[633.] bore. The nom. of this verb is, in sense, some such word as the plant or the root.
[634.] unknown and like esteemed: known and esteemed to a like extent, i.e. in both cases not at all. Like here corresponds to the prefix un in unknown. On the description of the plant, see Introduction, reference to Ascham’s Scholemaster.
[635.] clouted shoon, patched shoes. The expression is found in Shakespeare, ii. Hen. VI. iv. 2. 195, “Spare none but such as go in clouted shoon”; Cym. iv. 2. 214, “put My clouted brogues from off my feet, whose rudeness Answer’d my steps too loud”: see examples in Mayhew and Skeat’s M. E. Dictionary. There are instances, however, of clout in the sense of a plate of iron fastened on the sole of a shoe. In either sense of the word ‘clouted shoon’ would be heavy and coarse. Shoon is an old plural (O.E. scon); comp. hosen, eyen (= eyes), dohtren (= daughters), foen (= foes), etc.
[636.] more med’cinal, of greater virtue. The line may be scanned thus: And yet | more med | ’cinal is | it than | that Mo | ly. Moly. When Ulysses was approaching the abode of Circe he was met by Hermes, who said: “Come then, I will redeem thee from thy distress, and bring deliverance. Lo, take this herb of virtue, and go to the dwelling of Circe, that it may keep from thy head the evil day. And I will tell thee all the magic sleight of Circe. She will mix thee a potion and cast drugs into the mess; but not even so shall she be able to enchant thee; so helpful is this charmed herb that I shall give thee ... 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” (Odyssey, x. 280, etc., Butcher and Lang’s translation). In his first Elegy Milton alludes to Mōly as the counter-charm to the spells of Circe: see also Tennyson’s Lotos-Eaters, “beds of amaranth and moly.”
[638.] He called it Hæmony. He is the shepherd lad of line [619]. Haemony: Milton invents the plant, both name and thing. But the adjective Haemonian is used, in Latin poetry as = Thessalian, Haemonia being the old name of Thessaly. And as Thessaly was regarded as a land of magic, ‘Haemonian’ acquired the sense of ‘magical’ (see Ovid, Met. vii 264, “Haemonia radices valle resectas,” etc.), and Milton’s Haemony is simply “the magical plant.” Coleridge supposes that by the prickles and gold flower of the plant Milton signified the sorrows and triumph of the Christian life.
[639.] sovran use: see [note], l. 41. The use of this adjective with charms, medicines, or remedies of any kind was so very common that the word came to imply ‘all-healing,’ ‘supremely efficacious’; see Cor. ii. 1. 125, “The most sovereign prescription in Galen.”
[640.] mildew blast: comp. Arc. 48-53, Ham. iii. 4. 64, “Here is your husband; Like a mildew’d ear Blasting his wholesome brother.” A mildew blast is one giving rise to that kind of blight called mildew (A.S. meledeáw, honey-dew), it being supposed that the prevalence of dry east winds was favourable to its formation.
[642.] pursed it up, etc., i.e. put it in my wallet, though I did not attach much importance to it. little reckoning: comp. Lyc. 116, where the very same phrase occurs.
[643.] Till now that. Here that = when, the clause introduced by it being explanatory of now (see Abbott, § 284).
[646-7.] Entered ... came off. ‘I entered into the very midst of his treacherous enchantments, and yet escaped.’ Lime-twigs = snares; in allusion to the practice of catching birds by means of twigs smeared with a viscous substance (called on that account ‘birdlime’). Shakespeare makes repeated allusion to this practice: see Macbeth, iv. 2. 34; Two Gent. ii. 2. 68; ii. Hen. VI. i. 3. 91; etc.