Six Centuries of English Poetry Part 31

"The gilded car of day His glowing axle doth allay."

20. =lawn.= Used in its original sense of a pasture, or open, gra.s.sy s.p.a.ce. Formerly _laund_. Similarly we have _lane_, an open pa.s.sage between houses or fields.

21. =Or ere.= _Or_ is here used in its old sense, meaning _before_, from A.-S. _aer_. _Ere_ = e'er, ever. Compare Ecclesiastes xii. 6: "Or ever the silver cord be loosed." Also "King Lear," Act ii, sc. 4:

"But this heart Shall break into a hundred thousand flaws Or ere I'll weep."

22. =Pan.= See note, page 72. The application of the name _Pan_ to Christ is evidently derived from Spenser. See "Shepheards Calendar," July:

"And such, I ween, the brethren were That came from Canaan, The brethren Twelve, that kept yfere The flocks of mightie Pan."

In the Glosse to the Calendar for May it is said that "Great Pan is Christ, the very G.o.d of all shepheards, which calleth himselfe the great and good shepheard. The name is most rightly (methinks) applied to him; for Pan signifieth all, or omnipotent, which is only the Lord Iesus. And by that name (as I remember) he is called of Eusebius in his fifth booke, _De Preparat. Evange._"

23. =silly.= From A.-S. _saelig_, blessed, happy. Spenser uses the word in the sense of innocent, as in "Faerie Queene," III, viii, 27:

"The silly virgin strove him to withstand."

Chaucer, in the "Reves Tale," uses it in the more modern sense of simple, or foolish:

"These sely clerkes han ful fast yronne."

But in the "Legend of Good Women" it has another meaning:

"O sely woman, full of innocence."

The meaning of this word has completely changed.

24. =strook.= Caused to sound as on a stringed instrument. Compare Dryden in "Alexander's Feast":

"Now strike the golden lyre again."

25. =noise.= A company of musicians under a leader. Used in this sense by both Shakespeare and Ben Jonson.

26. =close.= Cadence. See Dryden, "Fables":

"At every _close_ she made, th' attending throng Replied, and bore the burden of the song."

27. =hollow round.= The sphere in which the moon has its motion. See notes 9 and 34.

=Cynthia.= The moon. In the ancient mythology applied to Artemis, from Mount Cynthus in the island of Delos, her birthplace.

28. =its.= In all his poetry, Milton uses this word only three times. The other examples are in "Paradise Lost," I, 254, and IV, 814. This possessive form of the p.r.o.noun it was never used until the time of Shakespeare, who employs it five times in "A Winter's Tale," and once in "Measure for Measure"; it does not occur anywhere in the authorized version of the Bible.

29. Why are the Cherubim "helmed," while the Seraphim are "sworded"?

Addison says, "Some of the rabbins tell us that the cherubims are a set of angels who know most, and the seraphims a set of angels who love most." Observe that the plural of cherub or of seraph may be formed in three ways: viz. cherubs, cherubim, cherubims; seraphs, seraphim, seraphims.

30. =unexpressive.= Inexpressible. See Shakespeare, "As You Like It":

"The fair, the chaste, the unexpressive she."

Also Milton, "Lycidas," 176:

"And hears the unexpressive nuptiall song."

31. =the sons of Morning sung.= See Job x.x.xviii. 4-7, the oldest reference to the "music of the spheres." See note 34, below.

32. =hinges.= Literally, a hinge is anything for hanging something upon.

From A.-S. _hangian_.

33. =weltring.= Rolling, wallowing. See "Lycidas," 13.

34. =Ring out.= An allusion to the music of the spheres. See note 27, above. The theory of Pythagoras was that the distances between the heavenly bodies were determined by the laws of musical concord. "These orbs in their motion could not but produce a certain sound or note, depending upon their distances and velocities; and as these were regulated by harmonic laws, they necessarily formed as a whole a complete musical scale." "In the whorl of the distaff of necessity there are eight concentric whorls. These whorls represent respectively the sun and moon, the five planets, and the fixed stars. On each whorl sits a siren singing. Their eight tones make one exquisite harmony." Milton added a ninth whorl,--"that swift nocturnal and diurnal rhomb,"--and then spoke of the "ninefold harmony," as just below. This was a favorite idea with the poets.

"Sure she was nigher to heaven's spheres, Listening the lordly music flowing from The illimitable years."

--_Tennyson_, _Ode to Memory_.

"The music of the spheres! list, my Mariana!"

--_Shakespeare_, _Pericles_, Act v, sc. 1.

"There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st But in his motion like an angel sings Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubims."

--_Shakespeare_, _Merchant of Venice_, Act v, sc. 1.

"If Nature thunder'd in his opening ears, And stunn'd him with the music of the spheres, How would he wish that Heaven had left him still The whispering zephyr and the purling rill!"

--_Pope_, _Essay on Man_, I.

"Her voice, the music of the spheres, So loud, it deafens mortals' ears, As wise philosophers have thought, And that's the cause we hear it not."

--_Butler's Hudibras_, II, i, 617.

See, also, Montaigne, _Essays_, I, xxii; Sir Thomas Browne's _Religio Medici_, II, 9; Plato's _Republic_, VI; Dryden's "Ode to Mrs. Anne Killigrew," etc.

35. =consort.= Accompaniment. This word, so written until Milton's time, has now given place to _concert_, whenever used as here.

36. =age of Gold.= The fabled primeval age of universal happiness.

"A blisful lyfe, a peseable, and so swete, Ledde the peplis in the former age."--_Chaucer._

37. =mould.= Matter, substance. The word is used in the old Romances to denote the earth itself. Milton elsewhere says:

"Can any mortal mixture of earth's mould Breathe such divine, enchanting ravishment?"

38. =her.= Observe what has already been said (note 28, above) about the p.r.o.noun _its_. _h.e.l.l_, in the Anglo-Saxon language, is feminine. But, just above, observe the expression _it self_. See, in the last line of stanza xv, the p.r.o.noun _her_ with _heaven_ as its antecedent. _Heofon_, in the Anglo-Saxon, is also feminine.

39. This stanza is a fine example of word-painting. What idea is conveyed to your mind by the expressions, "orb'd in a rainbow," "like glories wearing," "thron'd in celestiall sheen," "the tissued clouds down stearing," etc.? What kind of glories will Mercy wear? Where will she sit? How will she be enthroned? What are _radiant_ feet? Why are Mercy's feet radiant? Does she steer the tissued clouds "with radiant feet," or does she steer herself down the tissued clouds? Why will the opening of Heaven's high palace wall be "as at some festivall"?

40. =bitter cross.= Compare Shakespeare, "1 Henry IV," Act i, sc. 1, 27:

"Those blessed feet Which fourteen hundred years ago were nail'd For our advantage, on the bitter cross."