[43. With a sad leaden downward cast.] So in Love’s Labor’s Lost IV 3 321, “In leaden contemplation;” Othello III 4 177, “I have this while with leaden thoughts been pressed.” So also Gray in the Hymn to Adversity, “With leaden eye that loves the ground.”
[45-55.] Compare the company which Il Penseroso entreats Melancholy to bring along with her with that which L’Allegro wishes to see attending Mirth.
[46. Spare Fast, that oft with gods doth diet.] Only the rigid ascetic has a spiritual ear so finely trained that he hears the celestial music.
[48. Aye], as their rhymes show, is always pronounced by the poets with the vowel sound in day.
[53. the fiery-wheeled throne.] See Daniel VII 9.
[54. The Cherub Contemplation.] Pronounce contemplation with five syllables. It is difficult to form a distinct conception of the nature and office of the cherub of the Scriptures. Milton in many passages of Par. Lost follows, with regard to the heavenly beings, the account given by Dionysius the Areopagite in his Celestial Hierarchy. According to Dionysius there were nine orders or ranks of beings in heaven, namely,—seraphim, cherubim, thrones, dominions, virtues, powers, principalities, archangels, angels. The cherubim have the special attribute of knowledge and contemplation of divine things.
[55. hist], primarily an interjection commanding silence, becomes here a verb.
[56.] With the introduction of the nightingale comes the first intimation of the time of day at which Il Penseroso conceives the course of his satisfactions to begin.
[57.] Everywhere else in Milton plight is used with its modern connotations.
[59.] The moon stops to hear the nightingale’s song.