the dishes on the table, his office being to 'sew,' 'say,' ' assay,' or taste.
(Another derivation of 'sewer' is from Fr. asseoir, to set down.) The
seneschal appears to have been the senior servant, the major-domo.
'Siniscalcus, famulorum senior, the steward. From Goth sineigs, old,
superl. sinistra, and skalks, a servant.' (Wedgwood).

1. 39. the skill; i. e. the result of it, like the hand of Eve,' 1. 438.
1. 44. Cp. the passage in Reason of Church Government, Bk. ii: If
to the instinct of nature, and the imboldening of art, aught may be
trusted; and that there be nothing adverse in our climate, or the fate of
this age, it haply would be no rashness, from an equal diligence and
inclination, to present the like offer in our own ancient stories.' Milton
is here, speaking of his choice of a theme, 'to be left so written to after-
times, as they should not willingly let it die.'

1. 56. maugre, in spite of (Fr. malgré), frequent in Spenser, occurring
sometimes in Shakespeare (Lear, v. 3).

1. 58. Job i. 7.

1. 63. The meaning is, for the space of an entire week he compassed
the earth, three days from east to west, going round with night, or
parallel to the equinoctial line, and four days at right angles to it, from
north to south. The colures are two great circles, of which the one
called the solstitial colure passes through the poles of the ecliptic and
the equinoctial; the other, named the equinoctial colure, is a meridian
drawn through the equinoxes. By traversing, then, is meant 'going
along.' Cp. 1. 434. (Keightley.) Newton takes traverse in its usual
sense of crossing.' 'As Satan was moving from pole to pole at the
same time that the car of night was moving from east to west, if he
would keep in the shade of night as he desired, he could not move
in a straight line, but must move obliquely, and thereby cross the two
colures.'

1. 75. Cp. Iliad, i. 35.

1. 77. Leaving the garden on the east (iv. 861), he turned northwards
to the Euxine Sea and Palus Mootis, and then went up along the river
Ob. He then went probably down to the other side of the globe, as far
south as the Line, and, as we are to suppose, back to the Orontes in
Syria, whence he went westwards to the Isthmus of Darien, and so
round by India and back to Eden. (Keightley.)

1. 80. Job xxxvii. 10.

1. 82. orb for 'world' (orbis terrarum). So used by the Clown in
Twelfth Night, iii. 1.

1. 86. Landor censures these lines as 'some of the dullest in Milton.'
He somewhat captiously objects: Who could suspect the serpent? or
know anything about his wit and subtilty? He had been created but a
few days; "diabolic " power had taken as yet no such direction; and

the serpent was so obscure a brute, that Satan himself scarcely knew where to find him. And why had the snake so bad a character? He was "not nocent yet;""fearless, unfeared he slept." These are the contradictions of a dreamer; but how fresh and vigorous Milton arises the next moment!'

1. 89. imp; from impan, to graft: 'whereon to graft deceit.' In Shakespeare the word, as an appellation, never bears a bad sense. Its primary meaning is 'child,'' scion' (which latter word is properly a cutting from a tree).

1. 99. Cp. Bk. v. 574.

6

6

1. 121. siege, seat (Fr. siège), as in the siege of justice' (Measure for Measure, iv. 2). The 'siege' of a town is the sitting down' before it. 1. 130. him destroyed. This version of the ablative absolute occurs also in vii. 142; Samson Agonistes 463. But in general Milton observes the usual English form of taking the nominative for the case absolute.

1. 146. if they at least; cp. Bk. v. 859.

1. 156. Psalm civ. 4.

1. 157. Psalm xci. II.

1. 166. Cp. Comus 468.

1. 170. obnoxious, exposed. ‘Obnoxius fortunae' (Tacitus, Historiarum, ii. 75).

1. 176. son of despite; as the wicked are termed 'sons of Belial'; valiant men, 6 'sons of courage'; wild beasts, 'sons of pride.' (Deut. xiii. 13, marg. reading; 2 Sam. ii. 7; Job xli. 34.)

1. 178. So Prometheus (Æschylus, Prometheus Vinctus 970) holds it right to scorn the scornful.'

•

1. 188. Iliad, xvii. 210.

