No More Learning

But the 1645 text and Milton's manuscript read self-consum'd; after
which word there is to be understood a metrical pause to mark the
violent transition of the thought.

Again in the second line of the Sonnet to a Nightingale Prof. Masson
has:

Warblest at eve when all the woods are still

but the early edition, which probably follows Milton's spelling though
in this case we have no manuscript to compare, reads 'Warbl'st. ' So the
original text of Samson, l. 670, has 'temper'st. '

The retention of the old system of punctuation may be less defensible,
but I have retained it because it may now and then be of use in
determining a point of syntax. The absence of a comma, for example,
after the word hearse in the 58th line of the Epitaph on the Marchioness
of Winchester, printed by Prof. Masson thus:--

And some flowers, and some bays
For thy hearse to strew thy ways,

but in the 1645 edition:--

And som Flowers, and som Bays,
For thy Hears to strew the ways,

goes to prove that for here must be taken as 'fore.

Of the Paradise Lost there were two editions issued during Milton's
lifetime, and while the first has been taken as our text, all the
variants in the second, not being simple misprints, have been recorded
in the notes. In one respect, however, in the distribution of the poem
into twelve books instead of ten, it has seemed best, for the sake of
practical convenience, to follow the second edition. A word may be
allowed here on the famous correction among the Errata prefixed to the
first edition: 'Lib. 2. v. 414, for we read wee. ' This correction
shows not only that Milton had theories about spelling, but also that he
found means, though his sight was gone, to ascertain whether his rules
had been carried out by his printer; and in itself this fact justifies a
facsimile reprint.
What the principle in the use of the double vowel
exactly was (and it is found to affect the other monosyllabic pronouns)
it is not so easy to discover, though roughly it is clear the
reduplication was intended to mark emphasis. For example, in the speech
of the Divine Son after the battle in heaven (vi. 810-817) the pronouns
which the voice would naturally emphasize are spelt with the double
vowel:

Stand onely and behold
Gods indignation on these Godless pourd
By mee; not you but mee they have despis'd,
Yet envied; against mee is all thir rage,
Because the Father, t'whom in Heav'n supream
Kingdom and Power and Glorie appertains,
Hath honourd me according to his will.
Therefore to mee thir doom he hath assign'd.

In the Son's speech offering himself as Redeemer (iii. 227-249) where
the pronoun all through is markedly emphasized, it is printed mee the
first four times, and afterwards me; but it is noticeable that these
first four times the emphatic word does not stand in the stressed place
of the verse, so that a careless reader might not emphasize it, unless
his attention were specially led by some such sign:

Behold mee then, mee for him, life for life
I offer, on mee let thine anger fall;
Account mee man.

In the Hymn of Creation (v. 160-209) where ye occurs fourteen times, the
emphasis and the metric stress six times out of seven coincide, and the
pronoun is spelt yee; where it is unemphatic, and in an unstressed
place, it is spelt ye. Two lines are especially instructive:

Speak yee who best can tell, ye Sons of light (l. 160);

and

Fountains and yee, that warble, as ye flow,
Melodious murmurs, warbling tune his praise (l. 195).

In v. 694 it marks, as the voice by its emphasis would mark in
reading, a change of subject:

So spake the false Arch-Angel, and infus'd
Bad influence into th' unwarie brest
Of his Associate; hee (i. e. the associate) together calls,
&c.

An examination of other passages, where there is no antithesis, goes to
show that the lengthened form of the pronoun is most frequent before a
pause (as vii.