Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

Turn forth her silver lining on the night?

I did not err, there does a sable cloud
Turn forth her silver lining on the night,
And casts a gleam over this tufted grove.
I cannot halloo to my brothers, but

Such noise as I can make to be heard farthest
I'll venture, for my new enliven'd spirits
Prompt me; and they perhaps are not far off.

SONG.

225

SWEET Echo, sweetest nymph, that liv'st unseen 230 Within thy airy shell,

[blocks in formation]

By slow Meander's margent green,

And in the violet-embroider'd vale,

Where the love-lorn nightingale

Nightly to thee her sad song mourneth well; Canst thou not tell me of a gentle pair

That likest thy Narcissus are?

receive and return its various impulses. Testudo or shell being a name also for a musical instrument, a lyre, which could give no sound but when it was struck upon, the word beautifully alludes to the nature of this vocal nymph;

-quæ nec reticere loquenti, Nec prior ipsa loqui poterat resonabilis Echo.

Ovid. Met. iii. 357. Calton.

I cannot but think shell the better word for the reasons assigned: but yet it may be said to justify Dr. Dalton's alteration, that Milton hath also written cell in the margin of his manuscript.

231. Certainly the true reading is shell, the horizon, which in another place he calls the hollow round of Cynthia's seat,Ode Nativ.

st. x.

Nature that heard such sound
Beneath the hollow round

Of Cynthia's seat the airy region
thrilling.

That is, "such sound, piercing "the airy region beneath the "hollow circumference of the "heavens." Hurd.

233. -violet-embroider'd vale,] This is a beautiful compound epithet, and the combination of the two words that compose it, natural and easy. Our poet has, in these his early poems, coined

235

many others, equally happy and significant: such as love-darting eyes, amber-dropping, flowery-kirtled, low-roosted, snaky-headed, fiery-wheeled, white-handed, sinworn, home-felt, rushy-fringed, pure-eyed, tinsel-slippered. Dr. J. Warton.

See Peck for more instances, in Mem. Milt. p. 117. and compare P. L. iv. 700. And Browne's Sheph. Pipe, Egl. iv. Signat. D. 4. edit. 1614.

Methinkes no April showre Embroider should the ground, &c. The allusion is the same in Lycidas, v. 148.

And every flower that sad embroidery
T. Warton.

wears.

234. Where the love-lorn nightingale] Deprived of her mate. As lass-lorn in the Tempest, act iv. s. 2. T. Warton.

236. Canst thou not tell me of a gentle pair

That likest thy Narcissus are ?] So Fletcher, Faith. Shep. act i. s. 1. p. 117.

-A gentle pair

Have promis'd equal love. Other petty borrowings of the same kind might be pointed out, which prove Milton's intimate familiarity with Fletcher's play, T. Warton.

O if thou have

Hid them in some flow'ry cave,

Tell me but where,

Sweet queen of parly, daughter of the sphere, So may'st thou be translated to the skies, And give resounding grace to all heav'n's harmonies.

COMUS.

Can any mortal mixture of earth's mould

238. O, if thou have

Hid them in some flow'ry cave.] Here is a seeming inaccuracy for the sake of the rhyme. But the sense being hypothetical and contingent, we will suppose an ellipsis of shouldest before have. A verse in Saint John affords an apposite illustration. "If thou "have born him hence, tell me "where thou hast laid him." xx. 15. We find another instance below, v. 887.

And bridle in thy headlong wave, Till thou our summons answer'd have. In the mean time it must be allowed, that thou and you are absolutely synonimous. And see Bishop Lowth's Grammar, pp. 67, 68. edit. 1775. Mr. Steevens suggests, that part of the Address to the Sun which Southerne has put into the mouth of Oroonoko, is evidently copied from this pas

sage.

Or if thy sister goddess has preferr'd
Her beauty to the skies to be a star,

Oh! tell me where she shines.

T. Warton. 241.-daughter of the sphere,] Milton has given her a much nobler and more poetical original than any of the ancient mythologists. He supposes her to

240

owe her first existence to the reverberation of the music of the spheres; in consequence of which he had just before called the horizon her airy shell. And from the Gods (like other celestial beings of the classical order) she came down to men. Warburton.

243. And give resounding grace to all heav'n's harmonies.] That is, "The grace of their being accompanied with an echo."

[ocr errors]

The goddess Echo was of peculiar service in the machinery of a Mask, and therefore often introduced. Milton has here used her much more rationally than most of his brother mask-writers. She is invoked in a song, but not without the usual tricks of surprising the audience by strange and unexpected repetitions of sound, in Browne's Inner Temple Masque, to which I have supposed our author might have had an eye, p. 136. She often appears in Jonson's masks. This frequent introduction, however, of Echo in the masks of his time, seems to be ridiculed even by Jonson himself in Cynthia's Revells, act i. s. 1. This play was first acted in 1600. T. Warton.

