Comus: Can any mortal mixture of earth's mould

Notes by William Bell, Comus (1890; Project Gutenberg #19819).

1. Line 1 mortal mixture ... divine enchanting ravishment. The words mortal and divine are in antithesis: comp. Il Pens. 91, 92, "The immortal mind that hath forsook Her mansion in this fleshly nook." The lines embody a compliment to the Lady Alice: read in this connection lines 555 and 564. 'Ravishment,' rapture (a cognate word) or ecstasy: comp. Il Pens. 40, "Thy rapt soul sitting in thine eyes"; also l. 794.
2. Line 3 Sure, used adverbially: comp. line 493, and 'certain,' l. 266.
3. Line 4 vocal, used proleptically.
4. Line 5 his = its: see note, l. 96. The pronoun refers to 'something holy.'
5. Line 8 smoothing the raven down. As the nightingale's song smooths the rugged brow of Night (Il Pens. 58), so here the song of the lady smooths the raven plumage of darkness. In classical mythology Night is a winged goddess.
6. Line 9 it, i.e. darkness.
7. Line 10 Circe ... Sirens three. In the Odyssey the Sirens are two in number and have no connection with Circe. They lived on a rocky island off the coast of Sicily and near the rock of Scylla (l. 257), and lured sailors to destruction by the charm of their song. Circe was also a sweet singer and had the power of enchanting men; hence the combined allusion: see also Horace's Epist. i. 2, 23, Sirenum voces, et Circes pocula nôsti. Besides, the Sirens were daughters of the river-god Achelous, and Circe had Naiads or fountain-nymphs among her maids.
8. Line 11 flowery-kirtled Naiades: fresh-water nymphs dressed in flowers, or having their skirts decorated with flowers. A kirtle is a gown; Skeat suggests that it is a diminutive of skirt.
9. Line 12 baleful, injurious (A.S. balu, evil).
10. Line 13 sung. "The verbs swim, begin, run, drink, shrink, sink, ring, sing, spring, have for their proper past tenses swam, began, ran, etc., preserving the original a; but in older writers (sixteenth and seventeenth centuries) and in colloquial English we find forms with u, which have come from the passive participles." (Morris). take the prisoned soul, i.e. would take the soul prisoner; 'prisoned' being used proleptically.
11. Line 14 lap it in Elysium. Lap is a form of wrap: comp. L'Alleg. 136, "Lap me in soft Lydian airs." Elysium: the abode of the spirits of the blessed; comp. L'Alleg. 147, "heaped Elysian flowers." Scylla ... Charybdis. The former, a rival of Circe in the affections of the sea-god Glaucus, was changed into a monster, surrounded by barking dogs. She threw herself into the sea and became a rock, the noise of the surrounding waves ("multis circum latrantibus undis," Aen. vii. 588) resembling the barking of dogs. The latter was a daughter of Poseidon, and was hurled by Zeus into the sea, where she became a whirlpool.
12. Line 17 slumber: comp. Pericles, v. 1. 335, "thick slumber Hangs upon mine eyes."
13. Line 18 madness, ecstasy. The same idea is expressed in Il Pens. 164: "As may with sweetness, through mine ear, Dissolve me into ecstasies, And bring all heaven before mine eyes." In Shakespeare 'ecstasy' occurs in the sense of madness; see Hamlet, iii. 1. 167, "That unmatched form and feature of blown youth, Blasted with ecstasy"; Temp. iii. 3. 108, "hinder them from what this ecstasy May now provoke them to": comp. also "the pleasure of that madness," Wint. Tale, v. 3. 73. See also l. 625.
14. Line 19 home-felt, deeply felt. Compare "The home thrust of a friendly sword is sure" (Dryden); "This is a consideration that comes home to our interest" (Addison): see also Index to Globe Shakespeare.
15. Line 20 waking bliss, as opposed to the ecstatic slumber induced by the song of Circe.
16. Line 22 Hail, foreign wonder! Warton notes that Comus is universally allowed to have taken some of its tints from the Tempest, and quotes, "O you wonder! If you be maid, or no?" i. 2. 426.
