After
lamenting
his
comrades (st.
comrades (st.
Golden Treasury
_Hermes_: called Trismegistus, a mystical writer of the Neo-Platonist
school; _Thebes_, etc. : subjects of Athenian Tragedy; _Buskin'd_:
tragic; _Musaeus_: a poet in Mythology.
_him that left half told_: Chaucer, in his incomplete "Squire's Tale. "
_great bards_: Ariosto, Tasso, and Spenser, are here intended.
_frounced_: curled; _The Attic Boy_: Cephalus.
Poem 114.
Emigrants supposed to be driven towards America by the government of
Charles I.
_But apples_, etc. : A fine example of Marvell's imaginative hyperbole.
Poem 115.
_concent_: harmony.
Poem 123.
_The Bard_. : This Ode is founded on a fable that Edward I. , after
conquering Wales, put the native Poets to death.
After lamenting his
comrades (st. 2, 3) the Bard prophesies the fate of Edward II. and the
conquests of Edward III. (4); his death and that of the Black Prince
(5): of Richard II, with the wars of York and Lancaster, the murder of
Henry VI. (the _meek usurper_), and of Edward V. and his brother (6). He
turns to the glory and prosperity following the accession of the Tudors
(7), through Elizabeth's reign (8): and concludes with a vision of the
poetry of Shakespeare and Milton.
_Glo'ster_: Gilbert de Clare, son-in-law to Edward; _Mortimer_: one of
the Lords Marchers of Wales.
_Arvon_: the shores of Carnarvonshire opposite Anglesey.
_She-wolf_: Isabel of France, adulterous Queen of Edward II. ; _Towers of
Julius_: the Tower of London, built in part, according to tradition, by
Julius Caesar.
_bristled boar_: the badge of Richard III.
_Half of thy heart_: Queen Eleanor died soon after the conquest of
Wales.
_Arthur_: Henry VII. named his eldest son thus, in deference to British
feeling and legend.
Poem 125.
