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And settlings of a melancholy blood:

But this will cure all strait, one sip of this
Will bathe the drooping spirits in delight

810

Beyond the bliss of dreams. Be wise, and taste.The Brothers rush in with swords drawn, wrest his glass out of his hand, and break it against the ground; his rout make sign of resistance, but are all driven in; The attendant Spirit comes in.

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SPIRIT.

you let the false inchanter scape?
should have snatch'd his wand 815

ye mistook, ye

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Or madmen's fancy, when the many streams

Of new imaginations rise and fall. Compare the delicious but deadly fountain of Armida in Tasso, Gier. Lib. c. xiv. 74.

Ch'un picciol sorso di sue lucide onde Inebria l'alma tosto, e la fai lieta, &c.

But Milton seems to have remembered Fairfax's version.

One sup therefore the drinker's heart

doth bring To sudden joy, whence laughter vaine doth rise, &c. See also Parad. L. b. ix. 1046. and 1008. Perhaps Bathe is in Spenser's sense, F. Q. i. vii. 4.

And bathe in plesaunce of the joyous

shade.

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814. What, have you let the false inchanter scape?] Before this verse the stage direction is in the Manuscript as follows. The Brothers rush in, strike his glass down; the shapes make as though they would resist, but are all driven in. Dæmon enters with them. And the verse was thus at first,

What, have you let the false inchanter pass?

815. O ye mistook, ye should

have snatch'd his wand, And bound him fast; without his rod revers'd,

And backward mutters of dissevering power,

We cannot free the Lady, &c.] They are directed before to seize Comus's wand, v. 653. And this was from the Faerie Qu. where Sir Guyon breaks the charming staffe of Pleasure's porter, as he likewise overthrows his bowl, ii. xii. 49. But from what particular process of disinchantment, ancient or modern, did Milton take the notion of reversing Comus's wand or rod? It was from a passage of Ovid, the great ritualist of classical sorcery, before cited,

And bound him fast; without his rod revers'd,
And backward mutters of dissevering power,
We cannot free the Lady that sits here

In stony fetters fix'd, and motionless :
Yet stay, be not disturb'd; now I bethink me,
Some other means I have which may be us'd,

where the companions of Ulys-
ses are restored to their human
shapes. Metam. xiv. 300.

Percutimurque caput conversæ verbere virga,

Verbaque dicuntur dictis contraria

verbis.

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so the reversion thereof, by discipline and a view of their 66 owne deformitie, restores them "to their former beauties," p. 481. By backward mutters, the "verba dictis contraria verbis," we are to understand, that the charming words, or verses, at first used, were to be all repeated backwards, to destroy what had been done.

The most striking representa

tion of the reversal of a charm that I remember, and Milton might here have partly had it in his eye, is in Spenser's description of the deliverance of Amoret, by Britomart, from the inchantment of Busyrane, Faery Q. iii. xii. 36.

And rising up, gan streight to overlooke

Those cursed leaves, his charmes back to reverse; &c.

820

The circumstance in the text, of the Brothers forgetting to seize and reverse the magician's rod, while by contrast it heightens the superior intelligence of the attendant Spirit, affords the opportunity of introducing the fiction of raising Sabrina; which, exclusive of its poetical ornaments, is recommended by a local propriety, and was peculiarly interesting to the audience, as the Severn is the famous river of the neighbourhood. T. Warton.

816. without his rod revers'd,] It was at first

I without his art revers'd. 818. the Lady that sits here] In the Manuscript it was at first that remains, and is that

here sits.

821. Some other means I have

which &c.] He had written at first There is another way that &c.

821. Doctor Johnson reprobates this long narration, as he styles it, about Sabrina; which, he says, "is of no use because it "is false, and therefore un"suitable to a good being." By the poetical reader, this fiction is considered as true. In common sense, the relator is not true: and why may not an imaginary being, even of a good character, deliver an imaginary tale? In poetry false narrations are often more useful than true. Something, and something preter

L

Which once of Melibous old I learnt,

The soothest shepherd that e'er pip'd on plains.

There is a gentle nymph not far from hence,

That with moist curb sways the smooth Severn stream, Sabrina is her name, a virgin pure;

natural, and consequently false, but therefore more poetical, was necessary for the present distress. T. Warton.

823. The soothest] The truest, faithfullest. Sooth is truth. In sooth is indeed. Soothsayer one that foretells the truth, divinus, veridicus. And therefore what this soothest shepherd teaches may be depended upon.

823. Spenser thus characterizes Amyntas in Colin Clout's come home again.

He, whilst he lived, was the noblest
swaine,

That ever piped on an oaten quill.
Bowle.

826. Sabrina is her name, a virgin pure;] In the Manuscript it was at first a virgin goddess, then a virgin chaste, and at last a virgin pure. Locrine, king of the Britons, married Guendolen the daughter of Corineus, Duke of Cornwall: but in secret, for fear of Corineus, he loved Estrildis, a fair captive whom he had taken in a battle with Humber king of the Huns, and had by her a daughter equally fair, whose name was Sabra. But when once his fear was off by the death of Corineus, not content with secret enjoyment, divorcing Guendolen, he makes Estrildis now his queen. Guendolen all in rage departs into Cornwalland gathering an army of her father's friends and subjects, gives battle to her husband by

the river Sture; wherein Locrine shot with an arrow ends his life. But not so ends the fury of Guendolen, for Estrildis and her daughter Sabra she throws into a river; and to leave a monument of revenge, proclaims that the stream be thenceforth called after the damsel's. name, which by length of time is changed now to Sabrina or Severn. This is the account given by Milton himself in the first book of his History of England: but here he takes a liberty very allowable to poets, (as Mr. Thyer expresses it,) and varies the original story of this event, in order to heighten the character introduce as the patroness and of Sabrina, whom he is about to protector of chastity. See Spenser's account of the same event, in the Faery Queen, b. ii. cant. 10. st. 17, 18, 19.

