Henry's death, in a Synod held at Caen [1061] by the Duke's authority, and attended by Bishops, Abbots and Barons, it was ordered that a bell should be rung every evening, at hearing of which prayer should be offered, and all people should get within their houses and shut their doors. This odd mixture of piety and police seems to be the origin of the famous and misrepresented curfew. Whatever was its object, it was at least not ordained as any special hardship on William's English subjects.' Freeman's Norman Conquest, III. 185. bellman; when clocks were luxuries, it was customary to employ a bellman to call the hours of the night and the state of the weather. Our ancestors seem to have been deficient in humor though, for when they metamorphosed the bellman into a nightwatchman, they forgot to take away his bell. The cricket on the hearth. Dickens and Joseph Jefferson have immortalized this phrase.

85-96. the Bear = the constellation Ursa Major or the Great Bear, commonly known in the United States as the Dipper: in the English poets often referred to as Charles' Wain, or the Churl's (Peasant's) Wagon. See I Henry, IV. ii. 1. Charles' Wain is over the new chimney.' You can easily distinguish the Great Bear and the Little Bear (containing the pole-star) on a clear night. Hermes; the Greeks identified their divinity Hermes with the Egyptian Thot, the inventor of Arts and Sciences. Read Longfellow's poem of Hermes Trismegistus for a beautiful version of this legend. We have space for only one verse.

Where are now the many hundred

Thousand books he wrote ?

By the Thaumaturgists plundered
Lost in lands remote;

In oblivion sunk forever

As when o'er the land

Blows a storm wind, in the river

Sinks the scattered sand.

Plato; in the Phædo of Plato, Socrates, on the day he is condemned to die, tranquilly discusses with his friends the question of the immortality of the soul. consent agreement, harmony. planet; element. A belief in astrology lasted beyond the age of Milton and is not dead today; witness the amusing character of Foresight the astrologer in Congreve's comedy of Love for Love (1695) and the continued publication of Ayer's Almanac.

97-102. sceptered, may be taken in the sense of 'regal' as in Rich. II. ii. I. 40, This royal throne of kings, this scepter'd isle; or sceptered pall may 'with sceptre and with pall.' The express

Thebes; Cl.

ing of one thing by two- which would be the reverse of the construction here is common in the Greek and Latin poets and has a specific name, Hendiadys (One-Through-Two). Myths, Chap. XXII. Pelops; Cl. Myths, § 110; also Table F on page 444· You must follow up the references given in that

table to understand the various misfortunes of the house of Pelops. Troy; Cl. Myths, Chapters XXIV.-XXVI. Æschylus, Sophocles and Euripides based many of their tragedies on the three cycles of stories here referred to. Troy is called 'divine' because its walls were built by Neptune. buskined; the actor in tragedy

wore a high-heeled boot (cothurnus) to make his stature appear of heroic size. See note on L'Allegro, 126-134.

103-108. Musæus; Cl. Myths, § 11. (2). on L'Allegro, 135-152.

Orpheus; see note

109-115. A reference to Chaucer's (unfinished) Squire's Tale. In Cambuscan Milton does not follow Chaucer's accentuation, which is invariably Cámbyskan.

116-120. An exact description of Spenser's allegory of The Faerie Queene; perhaps Milton was thinking also of Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered, (1575).

121-130. Attic boy = Cephalus; Cl. Myths, § 112. his = modern English its.' In Milton's youth its' was hardly established in the language, being recorded in print for the first time in 1598. He uses it only three times in his poetry (Hymn on the Nativity, 106; Par. Lost, I. 254 and IV. 814); Shakespeare but ten times. In Old English the personal pronouns were highly inflected; in the 3rd person the Nominative and Possessive cases were

The confusion arising from 'his' having to serve for both Masc. and Neuter led to the gradual substitution of 'its,' formed from the Nom. Neuter by dropping the aspirate and adding ‘s.' minute; the rhythm (to say nothing of the sense) will show you whether this is minute or minúte.

