104. His mantle hairy, and his bonnet sedge. The river god is represented as wearing a mantle made of water-grasses and reeds. 105-106. These lines refer to certain markings on the water-plants of the Cam, said to be correctly described here by the poet. The dimness of the figures may suggest the great age of the university, and the tokens of woe belong to the present occasion. 106. that sanguine flower inscribed with woe. This is the hyacinth, the flower that sprang up on the spot where the youth Hyacinthus had been accidentally slain by Apollo. The petals of the hyacinth are said to be marked with the Greek letters AI AI, which form an interjection expressing grief. 107. Lycidas was one of those collegians whose scholarship, character, and piety promise to make them the pride of their Alma Mater. 109. The Pilot of the Galilean Lake. See Matthew XIV. 110. Two massy keys he bore of metals twain. See Matthew XVI 19. See also Comus 13 and Par. Lost III 485. The idea of _two_ keys, one of gold and one of iron, is not in the Bible. 112. He shook his mitred locks. St. Peter wears the mitre as bishop. 113-131. St. Peter makes but little reference to Lycidas, and his words add almost nothing to the elegiac character of the poem. His speech is one of stern and bitter satire. The second period of Milton's life, which is to be given up to intense and uncompromising partisanship in religion and politics, foreshadows itself in these lines. 114. Enow is here used in its proper plural sense. See note on Comus 780. 115. climb into the fold. See John X 1. The metaphor of sheep and herdsmen is continued throughout the speech. 119. Blind mouths! As the relative pronoun beginning the next clause refers to this exclamation, mouths must be taken as a bold metaphor meaning men who are all mouth, or are supremely greedy and selfish. Moreover, they are blind. 122. What recks it them? See note on Comus 404. They are sped: they have succeeded in their purpose. See Antony and Cleopatra II 3 35. Note also the phrase of greeting, _bid God speed_, as in 2 John I 10, 11, King James version. 123. their lean and flashy songs: their sermons. Evidently Milton can cull words of extreme disparagement and vilification as well as words of unapproachable poetic beauty. 125-127. The congregations are not edified. The miserable preaching they listen to fails to keep them sound in doctrine. They grow lax in their faith, and heretical opinions become fashionable. 128. the grim wolf with privy paw is undoubtedly the Roman church.