Select Poems Of Thomas Gray Part 17

also Virgil, _Geo._ i. 96: "Flava Ceres;" and Homer, _Il._ v. 499: [Greek: xanthe Demeter].

10. _Rolling_. Spelled "rowling" in the 1st and other early editions.

_Amain_. Cf. _Lycidas_, 111: "The golden opes, the iron shuts amain;"

_P. L._ ii. 165: "when we fled amain," etc. Also Shakes. _Temp._ iv.

1: "Her peac.o.c.ks fly amain," etc. The word means literally _with main_ (which we still use in "might and main"), that is, with force or strength. Cf. Horace, _Od._ iv. 2, 8: "Immensusque ruit profundo Pindarus ore."

11. The first MS. reading was, "With torrent rapture see it pour."

12. Cf. Dryden, _Virgil's Geo._ i.: "And rocks the bellowing voice of boiling seas resound;" Pope, _Iliad_: "Rocks rebellow to the roar."

13. "Power of harmony to calm the turbulent sallies of the soul. The thoughts are borrowed from the first Pythian of Pindar" (Gray).

14. _Solemn-breathing airs_. Cf. _Comus_, 555: "a soft and solemn-breathing sound."

15. _Enchanting sh.e.l.l_. That is, lyre; alluding to the myth of the origin of the instrument, which Mercury was said to have made from the sh.e.l.l of a tortoise. Cf. Collins, _Pa.s.sions_, 3: "The Pa.s.sions oft, to hear her sh.e.l.l," etc.

17. _On Thracia's hills_. Thrace was one of the chief seats of the worship of Mars. Cf. Ovid, _Ars Am._ ii. 588: "Mars Thracen occupat."

See also Virgil, _aen._ iii. 35, etc.

19. _His thirsty lance_. Cf. Spenser, _F. Q._ i. 5, 15: "his thristy [thirsty] blade."

20. Gray says, "This is a weak imitation of some beautiful lines in the same ode;" that is, in "the first Pythian of Pindar," referred to in the note on 13. The pa.s.sage is an address to the lyre, and is translated by Wakefield thus:

"On Jove's imperial rod the king of birds Drops down his flagging wings; thy thrilling sounds Soothe his fierce beak, and pour a sable cloud Of slumber on his eyelids: up he lifts His flexile back, shot by thy piercing darts.

Mars smooths his rugged brow, and nerveless drops His lance, relenting at the choral song."

21. _The feather'd king_. Cf. Shakes. _Phoenix and Turtle_:

"Every fowl of tyrant wing, Save the eagle, feather'd king."

23. _Dark clouds_. The first reading of MS. was "black clouds."

24. _The terror_. This is the reading of the first ed. and also of that of 1768. Most of the modern eds. have "terrors."

25. "Power of harmony to produce all the graces of motion in the body" (Gray).

26. _Temper'd_. Modulated, "set." Cf. _Lycidas_, 33: "Tempered to the oaten flute;" Fletcher, _Purple Island_: "Tempering their sweetest notes unto thy lay," etc.

27. _O'er Idalia's velvet-green_. _Idalia_ appears to be used for _Idalium_, which was a town in Cyprus, and a favourite seat of Venus, who was sometimes called _Idalia_. Pope likewise uses _Idalia_ for the place, in his _First Pastoral_, 65: "Celestial Venus haunts Idalia's groves."

Dr. Johnson finds fault with _velvet-green_, apparently supposing it to be a compound of Gray's own making. But Young had used it in his _Love of Fame_: "She rears her flowers, and spreads her velvet-green." It is also among the expressions of Pope which are ridiculed in the _Alexandriad_.

29. _Cytherea_ was a name of Venus, derived from _Cythera_, an island in the aegean Sea, one of the favourite residences of Aphrodite, or Venus. Cf. Virgil, _aen._ i. 680: "super alta Cythera Aut super Idalium, sacrata sede," etc.

30. _With antic Sports_. This is the reading of the 1st ed. and also of the ed. of 1768. Some eds. have "sport."

_Antic_ is the same word as _antique_. The a.s.sociation between what is old or old-fashioned and what is odd, fantastic, or grotesque is obvious enough. Cf. Milton, _Il Pens._ 158: "With antick pillars ma.s.sy-proof." In _S. A._ 1325 he uses the word as a noun: "Jugglers and dancers, anticks, mummers, mimicks." Shakes. makes it a verb in _A. and C._ ii. 7: "the wild disguise hath almost Antick'd us all."

31. Cf. Thomson, _Spring_, 835: "In friskful glee Their frolics play."

32, 33. Cf. Virgil, _aen._ v. 580 foll.

35. Gray quotes Homer, _Od._ ix. 265: [Greek: marmarugas theeito podon thaumaze de thumoi]. Cf. Catullus's "fulgentem plantam." See also Thomson, _Spring_, 158: "the many-twinkling leaves Of aspin tall."

36. _Slow-melting strains_, etc. Cf. a poem by Barton Booth, published in 1733:

"Now to a slow and melting air she moves, So like in air, in shape, in mien, She pa.s.ses for the Paphian queen; The Graces all around her play, The wondering gazers die away; Whether her easy body bend, Or her fair bosom heave with sighs; Whether her graceful arms extend, Or gently fall, or slowly rise; Or returning or advancing, Swimming round, or sidelong glancing, Strange force of motion that subdues the soul."

37. Cf. Dryden, _Flower and Leaf_, 191: "For wheresoe'er she turn'd her face, they bow'd."

39. Cf. Virgil, _aen._ i. 405: "Incessu patuit dea." The G.o.ds were represented as gliding or sailing along without moving their feet.

41. _Purple light of love_. Cf. Virgil, _aen._ i. 590: "lumenque juventae Purpureum." Gray quotes Phrynichus, _apud_ Athenaeum:

[Greek: lampei d' epi porphureeisi pareieisi phos erotos.]

See also Dryden, _Brit. Red._ 133: "and her own purple light."

42. "To compensate the real and imaginary ills of life, the Muse was given to mankind by the same Providence that sends the day by its cheerful presence to dispel the gloom and terrors of the night"

(Gray).

43 foll. See on _Eton Coll._ 83. Cf. Horace, _Od._ i. 3, 29-33.

46. _Fond complaint_. Foolish complaint. Cf. Shakes. _M. of V._ iii.

3:

"I do wonder, Thou naughty gaoler, that thou art so fond To come abroad with him at his request;"

Milton, _S. A._ 812: "fond and reasonless," etc. This appears to be the original meaning of the word. In Wiclif's Bible. 1 _Cor._ i. 27, we have "the thingis that ben _fonnyd_ of the world." In _Twelfth Night_, ii. 2, the word is used as a verb=dote:

"And I, poor monster, fond as much on him, As she, mistaken, seems to dote on me."

49. Hurd quotes Cowley:

"Night and her ugly subjects thou dost fright, And Sleep, the lazy owl of night; Asham'd and fearful to appear, They screen their horrid shapes with the black hemisphere."

Wakefield cites Milton, _Hymn on Nativity_, 233 foll.: "The flocking shadows pale," etc. See also _P. R._ iv. 419-431.

50. _Birds of boding cry_. Cf. Green's _Grotto_: "news the boding night-birds tell."

52. Gray refers to Cowley, _Brutus_:

"One would have thought 't had heard the morning crow, Or seen her well-appointed star.

Come marching up the eastern hill afar."

The following variations on 52 and 53 are found in the MS.:

Till fierce Hyperion from afar Pours on their scatter'd rear, Hurls at " flying " his glittering shafts of war.