Ch. II]

LOVE'S BEGINNING

105

"Belike you have fallen in love with her," said Politian, "since you tell me she attracts' you so much."

"I do not dare to love her," said the other, "except as goddesses are loved, with unceasing awe and respect; and it seemed to me to-day that all the people love her as I do. Their eyes told their own tale. Did you not see how they all with one accord willingly turned towards her, and how they were drawn to her, and, as if bound by the strongest chains, followed as captives in her triumphal train? Did you not notice how she shot her glances at us, as new victims, and, that there should be none who did not own her sway, how she looked back at us, and by the powerful magnetism of that look seemed to draw out from us our very hearts, and take them with her?"

"Ah!" replied Politian, "now I see you are really in love, and desperately too, since you transform the casual glances of the most modest of girls (if physiognomy counts for anything) into the enticing ogles that lovers use. Be on your guard, my dear Eugenius, and get rid of such foolish fancies whenever you feel their onset, lest we foolishly undermine the very foundations of our great good luck."

While they were thus talking they fell asleep, partly from the fatigue of their journey, partly, no doubt, from their good and hearty supper.2

1 The original Latin is the word perplacere. In his commonplace book Milton uses the adjective perplacida, which he has invented, as intending it to mean "very pleasing." But this meaning will not stand good. Milton was fond of compounds with per, as persaepe, persane, etc., etc., and we find the same liking in Nova Solyma.

This rather vulgar allusion is not worthy of the sublime Milton, and might well have been omitted; but we may compare with it the famous passage in Paradise Lost, v. 396, where Adam and Eve, sitting on the grassy turf with various natural fruits of the garden piled in tempting freshness before them,

A while discourse they hold-
No fear lest dinner cool, etc.

Nothing in all Paradise Lost has been so universally condemned as this vulgarity. No excuse has been attempted for it, except perhaps by Tennyson, who once said: "Terrible bathos after the beautiful imagery, but it shows Milton's simplicity." The bathos in the text is somewhat similar.

ON

CHAPTER III

SECOND DAY IN NOVA SOLYMA

N the morrow the sun was somewhat high in the sky before they were thoroughly awake and had dressed themselves, and just then Joseph, having heard them moving, came with his servants into their bedchamber. He had changed his attire, and was dressed after the manner and fashion of his country, having on a cloak of red silk reaching below his knee. With them the chief marks of honourable rank consist not in gorgeous and expensive robes, but in the colour and length of their ordinary dress, and the law is that each one's dress is to differ according to his rank and dignity, which is as strictly enforced as the distinction of dress between the sexes. For business and the active work of life they prefer a short dress, though they think a flowing robe gives a certain majesty to the walk, gestures, and appearance of a man. There are also certain marks and distinctions of dress for the army, for equestrians, and certain other classes. Joseph, in his proper dress, looked a very handsome man-he was inclined to be tall, and withal of a slender figure, his expression was kindly and affable, but the brave, manly eyes gave clear signs of a stern seriousness.

As soon as Politian saw him, he asked whether they too ought to dress in the Jewish fashion.

"By no means," answered Joseph. "We have no dislike for any foreign mode of dress, nor do we follow foreigners with jeers like ignorant boys; and if aliens adopt our dress, we never impute it to flattery or affectation."

When quite ready they all went from the bedroom to

Bk. I, Ch. III] THE DAUGHTER OF ZION 107

an adjacent corridor, where there was space for walking. Here they meet Jacob, and, after the morning greetings, there is a general conversation, until a message is brought to Joseph that his sister has come and is waiting to see him. This reached Jacob's ear, who at once said: "Let her rather come up to us, for I want to introduce her." So the messenger went back and brought her up. Anna (for that was her name), as she came in dressed all in white, had certainly a distinguished mien, and her manner in returning her father's salutation was quiet and dutiful. Joseph at once rushed towards her and pressed her hand with the freedom and affection of a brother, while she, fixing her eyes lovingly on him, gave him as her reply the sweetest of smiles. When a few eager questions of each had been briefly answered, her brother led her towards the others, and, turning to the new guests, said:

"This lady you saw yesterday as the daughter of Zion; to-day she is the daughter of Jacob."

