2 The Dee of Chester.
3 The Vergivian Sea, so called by Ptolemy, was the Irish Sea
between England and Ireland.
4 Cambridge.
5 Milton had been rusticated (suspended) on account of a quarrel with his tutor,
Chappell.
6 Chappell.
7 Ovid.
8 In Thebes--the guilty lords are Eteocles and Polynices the
brothers-sons of Oedipus and Jocasta, who fell in their unnatural
strife.
9 Troy.
10 London. The Dardanian (i.e. Trojan) hands are those of Brutus,
the legendary founder of London.
11 The magical plant by which Odysseus was enabled to escape from
Circe. See Homer (Odyssey, x. 370-375).
ELEGY II
On the Death of the University Beadle at Cambridge.1
Thee, whose refulgent staff and summons clear,
Minerva's flock longtime was wont t'obey,
Although thyself an herald, famous here,
The last of heralds, Death, has snatch'd away.
He calls on all alike, nor even deigns
To spare the office that himself sustains.
Thy locks were whiter than the plumes display'd
By Leda's paramour2 in ancient time,
But thou wast worthy ne'er to have decay'd,
Or, Aeson-like,3 to know a second prime, 10
Worthy for whom some Goddess should have won
New life, oft kneeling to Apollo's son.
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