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COMUS.

The first Scene discovers a wild Wood.

THE ATTENDANT SPIRIT descends or enters.

BEFORE the starry threshold of Jove's court
My mansion is, where those immortal shapes
Of bright aerial spirits live insphered

In regions mild of calm and serene air,

Above the smoke and stir of this dim spot,

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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,
Unmindful of the crown that virtue gives,
After this mortal change, to her true servants,

3. Insphered.] Within their assigned sphere. The portions of space occupied by departed souls were called spheres.

7. Pestered in this pinfold.] The word pestered originally means crowded, obstructed. Ital. pesta, a crowd.'

Your coach whose rude postilion Must pester every narrow lane.

Shirley's Lady of Pleasure, i. So all unhoused souls do thither creep, Nor are they pestered for want of room. Sandys' Ovid, iv. 441.

A pinfold is a pen or pound for cattle.

10. After this mortal change.] The demonstrative meaning implied in the word this does not

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Amongst the enthroned gods on sainted seats.
Yet some there be that, by due steps, aspire
To lay their just hands on that golden key
That opes the palace of eternity:

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To such my errand is; and, but for such,
I would not soil these pure ambrosial weeds
With the rank vapours of this sin-worn mould.
But to my task. Neptune, besides the sway
Of every salt flood and each ebbing stream,
Took in by lot 'twixt high and nether Jove
Imperial rule of all the sea-girt isles,
That, like to rich and various gems, inlay
The unadorned bosom of the deep:
Which he, to grace his tributary gods,

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15. But for such.] The adverbial phrase for such, and the adverb not, in the following line, are connected by the conjunction but, and both modify the verb soil. The construction is, I would not but for such soil these pure, &c.; and, in analysis, the whole phrase not but for such may be treated as an adverbial adjunct to soil.

16. Ambrosial weeds.] The word weeds, which was used to denote garments generally, is still applied to the mourning attire of the widow. Ambrosia signified the food of the gods, and also an unguent said to be used by them, and to be of immortalizing virtue. See lines 840-1.

17. Sin-worn mould.] Sin-corrupted earth.

20. Took in by lot.] On the dethronement of Saturn, his three sons, Jupiter, Neptune and Pluto, shared the empire of the universe.

Pluto was called Stygian Jove
('sacra Jovi Stygio perficere,'
Virg. En. iv. 638), because he
was the chief divinity in the
lower world, as Jupiter was in
the upper.

22. Like to rich and various
gems.] This comparison of the
sea-girt isles to gems is probably
derived from Shakspeare having
called England a precious stone
set in the silver sea' (Rich. II.,
ii. 1). The adjective like, which
here qualifies isles, is now seldom
followed by the preposition to,
when that word is necessary to
complete the construction. Com-
pare 1, 57.

23. Unadorned.] Naked; not adorned as the land.

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24. To grace, &c.] The infinitive thus used makes an adverbial clause that he may grace, &c. In the next line but one an infinitive phrase is used adjectively describing the noun leave.

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;

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And all this tract that fronts the falling sun
A noble of mickle trust and power

peer

Has in his charge, with tempered awe to guide
An old and haughty nation, proud in arms:
Where his fair offspring, nursed in princely lore,
Are coming to attend their father's state,
And new-intrusted sceptre: but their way

Lies through the perplexed paths of this drear wood,
The nodding horror of whose shady brows
Threats the forlorn and wandering passenger;
And here their tender age might suffer peril,
But that by quick command from sovereign Jove
I was despatched for their defence and guard:
And listen why; for I will tell you now

25. By course.] In regular distribution commits to divided government; to each his own distinct government.

29. He quarters, &c.] He apportions to such water-nymphs as the Nereides.

30. All this tract, &c.] The tract fronting the falling sun, or west (sol occideus), is Wales, of which the Earl of Bridgewater was appointed Lord President. His family residence was Ashridge House, a few miles from Tring.

35. Their father's state.] The ceremony of his being instated at Ludlow Castle, his official residence. This is retrospective; as he was appointed to the Presidency of Wales by Charles I., in

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May 1633. The Lady Alice Egerton was only about 13 years of age, and the elder of her brothers about 12, when they performed in the mask at Ludlow Castle.

38. Horror.] Shagginess. See Note on l. 429.

41. But that, &c.] We have here the noun clause that I was despatched, &c., forming an object to the preposition but; and the 41st and 42nd lines constitute an adverbial clause to suffer.

