An Introduction to the Prose and Poetical Works of John Milton / Comprising All the Autobiographic Passages in His Works, the More Explicit Presentations of His Ideas of True Liberty.

by John Milton

[797]. brute: senseless; lend her nerves: i.e. to this sacred vehemence.

[800-806]. spoken aside.

[804]. speaks thunder: threatens thunder and the chains of Erebus to some of the Titans who are disposed to be rebellious in their imprisonment in Tartarus. It seems to be meant that Erebus is a more painful region than that into which they were cast after their defeat by Jove (Zeus).

[815]. snatched his wand: see v. 653.

[816]. without his rod reversed: the process, as related in Ovid, 'Met.,' xiv. 299-305, by which the companions of Ulysses are, through his intervention, retransformed by Circe.

[822]. Melibœus: Spenser is probably referred to.

[823]. soothest: truest, most faithful.

[826]. Sabrina: the legend of Sabrina is told by Geoffrey of Monmouth, in his 'Latin History of the Britons'; by Drayton, in his 'Polyolbion,' 6th Song; by Warner, in his 'Albion's England'; by Spenser, in his 'Faerie Queene,' II. x. 14-19, and by Milton, in the first book of his 'History of Britain.'

[835]. Nereus: 'the good spirit of the Ægean Sea,' father of the nereids or sea-nymphs.

[852]. old swain: Melibœus.