Il Penseroso.

3. How little you bested. The verb _bested_ means _to avail, to be of
service_. It is not the same word that we find in Isaiah VIII 21, "hardly
bestead and hungry."

6. fond here has its primitive meaning, _foolish_. Understand possess in
the sense in which it is used in the Bible,--"possessed with devils."

10. Make two syllables of Morpheus.

12. Note that while he invoked Mirth in L'Allegro under her Greek name
Euphrosyne, the poet finds no corresponding Greek designation for
Melancholy. To us Melancholy seems a name unhappily chosen. But see how
Milton applies it in line 62 below, and in Comus 546. To him the word
evidently connotes pensive meditation rather than gloomy depression.

14. To hit the sense of human sight: to be gazed at by human eyes.

18. Prince Memnon was a fabled Ethiopian prince, black, and celebrated
for his beauty. Recall Virgil's _nigri Memnonis arma_.

19. that starred Ethiop queen. Cassiopeia, wife of the Ethiopian king
Cepheus, boasted that she was more beautiful than the Nereids, for which
act of presumption she was translated to the skies, where she became the
beautiful constellation which we know by her name.

23. bright-haired Vesta. _Vesta_--in Greek, Hestia--"was the goddess of
the home, the guardian of family life. Her spotless purity fitted her
peculiarly to be the guardian of virgin modesty."

30. Whilst yet there was no fear of Jove, _i.e._ before Saturn was
dethroned by Jupiter.

33. All in a robe of darkest grain. In Par. Lost V 285, the third pair of
Raphael's wings have the color of _sky-tinctured grain_; and XI 242, his
vest is of purple livelier than "the grain of Sarra," or Tyrian purple.
This would leave us to infer that the robe of Melancholy is of a deep
rich color, so dark as to be almost black. Dr. Murray quotes from
Southey's _Thalaba_, "The ebony ... with darkness feeds its boughs of
raven grain." What objection is there to making the _grain_ in Milton's
passage _black_?

35. And sable stole of cypress lawn. Dr. Murray thus defines _cypress
lawn_, "A light transparent material resembling cobweb lawn or crape;
like the latter it was, when black, much used for habiliments of
mourning."

37. Come; but keep thy wonted state. Compare with this passage, L'Allegro
33.

40. Thy rapt soul sitting in thine eyes. In Cymbeline I 6 51 we find the
present tense of the verb of which _rapt_ is the participle: "What, dear
Sir, t