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, That opes the palace of eternity: To such my errand is; and but for such, But to my task. Neptune, besides the sway 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; 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 Bacchus, that first from out the purple grape On Circe's island fell (who knows not Circe, And downward fell into a grovelling swine?): Had by him, ere he parted thence, a son Whom therefore she brought up, and Comus named ; Roving the Celtic and Iberian fields,4 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 |