ed to a dramatic form, see
introductory note on Comus.

20. Latona (or Leto) was the mother of Apollo and Diana by Zeus.

21. the towered Cybele is Virgil's Berecyntia Mater, the Phrygian mother,
who, wearing her mural crown, drives in her chariot through the cities of
Phrygia. She was conceived as one of the very oldest deities, and as
mother of a hundred gods. See AEneid VI 785.

28. Of famous Arcady ye are. Arcadia, in the Peloponnesus, was peculiarly
the home of music and song, especially among the shepherds. See Virgil,
Eclogue VII 4-5.

30. Divine Alpheus. See note on Lycidas 132.

46. curl the grove: bestow upon the grove dense, crisp foliage.

47. With ringlets quaint and wanton windings wove. The grove is
intersected with a maze of circling and purposeless paths.

49. noisome: full of annoyance, injurious. See Par. Lost XI 478. blasting
vapors. See note on Comus 640.

51. thwarting thunder blue. Compare Julius Caesar I 3 50, "the cross blue
lightning."

52. the cross dire-looking planet. Cross means _adverse, unfavorable_.
See note on _influence_, Hymn on the Nativity 71.

54. evening gray. See note on Lycidas 187.

60. murmurs. Compare Comus 526.

63. the celestial Sirens' harmony. The Sirens are here advanced to a high
function and given a new Epithet. Compare Comus 253.

64. the nine infolded spheres. See note on Hymn on Nativity 48.

65-66. See note on Lycidas 75.

69. the daughters of Necessity: the Fates.

72-73. which none can hear Of human mould with gross unpurged ear.
Compare Merchant of Venice V 1 64.

87. touch the warbled string: the string that is accompanied with the
voice. See Il Penseroso 106.

97. Ladon, a river of Arcadia, flowing into the Alpheus.

98. Lycaeus and Cyllene, mountains of Arcadia.

100. Erymanth. Erymanthus is a range of mountains separating Arcadia from
Achaia and Elis.

102. Maenalus, another mountain of Arcadia.

106. Though Syrinx your Pan's mistress were. Syrinx was an Arcadian
nymph, who, being pursued by Pan, threw herself into the Ladon, where she
was metamorphosed into a reed, of which the shepherds thereafter made
their pipes.

AT A SOLEMN MUSIC.

The poet listens to what in the phrase of his time is a _solemn music_,
but which we should name a sacred concert. The poem is unalloyed lyric,
expressing the rapture to which the music has lifted his soul. We must
remember that Milton was himself an amateur