[660.] your nerves ... alabaster. Comp. Tempest, i. 2. 471-484. Milton has the word alabaster three times, twice incorrectly spelled alablaster (in this passage and Par. Lost, iv. 544) and once correctly, as now entered in the text (Par. Reg. iv. 548). Alabaster is a kind of marble: comp. On Shak. 14, “make us marble with too much conceiving.”
[661.] or, as Daphne was, etc. The construction is: ‘if I merely wave this wand, you (become) a marble statue, or (you become) root-bound, as Daphne was, that fled Apollo.’ Milton inserts the adverbial clause in the predicate, which is not unusual; he then adds an attributive clause, which is not usual in English, though common in Greek and Latin. Daphne, an Arcadian goddess, was pursued by Apollo, and having prayed for aid, she was changed into a laurel tree (Gk. δάφνη): comp, the story of Syrinx and Pan, referred to in Arc. 106.
[662.] fled. Comp. the transitive use of the verb in l. [829], [939], Son. xviii. 14, “fly the Babylonian woe”; Sams. Agon. 1541, “fly The sight of this so horrid spectacle.”
[663.] freedom of my mind, etc. Comp. Cowper’s noble passage, “He is the freeman whom the truth makes free,” etc. (Task, v. 733).
[665.] corporal rind: the body, called in Il Pens. 92, “this fleshly nook.”
[668.] here be all. See [note], l. 12.
[669.] fancy can beget: comp. Il Pens. 6.
[672.] cordial julep, heart-reviving drink. Cordial, lit. hearty (Lat. cordi, stem of cor, the heart): julep, Persian gulāb, rose-water.
[673.] his = its: see [note], l. 96.
[674.] syrups: Arab, sharāb, a drink, wine.