Et faciam vero per tua damna fidem.
Ipse ego, si nescis, strato Pythone superbum
Edomui Phoebum, cessit et ille mihi;
Et quoties meminit Peneidos, ipse fatetur
Certius et gravius tela nocere mea.
Me nequit adductum curvare peritius arcum,
Qui post terga solet vincere, Parthus eques :
Cydoniusque mihi cedit venator, et ille

Inscius uxori qui necis author erat.
Est etiam nobis ingens quoque victus Orion,
Herculeæque manus, Herculeusque comes.
Jupiter ipse licet sua fulmina torqueat in me,
Hærebunt lateri spicula nostra Jovis.
Cætera quæ dubitas melius mea tela docebunt,
Et tua non leviter corda petenda mihi.
Nec te, stulte, tuæ poterunt defendere Musæ,
Nec tibi Phoebeus porriget anguis opem.
Dixit, et aurato quatiens mucrone sagittam,

37. Cydoniusque mihi, &c.] Perhaps indefinitely as the Parthus eques, just before. The Cydonians were famous for hunting, which implies archery. See Ovid, Metam. viii. 22. If a person is here intended, he is most probably Hippolytus. Cydon was a city of Crete. See Euripides, Hippol. v. 18. But then he is mentioned here as an archer. Virgil ranks the Cydonians with the Parthians, for their skill in the bow, Æn. xii. 852.

Ibid. —et ille, &c.] Cephalus, who unknowingly shot his wife

Procris.

38. Est etiam nobis ingens quoque victus Orion,] Orion was also a famous hunter. But for his amours we must consult Ovid,

}

30

35

40

45

Art. Amator. i. 731. See Parthenius, Erotic. cap. xx.

46. Nec tibi Phabeus porriget anguis opem.] "No medicine "will avail you. Not even the

serpent, which Phoebus sent to "Rome to cure the city of a pestilence." See Ovid, Metam. xi. 742.

66

Huc se de Latia pinu Phœbeius anguis
Contulit, &c.

Where see the fable at large.
47. aurato quatiens mucrone
sagittam,] So in Par. Lost, b.
iv. 763.

Here Love his golden shafts employs,
here lights

His constant lamp, and waves his purple wings.

Where see the note.

Evolat in tepidos Cypridos ille sinus.
At mihi risuro tonuit ferus ore minaci,
Et mihi de puero non metus ullus erat.
Et modo qua nostri spatiantur in urbe Quirites,
Et modo villarum proxima rura placent.
Turba frequens, facieque simillima turba dearum,
Splendida per medias itque reditque vias:
Auctaque luce dies gemino fulgore coruscat:

Fallor? An et radios hinc quoque Phoebus habet?
Hæc ego non fugi spectacula grata severus,
Impetus et quo me fert juvenilis, agor,
Lumina luminibus male providus obvia misi,
Neve oculos potui continuisse meos.
Unam forte aliis supereminuisse notabam,
Principium nostri lux erat illa mali.
Sic Venus optaret mortalibus ipsa videri,
Sic regina Deum conspicienda fuit.

Hanc memor objecit nobis malus ille Cupido,
Solus et hos nobis texuit ante dolos.
Nec procul ipse vafer latuit, multæque sagittæ,

Et facis a tergo grande pependit onus:
Nec mora, nunc ciliis hæsit, nunc virginis ori,
Insilit hinc labiis, insidet inde genis:
Et quascunque agilis partes jaculator oberrat,
Hei mihi, mille locis pectus inerme ferit.
Protinus insoliti subierunt corda furores,

57. See note El. i. 50. In Milton's youth the fashionable places of walking in London were Hyde Park, and Gray's Inn walks. This appears from Sir A. Cokain, Milton's contemporary. Poems, Lond. 1662.

12mo. Written much earlier. A young lady, he says, p. 85.

Frequents the theaters, Hide Park, or els talkes

Away her pretious time in Gray's Inn walkes.

Uror amans intus, flammaque totus eram.
Interea misero quæ jam mihi sola placebat,
Ablata est oculis non reditura meis.