17. Line 23 certain: see note, l. 246.
18. Line 24 Unless the goddess, etc. = unless thou be the goddess that in rural shrine dwells here. Here, as often in Latin, we have 'unless' (Lat. nisi, etc.) used with a single word instead of a clause: and, also as in Latin, the verb in the relative clause has the person of the antecedent.
19. Line 25 Pan or Sylvan: see l. 176: also Il Pens. 134, "shadows brown that Sylvan loves," and Arc. 106, "Though Syrinx your Pan's mistress were." Sylvanus, the god of fields and forests, as denoted by his name which is corrupted from Silvan (Lat. silva, a wood).
20. Line 26 Forbidding, etc. These lines recall the language of Arcades, in which also a lady is complimented as "a deity," "a rural Queen," and "mistress of yon princely shrine" in the land of Pan. There is a reference also to her protecting the woods through her servant, the Genius: Arc. 36-53, 91-95.
21. Line 28 ill is lost. A Latin idiom (as Keightley points out) = male perditur: Prof. Masson, however, would regard it as equivalent to "there is little loss in losing."
22. Line 30 extreme shift; last resource. Comp. l. 617.
23. Line 31 my severed company: a condensed expression = the companions separated from me. Comp. l. 315: this figure of speech is called Synecdoche.
24. Line 34 What chance, etc. In lines 277-290 we have a reproduction of that form of dialogue employed in Greek tragedy in which question and answer occupy alternate lines: it is called stichomythia, and is admirable when there is a gradual rise in excitement towards the end (as in the Supplices of Euripides). In Samson Agonistes, which is modelled on the Greek pattern, Milton did not employ it.
25. Line 35 An alliterative line.
26. Line 36 near ushering, closely attending. To usher is to introduce (Lat. ostium, a door).
27. Line 41 twain: thus frequently used as a predicate. It is also used after its substantive as in Lyc. 110, "of metals twain," and as a substantive.
28. Line 42 forestalling, anticipating. 'Forestall,' originally a marketing term, is to buy up goods before they have been displayed at a stall in the market in order to sell them again at a higher price: hence 'to anticipate.' prevented. 'Prevent,' now used in the sense of 'hinder,' seems in this line to have something of its older meaning, viz., to anticipate (in which case 'forestalling' would be proleptic). Comp. l. 362; Par. Lost, vi. 129, "half-way he met His daring foe, at this prevention more Incensed."
29. Line 43 to hit. This is the gerundial infinitive after an adjective: comp. "good to eat," "deadly to hear," etc.
30. Line 44 Imports their loss, etc.: 'Apart from the present emergency, is the loss of them important?'
31. Line 46 manly prime, etc.: 'Were they in the prime of manhood, or were they merely youths?' With Milton the 'prime of manhood' is where 'youth' ends: comp. Par. Lost, xi. 245, "prime in manhood where youth ended"; iii. 636, "a stripling Cherub he appears, Not of the prime, yet such as in his face Youth smiled celestial." Spenser has 'prime' = Spring.
32. Line 47 Hebe, the goddess of youth. "The down of manhood" had not appeared on the lips of the brothers.
33. Line 48 what time: common in poetry for 'when' (Lat. quo tempore). Compare Horace, Od. iii. 6: "what time the sun shifted the shadows of the mountains, and took the yokes from the wearied oxen." laboured: wearied with labour.
34. Line 49 loose traces. Because no longer taut from the draught of the plough.
35. Line 50 swinked, overcome with toil, fatigued (A.S. swincan, to toil). Skeat points out that this was once an extremely common word; the sense of toil is due to that of constant movement from the swinging of the labourer's arms. In Chaucer 'swinker' = ploughman.
36. Line 51 mantling, spreading. To mantle is strictly to cloak or cover: comp. Temp. v. 1. 67, "fumes that mantle Their clearer reason."
37. Line 54 port, bearing, mien.
38. Line 55 faery. This spelling is nearer to that of the M.E. faerie than the current form.
39. Line 56 the element; the air. Since the time of the Greek philosopher Empedocles, fire, earth, air, and water have been popularly called the four elements; when used alone, however, 'the element' commonly means 'the air.' Comp. Hen. V. iv. 1. 107, "The element shows him as it doth to me"; Par. Lost, ii. 490, "the louring element Scowls o'er the darkened landscape snow or shower," etc.
