P. 98. [4]. Pegaséan wing: above the flight of 'the poet's winged steed' of classical mythology.
P. 98. [5]. the meaning, not the name: Urania was the name of one of the Grecian Muses; he invokes not her, but what her name signifies, the Heavenly one. See vv. 38, 39.
P. 98. [8]. Before the hills appeared: Prov. viii. 23-31.
P. 98. [10]. didst play: the King James's version, Prov. viii. 30, reads, 'rejoicing always before him'; the Vulgate, 'ludens coram eo omni tempore.'
P. 98. [15]. thy tempering: the empyreal air was tempered for, adapted to, his breathing, as a mortal, by the Heavenly Muse.
P. 98. [17]. this flying steed: i.e. this higher poetic inspiration than that represented by the classical Pegasus; unreined: unbridled, infrenis.
P. 98. [18]. Bellerophon: thrown from Pegasus when attempting to soar upon the winged horse to heaven.
P. 99. [19]. Aleian field: in Asia Minor, where Bellerophon, after he was thrown from Pegasus, wandered and perished; πεδίον τὸ Ἀλήïον, Iliad, vi. 201, land of wandering (ἄλη).
P. 99. [20]. erroneous there to wander: to wander without knowing whither; Lat. erroneus; forlorn: entirely lost; 'for' is intensive.
P. 99. [21]. Half yet remains unsung: 'half of the episode, not of the whole work, . . . the episode has two principal parts, the war in heaven, and the new creation; the one was sung, but the other remained unsung, . . . but narrower bound, . . . this other half is not rapt so much into the invisible world as the former, it is confined in narrower compass, and bound within the visible sphere of day.'—Newton.