Comus

The scene changes to Ludlow Town and the President’s Castle, and country dancers enter, followed by the Spirit, the two brothers, and the Lady. With a song, the Spirit presents them to their father. The song sums up what the audience has witnessed as well as the moral of the poem. The three children have had their faith, their patience, and their adherence to the truth put to the test, and they have emerged “[w]ith a crown of deathless praise, / To triumph in victorious dance / O’er sensual folly and intemperance” (Lines 973-75). The passage once again uses conventional Christian imagery (e.g., of crowns) to characterize the defeat of vice and deceit.

The final word is also left to the Attendant Spirit. In its evocation of the “happy climes” (Line 977) to which he is now free to fly, his epilogue resembles the song of the spirit Ariel in Shakespeare’s The Tempest (Act 5, Scene 1, Lines 88-94). The Spirit also tells the story of Cupid and Psyche. After the gods permitted Cupid, the son of Venus, to marry the mortal woman Psyche, Psyche became immortal and gave birth, traditionally, to a daughter, Volupta (pleasure). The Christian interpretation of the Cupid-Psyche story is that Cupid represents the love of Christ for the human soul. Although that interpretation is not explicitly emphasized here, Milton does change the myth to suit his moral message, assigning to Cupid and Psyche twins named “Youth and Joy” (Line 1011). In a 1642 prose work (“An Apology for Smectymnuus”) in which Milton explains his love of chastity, he states that the offspring of love and the soul are “knowledge” and “virtue,” thus aligning himself with the Platonic-Christian tradition and its love of the good. In Comus, Milton chooses joy and youth as the children of Cupid and Psyche as a correction to the false philosophy of Comus, who promised the same qualities through sensual indulgence. In Milton’s view, only virtue, reason, and temperance, which come from God, can ensure true happiness. As the Spirit instructs humans right at the end of the poem, “Love Virtue, she alone is free” (Line 1019).