[850.] garland wreaths. A garland is a wreath, but we may take the phrase to mean ‘wreathed garlands’: comp. “twisted braids,” l. [862].
[852.] old swain, i.e. Meliboeus (l. [862]). “But neither Geoffrey of Monmouth nor Spenser has the development of the legend” (Masson).
[853.] clasping charm: see l. [613], [660].
[854.] warbled song: comp. Arc. 87, “touch the warbled string”; Son. xx. 12, “Warble immortal notes.”
[857.] This will I try, i.e. to invoke her rightly in song.
[858.] adjuring, charging by something sacred and venerable. The adjuration is contained in lines [867-889], which, in Milton’s MS., are directed “to be said,” not sung, and in the Bridgewater MS. “to sing or not.” From the latter MS. it would appear that these lines were sung as a kind of trio by Lawes and the two brothers.
[863.] amber-dropping: see [note], l. 333; and comp. l. [106], where the idea is similar, warranting us in taking ‘amber-dropping’ as a compound epithet = dropping amber, and not (as some read) ‘amber’ and ‘dropping.’ Amber conveys the ideas of luminous clearness and fragrance: see Sams. Agon. 720, “amber scent of odorous perfume.”
[865.] silver lake, the Severn. Virgil has the Lat. lacus in the sense of ‘a river.’
[868.] great Oceanus, Gk. Ὠκέανόν τε μέγαν. The early Greeks regarded the earth as a flat disc, surrounded by a perpetually flowing river called Oceanus: the god of this river was also called Oceanus, and afterwards the name was applied to the Atlantic. Hesiod, Drayton, and Jonson have all applied the epithet ‘great’ to the god Oceanus; in fact, throughout these lines Milton uses what may be called the “permanent epithets” of the various divinities.
[869.] earth-shaking Neptune’s mace, i.e. the trident of Poseidon (Neptune). Homer calls him ἐννοσίγαιος = earth-shaking: comp. Iliad, xii. 27, “And the Shaker of the Earth with his trident in his hands,” etc. In Par. Lost, x. 294, Milton provides Death with a “mace petrifick.”