141. Wanton heed, &c.] The antithesis between the noun and adjective, in this phrase and the one following, is very expressive; the meaning is, that the voice, while it seems wanton and giddy, running as if at random, is all the while taking heed and exereising cunning (i. e. skill), proceeding with scientific accuracy and taste. The whole passage here respecting music is one of the finest in Milton's works.

144. Soul of harmony.] Milton seems here to imply some allusion to the doctrine of certain ancient philosophers, in particular Aristoxenus, who believed the soul to have some such relation to the body as the sound of a string to the string itself. Shakspeare (Merch. of Venice, v. 1), after speaking of the music of the spheres, says:

Such harmony is in immortal souls:
But whilst this muddy vesture of decay
Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear
it.

145

150

Hooker, Eccles. Polity, v. 38, says of musical harmony: 'Such, notwithstanding, is the force thereof, and so pleasing effects it hath in that very part of man which is most divine, that some have been thereby induced to think that the soul itself, by nature, is or hath in it harmony.'

145. That Orpheus self, &c.] The conjunction that used, as here, for so that, is common in old writers. The story of Orpheus half-regaining his wife Eurydice from the infernal regions is well known.

149. To have quite set free.] To have granted the request of Orpheus unconditionally. The condition imposed on Orpheus was that he was not to look behind while his wife followed him out of the infernal regions; but on his way he forgot or failed to observe the condition, and his half-regained Eurydice vanished from his sight.

20

25

30

son of Tithonus and Aurora, and had no sister. The adjective Memnonius occurs in Latin poetry with the signification of swarthy or eastern. The famous Memnonium, or statue of Memnon, at Thebes in Upper Egypt, was said to emit harp-like sounds at the rising of Aurora, or when shone upon by the rays of the morning sun.

19. Starred Ethiop queen.] This was Cassiope or Cassiopea, the wife of Cepheus, king of Ethiopia, and the mother of Andromeda. The poet says she set her beauty's praise above the Nereids, and offended their powers, i. e. their numina or divinities. The story is, that Neptune, indignant with Cassiope for boasting herself to be fairer than the Nereids, laid waste the land of Cepheus with an inundation, and caused the fair Andromeda to be exposed to a seamonster; and that the maid was rescued from this peril by Perseus. Cassiope, at her death,

became a southern constellation; hence the poet calls her starred, that is, ranked among the stars.

23. Long of yore.] An expression equivalent to two adverbs; long being Milton's translation of the Latin longé, as in the phrase longé ante. He assigns the parentage of Melancholy to Vesta, as the goddess of purity and patroness of nuns, and Saturn, the father of that goddess, as the representative of the pensive, or what we call saturnine, spirit.

29. Woody Ida.] A mountain of Crete, where Jupiter was born and brought up. He afterwards made war upon his father; but Milton feigns Vesta, who was the eldest daughter of Saturn, to have been her father's favourite before Jove was born. Saturn devoured his male children as soon as they were born, because he feared they might rebel against him; but from this fate his wife Rhea managed to rescue “ Jupiter, Neptune, and Pluto.