318 Albert S. Cook, 



Exuerat frigus penetrans Aquilonis acuti ; 



Siccaque brumales urebant arva pruinae. 



Astrictique citos undis glacialibus amnes 



Perdiderant cursus, et clausae vitrea Nymphae 



Tecta subintrabant, tepidis ul^i Mulciber antris 



Conditus hybernat; sic sanguine tinctus Enypheus 



Ausonio, sic Thrax Pindo qui labitur Heebrus, 



Populiferque Padus, Lacedsemoniusque Eurotas, 



Et Tanais gelida celerem qui dividit undam 



Hyrgis aqua, Scythicusque Hypanis, Xanthus Simoisque. 



Vix Arabes horti, caldae vix arva Syenes, 



Vix ager Hesperidum, vix ipse virebat Hymetus. 



Cf. 1. 68 b: 



Et libera pulsis 



Undique fiamma micat fumis, spelaea ligato 



Claudit, et hybernum prohibet velamine frigus. 



See also under 68, below. 



Milton may have seen Kinsman's translation of Villegas' Flos 

 Sanctonuii (Toledo, 1583 ?). Of this — The Lives of Saints, etc. — 

 the First Part was published in 1609, and the Second in 1615. On 

 pp. 556—7 of the Second Part we have : ' It cannot be expressed, 

 what troubles the holie damosell endured by the way : . . . because 

 it was mid winter, where there be snowes, ice, winds, and tempests. 

 If men in their houses doe often feele them, much more must a 

 young and tender Virgin,' etc. 



Longfellow (Cambridge edition, p. 651) translates from Luis de 

 Gongora (1561-1627): 



And, crowned with winter's frost and snow. 

 Night swayed the sceptre of the world. 



And thus Crashaw, Hymn of the Nativity : 



I saw the curled drops, soft and slow, 

 Come hovering o'er the place's head, 



Offering their whitest sheets of snow. 

 To furnish the fair infant's bed. 



One of Southwell's poems begins : 



Behold a silly tender Babe, 

 In freezing winter's night ; 



and the beginning of his poem, The Burning Babe, suggests the 

 same behef. Cf. also Joseph Beaumont, Psyche 7. 134, and the 

 beginning of Christina Rossetti's Christinas Carol: 



