The Annotated Milton: Complete English Poems

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The Annotated Milton: Complete English Poems Page 80

by John Milton; Burton Raffel

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  913 sweet, pleasing

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  914 withdraw, vanish

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  915 retreat, recoil, slip away

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  916 quickly, at once

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  917 stimulating, envigorating

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  918 sweet drink

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  919 boundaries, limits

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  920 grief-banishing drug

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  921 wife of Thon = Polydamna

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  922 terms, promises

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  923 not privileged, not freed from

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  924 [four syllables, second and fourth accented]

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  925 those who

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  926 quickly

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  927 looks, faces

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  928 masked, disguised

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  929 pompous, formal, solemn

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  930 Diogenes, Cynic philosopher who lived in a tub

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  931 offspring

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  932 stored

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  933 furnish

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  934 sulk

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  935 peas, beans, lentils, etc.

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  936 coarse wool

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  937 miser

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  938 Nature

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  939 overburdened

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  940 feathers [the line, having ten syllables, can be scanned as iambic pentameter—but not easily]

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  941 overfreighted, overloaded

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  942 duped

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  943 boasted of, praised

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  944 in general use, passing/flowing from hand to hand

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  945 show

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  946 plain, simple, unpolished

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  947 [four syllables, second and fourth accented]

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  948 vile, wretched, worthless

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  949 color

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  950 work busily at

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  951 embroidery

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  952 to separate, to card

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  953 judicious

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  954 except

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  955 magician, trickster, buffoon

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  956 as he has

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  957 thrusting forward, intruding

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  958 decked, dressed

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  959 sift, examine

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  960 vice’s

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  961 blame, burden

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  962 wished

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  963 provider

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  964 suitable, seemly

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  965 [four syllables, first and third accented]

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  966 [four syllables, second and fourth accented]

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  967 showy, dazzling

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  968 holy secret

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  969 the practice of swordplay

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  970 sinews

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  971 i.e., Jove consigns the rebels against him to “the chains” of Hell

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  972 test, afflict

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  973 i.e., creation

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  974 sediments, dregs

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  975 at once

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  976 disjoining, parting, separating

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  977 stop

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  978 character in Spenser’s Fairie Queene

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  979 truest, most genuine

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  980 played his pipe/flute

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  981 check, restraint

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  982 governs

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  983 river flowing out of Wales, ending in Bristol Channel

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  984 once upon a time

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  985 son of Brutus, legendary founder of Britain

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  986 Brutus

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  987 river

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  988 depths

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  989 sea god, father of the Nereids

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  990 limp, loose

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  991 spiritual cleansers

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  992 vestibule

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  993 elf, goblin

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  994 breaths of malignant air, curses, infections

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  995 sing joyously

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  996 songs

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  997 encircling

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  998 surrounding, hemming in

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  999 exorcising

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  1000 [four syllables, second and fourth accented] Oceanus’ wife, mother of rivers, is Tethys; Neptune = Poseidon, god of the sea and of earthquakes; Nereus is father of the Nereids, one of whom is Thetis; the “Carpathian wizard” is Proteus, a shape-shifter; Triton is son of Poseidon and Amphitrite, human from the waist up, fish below; Glaucus is a fisherman who became immortal and a sea god; Leucothea is a Greek sea goddess; Parthenope is a Siren, as is Ligéa.

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  1001 blown, sounded

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  1002 [four syllables, first and third accented]

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  1003 beaches, shores

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  1004 [four syllables, second and fourth accented]

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  1005 sly, artful

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  1006 raise, lift

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  1007 toss one’s head

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  1008 [adjective]

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  1009 shackle, chain, fetter, etc.

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  1010 constrained, pressed tightly

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  1011 duty

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  1012 healing effect

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  1013 viscous resinlike secretions

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  1014 sticky

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  1015 serve

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  1016 Neptune’s wife [four syllables, first and third accented]

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  1017 Trojan prince, father of Aeneas

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  1018 small, minor

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  1019 small streams, brooks

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  1020 headwaters

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  1021 transparent pale
green precious stone

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  1022 thicket

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  1023 come, congregate

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  1024 quick, abrupt lowering of head or body

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  1025 customs, behavior

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  1026 prepare, invent

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  1027 affectedly elegant or dainty

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  1028 tree nymphs [trisyllabic, first and third accented]

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  1029 open ground, grassy pasture

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  1030 tests, trials

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  1031 rippling

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  1032 trim, dapper, neat

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  1033 so that

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  1034 walkways, passages

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  1035 aromatic balsam

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  1036 goddess of the rainbow

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  1037 cause to blossom/bloom

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  1038 embroidered, trimmed

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  1039 wonderfully handsome youth: one day while he was hunting, he was seen by Aphrodite/Venus, who fell in love with him—and when he was killed by a wild boar, from his blood grew the rose, and from her tears, the anemone

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  1040 growing

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  1041 Aphrodite/Venus

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  1042 raised

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  1043 Cupid falls in love with Psyche, a mortal; she disobeys him and is deserted by him; thereafter she goes through trial after trial and, eventually, reclaims and is married to him [bisyllabic; the first letter is silent]

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  1044 [adverb]

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  1045 pleasantly

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  1046 sky

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  1047 ends

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  1048 the music of the spheres

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  1049 weak, infirm

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  1050 the poem was intended to be “set on a clock case”

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  1051 see footnote 40 immediately below

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  1052 the leaden weight that animates the clock’s works

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  1053 (1) womb, (2) stomach, belly

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  1054 scum, rubbish, dregs

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  1055 indivisible?