But the sad virgin innocent of all,
Adown the rolling river she did pour,
Which of her name now Severn men

do call:

Such was the end that to disloyal love did fall.

826. Sabrina's fabulous history may be seen in the Mirrour of Magistrates under the legend of the Lady Sabrine, in the sixth Song of Drayton's Polyolbion, the tenth canto and second book of Spenser's Faerie Queene, the third book of Albion's England, the first book of our author's History of England, in Hardyng's Chronicle, and in an old

Whilome she was the daughter of Locrine,
That had the sceptre from his father Brute.
She guiltless damsel flying the mad pursuit
Of her enraged stepdame Guendolen,
Commended her fair innocence to the flood,
That stay'd her flight with his cross-flowing course.
The water nymphs that in the bottom play'd,
Held up their pearled wrists and took her in,

English Ballad on the subject. See note on Epitaph. Dam. v. 176. The part of the fable of Comus, which may be called the Disinchantment, is evidently founded on Fletcher's Faithful Shepherdess. The moral of both dramas is the triumph of chastity. This in both is finally brought about by the same sort of machinery. Sabrina, a virgin and a king's daughter, was converted into a river-nymph, that her honour might be preserved inviolate. Still she preserves her maiden-gentleness; and every evening visits the cattle among her twilight meadows, to heal the mischiefs inflicted by elfish magic. For this she was praised by the shepherds.

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830

the tip of the lady's finger and thrice her ruby lip, with chaste palms moist and cold; as also the envenomed chair, smeared with tenacious gums. The charm is dissolved: and the nymph departs to the bower of Amphitrite. But I am anticipating, by a general exhibition, such particular passages of Fletcher's play as will hereafter be cited in their proper places; and which, like others already cited, will appear to have been enriched by our author with a variety of new allusions, original fictions, and the beauties of unborrowed poetry. T. Warton.

829. She guiltless damsel] We prefer the reading of the Manuscript and the editions of 1637 and 1645: that of 1673 has The guiltless damsel &c. which is followed by some others.

831. -to the flood,] So he wrote at first, and then to the stream, and then to the flood again; and rightly, as stream is the last word of a verse a little before and a little after. 834. Held up their pearled wrists &c.] In the Manuscript these verses were thus at first,

Held up their white wrists to receive

her in, And bore her straight to aged Nereus' hall.

L

Bearing her strait to aged Nereus' hall,
Who piteous of her woes, rear'd her lank head,
And gave her to his daughters to imbathe
In nectar'd lavers strow'd with asphodil,
And through the porch and inlet of each sense
Dropt in ambrosial oils till she reviv'd,
And underwent a quick immortal change,
Made Goddess of the river; still she retains
Her maiden gentleness, and oft at eve
Visits the herds along the twilight meadows,

834. Drayton gives the Severn pearls. He says of Sabrina, Polyolb. s. v. vol. ii. p. 752.

Where she meant to go
The path was strew'd with pearl.

835

840

" into

The process which follows, of dropping ambrosial oils "the porch and inlet of each "sense" of the drowned Sabrina, is originally from Homer, where He speaks also of "The pearly Patroclus with rosy ambrosial Venus anoints the dead body of "Conway's head," a neighbour-oil. Il. b. xxiii. 186. ing river. Ibid. s. ix. vol. iii. p. 827. And of the "precious ori"ent pearl that breedeth in her "sand." Ibid. s. x. vol. iii. p. 842. We shall see, that Milton afterwards gives gems to the Severn of a far brighter hue. T. Warton.

836. -piteous of her woes.] Under the same form, " Retch"lesse of their wrongs," that is, unpiteous, as in Drayton, Polyolb. s. vii. See supr. at v. 404. T. Warton.

837. And gave her to his daughters to imbathe In nectar'd lavers] This at least reminds us of Alcæus's epigram or epitaph on Homer, who died in the island of Io. The Nereids of the circumambient sea bathed his dead

body with nectar. Antholog. lib. iii. p. 386. edit. Brod. Francof. 1600. fol.

ΝΕΚΤΑΡΙ δ' ειναλιαι Νηρηΐδες έχρισαντο,

Και νεκυν Ακταιη θηκαν ὑπὸ σπιλάδι.

Ροδοεντι δε χριεν ΕΛΑΙΩ

ΑΜΒΡΟΣΙΩΝ

See also Bion's Hyacinth. "Kessy
&c."
"ď außgorin xai Vextagt,
Idyll. ix. 3.

The word imbathe occurs in our author's Reformation, " Me"thinkes a sovereign and reviv

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ing joy must needs rush into "the bosom of him that reads and the sweet odour or hears; "of the returning Gospel im"bathe his soul with the fraProsegrance of heaven." works, vol. i. 2. What was enthusiasm in most of the puritanical writers, was poetry in Milton. T. Warton.

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839. And through the porch and inlet of each sense] The same metaphor in Shakespeare, Hamlet, act i. sc. 8.

And in the porches of mine ears did pour &c.

844. Visits the herds along the twilight meadows,

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