[473.] As loth, etc. The construction is: ‘As (being) loth to leave the body that it loved, and (as having) linked itself to a degenerate and degraded state.’ it: by syntax this pronoun refers to ‘shadows,’ or (in thought) ‘such shadow.’ It seems best, however, to connect it with ‘soul,’ line [467].
[474.] sensualty. The modern form of the word is sensuality.
[475.] degenerate and degraded: the former because ‘imbodied,’ the latter because ‘imbruted.’
[476.] divine Philosophy, i.e. such philosophy as is to be found in “the divine volume of Plato” (as Milton has called it).
[477.] crabbed, sour or bitter: comp. crab-apple. Crab (a shell-fish) and crab (a kind of apple) are radically connected, both conveying the idea of scratching or pinching (Skeat).
[478.] Apollo’s lute: Apollo being the god of song and music. Comp. Par. Reg. i. 478-480; L. L. L. iv. 3. 342, “as sweet and musical As bright Apollo’s lute, strung with his hair.”
[479.] nectared sweets. Nectar (Gk. νέκταρ, the drink of the gods) is repeatedly used by Milton to express the greatest sweetness: see l. [838]; Par. Lost, iv. 333, “Nectarine fruits”; v. 306, 426.
[482.] Methought: see [note], l. 171. what should it be? This is a direct question about a past event, and means ‘What was it likely to be?’ “It seems to increase the emphasis of the interrogation, since a doubt about the past (time having been given for investigation) implies more perplexity than a doubt about the future” (Abbott, § 325). For certain, i.e. for certain truth, certainly.
[483.] night-foundered; benighted, lost in the darkness. Radically, ‘to founder’ is to go to the bottom (Fr. fondrer; Lat. fundus, the bottom), hence applied to ships; it is also applied to horses sinking in a slough. The compound is Miltonic (see Par. Lost, i. 204), and is sometimes stigmatised as meaningless; on the contrary, it is very expressive, implying that the brothers are swallowed up in night and have lost their way. ‘Founder’ is here used in the secondary sense of ‘to be lost’ or ‘to be in distress.’
[484.] neighbour. An adjective, as in line [576], and frequently in Shakespeare. Neighbour = nigh-boor, i.e. a peasant dwelling near.