66

131-140. Sylvan; Cl. Myths, 56, (8).

Monumental;

suggesting to the imagination the historic oak of park or chase, up to the knees in fern, which has outlasted ten generations of men; has been the mute witness of the scenes of love, treachery or violence enacted in the baronial hall which it shadows and protects; and has been so associated with man that it is now rather a column and memorial obelisk than a tree of the forest." Pattison's Milton, Chapter II. profane too profane. This use

of the comparative is a Latinism; see Allen and Greenough's Latin Grammar, § 93. a. sing. In what sense is the bee said to 'sing'? sleep; Cl. Myths, § 51. (4), and § 113 (The Cave of Sleep). In ancient works of art the god Somnus is represented with wings. dewy-feathered. Vergil tells us that the god Sleep, unable to lure from the helm the trusty pilot Palinurus, shook above his head ‘a branch dripping with Lethæan dew.' (Æneid V. 854).

147-150. Could we read with for at, we should get a tolerable meaning out of these lines; could we omit at, we should get a better meaning; as they stand, his wings must refer to the wings of Sleep, and at must be taken in the sense of 'near.'

151-166. good kind, as in 'Give me a good word.'

Gen

ius of the wood. In Milton's Arcades, the principal character is 'The Genius of the Wood.' pale; the adjective is from the Latin pallidus, pallid; pale, the noun, is from the Latin palus, a stake. Which is this? Massy-proof = massively proof (against the thrust of the roof); compare water-proof,' 'fire-proof.' stacies; from the Greek (orávai) ek, 'out,' and histanai,‘ place, set;' a state in which the spirit is placed outside of or exalted from the body.

to discover by careful study.

ec

Read again the Introduction (p. 4) to L'Allegro and Il Penseroso and try to follow out the advice there given you. In the whole range of English Literature you will hardly find a diction more felicitous or a harmony more exquisite than Milton displays in these poems. You will appreciate the full force of this only when you have accustomed yourself to reading the poems aloud and when you have committed to memory such passages as your teacher may select for you.

LYCIDAS.

INTRODUCTION.- Edward King, the fellow-collegian whom Milton bewails in this Elegy, is perhaps the most obscure mortal ever immortalized by a great poet. None of his English poems are extant; the quality of his Latin verses easily reconciles us to the loss. Though of slender abilities, he must have been of pure and kindly nature to have inspired with affection such a man as Milton. The back-ground of this poem is evidently intended to be classic-pastoral; but it must be confessed that the figure of St. Peter (109) appears somewhat out of place in such scenery, nor can the mixture of Keltic, Christian and Hellenic imagery (160-164) be extolled as an example of poetic taste. It must be remembered, though, that what would be critically condemned in this nineteenth century of accurate scholarship and nice discrimination would pass almost unnoticed in a simpler and less fastidious age,—an age when Shakespeare's Romans wore doublets and when part of the audience sat upon the stage.

Moreover, what is lost in poetic effect by the introduction of lines 108-131 is partly compensated for by the interesting light they throw upon Milton's attitude toward the burning political and theological questions of the day.

dear

I-14. The laurel of Apollo, the myrtle of Venus and the ivy of Bacchus appear to symbolize poetry. The meaning of these lines, then, must be that the writer feels himself not yet prepared to undertake another poem and gives us these verses only under the sad compulsion of his friend's death. If this interpretation be correct, 'the mellowing year' is the time of poetic ripeness. grievous. Compare Hamlet's 'Would I had met my dearest foe in Heaven.' Restive' is another word that has two exactly opposite meanings. Shatter is another form of 'scatter.' rime; commonly misspelled 'rhyme' through a mistaken identification with rhythm' (Gk. pvμós). 'Rime' is from the Old English rim,

6

'number.'

