awhile to point out the distinguishing genius of Athens. That city had then for two centuries been under the dominion of Rome, but her language, her monuments, her traditions, and many of her institutions still existed; and thither the best educated of the Romans resorted to complete their course of study. Milton's verses represent Athens thus:
Where on the Egean shore a city stands Built nobly, pure the air, and light the soil, Athens the eye of Greece, mother of arts And eloquence, native to famous wits Or hospitable, in her sweet recess, City or suburban, studious walks and shades; See there the olive grove of Academe, Plato's retirement, where the Attic bird Trills her thick-warbled notes the summer long. There flowery hill Hymettus with the sound Of bees' industrious murmur oft invites To studious musing; there Ilissus rolls His whisp'ring stream; within the wall then view The schools of ancient sages; his who bred Great Alexander to subdue the world, Lyceum there, and painted Stoa next :
There shalt thou hear and learn the secret power Of harmony in tones and numbers hit
By voice or hand, and various-measur'd verse, Eolian charms and Dorian lyric odes,
And his who gave them breath, but higher sung, Blind Melesigenes thence Homer call'd, Whose poem Phoebus challeng'd for his own. Thence what the lofty grave tragedians taught In chorus or iambick, teachers best Of moral prudence, with delight receiv'd In brief sententious precepts, while they treat Of fate and chance, and change in human life; High actions and high passions best describing. Thence to the famous orators repair, Those ancient, whose resistless eloquence
Wielded at will that fierce democratie, Shook th' arsenal and fulmin'd over Greece, To Macedon and Artaxerxes' throne.
To sage philosophy next lend thine ear, From heav'n descended to the low-rooft house Of Socrates; see there his tenement, Whom well inspir'd the oracle pronounc'd Wisest of men; from whose mouth issued forth Mellifluous streams that water'd all the schools Of academics, old and new, with those Sirnam'd Peripatetics, and the sect Epicurean, and the Stoic severe.
The poets, orators, and philosophical schools of Athens are only mentioned here. Eschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides were the grave tragedians-teachers best of moral prudence. The challenge of Phoebus means that Homer's poetry was declared by some to be that of Apollo himself. Folian charms and Dorian lyric odes, alludes to different measures and dialects of Greek poetry. He, who bred great Alexander, was the philosopher Aristotle. The chief of the thundering orators, was Demosthenes, who exhorted his countrymen, by the most powerful eloquence, to resist Philip of Macedon; and Socrates was so pure, humble, and powerful a moralist, that he has sometimes been compared with the founder of our religion.
Among the ancients, Comus was the god of low pleasures of those noisy and foolish frolics which are suited to night rather than to day, and which some ignorant and intemperate people delight in. Milton's Masque. of Comus is a beautiful poem: it is founded upon the supposed power which Comus possesses over the minds of the pure and wise, and over the weak and sensual. Milton presumes that when men devote themselves to the rites of Comus, that is to excessive drinking, and, as the
Gospel says, to" riotous living," they become in reality beasts, though they know not that they are thus degraded, but, that if the mind is firm in good principles, it will resist every attraction of vice, and retain its innocence under the strongest temptations. Comus was written in the dramatic form, to be represented by the Earl of Bridgewater's family at Ludlow Castle.
The fable of Comus is this-A beautiful lady, accompanied by her two brothers, is journeying through the perplexed paths of a drear wood. A spirit from heaven, charged with the care of the young travellers, secretly watches over them, but the brothers for a while are separated from their sister. The lady, in the absence of her brothers, is found by Comus, but she resists all his attractions; and though she is endangered, finally escapes from his snares.
"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."
The lady hears this noise, but does not see the revellers. She is introduced listening and in doubt, but encouraging herself in her own innocence, and in the gracious protection of the "Supreme Good."
"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,
Such as the jocund flute, or gamesome pipe Stirs up among the loose unletter'd hinds, When from their teeming flocks, and granges full, In wanton dance they praise the bounteous Pan, And thank the gods amiss. I should be loath To meet the rudeness, and swill'd insolence Of such late wassailers; yet O where else Shall I inform my unacquainted feet
In the blind mazes of this tangled wood? My brothers, when they saw me wearied out With this long way, resolving here to lodge Under the spreading favour of these pines, Stept, as they said, to the next thicket side To bring me berries, or such cooling fruit As the kind hospitable woods provide.
They left me then, when the gray-hooded Even, Like a sad votarist in Palmer's weed,
Rose from the hindmost wheels of Phoebus' wain, But where they are, and why they came not back, Is now the labour of my thoughts:
* * * * A thousand fantasies
Begin to throng into my memory,
Of calling shapes, and beck'ning shadows dire, And aëry tongues, that syllable mens' names, On sands, and shores, and desert wildernesses. These thoughts may startle well, but not astound The virtuous mind, that ever walks attended By a strong siding champion, conscience.- O welcome pure-ey'd Faith, white-handed Hope, Thou hovering angel girt with golden wings, And thou unblemish'd form of chastity;
I see ye visibly, and now believe
That he, the Supreme Good, t' whom all things ill Are but as slavish officers of vengeance, Would send a glist'ring guardian if need were To keep my life and honour unassail'd.
Was I deceiv'd, or did a sable cloud Turn forth her silver lining on the night? I did not err, there does a sable cloud Turn forth her silver lining on the night, And casts a gleam over this tufted grove. I cannot hallow to my brothers, but
Such noise as I can make to be heard farthest
I'll venture, for my new enliv❜ned spirits Prompt me; and they perhaps are not far off.
Sweet Echo, sweetest nymph, that liv'st unseen Within thy aëry shell,
By slow Meander's margent green, And in the violet-embroider'd vale, Where the love-lorn nightingale Nightly to thee her sad song mourneth well; Canst thou not tell me of a gentle pair That like thy Narcissus are?
Hid them in some flow'ry cave, Tell me but where,
Sweet queen of parly, daughter of the sphere, So may'st thou be translated to the skies, And give resounding grace to all heav'n's harmonies. COMUS appears to the lady in the disguise of a shepherd. Com. Can any mortal mixture of earth's mould Breathe such divine, enchanting ravishment? Sure something holy lodges in that breast, And with these raptures moves the vocal air To testify his hidden residence :
How sweetly did they float upon the wings Of silence, through the empty vaulted night, At every fall smoothing the raven down Of darkness till it smil'd! I have oft heard My mother Circe with the Sirens three, Amidst the flowery kirtled Naiades Culling their potent herbs, and baleful drugs. Who as they sung, would take the prison'd soul, And lap it in Elysium; Scylla wept, And chid her barking waves into attention, And fell Charybdis murmur'd soft applause ; Yet they in pleasing slumber lull'd the sense, And in sweet madness robb'd it of itself; But such a sacred, and homefelt delight, Such sober certainty of waking bliss I never heard till now. I'll speak to her, And she shall be my queen. Hail foreign wonder,
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