Both the young men, when first they saw her, seemed like to those dazzled by a flash of lightning,1 and not quite sure what had happened; but by degrees the fair face of their yesterday's goddess dawned upon their minds, and though now without the pomp of pageantry and ornament, that face alone caused in them such a warmth of feeling and such a rush of flashing thoughts as they could not easily conceal. To see again, so soon, and where 'twas least expected, their goddess, the sight

1 The Latin here is fulguris aurâ perculsi, a phrase bearing on it the stamp of an elegant Latinist. I cannot find that it has been used by any of the great writers of Rome in the Golden Age, or even later on, but it seems well worthy of them. Scholars tell us that aura, amongst its many meanings and uses, signifies tenue quiddam et varium ex aere et lumine resultans, and the locus classicus is Virgil, Aeneid, vi. 204:

Discolor unde auri per ramos aura refulsit.

The contemporary dictionaries of Milton's days gave fulminatus as the word for "struck by lightning "-this and nothing more. Is it not likely that it was Milton's genius and classic fancy that supplied something so much better?

of all sights to them!-that they should find her in the household of their host, and so nearly allied to him by blood! What a blessed home must this be, which possesses so many of the most highly favoured of our race, and that too of both sexes and all ages! Now indeed was Destiny weaving the net of Love's entanglement, and was ready to cast it over unresisting combatants.1

Such were their unexpressed thoughts; but their eyes, their looks, their gestures, could not remain expressionless or unnoticed, and so Eugenius, who, of the two, was the less able to retain his composure, in order to avert suspicion, began to remark to Joseph :

"What you say may be true enough after all, for your father seems to be the husband of the city, and so you may rightly be called either children of Jacob or children of Zion."

"Yes," said Jacob, "our city of Zion is the mother of all. It is by her favour we live, and we ought to preserve and adorn her with every endeavour." Then said Joseph to his sister :

"Oh the pleasure I

1 Latin text is: "Jam quidem fata sibi laqueos nectere, et cessantiubs ultro injicere." Cessantibus is a good classical word in this connection, hailing most likely from Propertius, who uses cessare amori with the meaning "to be given up to love." These young Cambridge students of the seventeenth century were at least more gallant to the ladies than Professor Huxley in the present century. They, as we see, thought they were entering the gladiatorial arena of love, and that destiny was the retiarius who would catch them in his net. Huxley did not hesitate to hint that women themselves were the retiariae. Speaking of "woman's rights," he says: Let those women who are inclined to do so descend into the gladiatorial arena of life, not merely in the guise of retiariae, as heretofore, but as bold sicariae, breasting the open fray." Since those words were written (c. 1865), the bold sicariae and the shrieking sisterhood have vastly increased and multiplied, though often such women belong to a gens in qua nemo nascitur. How Milton's fiery spirit would have kindled against such unworthy descendants of prolific Mother Eve!

Milton! thou should'st be living at this hour;
England hath need of thee.

And also France.

Gal. iv. 26.

Ch. III]

THE YOUNG PUPILS

109

had when I saw thee first come into sight, enthroned in all thy virgin glory!"

"Well," she replied, "you, by your unexpected appearance, filled me with such amazement and joy that I almost forgot where I was and the great position I was filling. Really, you well-nigh disenthroned me."

At these words the eyes of Politian and Eugenius met, and their glances mutually reproached each other.

Anna, since her mother's death, had lived away from home in a neighbouring street with her aunt, and now, having seen her brother, the object of her visit, she rose to go. Her father went home with her, while the two guests, after staying some time with Joseph, quite casually betook themselves to a window which looked out into the garden, from which a new scene was presented to their eyes. They observe the two little brothers of the household mentioned yesterday standing side by side against a wall, while in front of them an elderly matron was sitting, who had just begun to address them thus:

"Give me your attention, my dear young pupils,' and before you leave home for school, hear my dream which I have dreamed in my anxiety for you.

"I thought I saw you left quite alone on the shore of a certain island in the Atlantic sea, if I mistake not. There dwelt an aged king named Philoponus. His dominions were not of very great extent, but sufficiently prosperous and civilised, and he had divided them into three portions in his lifetime between his only son Philocles, an illegitimate daughter, whom he adopted, named Philomela, and himself. The son took the northern part, the daughter the southern, while the father reigned over the middle kingdom.

'You were stranded on the sea-shore of Philomela's kingdom, and you were both sitting there, knowing neither the place nor its history. All along the beach were shells glittering like precious stones, and the fine, clean sand was the colour of gold. The open country abounded with the 1 Lat. alumnuli, a characteristic Miltonic diminutive. many such in Nova Solyma.

There are