[171.] Methought, i.e. it seemed to me. In the verb ‘methinks’ me is the dative, and thinks is an impersonal verb (A.S. thincan, to appear), quite distinct from the causal verb ‘I think,’ which is from A.S. thencan, to make to appear.
[173.] jocund, merry. Comp. L’Allegro, 94, “the jocund rebecks sound.” gamesome, lively. This word, like many other adjectives in -some, is now less common than it was in Elizabethan English: many such adjectives are obsolete, e.g. laboursome, joysome, quietsome, etc. (see Trench’s English, Past and Present, v.).
[174.] unlettered hinds, ignorant rustics (A.S. hina, a domestic).
[175.] granges, granaries, barns (Lat. granum, grain). The word is now applied to a farm-house with its outhouses.
[176.] Pan, the god of everything connected with pastoral life: see Arc. 106, “Though Syrinx your Pan’s mistress were.”
[177.] thank the gods amiss. Amiss stands for M.E. on misse = in error. “Perhaps there is a touch of Puritan rigour in this. The gods should be thanked in solemn acts of devotion, and not by merry-making” (Keightley). See Introduction.
[178.] swilled insolence, etc., i.e. the drunken rudeness of those carousing at this late hour. Swill: to swill is to drink greedily, hence to drink like a pig. wassailers; from ‘wassail’ [A.S. waes hael; from wes, be thou, and hál, whole (modern English hale)], a form of salutation, used in drinking one’s health; and hence employed in the sense of ‘revelling’ or ‘carousing.’ The ‘wassail-bowl’ here referred to is the “spicy nutbrown ale” of L’Allegro, 100. In Scott’s Ivanhoe, the Friar drinks to the Black Knight with the words, “Waes hale, Sir Sluggish Knight,” the Knight replying “Drink hale, Holy Clerk.”
[180.] inform ... feet. Comp. Sams. Agon. 335: “hither hath informed your younger feet.” This use of ‘inform’ (= direct) is well illustrated in Spenser’s F. Q. vi. 6: “Which with sage counsel, when they went astray, He could enforme, and then reduce aright.”
[184.] spreading favour. Epithet transferred from cause to effect.
[187.] kind hospitable woods: an instance of the pathetic fallacy which attributes to inanimate objects the feelings of men: comp. ll. [194, 195]. As in this line (after such) has the force of a relative pronoun.