1. 218. The original meaning of spring (whence 'sprig') was 'shoot,' 'rod.' It was then used chiefly, if not solely, by the poets for 'coppice,' 'grove,' or 'wood.' (Keightley.)

1. 240. In the song in Merchant of Venice (iii. 2) Fancy (i. e. Love) is said to be by gazing fed.'

"

1. 245. wilderness; for 'wildness,' as

For such a warped slip of wilderness
Ne'er issu'd from his blood.'

(Measure for Measure, iii. 1.)

1. 249. Cp. Paradise Regained, i. 302.

1. 278. Just then. Eve is speaking of the visit of the angel, a week back. 1. 292. entire; the 'integer vitae scelerisque purus' of Horace (Odes, i. 22. 1).

1. 312. Here the ordinary form is used for the case absolute. See line 130, note.

VOL. II.

T

1. 320. less; i. e. too little; a Latinism. Spenser also has this use of the comparative, e. g. 'thy weaker novice' (Faery Queene, i. Introduction).

1. 328. affront, meet face to face (Fr. affronter). See Bk. i. 390, note. 1. 353. erect, on her feet: the Italian all' erta (i.e. all' eretta), alert. The metaphor is military. (Keightley.)

1. 387. Oread or Dryad, nymph of the mountain or of the grove.
1. 388. Delia's self; i. e. Diana, from her birthplace Delos.
1. 390. Cp. Faery Queene, i. 6. 16.

1. 392. Guiltless of fire. Fire was unknown on earth before the Fall, according to Milton (cp. Bk. v. 349, 396, and x. 1070 et seqq). We have here a hint of the Puritan feeling that art sprang from the corruption of human nature—a notion put forward still more forcibly in Paradise Regained, Bk. iv, where the highest sanction is claimed for it. It is true that we hear of palaces in heaven (Paradise Lost, i. 732), but we are immediately informed of the fate of their architect. But Milton is careful to vindicate the celestial origin of music.

1. 395. The classic poets make the gods pass from youth to age, 'sed cruda deo viridisque senectus.'

(Æneid, vi. 304.)

1. 396. virgin of is a French and Italian idiom. (Keightley.)
1. 402. And all things; i. e. and (to have) all things, &c.
1. 404. Cp. Iliad, xvii. 497; Æneid, x. 501.

1. 410. Here and at 1. 420, Keightley believes that Milton dictated 'and' for the 'or' of the received text.

1. 426. Bentley proposed to read blushing' for the 'bushing' of the early editions.

1. 432. Cp. Bk. iv. 270.

1. 437. arborets; a word used by Spenser (Faery Queene, ii. 6. 12). Arboretum is a form of arbustum, a shrubbery.

1. 439. The gardens of Adonis, frequently mentioned by Greek writers, were the little earthen pots, with lettuce and fennel growing in them, carried at his festival. (Bentley.) Pliny, however, names the gardens of Adonis with those of the Hesperides and Alcinous. Spenser (Faery Queene, iii. 6. 30) describes them,

'as the first seminary

Of all things that are born to live and die
According to their kinds.'

1. 450. tedded grass is grass just mown and spread for drying. Latham adduces the Prov. Germ. zetten as a kindred word. Probably from the rustling sound of things falling in a scattered way. zåttern, to sound like a heavy shower of rain. (Wedgwood.)

Swiss

1. 453. Cp. Faery Queene, ii. 6. 24.

1. 462. A similar repetition to that of fierceness and fierce occurs in Eneid, i. 669.

1. 468. in mid Heav'n; perhaps with allusion to Job i. 6, ii. 1.

1. 471. See note on i. 528.

1.473. sweet compulsion is attributed to music in Arcades 68.

1. 496. indented. A metaphor from the teeth of a saw, applied by Shakespeare (As You Like It, iv. 3) to the movement of a snake.

1. 505. chang'd, transformed; i. e. the forms that changed Cadmus and Hermione.' (Newton.) Todd would place a comma after 'chang'd,' and understands that word as='underwent a change.'

1. 506. Keightley was the first to remark that Hermione' should be Harmonia.'

·

1. 507. Olympias was the mother of Alexander the Great. Cp. note Dryden has the same allusion in the second stanza of

on Nativity 203. Alexander's Feast.

