142. ~solemnity~, ceremony, rite. The word is from Lat. _sollus_, complete, and _annus_, a year; 'solemn' = _solennis_ = _sollennis_. Hence the changes of meaning: (1) recurring at the end of a completed year; (2) usual; (3) religious, for sacred festivals recur at stated intervals; (4) that which is not to be lightly undertaken, _i.e._ serious or important. 143. ~knit hands~, etc. Comp. _Masque of Hymen_: "Now, now begin to set Your spirits in active heat; And, since your hands are met, Instruct your nimble feet, In motions swift and meet, The happy ground to beat." 144. ~light fantastic round~: comp. _L'Alleg._ 34, "Come, and trip it, as you go, On the light fantastic toe." A round is a dance or 'measure' in which the dancers join hands, 'Fantastic' = full of fancy, unrestrained. So Shakespeare uses it of that which has merely been imagined, and has not yet happened. It is now used in the sense of grotesque. _Fancy_ is a form of _fantasy_ (Greek _phantasia_). At this point in the mask Comus and his rout dance a measure, after which he again speaks, but in a different strain. The change is marked by a return to blank verse: the previous lines are mostly in octosyllabic couplets. 145. ~different~, _i.e._ different from the voluptuous footing of Comus and his crew. 146. ~footing~: comp. _Lyc._ 103, "Camus, reverend sire, went _footing_ slow." 147. ~shrouds~, coverts, places of hiding. The word etymologically denotes 'something cut off,' being allied to 'shred'; hence a garment; and finally (as in Milton) any covering or means of covering. Many of Latimer's sermons are described as having been "preached in The Shrouds," a covered place near St. Paul's Cathedral. The modern use of the word is restricted: comp. l. 316. ~brakes~, bushes. Shakespeare has "hawthorn-_brake_," _M. N. D._ iii. l. 3, and the word seems to be connected with _bracken_. 148. ~Some virgin sure~, _sc._ 'it is.' 150. ~charms ... wily trains~; _i.e._ spells ... cunning allurements. _Charm_ is the Lat. _carmen_, a song, also used in the sense of 'magic verses'; wily = full of _wile_ (etymologically the same as guile). _Train_ here denotes an artifice or snare as in 'venereal trains' (_Sams. Agon._ 533): "Oh, _train_ me not, sweet mermaid, with thy note" (_Com. of Errors_, iii. 2. 45). See Index, Globe _Shakespeare_. Some would take 'wily trains' as = trains of wiles. 151. ~ere long~: _ere_ has here the force of a preposition; in A.S. it was an adverb as well = soon, but now it is used only as a conjunction or a preposition.