COMU S. The first scene discovers a wild wood. The ATTENDANT SPIRIT descends or enters.] ATTENDANT SPIRIT. BEFORE the starry threshold of Jove's court My mansion is, where those immortal shapes Of bright aërial spirits live insphered In regions mild of calm and serene air, Above the smoke and stir of this dim spot, Which men call Earth; and with low-thoughted care Confined, and pestered in this pinfold here, Strive to keep up a frail and feverish being, That opes the palace of eternity: To such my errand is; and but for such, By course commits to several government, And gives them leave to wear their sapphire crowns, And wield their little tridents; but this isle, The greatest and the best of all the main, He quarters to his blue-haired deities; And all this tract that fronts the falling sun A noble peer of mickle trust and power An old and haughty nation, proud in arms: Are coming to attend their father's state, And new-entrusted sceptre; but their way Lies through the pérplexed paths of this drear wood, The nodding horror of whose shady brows But that by quick command from sovran Jove And downward fell into a grovelling swine?): Had by him, ere he parted thence, a son Much like his father, but his mother more, Whom therefore she brought up, and Comus named ; Who, ripe and frolic of his full-grown age, Roving the Celtic and Iberian fields,* At last betakes him to this ominous wood; And, in thick shelter of black shades embowered, Excels his mother at her mighty art, Offering to every weary traveller |