Et faciam vero per tua damna fidem. 37. Cydoniusque mihi, &c.] Perhaps indefinitely as the Parthus eques, just before. The Cydonians were famous for hunting, which implies archery. See Ovid, Metam. viii. 22. If a person is here intended, he is most probably Hippolytus. Cydon was a city of Crete. See Euripides, Hippol. v. 18. But then he is mentioned here as an archer. Virgil ranks the Cydonians with the Parthians, for their skill in the bow, Æn. xii. 852. Ibid. et ille, &c.] Cephalus, who unknowingly shot his wife Procris. 38. Est etiam nobis ingens quoque victus Orion,] Orion was also a famous hunter. But for his amours we must consult Ovid, Art. Amator. i. 731. See Parthenius, Erotic. cap. xx. 46. Nec tibi Phœbeus porriget anguis opem.] "No medicine " will avail you. Not even the " serpent, which Phœbus sent to "Rome to cure the city of a "pestilence." See Ovid, Metam. xi. 742. Huc se de Latia pinu Phœbeius anguis Where see the fable at large. Here Love his golden shafts employs, His constant lamp, and waves his purple wings. Where see the note. Evolat in tepidos Cypridos ille sinus. At mihi risuro tonuit ferus ore minaci, Et mihi de puero non metus ullus erat. Nec procul ipse vafer latuit, multæque sagittæ, 57. See note El. i. 50. In Milton's youth the fashionable places of walking in London were Hyde Park, and Gray's Inn walks. This appears from Sir A. Cokain, Milton's contemporary. Poems, Lond. 1662. 50 55 60 65 70 12mo. Written much earlier. A young lady, he says, p. 35. Frequents the theaters, Hide Park, or els talkes Away her pretious time in Gray's Inn walkes. Uror amans intus, flammaque totus eram. Interea misero quæ jam mihi sola placebat, Ablata est oculis non reditura meis. Ast ego progredior tacite querebundus, et excors, Ponar in exemplo primus et unus ego. 84. Vectus ab attonitis Amphiaraus equis.] An echo to a pentameter in Ovid, Ep. Pont. iii. i. 52. Notus humo mersis Amphiaraus equis. See Statius, Theb. vii. 821. Illum ingens haurit specus, et transire parantes Mergit equos; non arma manu, non frena remisit; Sicut erat, rectos defert in Tartara currus; 75 80 85 90 95 The application is beautiful from a young mind teeming with classical history and imagery. The allusion, in the last couplet, to Vulcan, is perhaps less happy, although the compliment is greater. In the example of Amphiaraus, the sudden and striking transition from light and the sun to a subterraneous gloom, per Respexitque cadens cœlum, campum haps is more to the poet's pur que coire Ingemuit, &c. pose. Et tua fumabunt nostris altaria donis, Solus et in superis tu mihi summus eris. Nescio cur, miser est suaviter omnis amans: 100 HÆC ego, mente olim læva, studioque supino, Et Diomedeam vim timet ipsa Venus.* 1. The elegiac poets were among the favourite classical author's of Milton's youth, Apol. Smectymn. "Others were the " smooth Elegiac Poets, whereof "the schools are not scarce: "whom, both for the pleasing " sound of their numerous writ"ing, which in imitation I found " most easy, and most agreeable "to nature's part in me; and " for their matter, which what it " is, there be few who know "not, I was so allured to read, " that no recreation came to me "better welcome." Prose W. vol. i. 100. 5.-umbrosa Academia] The studious walks, and shades, "the T 5 10 "olive grove of Academe, " Plato's retirement." Par. Reg. iv. 243. 10. Et Diomedeam vim timet ipsa Venus.] Ovid makes this sort of allusion to Homer's incident of Venus wounded by Diomed. In the Remedy of Love, v. 5. Non ego Tydides, a quo tua saucia mater In liquidum rediit æthera, Martis See also Metam. xiv. 491. And These lines are an epilogistic of beauty. In other words, his return to the University. They were probably written when the Latin poems were prepared for the press in 1645. * Milton here, at an early period of life, renounces the levities of love and gallantry. This was not the case with Buchanan, who unbecomingly prolonged his amorous descant to graver years, and who is therefore obliquely censured by Milton in the following passage of Lycidas, hitherto not exactly understood, v. 67. Were it not better done, as others use, To sport with Amaryllis in the shade Or with the tangles of Neæra's hair ? The Amaryllis, to whom Milton alludes, is the Amaryllis of Buchanan, the subject of a poem called Desiderium Lutetiæ. See Silvæ, iii. tom. ii. p. 50. Opp. Edinb. 1715. fol. It begins, O formosa Amarylli, tuo jam septima bruma Me procul aspectu, &c. The common poetical name, Amaryllis, might indeed have been accidentally adopted by both poets; nor does it at first sight appear, that Milton used it with any restrictive meaning. But Buchanan had another mistress whom he calls Neæra, whose golden hair makes a very splendid figure in his verses, and which he has complimented more than once in the most hyperbolical style. In his last Elegy, he raises the following extravagant fiction on the luxuriant tangles of this lady's hair. Cupid is puzzled how to subdue the icy poet. His arrows can do nothing. At length, he hits upon the stratagem of cutting a golden lock from Neæra's head, while she is asleep, with which the VOL. IV. Hoc laqueo facilem dum mihi spero fugam: Ast ubi tentanti spes irrita cessit, ahenis Non secus ac manicis implicitus genui. Et modo membra pilo vinctus miser abstraher uno. And to this Neæra many copies are addressed both in Buchanan's Epigrams, and in his Hendecasyllables. Milton's insinuation, as others use, cannot therefore be doubted. "Why should I " strictly meditate the thankless " muse, and write sublime poetry " which is not regarded? I had "better, like some other poets, " who might be more properly "employed, write idle compli"ments to Amaryllis and Neæra." Perhaps the old reading, " Hid " in the tangles of Neæra's hair," tends to confirm this sense. It X |