Strict Age, and sour Severity

With their grave saws in slumber lie.

We that are of purer fire

Imitate the starry quire,

Who in their nightly watchful spheres,

110

Lead in swift round the months and years.
The sounds and seas, with all their finny drove,
Now to the moon in wavering morrice move;
And on the tawny sands and shelves

Trip the pert fairies and the dapper elves.
By dimpled brook, and fountain brim,
The wood-nymphs deck'd with daisies trim,
Their merry wakes and pastimes keep:
What hath night to do with sleep?

lous head,] It was at first in the
Manuscript,

And quick Law with her scrupulous

head.

115

120

move;] The morrice or Moorish dance was first brought into England, as I take it, in Edward the Third's time, when John of Gaunt returned from Spain, where he had been to assist his father-in-law, Peter king of Castile, against Henry the Bastard.

Peck.

In the Morgante Maggiore of Pulci, we have "Balli alla moresea," which he gives to the age of Charlemagne. Cant. iv. 92.

T. Warton.

117. And on the tawny sands] So altered in the Manuscript from yellow sands.

118. Trip the pert faeries] See the note, Comus, 961. E.

119. -fountain brim] This was the pastoral_language_of Milton's age. So Drayton, Bar. W. vi. 36. and Warner's Albion's England, b. ix. 46. We have ocean-brim in P. L. v. 140.

116. in wavering morrice Warton.

T.

Night hath better sweets to prove,

Venus now wakes, and wakens Love.

Come let us our rites begin,

'Tis only day-light that makes sin,

Which these dun shades will ne'er report.
Hail Goddess of nocturnal sport,

Dark-veil'd Cotytto, t' whom the secret flame
Of midnight torches burns; mysterious dame,
That ne'er art call'd, but when the dragon womb
Of Stygian darkness spits her thickest gloom,
And makes one blot of all the air,
Stay thy cloudy ebon chair,

Wherein thou rid'st with Hecat', and befriend
Us thy vow'd priests, till utmost end
Of all thy dues be done, and none left out,

123. Night hath better] In the Manuscript Night has better.

129. Dark-veil'd Cotytto,] The Goddess of impudence, originally a strumpet, had midnight sacrifices at Athens. She is here there fore very properly said to be dark-veil'd. Her dues or rites were called Cotyttia, and her priests Bapta; because they, who were initiated into her mysteries, were sprinkled with warm water. See Peck, and Juvenal ii. 91.

Talia secreta coluerunt orgia tæda Cecropiam soliti Baptæ lassare Cotytto.

131. the dragon womb] Alluding to the dragons of the night. See Il Penseroso 59.

132. —spits her thickest gloom,] So Drayton of an exhalation or cloud. Bar. W. ii. 35. without a familiar or low sense.

VOL. IV.

125

130

195

Spetteth his lightning forth. And Spenser has, fire-spetting forge, F. Q. ii. viii. 3. T. Warton.

133. And makes one blot of all the air,] In the Manuscript he had first written And makes a blot of nature, and afterwards And throws a blot o'er all the air, and then corrected it as it stands at present.

134. Stay thy cloudy ebon chair, lines at first run thus, &c.] In the Manuscript these

Stay thy polish'd ebon chair,

Till all thy dues be done, and nought left out.

Afterwards these lines were
added in the margin,

Wherein thou rid'st with Hecate,
And favour our close jocondrie,

and then altered to what they
are at present,

Ꭰ

Ere the blabbing eastern scout,

The nice morn on th' Indian steep

From her cabin'd loophole peep,
And to the tell-tale sun descry
Our conceal'd solemnity.

Come, knit hands, and beat the ground
In a light fantastic round.

140

The Measure.

Break off, break off, I feel the different pace

Of some chaste footing near about this ground.

Run to your shrouds, within these brakes and trees; Our number may affright: some virgin sure

(For so I can distinguish by mine art)

Benighted in these woods. Now to my charms,
And to my wily trains; I shall ere long

Be well-stock'd with as fair a herd as graz'd
my mother Circe.

About

Thus I hurl
My dazzling spells into the spungy air,
Of pow'r to cheat the eye with blear illusion,
And give it false presentments, lest the place
And my quaint habits breed astonishment,
And put the damsel to suspicious flight,
Which must not be for that's against my course;

145. —I feel the different pace &c.] The following lines before they were altered in the Manuscript run thus,

-I hear the different pace Of some chaste footing near about this ground.

Some virgin sure benighted in these
woods;

For so I can distinguish by mine art.
Run to your shrouds within these
brakes and trees;
Our number may affright.
And in the margin is written,
They all scatter.

151.wily trains ;] Rightly altered from what he had first written in his Manuscript,

-Now to my trains, And to my mother's charmsfor the charms described are not from the classical pharmacopoea, but the Gothic. Warburton.

145

150

155

I under fair pretence of friendly ends,
And well plac'd words of glozing courtesy
Baited with reasons not unplausible,

Wind me into the easy-hearted man,

When once her eye

And hug him into snares.
Hath met the virtue of this magic dust,

I shall appear some harmless villager,

Whom thrift keeps up.about his country gear.
But here she comes, I fairly step aside,

And hearken, if I may, her business here.
The Lady enters.

This way the noise was, if mine ear be true,

160

165

170

And hearken, if I may, her business here.

But here she comes, I fairly step

aside.

We have restored the true reading according to the author's Manuscript, and according to the first edition of the Mask in 1637, and according to the first edition of the Poems in 1645.

The last line in some editions is varied thus,

And hearken, if I may, her business hear.

But Milton's own is much properer and better,

And hearken, if I may, her business here.

168. fairly] That is, softly. Hurd. "Fair and softly" were two words which went together, signifying gently. The corpse of Richard II. was conveyed in a litter through London, "faire "and softly." Froissart, p. ii. ch. 249. T. Warton.

170.-if mine ear] Manuscript, if my ear.