Notes on Milton's Nativity Ode. 319 



In the bleak mid-winter 



Frosty winds made moan, 

 Earth stood hard as iron, 



Water hke a stone ; 

 Snow had fallen, snow on snow, 



Snow on snow, 

 hi the bleak mid-winter, 



Long ago. 



30. While. Almost the same as when; cf. 120. 

 heaven-born. I do not know what Hales means by saying : 

 ' born is dissyllabic here.' The first syllable does duty for a foot, 

 as in 89, 93, 104, 153, 166, 177, 185; cf 120, 225. 



32. Nature. Again personified in 101. The Alma Redemptoris 

 has: 



Tu quae genuisti, 

 Natura mirante, tuum sanctum Genitorem. 



Nature here almost = ' the earth.' 



33. At times in Latin, words like vcstis, vestire, indnere are figur- 

 atively used of certain natural features of the earth : so monies 

 vestiti, Cicero, N.D. 2. 53. 132. Ovid and Virgil, though rarely, 

 contain expressions which point to the fuller developments of me- 

 diaeval literature. Alain de Lille, in his Dc Planctii Naturce (tr. Moffat, 

 Yale Studies in English 36), has the following (Prose 2, lines 69—72) : 

 ' The earth, lately stripped of its charms by the thieving winter, 

 through the generosit}- of spring donned a purple tunic of flowers, 

 that it might not, inglorious in ragged vestments, appear to the 

 young virgin unbecomingly.' Again (Metre 4, 1. 27) : ' And, clothed 

 in its tunic of blossoms, the earth exults.' The Roman de la Rose 

 speaks (56—66) of the earth as becoming so proud by reason of the 

 dew that falls upon it, that it forgets the poor estate in which it 

 had remained during the winter, desires a new robe, and actually 

 fashions one for itself of varied colors. This is translated by Chaucer 

 {R.R. 59-70), as follows: 



And the erthe wexeth proud withalle. 



For swote dewes that on it falle, 



And [al] the pore estat forget 



In which that winter hadde it set. 



And than bicometh the ground so proud 



That it wol have a newe shroud, 



And maketh so queynt his robe and fayr 



That it hath hewes an hundred payr 



