[65.] Remember L’Allegro’s [not unseen].
[77.] Up to this point Il Penseroso has been walking in the open air.
[78. removed],—remote, retired.
[87.] As the Bear never sets, to outwatch him must mean to sit up all night.
[88. With thrice great Hermes.] “Hermes Trismegistos—Hermes thrice-greatest—is the name given by the Neo-Platonists and the devotees of mysticism and alchemy to the Egyptian god Thoth, regarded as more or less identified with the Grecian Hermes, and as the author of all mysterious doctrines, and especially of the secrets of alchemy.” (The New Eng. Dicty.) To such studies the serious mediæval scholars devoted themselves. To unsphere the spirit of Plato is to call him from the sphere in which he abides in the other world, or, simply, to take in hand for study his writings on immortality.
[93-96.] On the four classes of demons,—Salamanders, Sylphs, Nymphs, Gnomes,—see Pope’s Rape of the Lock. These demons are in complicity with the planets and other heavenly bodies to influence mortals.
[97-102. Thebes, Pelops’ line], and the tale of Troy are the staple subjects of the great Attic tragedians. It seems strange that the poet finds no occasion to name Shakespeare here, as well as in L’Allegro.
[104-105. Musæus and Orpheus] are semi-mythical bards, to whom is ascribed a greatness proportioned to their obscurity.
[105-108.] See [note on L’Allegro, 149].
[109-115. Or call up him that left half-told.] This refers to Chaucer and to his Squieres Tale in the Canterbury Tales. It is left unfinished. Note that Milton changes not only the spelling but the accent of the chief character’s name. Chaucer writes, “This noble king was cleped Cambinskan.”