Dryden's Palamon and Arcite Part 12

Showered on the bed the whole Idalian grove.

All of a tenor was their after-life, No day discoloured with domestic strife; No jealousy, but mutual truth believed, Secure repose, and kindness undeceived.

Thus Heaven, beyond the compa.s.s of his thought, Sent him the blessing he so dearly bought.

So may the Queen of Love long duty bless, And all true lovers find the same success.

NOTES.

DEDICATION.

Her Grace the d.u.c.h.ess of Ormond was by birth Lady Margaret Somerset. Her husband, to whom Dryden dedicated the volume of the _Fables_, was one of King William's supporters. He had been with him at the Battle of the Boyne, in the war on the Continent, had received marked evidences of his favor, and stood by his bedside at his death.

1 1. The bard. Chaucer, whose _Knight's Tale_, paraphrased as _Palamon and Arcite_, Dryden dedicated in these verses.

1 10. An Alexandrine, i.e., a verse of six accented syllables instead of five.

1 14. Plantagenet. The surname of the royal family of England from Henry II. to Richard III.

1 18. n.o.blest order. The Order of the Garter, which is the highest order of knighthood in Great Britain, was founded by Edward III.

about 1348.

2 21, 22, 23. A triplet, i.e., three successive verses with the same rhyme; one device of Dryden's to avoid monotony.

2 29. Platonic year. A great cycle of years, at the end of which it was supposed that the celestial bodies will occupy the same positions as at the creation.

2 42. westward. The d.u.c.h.ess' visit to Ireland.

2 43. benighted Britain. Deprived of the light of her Grace's presence.

2 44. Triton. A son of Neptune, generally represented with the body of a man and the tail of a fish. His duty was to calm the sea by a blast on his conch-sh.e.l.l horn.

2 45. Nereids. Nymphs of the sea as distinguished from the Naiads, nymphs of streams and lakes.

2 46. Etesian gale. The Etesian winds were any steady periodical winds.

2 48. Portunus. A lesser sea-G.o.d, more particularly the harbor-G.o.d.

2 51, 52. In these verses Dryden shows us that he had not shaken off entirely the conceits of his early verse.

2 53. Hibernia. Ireland.

2 56. His father and his grandsire. Ormond's father was the gallant Earl of Ossory, and his grandsire, the first Duke of Ormond, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, the famous supporter of the Stuart cause.

3 58. Kerns. The Irish peasantry.

3 63. Venus is the promise of the sun. Venus, as morning star, is visible in the east just before sunrise.

3 65. Pales. A Roman divinity of flocks and shepherds. Ceres.

The G.o.ddess of agriculture.

3 67. three campaigns. The Jacobites had found sympathy in Ireland and made a stand there. Vigorous efforts were made by William to dislodge them and subjugate the island; but years pa.s.sed before civil strife was ended and peace restored.

3 72. relics of mankind. The human beings preserved in the ark, all that was left of mankind after the flood.

3 82, 83. Dryden copies Virgil's golden age,_Eclogue IV_., 39, 40.

3 87. venom never known. This refers to the absence of reptiles in Ireland.

4 102. New from her sickness. Recently recovered from a serious illness.

4 117. four ingredients. Earth, air, fire, water, then supposed to be the elements of all created substances.

5 125. young Vespasian. t.i.tus Vespasia.n.u.s, the conqueror of Jerusalem, was so impressed by the beauty of the Temple that he wept as it was destroyed.

5 128. A most detested act of grat.i.tude. The elegy which the danger of her death rendered imminent. Detested because the occasion for the act would fill him with grief.

5 131. Morley. A celebrated physician of the seventeenth century.

S 133. Macedon. Thessalus, the son of Hippocrates, a famous physician of antiquity, who resided at the Macedonian court.

5 134. Ptolemy. One of Alexander the Great's generals, who became, after the great conqueror's death, the ruler of Egypt.

5 138. you. Used here as a noun.

5 151. daughter of the rose. The d.u.c.h.ess of Ormond was a descendant of Somerset, who plucked the red rose in the Temple garden when Plantagenet plucked the white,--an incident which badged the houses of York and Lancaster during the War of the Roses.

5 158. Penelope. The wife of Ulysses, during the long years of her lord's absence, steadfastly withstood the persuasions of suitors, and remained true to her husband.

6 162. Ascanius. The son of Aeneas. Elissa. Another name for Dido. It is Andromache, not Dido, who in Virgil's narrative presents Ascanius with the elaborately embroidered mantle. Aeneid, Bk. III., 483, etc.

6 168. wear the garter. Become a Knight of the Garter.

BOOK I.

7 2. Theseus. A legendary hero of Greece, son of Aegeus. He freed Athens from human tribute to the Cretan Minotaur, with the a.s.sistance of Ariadne, whom he deserted. Succeeded Aegeus as king of Athens.

Expedition against the Amazons resulted in a victory for him, and he married their queen, Antiope, not Hippolyta, as in Chaucer, Shakspere, and Dryden. He joined in Caledonian hunt, fought the Centaurs, attempted to carry off Proserpina for Pirithous. On his return found his kingdom usurped, and, retiring to Scyros, was treacherously killed by Lycomedes.

7 7. warrior queen. Hippolyta, daughter of Mars, queen of the Amazons, here confused with her sister Antiope, whom legend makes the bride of Theseus.

7 21. spousals. Espousal, marriage.

7 22. tilts and turneys. Notice the anachronism of the transfer of the mediaeval sport to legendary Greece. Dryden follows Chaucer's general method, though here the elder poet makes no such statement.

8 29. accidents. Happenings, literal derivation from _accidere_, to happen.