244. Can any mortal mixture

Breathe such divine inchanting ravishment? Sure something holy lodges in that breast, And with these raptures moves the vocal air To testify his hidden residence:

245

How sweetly did they float upon the wings
Of Silence, through the empty-vaulted night,
At every fall smoothing the raven down
Of darkness till it smil'd! I have oft heard

250

&c.] Before these words there is in the manuscript, Comus looks in and speaks.

244. Can any mortal mixture
of earth's mould
Breathe such divine inchanting

ravishment?]

This was plainly personal. The poet availed himself of an opportunity of paying a just compliment to the voice and skill of a real songstress. So the boys are complimented for their beauty and elegance of figure. And, afterwards, the strains that "might create a soul under the "ribs of death," are found to be the voice "of my most honour'd "Lady," v. 564. T. Warton. 246. Sure something holy lodges in that breast,

And with these raptures moves the vocal air

To testify his hidden residence:] That is, "Something holy inha'biting that breast, courts the "air, the vehicle of sound, to

[ocr errors]

66

I give it utterance, to discover "the latent source of its resi"dence, by means of these ravishing notes." T. Wurton.

249. How sweetly did they float] That is, "these raptures." The effect for the cause. T. Warton.

249. How sweetly did they float upon the wings

Of Silence,]

This is extremely poetical, and insinuates this sublime idea and imagery, that even Silence herself was content to convey her mortal enemy, Sound, on her wings, so greatly was she charmed charmed with its harmony. Warburton.

251. At every fall smoothing the raven down Of darkness till it smil'd!]. The poetical essence of darkness is to frown.-But what we are to suppose afforded this fine image to Comus, is that sable cloud, which the Lady says just at that time turn'd forth her silver lining on the night. Warburton.

In the Manuscript, and in the edition of 1637, we read,

Of darkness till she smil'd.

252. -I oft have heard
My mother Circe, with the Sirens
three,

Amidst the flow'ry-kirtled Nai-
ades,

Culling their potent herbs and
baleful drugs,
Who, as they sung, would take
the prison'd soul, &c.]*

My mother Circe with the Sirens three, Amidst the flow'ry-kirtled Naiades

[blocks in formation]

Nulla trahunt digitis, nec fila se-
quentia ducunt,
Gramina disponunt: sparsosque sine
ordine flores

Secernunt calathis, variasque colo-
ribus herbas.

Ipsa, quod hæ faciunt, opus exigit: ipsa quid usus

Quoque sit in folio, quæ sit concordia mistis,

Novit; et advertens pensas examinat herbas.

See also ibid. v. 22, 34. Milton calls the Naiades flowery-kirtled, because they were employed in collecting flowers. But William Browne had just before preceded our author in this imitation from Ovid, in his Inner Temple Masque on the story of Circe, p. 143.

Call to a dance the fair Nereides,
With other nymphs, which do in
every creeke,
In woods, on plains, on mountains,
simples, seeke,
For powerfull Circe, and let in a
song, &c.

[ocr errors]

Here, in simples, we have our author's potent herbs and "drugs." But see note on ver. 50. It is remarkable, that Milton has intermixed the Sirens with Circe's nymphs. Circe indeed is a songstress in the Odyssey: but she has nothing to do with the Sirens. Perhaps Mil-ton had this also from Browne's Masque, where Circe uses the music of the Sirens in the process of her incantation, p. 134. Then, Sirens, quickly wend me to the bowre,

To fitte their welcome, and shew Circe's powre.

Again, p. 13.

Syrens, ynough, cease: Circe has prevailed.

A single line of Horace perhaps occasioned this confusion of two distinct fables. Epist. i. ii. 23.

Sirenum voces et Circes pocula nosti.
T. Warton.

254. Amidst the flow'ry-kirtled Naiades &c.] It appears by the Manuscript that this and the verse following were added after the rest in the margin. A kirtle is a woman's gown; a word used by Chaucer and Spenser, and Shakespeare in 2 Hen. IV. act ii. s. 11. And in one of his Sonnets,

A cap of flowers, and a kirtle
Embroider'd all with leaves of myrtle.

254. In the pastoral writers of Milton's age and before, kirtle is a woman's gown; but it originally signified a man's garment, and, anciently, was most commonly so used. See Spenser, F. Q. i. iv. 32. It was the name for the surcoat at the creation of Knights of the Garter. See Anstis, Ord. Gart. i. 317. In an original roll of the household expenses of Wykeham, Bp. of Winchester, dated 1394, is this entry. "In "furrura duarum curtellarum pro "Domino cum furrura agnina, "x. s." That is, for furring or facing two kirtles for my Lord with lambs' skin, 10s. T. War

re

ton.

« AnteriorContinuar »