I shoot from heaven to give him safe convoy,
As now I do: But first I must put off
These my sky-robes, spun out of Iris' woof,
And take the weeds and likeness of a swain
That to the service of this house belongs,

Who with his soft pipe, and smooth-dittied song,
Well knows to still the wild winds when they roar,
And hush the waving woods; nor of less faith,
And in this office of his mountain watch
Likeliest, and nearest to the present aid
Of this occasion. But I hear the tread

Of hateful steps; I must be viewless now.

85

90

COMUS enters with a charming-rod in one hand, his glass in the other; with him a rout of monsters, headed like sundry sorts of wild beasts, but otherwise like men and women, their apparel glistering; they come in making a riotous and unruly noise, with torches in their hands.

Comus. The star that bids the shepherd fold Now the top of heaven doth hold;

And the gilded car of day

His glowing axle doth allay
In the steep Atlantic stream;

And the slope sun his upward beam

83. Spun out of Iris' woof.] Spun from material which Iris, the goddess of the rainbow, had dyed. So in Par. Lost, xi. 244, 'Iris had dipt the woof.

86. Smooth-dittied.] Smoothly worded or adapted to words. Ital. detti, words.

88. Nor of less faith, &c.] And who is no less faithful; and from his business being to keep watch over the flocks upon the hills, may be supposed most likely to be out at this time, and nearest for the immediate aid required.

55

95

93. The star that bids, &c.] The evening star. So Shakspeare (Meas. for Meas. iv. 3) says of the morning star-'Look, the unfolding star calls up the shepherd.'

97. The steep Atlantic stream.] The word stream here simply means flood. So, Par. Lost, i. 202, the ocean stream;' and Shakspeare, Merch. of Venice, i. 1, speaks of the wreck of a ship scattering all her spices on the stream.'

Shoots against the dusky pole,
Pacing toward the other goal
Of his chamber in the east.
Meanwhile, welcome joy and feast,
Midnight shout and revelry
Tipsy dance and jollity.

Braid your locks with rosy twine,
Dropping odours, dropping wine.
Rigour now is gone to bed,
And Advice with scrupulous head,
Strict Age, and sour Severity,

100

105

With their grave saws, in slumber lie.
We, that are of purer fire,

110

Imitate the starry_quire,

Who, in their nightly watchful spheres,
Lead in swift round the months and years.

The sounds and seas, with all their finny drove,
Now to the moon in wavering morrice move;

And on the tawny sands and shelves

Trip the pert fairies and the dapper elves.
By dimpled brook and fountain-brim,
The wood-nymphs, decked with daisies trim,

115

120

dancing. Splendet tremulo sub
lumine pontus.' Virg. Æn. vii.
9. The morris dance, i. e. the
Morisco or Moorish dance, said
to have been introduced into Eng-
land, in the reign of Edward III.,
by John of Gaunt on his return
from Spain, is probably of later
introduction. The hobby-horse, so
often referred to by the old dra-
matists, was long one of the chief
characters in this festive dance.
119. Fountain brim.] Fountain
edge or border.

Their merry wakes and pastimes keep;
What hath night to do with sleep?
Night hath better sweets to prove,
Venus now wakes, and wakens Love.
Come, let us our rights begin;

Mites

"Tis only day-light that makes sin,
Which these dun shades will ne'er report.

Hail! goddess of nocturnal sport,

Dark-veiled Cotytto, to whom the secret flame
Of midnight torches burns; mysterious dame,
That ne'er art called but when the dragon womb
Of Stygian darkness spets her thickest gloom,
And makes one blot of all the air:
Stay thy cloudy ebon chair,

Wherein thou ridest with Hecate, and befriend
Us thy vowed priests, till utmost end

122. What hath night to do.] The infinitive is here used adjectively, describing the objective pronoun what. In the next line the infinitive to prove is adverbial to hath and governs which understood.

