[142]. A Virgin's face she had. Herrick is imitating a charming passage from the first Æneid (ll. 315-320), in which Æneas is confronted by Venus:—
Virginis os habitumque gerens et virginis arma,
Spartanae vel qualis equos Threissa fatigat
Harpalyce volucremque fuga praevertitur Eurum.
Namque umeris de more habilem suspenderat arcum
Venatrix, dederatque comam diffundere ventis,
Nuda genu nodoque sinus collecta fluentis.
With a wand of myrtle, etc. Cp. Anacreon, 7 [29]:—
Ὑακινθίνῃ με ῥάβδῳ
χαλέπως, Ἔρως ῥαπίζων ... εἶπε·
Σὺ γὰρ οὐ δύνῃ φιλῆσαι.
[146]. Upon the Bishop of Lincoln's Imprisonment. John Williams (1582-1650), Bishop of Lincoln, 1621; Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal, 1621-1625; suspended and imprisoned, 1637-1640, on a frivolous charge of having betrayed the king's secrets; Archbishop of York, 1641. Save from this poem and the Carol printed in the Appendix we know nothing of his relations with Herrick. He had probably stood in the way of the poet's obtaining holy orders or preferment. When Herrick was appointed to the cure of Dean Prior in 1629, Williams had already lost favour at the Court.
[147]. Cynthius pluck ye by the ear. Cp. Virg. Ecl. vi. 3: Cynthius aurem Vellit et admonuit; and Milton's Lycidas, 77: "Phœbus replied and touched my trembling ears".
The lazy man the most doth love. Cp. Ovid, Remed. Amor. 144: Cedit amor rebus: res age, tutus eris. Nott. But Ovid could also write: Qui nolet fieri desidiosus amet (1 Am. ix. 46).
[149]. Sir Thomas Southwell, of Hangleton, Sussex, knighted 1615, died before December 16, 1642.
Those tapers five. Mentioned by Plutarch, Qu. Rom. 2. For their significance see Ben Jonson's Masque of Hymen.
O'er the threshold force her in. The custom of lifting the bride over the threshold, probably to avert an ill-omened stumble, has prevailed among the most diverse races. For the anointing of the doorposts Brand quotes Langley's translation of Polydore Vergil: "The bryde anoynted the poostes of the doores with swynes' grease, because she thought by that meanes to dryve awaye all misfortune, whereof she had her name in Latin 'Uxor ab unguendo'".