9. 114. with wings displaied. See Il Penseroso, 149; Faerie Queene, I. xi. 20. 116. unexpressive. So in Lyc. 176. Shakspere, As You Like It, III. ii. 28. 10. 117. See Paradise Lost, vii. 565 et seq. Hinge is properly something to hang anything on, as a hook. Comp. Dutch hengel, a hook; German, angel The verb to hang has the form hing in the Scotch dialect. The explanation of the two strong preterite forms which hang and many other verbs have in modern English is that originally one was the singular, the other the plural form. (See Latham.) This is exactly illustrated in this line from Chaucer's Legende of Good Women: "And thus by reporte was hir name yshove That as they wore in age, wax hir love." 123. Comp. the Lat. jacere fundamenta. Comp. Faerie Queene: "And shooting in the earth casts up a mount of clay." 2 Kings xix. 32; Luke xix. 43. 124. weltring. Lyc. 13; Paradise Lost, i. 78; Shelley's In the Euganean hills. Ascham uses the forms walter and waulter in his Scholemaster. Welter is radically connected with wallow, waltz, Latin volvere, &c.; perhaps also with walk. (See Wedgwood.) V. i. 151; oozy. Lyc. 175; Shelley's Ode to the West Wind. Comp. "oozy bed," Tempest, ooze of the salt deep,” Ib. I. ii. 252. 125. If the "music of the spheres " may ever be heard, the poet would it now should be. On this music see Arcad. 62-7; Paradise Lost, v. 618; Com. 112-4, 241-3, 1,021. Comp. At a Solemn Music, "sphere-born harmonious sisters, Voice and Verse." See also Merchant of Venice, V. i. 61: "There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st But in his motion like an angel sings, Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins," &c. Twelfth Night, III. i. 120; Antony and Cleopatra, V. ii. 83; Pericles, V. i. 230. In Hudibras Part II. i. 617, the widow says a poet compares his mistress' voice to "the music of the spheres, So loud it deafens mortal ears, And that's the cause we hear it not.' Dryden, in his Ode to Mrs. Anne Killigrew, declares that "Thy brother-angels at thy birth " Strung each his lyre and tuned it high; That all the people of the sky Might know a poetess was born on earth; And then, if ever, mortal ears Had heard the music of the spheres.” Shelley, in his lines To a Lady with a Guitar: "It had learnt all harmonies Of the plains and of the skies: it knew That seldom-heard mysterious sound This fancy is said to have originated with Pythagoras. For a minute account see the last book of Plato's Republic. The whorl of the distaff of necessity, as there described, consists of eight concentric whorls. These whorls represent respectively the sun and moon, the five planets known to the ancients, and the fixed stars. On each whorl sits a siren singing. Their eight tones make one exquisite "harmony." Milton here speaks of “your ninefold harmony;" he adds a ninth sphere-the primum mobile-“that swift nocturnal and diurnal rhomb" (Paradise Lost, viii. 134). See also Plato, Rep. vii. 530. Cicero, in his Nature of the Gods, refers to the belief ad harmoniam canere mundum," and again in his Republic, vi. 18 10. 127. Comp. Merchant of Venice, V. i. 76: 130. organ. See Paradise Lost, i, 708–9, xi. 560–3; Song for St. Cecilia's Day. "A moment while the trumpets blow Comp. beat in that same song. 132. Consort. He sees his brood about thy knee." So At a Solemn Music, 27; Il Penseroso, 145; Faerie Queene, III. i. 40. (In Solemn Music, 6, concent occurs.) Elsewhere in Milton, as always in Shakspere, the word occurs in its ordinary sense. to. See Prothal. 135. fetch. See Smith's Marsh's Lectures on English Language. age of Gold. See Ovid's Metam. i. 89-112. 136. speckl'd, from speck. So handle, &c. &c. The le is also a diminutival termination. Speckled probably may mean here variegated, gaudy; just as Spenser, Dryden, and Pope use it of a serpent and of snakes; but it may mean plague-spotted." Comp. Horace's "maculosum nefas" (Od. IV. iv. 23). 66 137. sicken. Nearly always neuter in Shakspere, as here. It is transit. in Henry VIII. I. i. 81. 138. mould is very commonly used by itself for the earth in the old romances, &c. See Piers Ploughman, 67, ed. Skeat: "The most mischiefe on mold is mountyng wel faste." 140. Obs. herself answering to "Hell itself." Its had not yet won a place in the written language. His originally served for both the masculine and neuter genders. When the old gender system decayed, and it became usual to decide on a word's gender by its sense, not by its form, or by some tradition of the language, then this his was felt to be inadequate. It was sometimes used in its place. But it was objectionable that the nominative and possessive should not differ in form. Hence arose the form its. This form was in Milton's time struggling for admission into the written language. He lived to see it established in it; but in his earlier days that event seemed dubious. From this unsettled state of things arose confusions like the present. Men were not content with his as a neuter; they did not yet accept its. Perhaps he uses her because amongst the Latins words for lands and countries were feminine. Hell is, however, fem. in Anglo-Saxon. 10. 140. Comp. Homer's Iliad, v. 61; Virgil's Eneid, viii. 245; Ovid's Met. ii. 560; Pope's Rape of the Lock, cant. v. 142. See the Story of Astræa. 143. Orb'd in a rainbow, i.e. of course semi-orbed. Rev. x. 1. See Paradise Lost, vii. 247; This is the reading of the 1673 edition. That of 1645 reads: "The enamelled arras of the rainbow wearing." 144. set. So Coriolanus, I. ii. 27: "If they set down before us, for the remove 146. [What does stearing mean here ?] 147. as is radically but a contracted form of als also all so. 148. her. The Anglo-Saxon heofon is feminine. 11. 152. bitter cross. See Shakspere's 1 Henry IV. I. i. 27. 153. redeem our loss = recover what we have lost, as in Ruth iv. 6; or perhaps, less well, = ransom us lost ones. Comp. "their sight" above. Redeem has a personal object in Paradise Lost, iii. 281, &c. ; in iii. 214, it means "to pay the penalty of." 155. ychain'd. So yclept in L'Allegro. So in Chaucer-yblessed, ybete, yburied, ybrent, ycoupled, yfalle, yfonden, ygeten, yglewed, yhalved, yheered (= haired), yshove, ysette, &c. &c.; in Spenser-yclad, yfraught, ybore, ymolt, &c. This y is a corruption of the part. ge, which still survives in German. Another form of this corruption is i, as in ifallen, ihorsed (Roman of Partenay), iarmed, ibene (= been), icorve (= carved), idight (= prepared), ifed, imaked (William of Palerne, ed. Skeat), &c. &c. Another, according to some scholars, is a, as in ago, (Spenser has the forms ygo, ygoe); but the prefix in that word is perhaps a corruption of of. In the very oldest stages of our language the prefix ge was not confined to the part.; e.g. in William of Palerne yknowe occurs as an inf. "yshrilled" in Spenser's Colin Clout's come Home again, 62, is the pret. But latterly it was so confined. Milton therefore shows an imperfect knowledge of the older language when he writes y-pointing in his Epitaph on Shakspere. 156. wakefull. Here active. See 1 Thess. iv. 16. thunder. See Max Müller's Lectures on the Science of Language, First Series. Allowing all that is said there, the root t-n may be itself onomatopoeic. 158. See Exod. xix. et seq. 159. brake. See note on hung, l. 122. 160. The aged Earth. Comp. " the old beldam earth," 1 Henry IV. III. i. 32. "And he hem told tightly whiche tvo white beres In the Faerie Queene the word occurs as a preterite : "He met a dwarf that seemed terrifyde With some late perill which he hardly past, Or other accident which him agast." The participial form agasted is found. The main part of the word is the Anglo-Saxon gast; comp. German Geist, Old English gost, as in Pierce the Ploughmans Crede, 521, 529, 590 (ed. Skeat). There occur the forms agased and agazed, evidently the results of a false derivation. (See Wedgwood.) See 1 Henry VI. I. i. 126, and Chester Plays (apud Halliwell): "The [they] were so sore agased." And Bishop Percy's Folio MS. iii. 154 (ed. Hales and Furnivall): "Whereatt this dreadfull conquerour Theratt was sore agazed." An adjective gastful occurs in the Shep. Cal., and elsewhere. 11. 161. terrour. This spelling is better than our modern way, as more significant of the channel through which the word came to us. So honour below. 162. the center. So Com. 382. Hamlet, II. ii. 159: "If circumstances lead me I will find Where truth is hid. though it were hid indeed So Troilus and Cressida, III. ii. 186. "" In "the surface" and "the centre" the necessity of using either "his" or "its" is avoided. Comp. Fardle of Facions, 1555: “A certaine sede which groweth there of the owne accorde." (Apud Marsh.) 163. session. Though in appearance so different, "assize" and "session" are etymologically connected. Comp. royal, regal; French, serment, sacrement; acheter, accepter; naïf, native; chose, cause; etroit, strict, &c. &c. We have also the word "sitting" in a cognate sense with session. 