Ast ego progredior tacite querebundus, et excors,
Et dubius volui sæpe referre pedem.

Findor, et hæc remanet: sequitur pars altera votum,
Raptaque tam subito gaudia flere juvat.

Sic dolet amissum proles Junonia cœlum,
Inter Lemniacos præcipitata focos:
Talis et abreptum solem respexit, ad Orcum
Vectus ab attonitis Amphiaraus equis.
Quid faciam infelix, et luctu victus? Amores
Nec licet inceptos ponere, neve sequi.
O utinam, spectare semel mihi detur amatos
Vultus, et coram tristia verba loqui!
Forsitan et duro non est adamante creata,

Forte nec ad nostras surdeat illa preces!
Crede mihi, nullus sic infeliciter arsit,

Ponar in exemplo primus et unus ego.
Parce precor, teneri cum sis Deus ales amoris,
Pugnent officio nec tua facta tuo.

Jam tuus O certe est mihi formidabilis arcus,
Nate dea, jaculis nec minus igne potens:

84. Vectus ab attonitis Amphia-
raus equis.] An echo to a penta-
meter in Ovid, Ep. Pont. iii. i. 52.
Notus humo mersis Amphiaraus equis.
See Statius, Theb. vii. 821.
Illum ingens haurit specus, et transire

parantes

Mergit equos; non arma manu, non

frena remisit;

Sicut erat, rectos defert in Tartara
currus;

Respexitque cadens cœlum, campum-
que coire
Ingemuit, &c.

The application is beautiful from a young mind teeming with classical history and imagery. The allusion, in the last couplet, to Vulcan, is perhaps less hapPy, although the compliment is greater. In the example of Amphiaraus, the sudden and striking transition from light and the sun to a subterraneous gloom, perhaps is more to the poet's purpose.

Et tua fumabunt nostris altaria donis,

Solus et in superis tu mihi summus eris.
Deme meos tandem, verum nec deme, furores,

Nescio cur, miser est suaviter omnis amans:
Tu modo da facilis, posthæc mea siqua futura est,
Cuspis amaturos figat ut una duos,

100

HÆC ego, mente olim læva, studioque supino,
Nequitiæ posui vana trophæa meæ.
Scilicet abreptum sic me malus impulit error,
Indocilisque ætas prava magistra fuit.
Donec Socraticos umbrosa Academia rivos
Præbuit, admissum dedocuitque jugum.
Protinus extinctis ex illo tempore flammis,

Cincta rigent multo pectora nostra gelu.
Unde suis frigus metuit puer ipse sagittis,
Et Diomedeam vim timet ipsa Venus.*

*

5

10

ibid.

Captivum, dominæ restituitque

meæ.

Liber eram, vacuo mihi cum sub

Were it not better done, as others use, To sport with Amaryllis in the shade This fiction is again pursued in Or with the tangles of Neœra's hair 2 - his Epigrams. Lib. i. xlv. p. 77. The Amaryllis, to whom Milton alludes, is the Amaryllis of Buchanan, the subject of a poem called Desiderium Lutetiæ. See Silvæ, iii. tom. ii. p. 50. Opp. Edinb. 1715. fol. It begins,

O formosa Amarylli, tuo jam septima bruma

Me procul aspectu, &c.

The common poetical name, Amaryllis, might indeed have been accidentally adopted by both poets; nor does it at first sight appear, that Milton used it with any restrictive meaning. But Buchanan had another mistress whom he calls Neæra, whose golden hair makes a very splendid figure in his verses, and which he has complimented more than once in the most hyperbolical style. In his last Elegy, he raises the following extravagant fiction on the luxuriant tangles of this lady's hair. Cupid is puzzled how to subdue the icy poet. His arrows can do nothing. At length, he hits upon the stratagem of cutting a golden lock from Neæra's head, while she is asleep, with which the

VOL. IV.

corde Neæra

Ex oculis fixit spicula missa suis: Deinde unam evellens ex auricomante capillum

Vertice, captivis vincla dedit ma