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ELDER BROTHER.

Thyrsis? whose artful strains have oft delay'd
The huddling brook to hear his madrigal,
And sweeten'd every muskrose of the dale.
How cam'st thou here, good swain? hath any ram
Slipp'd from the fold, or young kid lost his dam,
Or straggling wether the pent flock forsook?

494. Thyrsis? whose ariful strains &c. This no doubt was intended as a compliment to Mr. Lawes upon his musical compositions; and a very fine one it is, and more genteel than that which we took notice of before, as that was put into his own mouth, but this is spoken by another.

495

The madrigal was a species of musical composition now actually in practice, and in high vogue. Lawes, here intended, had composed madrigals. So had Milton's father, as we shall see hereafter. The word is not here thrown out at random. T. Warton.

496. And sweeten'd every &c.] In poetical and picturesque circumstances, in wildness of fancy and imagery, and in weight of sentiment and moral, how greatly does Comus excel the Aminta of Tasso, and the Pastor Fido of Guarini, which Milton, from his love of Italian poetry, must have frequently read! Comus, like these two, is a pastoral Drama, and I have often wondered it is not mentioned as such. Dr. J. Warton.

496.of the dale.] In the Manuscript it was at first

494. The spirit appears habited like a shepherd; and the poet has here caught a fit of rhyming from Fletcher's pastoral comedy. Milton's eagerness to praise his. friend Lawes, makes him here forget the circumstances of the fable: he is more intent on the musician than the shepherd, who comes at a critical season, and whose assistance in the present difficulty should have hastily been asked. But time is lost in a needless encomium, and in idle enquiries how the shepherd could possibly find out this solitary part of the forest. The youth, 497. How cam'st thou here, good however, seems to be ashamed swain? &c.] In the Manuscript or unwilling to tell the unlucky it is good shepherd: but that accident that had befallen his agrees not so well with the measister. Perhaps the real boyism sure of the verse. And in the of the Brother, which yet should next verse the Manuscript had have been forgotten by the poet, at first Leap'd o'er the pen, which is to be taken into the account. was corrected into Slipt from his T. Warton. fold, as it is in the Manuscript, 495. —To hear his madrigal.] or the fold, as in all the editions.

➡of the valley.

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How could'st thou find this dark sequester'd nook? 500 SPIRIT.

O my lov'd master's heir, and his next joy, I came not here on such a trivial toy

As a stray'd ewe, or to pursue the stealth

Of pilfering wolf; not all the fleecy wealth

That doth enrich these downs, is worth a thought 505
To this my errand, and the care it brought.
But, O my virgin Lady, where is she?
How chance she is not in your company?
ELDER BROTHER.

To tell thee sadly, Shepherd, without blame,
Or our neglect, we lost her as we came.

SPIRIT.

Aye me unhappy! then my fears are true.
ELDER BROTHER.

What fears, good Thyrsis? Prythee briefly shew.
SPIRIT.

I'll tell ye; 'tis not vain or fabulous

(Though so esteem'd by shallow ignorance)

510

What the sage poets, taught by th' heav'nly Muse, 515

500-sequester'd nook?] Com- herd,] Sadly, soberly, seriously,

pare P. L. iv. 789.

Search thro' this garden, leave unsearch'd no nook.

Again, ix. 277.

As in a shady nook I stood behind.

And sequestered occurs in the same application, P. L. iv. 706. In shadier bower, more sacred and sequester'd.

T. Warton.

509. To tell thee sadly, Shep

as the word is frequently used by our old authors, and in Paradise Lost, vi. 541. where see the

note.

512. What fears, good Thyrsis?] He had written at first good Shepherd, but this was altered to good Thyrsis for variety, as he had just before addressed him by the name of Shepherd."

513. I'll tell ye;] In the Manuscript and edition of 1637 it is, I'll tell you.

Storied of old in high immortal verse,

Of dire chimeras and inchanted isles,

And rifted rocks whose entrance leads to hell;
For such there be, but unbelief is blind.

Within the navel of this hideous wood,
Immur'd in cypress shades a sorcerer dwells,
Of Bacchus and of Circe born, great Comus,
Deep skill'd in all his mother's witcheries,
And here to every thirsty wanderer

By sly enticement gives his baneful cup,

With many murmurs mix'd, whose pleasing poison
The visage quite transforms of him that drinks,
And the inglorious likeness of a beast

Fixes instead, unmoulding reason's mintage
Character'd in the face; this I have learnt
Tending my flocks hard by i' th' hilly crofts,

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520

525

530

And writing strange charácters in the ground.