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  1056 left behind [adjective]

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  1057 sixth order in the nine ranks of the celestial hierarchy

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  1058 heraldic pomp (“herald” = officer who makes state pronouncements and delivers state messages)

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  1059 erewhile, once

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  1060 [adjective, modifying “sin”]

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  1061 spelled in Milton’s manuscript “sease,” this word could be either “seize” or “cease”

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  1062 judgment, sentence

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  1063 “And I [God] will establish my covenant between me and thee [Abraham] and thy seed after thee in their generations, for an everlasting covenant” (Genesis 17:7)

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  1064 [adjective]

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  1065 always

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  1066 not discordant

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  1067 concord, harmony [four syllables, first and third accented]

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  1068 primal, original

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  1069 (1) fellowship, (2) company of musicians

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  1070 a generic shepherd’s name—announcing, as it were, that the genre of the poem is the classic pastoral

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  1071 lyric ode sung by a single voice; in the pastoral tradition, an interior monologue or soliloquy

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  1072 Edward King, a fellow student at Cambridge

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  1073 by occasion = the poem, written because of this fatal occasion….

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  1074 (1) symbolic of poetry, (2) symbolic of fame: the laurel, an evergreen, is sacred to Apollo, god of poetry

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  1075 sacred to Venus

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  1076 sacred to Bacchus, the god of wine

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  1077 dry, withered

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  1078 unripe

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  1079 constrained

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  1080 inexperienced, unskilled

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  1081 ripening

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  1082 obligation, necessity

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  1083 roll to and fro

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  1084 withering, shriveling

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  1085 recompense, reward, honor

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  1086 the Muses

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  1087 a bit

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  1088 disdainful

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  1089 so may = in the future, when Milton dies, he too may be thus mourned by “some gentle muse”

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  1090 noble, excellent, honorable

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  1091 fortunate, successful

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  1092 approve of, regard with kindness

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  1093 ordained, predetermined, fated

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  1094 holding funereal ashes

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  1095 black burial sheet

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  1096 brook, stream

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  1097 meadows, glades

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  1098 their flocks

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  1099 what time = when, at the time when

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  1100 a brownish beetle known as a cockchafer or dorfly/dorhawk

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  1101 blows (strictly, “hums” or “buzzes”)

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  1102 summertime/ hot-weather heat

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  1103 fattening? feeding? watering?

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  1104 Hesperus (Venus)

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  1105 “wheel” because heavenly objects were thought to be located in “spheres”

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  1106 tuned, in harmony with

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  1107 oat stems/straws

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  1108 woodland gods/demons, part human, part beast

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  1109 a tutor at Cambridge?

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  1110 straggling

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  1111 poems, songs

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  1112 plant-disease of an ulcerous sort

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  1113 worm or crawling larva, an intestinal parasite thought to infect sheep, cattle, etc.

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  1114 recently weaned

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  1115 blossoms

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  1116 slopes, hills, mountains, cliffs, etc.

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  1117 Celt
ic minstrel-poets

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  1118 the island of Anglesey, in the Irish Sea

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  1119 the River Dee

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  1120 magic

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  1121 Calliope [four syllables, second and fourth accented]

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  1122 i.e., she who bore Orpheus

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  1123 was mother to

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  1124 (1) performing magic, (2) entrancing, charming

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  1125 all of

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  1126 mob, throng, crowd, rabble, etc., all female, though it is unclear whether they were (1) Thracian women jealous of Eurydice or (2) Maenads angry that Orpheus did not properly honor their god, Dionysus

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  1127 his head had been cut off; in some versions of the story, the severed head continued to sing

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  1128 profits, avails

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  1129 simple, plain

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  1130 frolic

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  1131 generic shepherdess name

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  1132 see footnote 20, immediately above

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  1133 positive, determined, unobstructed, pure

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  1134 stimulate, incite

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  1135 reward

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  1136 find it

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  1137 Atropus (“irresistible”)

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  1138 Phoebus Apollo, god of poetry

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  1139 glittering

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  1140 metal hammered into very thin sheets and used to set off some gem or glittering stone

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  1141 talk

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  1142 ultimately

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  1143 recompense, reward

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  1144 the nymph Arethusa fled from a sea god, Alpheus; Diana turned her into a fountain, but he—a river—flowed under the sea and was thus united with her

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  1145 river, stream

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  1146 river running through Mantua, home of Virgil

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  1147 pastoral song

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  1148 Triton, a merman, son of Poseidon and Amphitrite, a Nereid

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  1149 cruel, terrible, wicked

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  1150 rough, stormy, strong

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  1151 winds represented as great birds

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  1152 pointed, hooked

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  1153 god of the winds [four syllables, second and fourth accented]

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  1154 water nymph [trisyllabic, first and third accented]

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  1155 during, subject to

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  1156 “Eclipses are misfortunes…. Funk & Wagnalls Standard Dictionary of Folklore, Mythology, and Legend, ed. Maria Leach (New York: Harper, 1972), p. 337

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  1157 secret, foul, evil

 

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