t Circe smites thee with her long wand, even then draw thy sharp
sword from thy thigh, and spring on her, as one eager to slay her,"
_Odyssey_, x. ~break his glass~. An imitation of Spenser, who makes Sir
Guyon break the golden cup of the enchantress Excess, _F. Q._ i. 12,
stanza 56.

652. ~luscious~, delicious. The word is a corruption of _lustious_ from
O.E. _lust_ = pleasure: see note, l. 49.

653. ~But seize his wand~. The force of this injunction is shown by lines
815-819.

654. ~menace high~, violent threat. _High_ is thus used in a number of
figurative senses, _e.g._ a high wind, a high hand, high passions (_Par.
Lost_, ix. 123), high descent, high design, etc.

655. ~Sons of Vulcan~. In the _Aeneid_ (Bk. viii. 252) we are told that
Cacus, son of Vulcan (the Roman God of Fire), "vomited from his throat
huge volumes of smoke" when pursued by Hercules, "_Faucibus ingentem
fumum_," etc.

657. ~apace~; quickly, at a great pace. This word has changed its
meaning: in Chaucer it means 'at a foot pace,' _i.e._ slowly. The first
syllable is the indefinite article '_a_' = one (Skeat).

658. ~bear~: the subjunctive used optatively (Abbott, Sec. 365). (_Stage
Direction_) ~puts by~: puts on one side, refuses. ~goes about to rise~,
_i.e._ endeavours to rise. This idiomatic use of _go about_ still
lingers in the phrase 'to _go about_ one's business'; comp. 'to _set
about_' anything.

659. ~but~, merely: comp. l. 656. After the conditional clause we have
here a verb in the present tense ('are chained'), a construction which
well expresses the certainty and immediate action of the sorcerer's
spell (see Abbott, Sec. 371).

660. ~your nerves ... alabaster~. Comp. _Tempest_, i. 2. 471-484. Milton
has the word alabaster three times, twice incorrectly spelled
_alablaster_ (in this passage and _Par. Lost_, iv. 544) and once
correctly, as now entered in the text (_Par. Reg._ iv. 548). Alabaster
is a kind of marble: comp. _On Shak._ 14, "make us _marble_ with too
much conceiving."

661. ~or, as Daphne was~, etc. The construction is: 'if I merely wave
this wand, you (become) a marble statue, or (you become) root-bound, as
Daphne was, that fled Apollo.' Milton inserts the adverbial clause in
the predicate, which is not unusual; he then adds an attributive clause,
which is not usual in English, though common in Greek and Latin. Daphne,
an Arcadian goddess, was pursued by Apollo, and having prayed for aid,
she was changed into a