ELDER BROTHER. Why prythee, Shepherd, 615 How durst thou then thyself approach so near, As to make this relation? SPIRIT. Care and utmost shifts How to secure the Lady from surprisal, He with his bare wand can unquilt And crumble every sinew. 614. So in Prospero's commands to Ariel, Temp. act iv. 8. uit. Go, charge my goblins, that they With dry convulsions, shorten up T. Warton. 620 Tu mihi, cui recitem, judicis instar eris. Eleg. sext. ad Deodatum, and sometimes explained to him the nature and virtues of simples, Tu mihi percurres medicos, tua gra- Helleborumque, humilesque crocos, Epitaph. Damonis. grass Which when I did, he on the tender Bore a bright golden flow'r, but not in this soil: 627. 625 630 of a thousand names,] but, to avoid its recurring in two It was at first lines together, -of a thousand hues. 632. But in another country, as he said, Bore a bright golden flow'r, but not in this soil: Unknown, and like esteem'd, So these verses are read in Mil- But in another country, as he said, Unknown and light esteem'd. The middle verse indeed hath a redundant syllable; and before I had seen Mr. Seward's emendation, I had proposed either to leave out the monosyllable not, Bore a bright golden flow'r, but in this soil Unknown and like esteem'd; or to leave out the monosyllable But then on the other hand it must be said, that such redundsometimes occur in Milton. We ant or hypercatalectic verses had one a little before, ver. 605. Harpies, and hydras, or all the monstrous forms. And for like esteemed I think it may be defended without any alteration. Unknown and like esteemed, that is, Unknown and unesteemed, Unknown and esteemed accordingly. 632. It is true that "such re"dundant verses sometimes oc"cur in Milton," but the redundant syllable is never, I think, found in the second, third, or fourth, foot. The passage before us is certainly corrupt, or at least inaccurate, and had better been given thus, But in another country, as he said, Bore a bright golden flow'r; not in this soil Unknown, though light esteem'd. Hurd. Mr. Seward's emendation is Unknown, and like esteem'd, and the dull swain 635. Add the following passage from Cymbeline, act iv. s. 2. which not only exhibits but contains a comment on the phrase in question. -I thought he slept, and put My clouted brogues from off my feet, whose rudeness Answer'd my steps too loud. Clouts are thin and narrow plates of iron affixed with hob nails to the soles of the shoes of rustics. These made too much noise. The word brogues is still used for shoes among the peasantry of Ireland. T. Warton. 636. And yet more medicinal is it &c.] At first he had thus written these two lines, And yet more med'cinal than that ancient moly Which Mercury to wise Ulysses gave. Our author hath formed the plan 635 of this poem very much upon the episode of Circe in the Odyssey; and here he himself plainly points out the parallel between them. The characters of Circe and her son Comus very much resemble each other. They have both of them a potent wand and inchanting cup, and the effects of both are much the same: and they are both to be opposed in the same manner with force and violence. Mercury bids Ulysses to rush upon Circe with his drawn sword, as if he would kill her. Odyss. x. 294. Δη τους συ ξίφος οξυ ερυσσάμενος παρα μηρού Κιρκη επαίξαι, ώστε κτάμεναι μενεαίων. and the attendant Spirit exhorts the two Brothers to assault Comus in the same manner, -with dauntless hardihood, And brandish'd blade rush on him &c. And they are both overcome in the same manner, Circe by the virtues of the herb moly, which Mercury gave to Ulysses, and Comus by the virtues of hæmony, which the attendant Spirit gives to the two Brothers. But the author varied here from his oriparallel holds no farther. Our ginal with great judgment. The decent and modest manner than Lady is released in a much more the companions of Ulysses. 636. Drayton introduces a shepherd "his sundry simples "sorting," who, among other rare plants, produces moly. Mus, Elys. Nymph. v. vol. iv. p. 1489. That Hermes once to wise Ulysses gave; He call'd it bæmony, and gave it me, 66 Here is my moly of much fame In magicks often used. It is not agreed, whether Milton's hæmony, more virtuous than moly, and of sovereign use 'gainst all inchantments,' is a real or poetical plant. Drayton, in the lines following the passage just quoted, recites with many more of the kind, Here holy vervain, and here dill, 'Gainst witchcraft much avayling. But Milton, through the whole of the context, had his eye on Fletcher, who perhaps availed himself of Drayton, Faith. Shep. act ii. s. 1. vol. iii. p. 127. The shepherdess Clorin is skilled in the medicinal and superstitious uses of plants. You, that these hands did crop long before prime, Give me your names, and next your hidden power. This is the clote, bearing a yellow flower, &c. In Browne's Inner Temple Masque, written on Milton's subject, Circe attended by the Sirens uses moly for a charm, p. 135. Our author again alludes to the powers of moly for quelling the might of hellish "charms.' El. i. 87. Et vitare procul malefidæ infamia Atria, divinæ molyos usus ope. In Tasso, Ubaldo, a virtuous magician, performs his operations, by the hidden powers of Tasso's Ubaldo carries a staff of the same sort, when he enters the palace of Armida, xiv. 73. xv. 49. T. Warton. 637. That Hermes once &c.] Ovid, Metam. xiv. 289. -Nec tantæ cladis ab illo Certior, ad Circen ultor venisset Ulysses: Pacifer huic dederat florem Cyllenius album, Moly vocant superi, &c. From Homer, Odyss. K. v. 305. : 638. He call'd it hæmony, &c.] I conceive this to be neither the anemone nor the hemionion described by Pliny, though their names are something alike and it is in vain to enquire what it is; I take it to be (like the moly to which it is compared) a plant that grows only in poetical ground. It cannot be the hemionion particularly, because Pliny says that this bears no flower. Hemionion vocant, spargentem juncos tenues, folia austero sapore, nunquam florenparva, asperis locis nascentem, tem. Lib. xxv. sect. 20. nec caulem, nec florem, nec semen habet. Thyer imagines it to be the same, Id. lib. xxvii. s. 17. And yet Mr. and what in English we call spleenwort: and if his conjecture And bad me keep it as of sovereign use 'Gainst all inchantments, mildew, blast, or damp, 640 Or ghastly furies' apparition. I purs'd it up, but little reck'ning made, be admitted, his subsequent reasoning is very ingenious. It is no unusual thing, says he, to find in the old writers upon the nature of herbs this virtue attributed to certain plants; but I can meet with no authority for Milton's imputing it to hemony or spleenwort. Perhaps it may be thought refining too much to conjecture, that he meant to hint, that, as this root was esteemed a sovereign remedy against the spleen, it must consequently be a preservative against inchantments, apparitions, &c. which are generally nothing else but the sickly fancies and imaginations of vaporish and splenetic complexions. 641. Or ghastly furies' apparition.] Peck supposes that the furies were never believed to appear, and proposes to read "faery's apparition." But Milton means any frightful appearance raised by magic. Among the spectres, which the fiend had raised around our Saviour in the wilderness, were furies. See P. R. iv. 422. The furies, which are classical, often enter into the incantations of the later Gothic romance. T. Warton. 645 |