England's Antiphon Part 43

[52] "Child born of a bright lady." _Bird, berd, brid, burd_, means _lady_ originally: thence comes our _bride_.

[53] In _Chalmers' English Poets_, from which I quote, it is _selly-worme;_ but I think this must be a mistake. _Silly_ would here mean _weak_.

[54] The first poem he wrote, a very fine one, _The Shepheard's Calender_, is so full of old and provincial words, that the educated people of his own time required a glossary to a.s.sist them in the reading of it.

[55] _Eyas_ is a young hawk, whose wings are not fully fledged.

[56] "What less than that is fitting?"

[57] _For_, even in Collier's edition, but certainly a blunder.

[58] _Was_, in the editions; clearly wrong.

[59] "Of the same mould and hand as we."

[60] There was no contempt in the use of this word then.

[61] Simple-hearted, therefore blessed; like the German _selig_.

[62] A sh.e.l.l plentiful on the coast of Palestine, and worn by pilgrims to show that they had visited that country.

[63] _Evil_ was p.r.o.nounced almost as a monosyllable, and was at last contracted to _ill_.

[64] "Come to find a place." The transitive verb _stow_ means to put in a place: here it is used intransitively.

[65] The list of servants then kept in large houses, the number of such being far greater than it is now.

[66] There has been some blundering in the transcription of the last two lines of this stanza. In the former of the two I have subst.i.tuted _doth_ for _dost_, evidently wrong. In the latter, the word _cradle_ is doubtful. I suggest _cradled_, but am not satisfied with it. The meaning is, however, plain enough.

[67] "The very blessing the soul needed."

[68] An old English game, still in use in Scotland and America, but vanishing before cricket.

[69] _Silly_ means _innocent_, and therefore _blessed_; ignorant of evil, and in so far helpless. It is easy to see how affection came to apply it to idiots. It is applied to the ox and a.s.s in the next stanza, and is often an epithet of shepherds.

[70] See _Poems by Sir Henry Wotton and others. Edited by the Rev. John Hannah_.

[71] "Know thyself."

[72] "And I have grown their map."

[73] The guilt of Adam's first sin, supposed by the theologians of Dr.

Donne's time to be imputed to Adam's descendants.

[74] The past tense: ran.

[75] Their door to enter into sin--by his example.

[76] He was sent by James I. to a.s.sist an emba.s.sy to the Elector Palatine, who had married his daughter Elizabeth.

[77] He had lately lost his wife, for whom he had a rare love.

[78] "If they know us not by intuition, but by judging from circ.u.mstances and signs."

[79] "With most willingness."

[80] "Art proud."

[81] A strange use of the word; but it evidently means _recovered_, and has some a.n.a.logy with the French _repa.s.ser_.

[82] _To_ understood: _to sweeten_.

[83] He plays upon the astrological terms, _houses_ and _schemes_. The astrologers divided the heavens into twelve _houses_; and the diagrams by which they represented the relative positions of the heavenly bodies, they called _schemes_.

[84] The tree of knowledge.

[85] Dyce, following Seward, subst.i.tutes _curse_.

[86] A glimmer of that Platonism of which, happily, we have so much more in the seventeenth century.

[87] Should this be "_in_ fees;" that is, in acknowledgment of his feudal sovereignty?

[88] _Warm_ is here elongated, almost treated as a dissyllable.

[89] "He ought not to be forsaken: whoever weighs the matter rightly, will come to this conclusion."

[90] The _Eridan_ is the _Po_.--As regards cla.s.sical allusions in connexion with sacred things, I would remind my reader of the great reverence our ancestors had for the cla.s.sics, from the influence they had had in reviving the literature of the country.--I need hardly remind him of the commonly-received fancy that the swan does sing once--just as his death draws nigh. Does this come from the legend of Cycnus changed into a swan while lamenting the death of his friend Phaeton? or was that legend founded on the yet older fancy? The glorious bird looks as if he ought to sing.

[91] The poet refers to the singing of the hymn before our Lord went to the garden by the brook Cedron.

[92] The construction is obscure just from the insertion of the _to_ before _breathe_, where it ought not to be after the verb _hear_. The poet does not mean that he delights to hear that voice more than to breathe gentle airs, but more than to hear gentle airs (to) breathe. _To hear_, understood, governs all the infinitives that follow; among the rest, _the winds (to) chide_.

[93] _Rut_ is used for the sound of the tide in Cheshire. (See _Halliwell's Dictionary_.) Does _rutty_ mean _roaring?_ or does it describe the deep, rugged sh.o.r.es of the Jordan?

[94] A monosyllable, contracted afterwards into _bloom_.

[95] Willows.

[96] _Groom_ originally means just _a man_. It was a word much used when pastoral poetry was the fashion. Spenser has _herd-grooms_ in his _Shepherd's Calendar_. This last is what it means here: _shepherds_.

[97] Obtain, save.

[98] Equivalent to "What are those hands of yours for?"

[99] He was but thirty-nine when he died.

[100] To rhyme with _pray_ in the second line.

[101] Bunch of flowers. He was thinking of Aaron's rod, perhaps.