164. spread his throne. If we compare the Latin, lectum sternere, then the original notion would be the same as in our phrase to spread a table;" that is, it would be to deck the throne with fit coverings: hence, to prepare, to set his throne. We may compare Faerie Queene, I. xii. 13: "And all the floore was underneath their feet Bespredd with costly scarlott of great name, Comp. "his [Chaos'] dark pavilion spread” (Paradise Lost, ii. 960). 168. Th' old Dragon. See Rev. xii. 9. 170. casts his usurped sway—as if it were a net; as in 1 Cor. vii. 35, &c. I not half so far. A very common phrase in Shakspere. It has now become vulgar, Comp. "nor nothing near," so that a modern writer would hardly use it in a grave passage. in Spenser's Prothal.; "something like,’· Il Penseroso, 173. 171. wroth. Wrath in 1645 Ed. The form "wroth" is the substantive in Shakspere's Merchant of Venice, II. ix. 78: "I'l keep my oath Patiently to bear my wroth." swings about, agitates violently. Comp. Faerie Queene, I. xi. 23: "His hideous tayle then hurled he about." 172. Swindges = Comp. also Ib. 26: "The scorching flame sore swinged all his face.' " Our verb swing is cognate with the German schwingen, &c. Swinge in the sense of to beat, to strike (" an act that is done with a swinging movement "-Wedgwood), occurs frequently in Old English (as in Measure for Measure, V. i. 130), and still survives in the North English dialects. It is associated by Cotgrave with "beat, lamme, bethwacke." See Havelok (re-ed. Skeat), and the Mariage of Witt and Wisdome, 1579 (apud Halliwell): "O the passion of God! so I shalbe swinged; So my bones shalbe bang'd! The poredge pot is stolne; what, Lob, I say, Come away and be hang'd." For the word in our text comp. Waller's "Her tail's impetuous swinge." 11. 172. horrour. So sorrow in Lycid. 166; and "vires" and "potentia," Virg. Æn. i. 664. = foulded consisting of folds, spiral. So mirrored in Adonais. 173. Comp. Paradise Regained, i. 454-64. That the oracles ceased at and from the birth of Christ was a very general belief; but it was baseless. "Tacitus, Philostratus, Lucian, Strabo, Juvenal, Suetonius, Martial, Statius, Pliny the Younger, &c. &c., have incidentally mentioned oracular responses as existing in their own days." 'Macrobius, in the reigns of Arcadius and Honorius, speaks of the Sortes Antiana' in words which distinctly prove that they were consulted as oracles in his time." (See Occult Sciences, a volume of the Encycl. Metrop.) 174. See the scene described in the beginning of the sixth book of the Eneid. Comp. Esch. Choeph. 497 (ed. Paley): φελλοὶ δ ̓ ὡς ἄγουσι δίκτυον, τὸν ἐκ βυθοῦ κλωστῆρα σώζοντες λίνου. Theoc. vi. 18: καὶ τὸν ἀπὸ γραμμᾶς κινεῖ λίθον. So, as Paley notes, the Greeks said, "The men out of the city fled," meaning, "The men who were in the city fled out of it." See Jelf's Greek Gr. § 647. 178. hollow shreik, i.e. unsubstantial, unreal, ghost-like, evanescent shriek; the shriek of one who is so. Comp. "hollow fiend," Twelfth Night, III. iv. 101 ; "He will look as hollow as a ghost," King John, III. iv. 84; and the phrase "hollow laugh." Or the word may refer to "the dull sound of hollow things" (Wedgwood). Kilian, in his Etymol. Teut. Ling. glosses holle stemme as "vox fusca, non clara,"-a husky (as we should say), not clear voice. Comp. "his hollow whistling in the leaves" of "the southern wind," 1 Henry IV. V. i. 5. The former sense seems preferable. Delphos. Milton prefers this form to the more usual Delphi. See Paradise Regained, i. 458. Shakspere, too, uses Delphos. (See Winter's Tale.) It was the mediaval form. steep of Delphos. Comp. "Delphian cliff," Paradise Lost, i. 517. Gray has adopted this phrase, as so many others of Milton's. See his Progress of Poesy, 1. 66. Delphi lay at the foot of the southern uplands of Parnassus, which end "in a precipitous cliff, 2,000 feet high, rising to a double peak, named the Phædriades, from their 'glittering' appearance as they faced the rays of the sun.' (See Smith's Ancient Geography.) "The oracle was consulted by Julian, but was finally suppressed by Theodosius." (Dr. Smith's Dict. Geog.) 179. nightly nocturnal. Comp. Il Penseroso, 84; Arcad. 48, &c. So generally in Shakspere. In modern English the word generally means night by night," as in Cowper's Lines on the Receipt of my Mother's Picture, &c. 180. pale-ey'd. Comp. Romeo and Juliet, III. v. 19, 20: "I'll say yon grey is not the morning's eye, "Tis but the pale reflex of Cynthia's brow." Shakspere uses 'pale-faced," "pale-visaged." Or, better, eye may be used in its precise sense. Comp. Henry V. IV. ii. 47, where Grandpré, in his description of the English “jades,” speaks of "The gum down-roping from their pale-dead eyes." |