Six Centuries of English Poetry Part 32

41. =ychain'd.= The _y_ is a corruption of the prefix _ge_, anciently used in connection with the past participle, and still retained in many German words. Often used by Chaucer and Spenser, as in yblessed, yburied, ybrent, yfonden, ygeten, yclad, yfraught, etc.

42. =trump.= "For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of G.o.d: and the dead in Christ shall rise first."--_1 Thessalonians_ iv. 16.

=wakefull.= Awakening.

43. =rang.= See Exodus xix.

44. =session.= a.s.size. Both words were originally from the same root, Lat.

_sedeo_, _sessum_.

=spread.= Prepare, make ready. A similar use of the word survives in the idiom "to spread the table."

45. =Dragon.= See Revelation xii. 9.

46. =Swindges.= Swings about violently. This is the only case in which Milton uses this word. It is used several times by Shakespeare in the sense of _to whip_, _to scourge_.

47. =oracles are dumm.= Keightly says: "This was a frequent a.s.sertion of the Fathers, who ascribed to the coming of Christ what was the effect of time. They regarded the ancient oracles as having been the inspiration of the devil."

Spenser, quoting the story which Plutarch relates in "his Booke of the ceasing of miracles," says, "For at that time, as hee sayth, all Oracles surceased, and enchaunted spirites that were woont to delude the people thenceforth held their peace."--_Glosse to Shepheards Calendar, May._

48. =Delphos.= The mediaeval form of the word _Delphi_. The temple where was the chief oracle of Apollo was at Delphi, built at the foot of a precipitous cliff two thousand feet high. This oracle was suppressed by the Emperor Theodosius.

49. =weeping.= Compare Matthew ii. 19, and Jeremiah x.x.xi. 15.

Spenser, in the same _Glosse_, quoted from above, says, "About the same time that our Lorde suffered his most bitter pa.s.sion for the redemption of man, certaine persons sailing from Italie to Cyprus and pa.s.sing by certaine iles called Paxae, heard a voice calling aloud Thamus, Thamus, (now Thamus was the name of an Egyptian which was pylote of the s.h.i.+p), who, giving ear to the crie, was bidden, when he came to Palodes to tell that great Pan was dead: which hee doubting to doe, yet for that when hee came to Palodes, there suddenly was such a calme of winde that the s.h.i.+p stoode still in the sea unmooved, he was forced to crie aloude that Pan was dead: wherewithall there was heard such piteous outcries, and dreadfull shriking as hath not beene the like."

50. =parting.= Departing. Frequently used in Old English.

=Genius.= Spirit. See "Lycidas," 182:

"Henceforth thou art the Genius of the sh.o.r.e."

51. =consecrated earth--holy hearth.= Referring to the places specially haunted by the Lars and Lemures. The Lemures were the spirits of the dead, and were said to wander about at night, frightening the living.

The Lares were the household G.o.ds, sometimes referred to as the spirits of good men. The former frequented the graveyards; the latter, the hearths.

52. =Flamins.= Priests.

53. =forgoes.= Goes from, gives up, abandons.

54. =Peor and Baalim.= Compare the proper names which occur in this and the following stanzas with those in "Paradise Lost," I, 316-352.

=Peor.= The name of a mountain of Palestine is here used as one of the t.i.tles of Baal, who was wors.h.i.+pped there.

=Baalim.= Plural of Baal, meaning that G.o.d in his various modifications.

=Ashtaroth.= The Syrian G.o.ddess Astarte. But her wors.h.i.+p was identified rather with the planet Venus than with the moon.

=Hammon.= A Libyan deity, represented as a ram or as a man with ram's horns.

55. =twise batter'd G.o.d.= Dagon. See 1 Samuel v.

56. =mourn.= In Phoenicia, in the ancient city of Byblos, a festival of two days was held every year in honor of Adonis, or Thammuz, as the Phoenicians called him. The first day was observed as a day of mourning for the death of the G.o.d; the second, as a day of rejoicing because of his return to the earth. The princ.i.p.al partic.i.p.ants were young women. The prophet Ezekiel alludes to this subject: "Then he brought me to the door of the gate of the Lord's house which was toward the north; and, behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz."--_Ezekiel_ viii. 14.

