[993.] blow, here used actively = cause to blossom: comp. Jonson, Mask at Highgate, “For thee, Favonius, here shall blow New flowers.”
[995.] purfled = having an embroidered edge (O.F. pourfiler): the verb to purfle survives in the contracted form to purl, and is cognate with profile = a front line or edge. shew: here rhymes with dew; comp. l. [511, 512]. This points to the fact that in Milton’s time the present pronunciation of shew, though familiar, was not the only one recognised.
[996.] drenches with Elysian dew, i.e. soaks with heavenly dew. The Homeric Elysium is described in Odyssey, iv.: see [note], l. 977; it was afterwards identified with the abode of the blessed, l. [257]. Drench is the causative of drink: here the nominative of the verb is ‘Iris’ and the object ‘beds.’
[997.] if your ears be true, i.e. if your ears be pure: the poet is about to speak of that which cannot be understood by those with “gross unpurgèd ear” (Arc. 73, and Com. l. 458). He alludes to that pure Love which “leads up to Heaven,” Par. Lost, viii. 612.
[998.] hyacinth. This is the “sanguine flower inscribed with woe” of Lycidas, 106: it sprang from the blood of Hyacinthus, a youth beloved by Apollo.
[999.] Adonis, the beloved of Venus, died of a wound which he received from a boar during the chase. The grief of Venus was so great that the gods of the lower world allowed him to spend six months of every year on earth. The story is of Asiatic origin, and is supposed to be symbolic of the revival of nature in spring and its death in winter. Comp. Par. Lost, ix. 439, “those gardens feigned Or of revived Adonis,” etc.
[1000.] waxing well of, i.e. recovering from. The A.S. weaxan = to grow or increase: Shakespeare has ‘man of wax’ = adult, Rom. and Jul. i. 3. 76; see also Index to Globe Shakespeare.
[1002.] Assyrian queen, i.e. Venus, whose worship came from the East, probably from Assyria. She was originally identical with Astarte, called by the Hebrews Ashteroth: see Par. Lost, i. 438-452, where Adonis appears as Thammuz.
[1003, 4.] far above ... advanced. These words are to be read together: ‘advanced’ is an attribute to ‘Cupid,’ and is modified by ‘far above.’
[1003.] spangled sheen, glittering brightness. ‘Spangled’: spangle is a diminutive of spang = a metal clasp, and hence ‘a shining ornament.’ In poetry it is common to speak of the stars as ‘spangles’ and of the heavens as ‘spangled’: comp. Addison’s well-known lines: