Comus

The masque is written mainly in blank verse. Blank verse consists of unrhymed iambic pentameters; it is a flexible verse form that is quite close to the rhythms of English speech. An iambic pentameter comprises five poetic feet of two syllables each, an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable, although Milton frequently varies the rhythm, as in the opening lines spoken by the Attendant Spirit: “Before the starry threshold of Jove’s court / My mansion is, where those immortal shapes” (Lines 1-2). In the first line, the fourth foot is a pyrrhic foot (two unstressed syllables), and the fifth foot is a spondee—two stressed syllables. Line 2 is a regular iambic pentameter. From time to time, the first foot is inverted in favor of a trochaic foot, in which a stressed syllable is followed by an unstressed syllable. Thus, when the Spirit first alludes to Comus, two successive lines begin with a trochaic substitution to mark the emergence of something different: “Bacchus, that first from out the purple grape / Crushed the sweet poison of misuséd wine (Lines 46-47). 

When Comus first appears with his fellow revelers, he speaks in a different meter—a mixture of rhymed iambic and trochaic tetrameters, consisting of four feet per line. This jaunty, lighthearted rhyming verse establishes a contrast between Comus and the serious, virtuous characters who speak in blank verse. However, when Comus first senses the nearby presence of the Lady, he switches immediately to blank verse, the better to deceive her as he magically transforms himself into the appearance of a shepherd. He continues to speak blank verse in all his interactions with the Lady as part of his efforts to feign reason and virtue.  

The various songs all have their own distinct meters, and another frequently employed verse form is the rhyming couplet. Comus’s first speech (Lines 93-144) is one example. Another example occurs in the opening dialogue between Elder Brother and the Spirit, which includes seven successive couplets, such as, “How cam’st thou here, good swain? Hath any ram / Slipped from the fold, or young kid lost his dam” (Lines 497-98). The Spirit also uses 11 successive rhyming couplets in tetrameter lines as he summons Sabrina: “By all the nymphs that lightly dance / Upon thy streams with wily glance” (Lines 883-84), and some of Sabrina’s verse is in rhymed couplets also. This is followed, beginning at Line 922, with the Spirit’s speech addressed directly to the Lady, which consists of 18 rhyming couplets in iambic tetrameter lines; these continue up to Line 956. It is notable here that once the Lady is free, and the Spirit tells her that they must now flee from the dark wood, the Spirit abandons the stately blank verse that marked their previous interactions. Similarly, the 48 lines of the Epilogue are spoken by the Spirit almost entirely in rhyming couplets.

Apostrophe is a figure of speech in which an absent person, an abstract quality, or an inanimate entity is addressed directly. Milton uses this literary device on several occasions. Comus addresses the goddess Cotytto: “Hail, goddess of nocturnal sport, / Dark-veiled Cotytto” (Lines 128-29). The Lady addresses “O thievish Night” (Line 195), complaining that it has shut out the light from the stars. A few lines later, she apostrophizes “pure-eyed Faith, white-handed Hope” (Line 213), welcoming their presence. The elder brother apostrophizes “ye faint stars, and thou, fair moon” (Line 331), appealing to them to shed some light in the darkness, and the younger brother addresses “O night and shades” (Line 580), lamenting that they have joined with hell to threaten his sister. It is notable that many of these instances passages apostrophize either the light or the darkness, respectively associated with good and evil, order and chaos, and the divine and the demonic. The direct address creates a sense of these dichotomies not merely as abstractions but as living realities in the characters’ lives.