43. Why.] That is, why I was despatched, &c., a noun clause objective. The direct object of the verb tell is the whole of the two succeeding lines.

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What never yet was heard in tale or song,
From old or modern bard, in hall or bower.
Bacchus, that first from out the purple grape
Crushed the sweet poison of misused wine,
After the Tuscan mariners transformed,
Coasting the Tyrrhene shore, as the winds listed,
On Circe's island fell: (Who knows not Circe,
The daughter of the Sun, whose charmed cup
Whoever tasted lost his upright shape,
And downward fell into a grovelling swine?)
This nymph, that gazed upon his clustering locks
With ivy berries wreathed, and his blithe youth,
Had by him, ere he parted thence, a son
Much like his father, but his mother more,

45. In hall or bower.] In banquet room or private apartment. So, in Spenser's Faërie Queene, VI. ix. 32, 'And this your cabin [shall be] both my bower and hall.' And in Chaucer's Nun Priest's Tale,

Full sooty was her bower and eke her

hall.

46. From out.] That is, out from; out being an adverb. Comp. from off the waters,' l.

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Let them from forth a saw-pit rush at

once.

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49. The Tyrrhene shore.] The Tuscan shore, or shore of Etruria. See what Ovid says of Glaucus, Tyrrhena per æquora lapsus,' &c. (Met. xiv. 8).

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50. Circe's island.] The small island æa, afterwards, by union with the mainland, forming the promontory of Circeii. Circe was the daughter of Apollo, her mother being one of the Oceanides, named Perse.

Proxima Circææ raduntur litora terræ,
Dives inaccessos ubi Solis filia lucos
Assidue resonat cantu.

Shakspeare's Merry Wives, iv. 4.
48. After the Tuscan mariners
transformed.] That is, being pare Horace, Epist. Í. ii. 23.

Who knows not Circe, &c. Com

transformed. The poet here imitates a Latin construction; comp. Horace, Od. I. iii. 29, 'Post ignem subductum;' so in Par. Lost, i. 573, 'Never since created man met such embodied force.' The

god Bacchus punished the Tuscan pirates by transforming them into sea-monsters. The story is told in Ovid, Met. iii. 660.

Sirenum voces et Circa pocula nosti,
Quæ si cum sociis stultus cupidusque
bibisset.

Sub domina meretrice fuisset turpis et

excors,

Vixisset canis immundns, vel amica luto

sus.

52. Whoever tasted whose charmed cup, is a noun sentence nominative to lost, and also part of an adjective sentence describing Circe.

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 imbowered,
Excels his mother at her mighty art,

Offering to every weary traveller
His orient liquor in a crystal glass,

To quench the drouth of Phoebus; which as they taste,
(For most do taste, through fond intemperate thirst),
Soon as the potion works, their human countenance,
The express resemblance of the gods, is changed
Into some brutish form of wolf, or bear,
Or ounce, or tiger, hog, or bearded goat,
All other parts remaining as they were;)
And they, so perfect is their misery,
Not once perceive their foul disfigurement,
But boast themselves more comely than before,
And all their friends and native home forget,
To roll with pleasure in a sensual sty.
Therefore, when any favoured of high Jove
Chances to pass through this adventurous glade,
Swift as the sparkle of a glancing star

59. Frolic of his full-grown
age.] Buoyant, full of the spirit
of opening manhood, which
prompted him to rove the Celtic
and Iberian fields, i.e. through
France and Spain. See Note to l.
1023.

65. Orient.] Bright. This
word, derived from the Latin
oriens, rising, has allusion to sol
oriens, the rising sun, or the east.
It

74. Not once perceive, &c.]
was otherwise with Circe's vic-
tims, who, according to Homer,
Odyss. x. 241, knew and deplored
their degradation.

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65

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77. To roll, &c.] Adverbial use of the infinitive. See Note on l. 24. 79. Adventurous.] Hazardous, perilous.

80. Glancing star.] Shooting star. So in Par. Lost, iv. 555, Uriel is said to glide through the even 'swift as a shooting star in autumn thwarts the night.' To glance is to dart obliquely. Comp. Spenser, F. Q. VI., vii. 7.

One did miss his mark, And being carried with his force forthright,

Glanced swiftly by; like to that heavenly spark

Which, gliding through the air, lights all the heaven's dark.

* bie above all things doch gods stamp defare. G. Hibit.

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