f and fear."

567. ~How sweet ... how near~. This sentence contains two exclamations:
this is a Greek construction. In English the idiom is "How sweet ...
_and_ how near," etc. We may, however, render the line thus: "How
sweet..., how near the deadly snare _is_!"

568. ~lawns~. 'Lawn' is always used by Milton to denote an open stretch of
grassy ground, whereas in modern usage it is applied generally to a
smooth piece of grass-grown land in front of a house. The origin of the
word is disputed, but it seems radically to denote 'a clear space'; it
is said to be cognate with _llan_ used as a prefix in the names of
certain Welsh towns, _e.g._ Llandaff, Llangollen. In Chaucer it takes
the form launde.

569. ~often trod by day~, which I have often trod by day, and therefore
know well.

570. ~mine ear~: see note, l. 171.

571. ~wizard~. Here used in contempt, like many other words with the
suffix _-ard_, or _-art_, as braggart, sluggard, etc. Milton
occasionally, however, uses the word merely in the sense of magician or
magical, without implying contempt: see _Lyc._ 55, "Deva spreads her
_wizard_ stream."

572. ~certain signs~: see l. 644.

574. ~aidless~: an obsolete word. See Trench's _English Past and Present_
for a list of about 150 words in _-less_, all now obsolete: comp. l. 92,
note. ~wished~: wished for. Comp. l. 950 for a similar transitive use of
the verb.

575. ~such two~: two persons of such and such description.

577. ~durst not stay~. _Durst_ is the old past tense of _dare_, and is
used as an auxiliary: the form _dared_ is much more modern, and may be
used as an independent verb.

578. ~sprung~: see note, l. 256.

579. ~till I had found~. The language is extremely condensed here, the
meaning being, 'I began my flight, and continued to run till I _had
found_ you'; the pluperfect tense is used because the speaker is looking
back upon his meeting with the brothers after completing a long
narration of the circumstances that led up to it. If, however, 'had
found' be regarded as a subjunctive, the meaning is, 'I began my flight,
and determined to continue it until I had found (_i.e._ should have
found) you.' Comp. Abbott Sec. 361.

581. ~triple knot~, a three-fold alliance of Night, Shades, and Hell.

584. "This confidence of the elder brother in favour of the final
efficacy of virtue, holds forth a very high strain of philosophy,
delivered in as high strains of eloquence and poetry" (Warton). And Todd