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

'Yet of another plea bethought him soon.'—P. R., iii. 149.

'Weakness is thy excuse, . . .

All wickedness is weakness; that plea therefore

With God or man will gain thee no remission.'

—S. A., 834.

Keightley explains that Triton 'came, deputed by Neptune, to hold a judicial inquiry into the affair. We have the Pleas of the Crown and the Court of Common Pleas.'

[96]. Hippotades: a patronymic of Æolus, god of the winds.

[98]. the level brine: in v. 167, 'the watery floor.'

[99]. Sleek Panope: one of the sea-nymphs, daughter of Nereus; the name (in Gk. Πανόπη) seems to indicate that the nymph is a personification of a smooth sea ('level brine') which affords a full view all around to the horizon. The voyager on such a sea is 'ringed with the azure world.' The epithet 'sleek' is in accord with the personification.

[100-102]. It was that fatal: these verses are not part of the answer which Hippotades brings; the poet speaks in his own person.