40. Line 58 plighted, interwoven or plaited. The verb 'plight' (or more properly plite) is a variant of plait: see Il Pens. 57, "her sweetest saddest plight." The word has no connection with 'plight,' l. 372. awe-strook. Milton uses three forms of the participle, viz. 'strook,' 'struck,' and 'strucken.'
41. Line 59 worshiped. The final consonant is now doubled in such verbs before -ed.
42. Line 60 were = would be: subjunctive. like the path to Heaven; i.e. it would be a pleasure to help, etc. There is (probably) no allusion to the Scripture parable of the narrow and difficult way to Heaven (Matt. vii.) as in Son. ix., "labours up the hill of heavenly Truth."
43. Line 61 help you find: comp. l. 623. The simple infinitive is here used without to where to would now be inserted. This omission of the preposition now occurs with so few verbs that 'to' is often called the sign of the infinitive, but in Early English the only sign of the infinitive was the termination en (e.g. he can speken). The infinitive, being used as a noun, had a dative form called the gerund, which was preceded by the preposition to, and when this became confused with the simple infinitive the use of to became general. Comp. Son. xx. 4, "Help waste a sullen day."
44. Line 63 readiest way. Here 'readiest' logically belongs to the predicate.
45. Line 69 each ... every: see note, l. 19. alley, a walk or avenue.
46. Line 70 Dingle ... bushy dell ... bosky bourn. 'Dingle' = dimble (see Ben Jonson's Sad Shepherd) = dimple = a little dip or depression; hence a narrow valley. 'Dell' = dale, literally a cleft; hence a valley, not so deep as a dingle. 'Bosky bourn,' a stream whose banks are bushy or thickly grown with bushes. 'Bourn,' a boundary, is a distinct word etymologically, but the phrase "from side to side," as used by Comus, might well imply that the valley as well as the stream is here referred to. 'Bosky,' bushy. The noun 'boscage' = jungle or bush (M.E. busch, bush, bush). 'See Tennyson's Dream of F. W. 243, "the sombre boscage of the wood."
47. Line 73 stray attendance = strayed attendants; abstract for concrete, as in line 274. Comp. Par. Lost, x. 80, "Attendance none shall need, nor train"; xii. 132, "Of herds, and flocks, and numerous servitude" (= servants).
48. Line 74 shroud, etc. Milton first wrote "within these shroudie limits": see note, l. 147.
49. Line 75 low-roosted lark, i.e. the lark that has roosted on the ground. This is certainly Milton's meaning, as he refers to the bird as rising from its "thatched pallet" = its nest, which is built on the ground. 'Roost' has, however, no radical connection with rest, but denotes a perch for fowls, and Keightley's remark that Milton is guilty of supposing the lark to sleep, like a hen, upon a perch or roost, may therefore be noticed. But the poets' meaning is obvious. Prof. Masson takes 'thatched' as referring to the texture of the nest or to the corn-stalks or rushes over it.
50. Line 76 rouse. Here used intransitively = awake.
51. Line 81 honest-offered: see notes, ll. 36, 228.
52. Line 82 sooner, more readily.
53. Line 83 tapestry halls. Halls hung with tapestry, tapestry being "a kind of carpet work, with wrought figures, especially used for decorating walls." The word is said to be from the Persian.
54. Line 84 first was named. The meaning is: 'Courtesy which is derived from court, and which is still nominally most common in high life, is nevertheless most readily found amongst those of humble station.' This sentiment is becoming in the mouth of Lady Alice when addressed to a humble shepherd. 'Courtesy' (or, as Milton elsewhere writes, courtship) has, like civility, lost much of its deeper significance. Comp. Spenser, F. Q. vi. 1. 1: "Of Court it seems men Courtesy do call, For that it there most useth to abound."
55. Line 86 less warranted, i.e. when I have less guarantee of safety. Guarantee and warrant, like guard and ward, guile and wile, are radically the same.
56. Line 88 Eye me, i.e. look on me. To eye a person now usually implies watching narrowly or suspiciously. square, accommodate, adjust. The adj. 'proportioned' is here used proleptically, denoting the result of the action indicated by the verb 'square.' Comp. M. for M. v. 1: "Thou 'rt said to have a stubborn soul, ... And squar'st thy life accordingly." Exeunt, i.e. they go out, they leave the stage.