On Passages in Milton
"And every shepherd tells his tale
Under the hawthorn in the dale."
Milton's L'Allegro.
I used to suppose the tale told was a love tale. Now I take it to mean that each shepherd tells the tale, that is, counts the number of his sheep. Is there any doubt on this point?
Milton (Paradise Lost, b. v.), speaks of "silent night with this her solemn bird;" that is, the nightingale. Most readers take "solemn" to mean "pensive;" but I cannot doubt that Milton (who carries Latinism to excess) used it to express habitual, customary, familiar, as in its Latin form sollemnis.
B.H.K.