Milton, in "Paradise Lost," says:

"Thammuz came next behind, Whose annual wound in Lebanon allur'd The Syrian damsels to lament his fate In amorous ditties all a summer's day."

57. Compare with "Paradise Lost," I, 392-405. In _Sandys's Travels_, published in 1615, and a popular book in Milton's time, the following description is given of the sacrifices made to Moloch: "Therein the Hebrews sacrificed their children to Moloch, an idol of bra.s.s, having the head of a calf, the rest of a kingly figure, with arms extended to receive the miserable sacrifice seared to death with his burning embracements. For the idol was hollow within and filled with fire."

58. =grisly.= Frightful, hideous. Probably from A.-S. _agrisan_, to dread.

59. =brutish.= Shaped like a brute; animal.

=Isis.= The Egyptian earth-G.o.ddess, afterwards wors.h.i.+pped as the G.o.ddess of the moon.

=Orus.= The Egyptian G.o.d of the sun.

the dog =Anubis=. Juvenal says, "Whole towns wors.h.i.+p the dog."--_Sat._, XV, 8.

60. =unshowr'd.= A reference to the general, though erroneous, idea that it does not rain in Egypt.

=Osiris=, or Apis, one of the chief G.o.ds of the Egyptians, was represented by a bull.

=sacred chest= = =wors.h.i.+pt ark=, below.

61. =eyn.= The old plural form of eyes. This form of the plural survives in _oxen_, _children_, _brethren_, _kine_, _swine_.

=Typhon.= A monster among the G.o.ds, variously described by the poets. He was a terror to all the other deities.

62. =in bed.= The sun has not yet risen.

63. =youngest teemed.= Referring to the Star of Bethlehem.

64. Compare Milton's "Sonnet on his Blindness":

"They also serve who only stand and wait."

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE.

JOHN MILTON was born in Bread Street, Cheapside, London, in the year 1608, eight years before the death of Shakespeare. From his boyhood he showed the possession of more than ordinary powers of mind. He was educated first under private tutors, and at St. Paul's School, and finally at Christ's College, Cambridge, where in 1632 he received the degree of "Master of Arts." His first considerable work was the "Hymn on the Morning of the Nativity," written in 1629. Within the next seven years he wrote the most noteworthy of his shorter poems: the masque, "Comus"; the pastoral piece ent.i.tled "Arcades"; the beautiful descriptive poems, "L'Allegro" and "II Penseroso"; and the elegy, "Lycidas." In 1639 he made a tour upon the Continent, visited the famous seats of learning in France and Italy, and made the acquaintance of many of the great poets and scholars of his time. Upon hearing, however, that civil war was about to break out in England, he hastened home, resolved to devote himself to what he regarded as his country's best interests.

Poetry was abandoned for politics, and for the next twenty years he wrote little except prose--political tracts and controversial essays.

When Cromwell became Lord Protector of England, Milton was appointed Latin Secretary of State, a position which he continued to hold until towards the downfall of the Commonwealth. But after the Restoration he quietly withdrew into retirement, resolved to devote the remainder of his life to the writing of the great poem which he had been contemplating for many years. Through unceasing study he had lost his sight; the friends of his youth had deserted him; the fortune which he had received from his father was gone. And so it was in darkness, and disappointment, and poverty, that in 1667 he gave to the world the great English epic, "Paradise Lost." It was in that same year that Dryden published his "Annus Mirabilis." Milton shortly afterward wrote "Paradise Regained"; and, in 1671, he produced "Samson Agonistes," a tragedy modelled after the masterpieces of the Greek drama. On the 8th of November, 1674, at the age of sixty-six years, his strangely eventful life came to a close.

WORDSWORTH'S SONNET TO MILTON.

Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour: England hath need of thee; she is a fen Of stagnant waters; altar, sword, and pen, Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower, Have forfeited their ancient English dower Of inward happiness. We are selfish men; Oh! raise us up, return to us again; And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power.

Thy soul was like a star, and dwelt apart; Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea; Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free, So didst thou travel on life's common way, In cheerful G.o.dliness; and yet thy heart The lowliest duties on herself did lay.