So Shakespeare, Two Gentlemen of Verona, act ii. s. 10.

Who art the table wherein all my thoughts

Are visibly charácter'd and ingrav'd.

And 2 Henry VI. act iii. s. 4.

Show me one scar charácter'd on thy skin.

530. So in his Divorce, b. i. Pref. "A law not only written 66 by Moses, but charactered in "us by nature." Pr. W. i. 167. See Observat. Spenser's F. Q. ii. 162. T. Warton.

531. th' hilly crofts,] He had written at first i' th' pastur'd lawns, which agrees not so well with what follows.

That brow this bottom glade, whence night by night
He and his monstrous rout are heard to howl
Like stabled wolves, or tigers at their prey,
Doing abhorred rites to Hecate

In their obscured haunts of inmost bowers.

Yet have they many baits, and guileful spells,
To' inveigle and invite th' unwary sense
Of them that pass unweeting by the way.
This evening late, by then the chewing flocks
Had ta'en their supper on the savoury herb
Of knot-grass dew-besprent, and were in fold,
I sat me down to watch upon a bank
With ivy canopied, and interwove

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535

540

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sprent,] This species of grass is 542. Of knot-grass dew-bementioned in Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream, act iii. s. 7. And dew-besprent is sprinkled with dew. Spenser's Shepherd's Calendar, December,

My head besprent with hoary frost I find.

Fairfax, cant. 12. st. 101.

His silver locks with dust he foul besprent.

544. With ivy canopied, and
interwove

With flaunting honey-suckle,]
N. Dr. act ii. s. 2.
Perhaps from Shakespeare, Mids.

Quite over canopied with luscious
woodbine.

No

With flaunting honey-suckle, and began,

Wrapt in a pleasing fit of melancholy,
To meditate my rural minstrelsy,

Till fancy had her fill, but ere a close
The wonted roar was up amidst the woods,
And fill'd the air with barbarous dissonance;
At which I ceas'd, and listen'd them a while,
Till an unusual stop of sudden silence
Gave respite to the drowsy flighted steeds,

Canopied, in the same applica-
tion, occurs also in Drayton,
Phineas Fletcher, Carew, and
Browne. See the note on inter-
wove, P. L. i. 621. T. Warton.

545. With flaunting honey-
suckle,] It was at first spreading
or blowing.

545. Milton therefore changed the epithets, which were simply descriptive, for one which ascribed to the plant an attribute of an animated, or even of a sentient, being. See note on P. R. i. 500. Mr. Warton refers to Lycidas 146, "well-attir'd woodbine," and 40, "the gadding vine." And the same remark applies to these epithets, and to several others near them, cowslips wan," "joyous leaves," &c.

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E.

547. To meditate my rural minstrelsy,] We have the expression "rural minstrelsy" in Browne's Pastorals, b. i. s. i. p. 2. and in the Eclogues of Brooke and Davies, Lond. 1614; but the whole context is Virgil's "Syl

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"" vestrem tenui musam meditaris
arena," Bucol. i. 2. As in
Lycidas, 66.

meditate the thankless muse.

Close, in the next line, is a mu

545

550

sical close on his pipe. See the note on the Ode on the Nativity, 100. T. Warton.

553.-the drowsy flighted steeds, That draw the litter of close curtain'd sleep ;]

So I read drowsy-flighted according to Milton's Manuscript; and this genuine reading Dr. Dalton has also preserved in Comus. Drowsy-frighted is nonsense, and manifestly an error of the press in all the editions. There can be no doubt that in this passage Milton had his eye upon the following description of night in Shakespeare, 2 Henry VI. act iv. s. 1.

And now loud howling wolves arouse the jades,

That drag the tragic melancholy night, Who with their drowsy, slow, and flagging wings Clip dead men's graves The idea and the expression of drowsy-flighted in the one are plainly copied from their drowsy, other: and Fletcher in the slow, and flagging wings in the Faithful Shepherdess has much the same image, act iv.

Night, do not steal away: I woo

thee yet To hold a hard hand o'er the rusty bit That guides thy lazy team.

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