, etc.
547. To meditate my rural minstrelsy: to play on my shepherd-pipe and to sing. To meditate the muse is a standard expression of the pastoral poets. See Lycidas 66.
552. What do we know was the cause of this unusual stop of sudden silence?
553-554. The cessation of the din gave to the steeds of sleep, and to people who were trying to sleep, relief from annoyance.
557-560. Be sure you understand the figure.
560. Still, in its very frequent sense, _always_.
562. Under the ribs of Death: in a skeleton.
575. such two; describing them.