• “the perplexed paths of this drear wood” (37)• “ominous wood” (61)• “the blind mazes of this tangled wood” (181)• “leafy labyrinth” (278)• “close dungeons of innumerous boughs” (349)• “wild surrounding waste” (403)

• Soon as the potion works, their human count’nance,The express resemblance of the gods, is changedInto some brutish form of wolf or bear, Or ounce or tiger, hog, or bearded goat,All other parts remaining as they were.And they, so perfect is their misery,Not once perceive their foul disfigurement,But boast themselves more comely than before,And all their friends and native home forget,To roll with pleasure in a sensual sty.

(68-78)

• Shepherd, I take thy word,And trust thy honest-offered courtesy,Which oft is sooner found in lowly sheds,With smoky rafters, than in tapestry hallsAnd courts of princes, where it first was named,And yet is most pretended.

(321-326)

• This way the noise was, if mine ear be true ,My best guide now. Methought it was the soundOf riot and ill-managed merriment, Such as the jocund flute or gamesome pipeStirs up among the loose unlettered hinds,When, for their teeming flocks and granges full,In wanton dance they praise the bounteous Pan,And thank the gods amiss.

(170-177)

Bibliography• Broadbent, J. B. Milton: Comus and Samson Agonistes

(London: Edward Arnold, 1961).• Cox, John D. ‘Poetry and History in Milton’s Country Masque’,

ELH, 44:4 (Winter 1977), pp. 622-640.• Major, John M. ‘Comus and the Tempest’, Shakespeare

Quarterly, 10:2 (Spring 1959), pp. 177-183.• McGuire, Maryann Cale. Milton’s Puritan Masque (Athens:

University of Georgia Press, 1983).• Rosenberg, D. M. ‘Milton’s Masque: A Social Occasion for

Philosophic Laughter’, Studies in Philology, 67:2 (April 1970), pp. 245-253.