1. 510. Scipio Africanus is here meant. Cp. the 'top of eloquence,' Paradise Regained, iv. 354.

1. 522. Cp. Ovid, Metamorphoses, xiv. 45, 46.

1. 549. Cp. Paradise Regained, iv. 4, 5; Comus 161. The invitation in line 732 may be compared with that of Comus to the Lady, 'Be wise, and taste' (1. 813).

"

1. 563. speakable; not may be spoken,' but able to speak.' Horace thus uses illachrymabilis as passive (Odes, iv. 9. 26), and as active (Odes, ii. 14. 6). Since the time of Milton, there has been a decided tendency to diminish the number of words with a Saxon root and a French termination.' (Marsh.)

1. 581. Serpents were supposed to delight in fennel (Pliny, Natural History, xix. 56), and to suck the teats of ewes and goats.

1. 612. Universal dame, Lady of the universe (dame' from Lat. domina).

1. 613. spirited, inspired, possessed (Ital. spiritare). Cp. iii. 717. 1. 631. Cp. Georgics, ii. 153.

1. 634. This account is bad physics. The ignis fatuus, which is of very rare appearance, is supposed to be produced by a luminous insect. (Keightley.) But Newton, in his Optics, remarks that 'vapours arising from putrified waters are usually called ignes fatui.' More modern authorities hold that 'the appearance is produced by the decomposition of animal or vegetable matter, or by the evolution of gases which spontaneously ignite in the atmosphere.'

1. 640. Cp. L'Allegro 104, and the gambols of Puck (Midsummer Night's Dream, ii. 1).

1. 643. fraud; cp. vii. 143, note.

1. 644. tree Of prohibition is a Hebraism for 'prohibited tree,' as is 'daughter of his voice' at line 653.

1. 653. the rest, as for the rest, a usual idiom in Greek and Latin (e. g. 'caetera Graius,' Æneid, iii. 594).

1. 654. Rom. ii. 14.

1. 668. fluctuates, moves to and fro.

1. 672. since mute; i. e. as has never since been heard, excluding even the debates of the Long Parliament. (Keightley.)

1. 675. Sometimes in bighth began; like Cicero, in his first oration against Catiline.

1. 702. your fear itself; i. e. your fear of God, resting on faith in His justice, removes the fear of death, since death implies that He is unjust.

1. 714. put on gods; a reminiscence of the Scriptural put on incorruption' (2 Cor. xv. 53).

1. 729. can envy dwell; cp. Æneid, i. 11.

1.732. bumane; i.e. human. The differing sense attached to each form is of modern use.

1. 736. Yet rung; cp. Iliad, ii. 41.

1. 742. inclinable, inclining; like 'oceano dissociabili' (Horace, Odes, i. 3. 22).

1. 771. author, adviser. Mihique ut absim, vehementer auctor est,' (Cicero ad Atticum, xv. 5.)

1. 790. Eve thus falls into the very temptation by which Satan himself fell, by aspiring to be like God in knowledge, as he had aspired to be like Him in power. (Cp. Bacon, Advancement of Learning, ii. comment on Isaiah xiv. 14.)

1. 792. eating death; a Grecism, imitated from Virgil, 'sensit medios delapsus in hostes,' for 'se delapsum esse.' (Æneid, ii. 377.)

1. 793. boon, gay; as in 'boon companion.'

(From Lat. bonus.)

6

1. 795. precious; positive for superlative, as in Iliad, v. 381; Æneid, iv. 576. Keightley remarks that it is also a Hebraism. Landor admires the wonderful skill with which Eve, after the Fall, is represented as deceitful and audacious; as ceasing to fear, and almost as ceasing to reverence, the Creator; and shuddering not at extinction itself, till she thinks of " Adam wedded to another Eve."'

1.800. Not without song; cp. the 'non sine floribus' of Horace (Odes, iii. 13. 2).

1. 811. Psalm xciv. 7; Job xxii. 12-14.

1. 815. safe; i.e. as regards any danger from him. The word is thus used in Shakespeare by Miranda (Tempest, iii. 1), and by Henry IV (Richard II, v. 3) when threatening Aumerle.

1.823. The Knight in Chaucer (Wife of Bath's Tale) is required, on