15-22. Sisters of the Sacred Well; imitated from the opening of Hesiod's Theogony: "With the Muses of Helicon let us begin to sing, who haunt the divine and spacious mount of Helicon, who with delicate feet dance around the violet-colored fountain and altar of the mighty son of Cronus." Aganippe and Hippocrene, the fountains of the Muses, are on Mount Helicon in Boeotia. Muse must mean 'poet;' hardly an elegant use of the word, though found in Shakespeare (Sonnet XXI. 1.) and in Spenser (Prothalamion, 159). lucky words; i.e. with words of good omen, such as the Sit Tibi Terra Levis (May the Earth Lie Lightly O'er Thee!) of the mourner as he thrice casts earth on the body of his friend.

urn; cre

mation was customary among the Romans of the later Republic and of the Empire; the ashes were preserved in an urn. In earlier days, interment was the regular means of disposing of the body. See Rich, articles Humatio,' 'Sepulchrum,' 'Urna' (2). 23-31. lawns; see note on L'Allegro, 68-80. note on L'Allegro, 17-24.

afield; see

gray-fly; the trumpet-fly which buzzes around busily in the hot part of the day. battening; here transitive; more commonly intransitive, as in Hamlet iii. 4,

Could you on this fair mountain leave to feed
And batten on this moor?

bright, is better connected (adverbially) with 'had sloped' than with 'evening.' Nothing more beautiful than these nine lines (23-31) is to be found in the Greek and Latin pastoral poets. Had Milton only given us more verses like these, we could cheerfully have spared some of the harsh Puritan invective, lines 113-131.

32-36. oaten; in primitive times, simple musical instruments were made from reeds. Satyrs; (Greek) half-man, half-goat. They were the traditional attendants of Bacchus, at whose orgies they danced and played. Cl. Myths, § 47 (3), 102, 117. Fauns; (Latin), rustic divinities, of gentler nature than the Satyrs, but often confused with them. Cl. Myths, § 56 (7). See also Hawthorne's psychical romance, The Marble Faun. Damætas; possibly Chappell, Tutor at Christ's College when Milton studied there. The name Damætas occurs in the Sixth Idyll of Theocritus. 37-49. wardrobe, by metonymy = apparel. When first, etc.;

this seems to be a reminiscence of Midsummer Night's Dream, i. 1, 183-5.

6

your tongue's sweet air

More tunable than lark to shepherd's ear

When wheat is green, when hawthorn buds appear.

50-63. the steep; this description would answer to many mountains in Wales. Druids; by a false etymology this word was long derived from the Greek (Spiç) drus, an oak, because the Druids worshipped in oak-groves. The word is really from the Old Keltic drui, meaning magician.' Mona Anglesey, once a famous strongthe Dee, once a part of the boundary line between England and Wales. There are many Keltic legends connected with it, hence the epithetwizard.' ishly.

hold of the Druids. Deva

the muse =

fondly fool

Calliope. For the death of Orpheus, see Cl. Myths, pages 187-8. Orpheus seems to be a favorite subject with Milton; this is the third reference we have had to him. Where are the other two? In Par. Lost, VII. 34-38, we have a fourth :

that wild rout that tore the Thracian bard
In Rhodope, where woods and rocks had ears,

To rapture, till the savage clamour drowned
Both harp and voice; nor could the Muse defend

Her son.

swift Hebrus; the Hebrus is not swift, but slow; Milton's phrase is a literal translation of Vergil's 'volucrem Hebrum' (Æneid I. 316). See note on that line in Allen & Greenough's Vergil.

64-84. A digression upon Fame: an answer to the Cui Bono that comes to every earnest man at some time in his career. You will notice that the classical imagery is admirably sustained throughout this passage, though there must have been a great temptation to break off into a Hebraistic strain such as characterizes lines 108-131. What boots it? What profits it? Boots is from the Old English bōt, ‘advantage.' It has no etymological connection with boot in the sense of foot-wear, which is from the