132. ~spets~, a form of _spits_ (as _spettle_ for _spittle_). 133. ~one blot~, _i.e._ a universal blot: comp. _Macbeth_, ii. 2. 63. Milton first wrote, "And makes a blot of nature." 134. ~Stay~, here used causally = check. The radical sense of the word is 'to support,' as in the substantive _stay_ and its plural _stays_. ~ebon~, black as ebony. Ebony is so called because it is hard as a stone (Heb. _eben_, a stone); and the wood being of a dark colour, the name has become a synonym both for hardness and for blackness. 135. ~Hecat'~, _i.e._ Hecatè (as in line 535): a mysterious Thracian divinity, afterwards regarded as the goddess of witchcraft: for these reasons a fit companion for Cotytto and a fit patroness of Comus. Jonson calls her "the mistress of witches." She was supposed to send forth at night all kinds of demons and phantoms, and to wander about with the souls of the dead and amidst the howling of dogs. 136. ~utmost end~, full completion. Compare _L'Alleg._ 109, "the corn That ten day-labourers could not _end_," where 'end' = 'complete.' 137. ~dues~: see note, l. 12. 138. ~blabbing eastern scout~, _i.e._ the tale-telling spy that comes from the East, viz. Morning. 139. ~nice~; hard to please, fastidious: "a finely chosen epithet, expressing at once _curious_ and _squeamish_" (Hurd). It is used by Comus in contempt: comp. ii. _Henry IV._ iv. 1, "Hence, therefore, thou _nice_ crutch"; and see the index to the Globe _Shakespeare_. ~the Indian steep~. In his _Elegia Tertia_ Milton represents the sun as the "light-bringing king" whose home is on the shores of the Ganges (_i.e._ in the far East): comp. "the Indian mount," _Par. Lost_, i. 781, and Tennyson's _In Memoriam_, xxvi., "ere yet the morn Breaks hither over _Indian_ seas." 140. ~cabined loop-hole~: an allusion to the first glimpse of dawn, _i.e._ the peep of day. Comp. "Out of her window close she blushing peeps," said of the morning (P. Fletcher's _Eclogues_), as if the first rays of the sun struggled through some small aperture. 'Cabined,' literally 'belonging to a cabin,' and therefore small. 141. ~tell-tale Sun~. Compare Spenser, _Brit. Ida_, ii. 3, "The thick-locked boughs shut out the _tell-tale_ sun, For Venus hated his _all-blabbing_ light." Shakespeare refers to "the tell-tale day" (_R. of L._ 806). In _Odyssey_, viii., we read how Helios (the sun) kept watch and informed Vulcan of Venus's love for Mars. ~descry~, etc., _i.e._ make known our hidden rites. 'Descry' is here used in its primary sense = _describe_: both words are from Lat. _describere_, to write fully. In Milton and Shakespeare 'descry' also occurs in the sense of 'to reconnoitre.'