20 Nec satis hoc visum est in utrumque, et nec pia cessant Innocenti, and other poems. See p. 68, 82, 89, 90. Marino died at Naples in 1625, aged fiftysix. 22.-Mycalen qui natus ad altam, &c.] Herodotus, who wrote the Life of Homer. He was a native of Caria, where Mycale is a mountain. It is among those famous hills that blazed in Phaeton's conflagration, Ovid, Metam. ii. 223. The allusion is happy, as it draws with it an implicit comparison between Tasso and Homer. 22. I have corrected the note on this verse after Bp. Mant in his Life of Warton. It is, however, doubtful whether the lonic Life of Homer was written by Herodotus; it is often ascribed to Dionysius of Halicarnassus. Mycale, which is on the coast of 25 30 Oceani glaucos perfundit gurgite crines: Quin et in has quondam pervenit Tityrus oras. 36 40 Sed neque nos genus incultum, nec inutile Phoebo, Qua plaga septeno mundi sulcata Trione Brumalem patitur longa sub nocte Boöten. Nos etiam colimus Phoebum, nos munera Phoebo Flaventes spicas, et lutea mala canistris, Halantemque crocum, perhibet nisi vana vetustas, Misimus, et lectas Druidum de gente choreas. Gens Druides antiqua, sacris operata deorum, Heroum laudes, imitandaque gesta canebant; Hinc quoties festo cingunt altaria cantu, Delo in herbosa, Graiæ de more puellæ, Carminibus lætis memorant Corineïda Loxo, El. i. 9. And he is properly ranked with Chaucer. And the allusion may be to Spenser's Epithalamium of Thames, a long Episode in the Fairy Queen, iv. xi. 8. See also his Prothalamium. 34. Quin et in has quondam pervenit Tityrus oras.] Like me too, Chaucer travelled into Italy. In Spenser's Pastorals, Chaucer is constantly called Tityrus. 38. Nos etiam colimus Phobum, &c.] He avails himself of a notion supported by Selden on the Polyolbion, that Apollo was worshipped in Britain. See his notes on Songs, viii. ix. Selden supposes also, that the British Druids invoked Apollo. See the next note. And Spanheim on Callimachus, vol. ii. 492. seq. 41. Misimus, et lectas Druidum de gente choreas.] He insinuates, that our British Druids were poets. As in Lycidas, v. 53. Where your old Bards the famous 45 43. Heroum laudes, imitandaque gesta canebant ;] See almost the same verse Ad Patrem, v. 46. 45. —Graiæ de more puellæ,] Ovid, Metam. ii. 711. Illa forte die castæ de more puellæ, &c. 46. Our author converts the three Hyperborean Nymphs who Ουσις τε, Λόξωσι, και ευαίων Επαιεγη, Milton here calls Callimachus's Loxo, Corineis, from Corineus, a Cornish giant. Some writers hold, that Britain, or rather that part of it called Scotland, was the fertile region of the Hyperborei. Fatidicamque Upin, cum flavicoma Hecaërge, Fortunate senex, ergo quacunque per orbem 50 Tu quoque in ora frequens venies, plausumque vi rorum, Et parili carpes iter immortale volatu. Dicetur tum sponte tuos habitasse penates 52. Tu quoque in ora frequens venies, plausumque virorum,] So Propertius, as Mr. Bowle observes, iii. ix. 32. -Venies tu quoque in ora virum. This association of immortality is happily inferred. 56. At non sponte domum tamen, &c.] Apollo, being driven from heaven, kept the cattle of king Admetus in Thessaly, who also entertained Hercules. This was in the neighbourhood of the river Peneus, and of mount Pelion, inhabited by Chiron. It has never been observed, that the whole context is a manifest imitation of a sublime Chorus in the Alcestis of Milton's favourite Greek dramatist, Euripides, v. 581. seq. Σε τοι και ὁ Πύθιος Έτλη δε σοισι μηλονομας Εν δομοῖς γενεσθαι, Συν δ' εποιμαίνοντο χαρα μελι Εβα δε, λιπουσ' Οθρυ ως ναταν, λεοντων Α δαφοινος ιλα· Έχορευσε δ' αμφι σαν κιθαραν 55 60 57. See Ovid, Fast. ii. 239. Cynthius Admeti vaccas pavisse Phereas, &c. And Epist. Heroid. Ep. v. 151. Pheretiades occurs more than once in Ovid. From Homer, Il. ii. 763. xxiii. 