The Annotated Milton: Complete English Poems (173 page)
Read The Annotated Milton: Complete English Poems Online
Authors: John Milton,Burton Raffel
Tags: #Fiction, #General, #Literary Collections, #Poetry, #Classics, #English; Irish; Scottish; Welsh, #English poetry
1094
holding funereal ashes
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1095
black burial sheet
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1096
brook, stream
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1097
meadows, glades
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1098
their flocks
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1099
what time = when, at the time when
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1100
a brownish beetle known as a cockchafer or dorfly/dorhawk
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1101
blows (strictly, “hums” or “buzzes”)
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1102
summertime/ hot-weather heat
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1103
fattening? feeding? watering?
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1104
Hesperus (Venus)
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1105
“wheel” because heavenly objects were thought to be located in “spheres”
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1106
tuned, in harmony with
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1107
oat stems/straws
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1108
woodland gods/demons, part human, part beast
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1109
a tutor at Cambridge?
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1111
poems, songs
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1112
plant-disease of an ulcerous sort
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1113
worm or crawling larva, an intestinal parasite thought to infect sheep, cattle, etc.
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1114
recently weaned
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1116
slopes, hills, mountains, cliffs, etc.
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1117
Celtic minstrel-poets
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1118
the island of Anglesey, in the Irish Sea
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1119
the River Dee
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1121
Calliope [four syllables, second and fourth accented]
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1122
i.e., she who bore Orpheus
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1123
was mother to
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1124
(1) performing magic, (2) entrancing, charming
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1126
mob, throng, crowd, rabble, etc., all female, though it is unclear whether they were (1) Thracian women jealous of Eurydice or (2) Maenads angry that Orpheus did not properly honor their god, Dionysus
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1127
his head had been cut off; in some versions of the story, the severed head continued to sing
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1128
profits, avails
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1129
simple, plain
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1131
generic shepherdess name
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1132
see footnote 20, immediately above
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1133
positive, determined, unobstructed, pure
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1134
stimulate, incite
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1137
Atropus (“irresistible”)
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1138
Phoebus Apollo, god of poetry
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1140
metal hammered into very thin sheets and used to set off some gem or glittering stone
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1143
recompense, reward
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1144
the nymph Arethusa fled from a sea god, Alpheus; Diana turned her into a fountain, but he—a river—flowed under the sea and was thus united with her
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1145
river, stream
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1146
river running through Mantua, home of Virgil
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1147
pastoral song
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1148
Triton, a merman, son of Poseidon and Amphitrite, a Nereid
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1149
cruel, terrible, wicked
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1150
rough, stormy, strong
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1151
winds represented as great birds
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1152
pointed, hooked
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1153
god of the winds [four syllables, second and fourth accented]
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1154
water nymph [trisyllabic, first and third accented]
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1155
during, subject to
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1156
“Eclipses are misfortunes….
Funk & Wagnalls Standard Dictionary of Folklore, Mythology, and Legend,
ed. Maria Leach (New York: Harper, 1972),
p. 337
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1157
secret, foul, evil
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1158
River Cam, which flows through Cambridge (and from which, of course, the town takes its name)
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1160
made of reedlike plants
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1162
the hyacinth
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1165
St. Peter, wearing a bishop’s miter (headdress) and carrying the keys to Heaven’s gates
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1169
the prosody is helped if “they are” is contracted: did Milton perhaps intend it to be sounded as spoken?
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1170
successful, prosperous
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1172
trifling, showy
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1174
corrupt, foul, festering, virulent
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1177
plague, pestilence, moral corruption
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1178
savage, cruel
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1180
at a rapid pace, swiftly, right away
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1181
as Roy Flannagan has said, “perhaps the most famous crux in English literature”
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1182
see note 33 to line 85, above
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1183
revered, authoritative
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1184
uncertain: perhaps Theocritus, pastoral poet, who may have been born in Sicily
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1186
as in “bluebells,”“harebells,” etc.
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1187
small flowers
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1188
are customary
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1189
playful, sportive
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1191
a hollow among hills
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1192
the Dog Star, Sirius
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1193
frugally, abstemiously
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1194
clever, lovely, dainty
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1195
the colored center of flowers
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1196
spring, springlike
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1199
sober, steadfast, constant, mournful
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1200
crowned with laurel
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1201
wood frame to hold flowers; funeral carriage
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1202
introduce, put forward
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1203
islands off the Scottish coast
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1204
engulfing, submerging
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1205
the sea was thought to be full of monsters
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1206
tear-strewn
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1207
i.e., we pray for you to be returned, but our prayers (“vows”) are denied
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1208
the Roman name for Land’s End, in Cornwall; perhaps a reference to some Cornish giant—or perhaps (since Milton first wrote and then crossed out “Corineus”) inserted strictly for prosodic reasons
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1209
Mount St. Michael’s, near Land’s End in Cornwall, and across the English Channel from Mont-St.-Michel, in France
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1211
a fortress (“hold”) near Cape Finisterre, in Spain
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1212
pity, compassion
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1213
carry, transport
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1214
i.e., the sun
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1215
soon, in a little while
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1216
to restore, renew, mend
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1218
precious metal, here clearly “gold”
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1219
muddy, damp
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1220
bathes, washes
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1221
inexpressible
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1222
grand, sacred, formal
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1223
companies, groups, bands
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1224
fellowships
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1226
guardian spirit
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1228
reparation, compensation
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