[621.] A virtuous plant is a plant which has virtues, i.e. powers or qualities.
[624. Which when I did.] The modern English has lost the power of beginning a sentence thus, with two relatives.
[626. scrip,] a word in no way connected with script.
[627. And show me simples of a thousand names.] Compare Hamlet IV 7 145, “no cataplasm so rare, Collected from all simples that have virtue Under the moon.”
[634. Unknown and like esteemed:] neither known nor esteemed.
[635. Treads on it daily with his clouted shoon.] See 2 Henry VI. IV 2 195,—“Spare none but such as go in clouted shoon,” and Hamlet IV 5 26,—“By his cockle hat and staff, And his sandal shoon.”
[636.] The story of Hermes’ giving Ulysses the Moly read in Odyssey X. “Therewith the slayer of Argos gave me the plant that he had plucked from the ground, and he showed me the growth thereof. It was black at the root, but the flower was like to milk. Moly the gods call it, but it is hard for mortal men to dig; howbeit with the gods all things are possible.”
[638. He called it Hæmony.] Hæmony is a nonce-word of Milton’s own coining. He may have derived it from a Greek word meaning skilful or from another meaning blood.
[640. mildew blast, or damp.] Blast is defined by Dr. Murray: “A sudden infection destructive to vegetable or animal life (formerly attributed to the blowing or breath of some malignant power, foul air, etc.)”; and damp: “An exhalation, a vapor or gas, of a noxious kind.”
[641. Or ghastly Furies’ apparition:] or the appearance of terrifying ghosts.