376. ronis in antrum,] Chiron's cavern was ennobled by the visits and education of sages and heroes. Chiron is styled mansuetus, because, although one of the CenB b 60. Nobile mansueti cessit Chi Irriguos inter saltus, frondosaque tecta, Tum neque ripa suo, barathro nec fixa sub imo taurs, and the inhabitant of a cave in a mountain, he excelled in learning, wisdom, and the most humane virtues. See a beautiful Poem in Dodsley's Miscellanies, by the late Mr. Bedingfield, called the Education of Achilles. Mr. Steevens adds, "The most endearing instance "of the mansuetude of Chiron, "will be found in his behaviour "when the Argo sailed near the "coast on which he lived. He "came down to the very margin "of the sea, bringing his wife "with the young Achilles in her arms, that he might shew the "child to his father Peleus who "was proceeding on the voyage "with the other Argonauts. Apollon. Rhod. lib. v. 553. « Πηλείδην Αχιλήα φιλῳ δειδίσκετο παι Tel." 64. Exilii duros lenibat voce labores.] Ovid and Callimachus say, that he soothed the anxieties of love, not of banishment, with his music. But Milton uniformly follows Euripides, who says that 65 70 Apollo was unwillingly forced into the service of Admetus by Jupiter, for having killed the Cyclopes, Alcest. v. 6. Thus, v. 56. At non sponte domum tamen idem, &c. The very circumstance which introduces this fine compliment and digression. The bank of the river Peneus, 65. Tum neque ripa suo, &c.] just mentioned. Mount Eta, connected with the 66. -nutat Trachinia rupes,] Chiron's cave, and Othrys menmountains, Pelion in which was tioned in the passage just cited from Euripides. See Ovid, Metam. vii. 353. But with no impropriety, Milton might here mean Pelion by the Trachinian rock; which, with the rest, had immania pondera silvas, and which Homer calls seriQuaλer, frondosum. Its Orni are also twice mentioned by V. Flaccus, Argon. b. i. 406. and b. ii. 6. 72. Atlantisque nepos;] See Diis superis, poterit magno favisse poetæ. -- De Id. Platon. Note on v. 27. Mercury is the god of eloquence. 73. magno favisse poeta.] The great poet Tasso. Or a great poet like your friend Tasso. Either sense shews Milton's higli idea of the author of the Gerusalemme. 74. lento sub flore senectus Vernat, &c.] There is much elegance in lento sub flore. I venture to object to vernat senectus. 79. Phoebaos decorasse viros, &c.] Phabaos is intirely an Ovidian epithet. Epist. Heroid. xvi. 180. Metam. iii. 130. And in numerous other places. 80. Siquando indigenas revo cabo in carmina reges, Arturumque etiam sub terris bella moventem! &c.] The indigena reges are the ancient kings of Britain. This was the subject for an epic poem that first occupied the mind of Milton. See the same idea repeated in Epitaph. Damon. v. 162. King Arthur, after his death, was supposed to be carried into the subterraneous land of Faerie or of Spirits, where he still reigned as a king, and whence 75 80 he was to return into Britain, to renew the Round Table, conquer all his old enemies, and reestablish his throne. He was, therefore, etiam movens bella sub terris, still meditating wars under the earth. The impulse of his attachment to this subject was not entirely suppressed: it produced his History of Britain. By the expression, revocabo in carmina, the poet means, that these ancient kings, which were once the themes of the British bards, should now again be celebrated in verse. Milton in his Church Government, written 1641, says, that after the example of Tasso, "it haply would be no rashness, "from an equal diligence and " inclination, to present the like "offer in one of our own ancient "stories." Prose Works, i. 60. It is possible that the advice of Manso, the friend of Tasso, might determine our poet to a design of this kind. 82.-sociali fœdere mensæ, &c.] The knights, or associated champions, of King Arthur's Round Table. |