The Annotated Milton: Complete English Poems (172 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
957
thrusting forward, intruding
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958
decked, dressed
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959
sift, examine
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961
blame, burden
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964
suitable, seemly
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965
[four syllables, first and third accented]
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966
[four syllables, second and fourth accented]
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967
showy, dazzling
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969
the practice of swordplay
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971
i.e., Jove consigns the rebels against him to “the chains” of Hell
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972
test, afflict
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973
i.e., creation
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974
sediments, dregs
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976
disjoining, parting, separating
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978
character in Spenser’s
Fairie Queene
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979
truest, most genuine
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980
played his pipe/flute
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981
check, restraint
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983
river flowing out of Wales, ending in Bristol Channel
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984
once upon a time
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985
son of Brutus, legendary founder of Britain
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989
sea god, father of the Nereids
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991
spiritual cleansers
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994
breaths of malignant air, curses, infections
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995
sing joyously
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998
surrounding, hemming in
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1000
[four syllables, second and fourth accented] Oceanus’ wife, mother of rivers, is Tethys; Neptune = Poseidon, god of the sea and of earthquakes; Nereus is father of the Nereids, one of whom is Thetis; the “Carpathian wizard” is Proteus, a shape-shifter; Triton is son of Poseidon and Amphitrite, human from the waist up, fish below; Glaucus is a fisherman who became immortal and a sea god; Leucothea is a Greek sea goddess; Parthenope is a Siren, as is Ligéa.
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1001
blown, sounded
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1002
[four syllables, first and third accented]
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1003
beaches, shores
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1004
[four syllables, second and fourth accented]
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1005
sly, artful
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1006
raise, lift
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1007
toss one’s head
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1008
[adjective]
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1009
shackle, chain, fetter, etc.
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1010
constrained, pressed tightly
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1012
healing effect
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1013
viscous resinlike secretions
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1016
Neptune’s wife [four syllables, first and third accented]
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1017
Trojan prince, father of Aeneas
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1018
small, minor
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1019
small streams, brooks
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1021
transparent pale green precious stone
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1023
come, congregate
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1024
quick, abrupt lowering of head or body
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1025
customs, behavior
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1026
prepare, invent
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1027
affectedly elegant or dainty
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1028
tree nymphs [trisyllabic, first and third accented]
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1029
open ground, grassy pasture
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1030
tests, trials
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1032
trim, dapper, neat
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1034
walkways, passages
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1035
aromatic balsam
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1036
goddess of the rainbow
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1037
cause to blossom/bloom
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1038
embroidered, trimmed
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1039
wonderfully handsome youth: one day while he was hunting, he was seen by Aphrodite/Venus, who fell in love with him—and when he was killed by a wild boar, from his blood grew the rose, and from her tears, the anemone
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1041
Aphrodite/Venus
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1043
Cupid falls in love with Psyche, a mortal; she disobeys him and is deserted by him; thereafter she goes through trial after trial and, eventually, reclaims and is married to him [bisyllabic; the first letter is silent]
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1048
the music of the spheres
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1049
weak, infirm
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1050
the poem was intended to be “set on a clock case”
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1051
see footnote 40 immediately below
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1052
the leaden weight that animates the clock’s works
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1053
(1) womb, (2) stomach, belly
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1054
scum, rubbish, dregs
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1055
indivisible?
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1056
left behind [adjective]
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1057
sixth order in the nine ranks of the celestial hierarchy
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1058
heraldic pomp (“herald” = officer who makes state pronouncements and delivers state messages)
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1059
erewhile, once
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1060
[adjective, modifying “sin”]
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1061
spelled in Milton’s manuscript “sease,” this word could be either “seize” or “cease”
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1062
judgment, sentence
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1063
“And I [God] will establish my covenant between me and thee [Abraham] and thy seed after thee in their generations, for an everlasting covenant” (Genesis 17:7)
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1064
[adjective]
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1066
not discordant
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1067
concord, harmony [four syllables, first and third accented]
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1068
primal, original
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1069
(1) fellowship, (2) company of musicians
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1070
a generic shepherd’s name—announcing, as it were, that the genre of the poem is the classic pastoral
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1071
lyric ode sung by a single voice; in the pastoral tradition, an interior monologue or soliloquy
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1072
Edward King, a fellow student at Cambridge
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1073
by occasion = the poem, written because of this fatal occasion….
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1074
(1) symbolic of poetry, (2) symbolic of fame: the laurel, an evergreen, is sacred to Apollo, god of poetry
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1075
sacred to Venus
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1076
sacred to Bacchus, the god of wine
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1077
dry, withered
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1079
constrained
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1080
inexperienced, unskilled
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1082
obligation, necessity
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1083
roll to and fro
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1084
withering, shriveling
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1085
recompense, reward, honor
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1089
so may = in the future, when Milton dies, he too may be thus mourned by “some gentle muse”
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1090
noble, excellent, honorable
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1091
fortunate, successful
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