125. Rights.] That is, rites. So, in Spenser's Faerie Queene, I. vi. 15, Cybele's frantic rights.'

129. Cotytto.] The goddess of licentiousness. The festival of this Thracian divinity resembled that of the Phrygian Cybele. Her rites, and rites similar to hers, were called Cotyttia; and her worshippers were called Baptæ, because when initiated into her mysteries they were sprinkled with warm water. See Juvenal, ii. 91; Horace, Epod. xvii. 56. 131. The dragon womb, &c.] Night is here represented as a Stygian or Tartarean monster producing darkness. Sometimes

125

130

135

Of all thy dues be done, and none left out;
Ere the blabbing eastern scout,

The nice morn, on the Indian steep

From her cabined loop-hole peep,
And to the tell-tale sun descry

Our concealed solemnity.

Come, knit hands, and beat the ground

In a light fantastic round.

THE MEASURE.

Break off, break off, I feel the different pace
Of some chaste footingfnear about this ground.
Run to your
Shrouds within these brakes and trees;
Our number may affright;-Some virgin sure
(For so I can distinguish by mine art)

140

145

Benighted in these woods. Now to my charms,
And to my wily trains: I shall ere long

150

Be well stocked with as fair a herd as grazed
About my mother Circe. Thus I hurl

139. The nice morn, &c.] The Compare L'Allegrò, 33, prudish or fastidious morn on the eastern horizon.

140. Cabined loop-hole.] The epithet cabined here seems to mean confined or contracted like a cabin.

141. Descry.] Here employed in the unusual sense of give notice of; discover. Milton had in mind that passage in Fletcher's Faithful Shepherdess, iii. 1.

The sooner we begin, The longer ere the day descry our sin.

143. Beat the ground, &c.] So Horace speaks of beating the ground with light and playful foot: Od. I. xxxvii. 1.

Come, and trip it as you go,
On the light fantastic toe.

At this part of the Masque was
introduced a dance; a measure as
it is called, because dancing mea-
sures time with the music.

146. Near about.] The word near is adverbial to about this ground, which is adverbial to footing.

147. Shrouds.] Retreats, shel

ters.

149. So I can distinguish.] The magician has the sagacity to distinguish 'chaste footing' from the lascivious dancing of his

own crew.

My dazzling spells into the spungy air,
Of power to cheat the

eye

with blear illusion,

And give it false presentments, lest the place
And my quaint habits breed astonishment,
And put the damsel to suspicious flight;

Which must not be, for that's against my course;
I, under fair pretence of friendly ends,

And well-placed words of glozing courtesy,
Baited with reasons not unplausible,

Wind me into the easy-hearted man,

When once her eye

And hug him into snares.
Hath met the virtue of this magic dust,

I shall appear some harmless villager,
Whom thrift keeps up about his country gear.
But here she comes; I fairly step aside,

And hearken, if I may, her business here.

THE LADY enters.

Lady. This way the noise was, if mine ear be true-
My best guide now. Methought it was the sound
Of riot and ill-managed merriment,

154. Dazzling.] Beguiling, illusive. The air is called spungy, because as a sponge

holds water so the air held in suspension the magic dust which XComus threw into it.

His wonder far exceeded reason's reach,
That he began to doubt his dazzled sight.
Spenser, F. Q. II. xi. 40.

155. Blear.] Dim, or rather dimming.

156. Presentments.] Representations. So in Shakspeare's Hamlet, iii. 4, 'The counterfeit [i.e. copied] presentment of two brothers.'

157. Quaint habits.] Curious dress.

155

160

165

169

161. Glozing.] Feigning, pretending, insinuating.

167. Keeps up, &c.] Keeps up to this late hour minding his rustic business.

168. Fairly.] Gently, softly. So Fletcher, The Chances, iii. 4, 'We'll ride on fair and softly.'

171. Methought.] It thought me, i.e. I thought. In Chaucer and other old writers we fre

quently meet with such expres-
sions as it thinketh me, it thought
me, or me thinketh, me thought.

Madame, quoth he, how think you
thereby?
How that me thinketh? quoth she.
Chaucer's Clerk's Tale.