"By this the eternal lamps, wherewith high Jove Doth light the lower world, were half yspent:" also _Macbeth_, ii. 1. 5, "There's husbandry in heaven; Their candles are all out." There is here an irregularity of syntax. "That Nature hung in heaven" is a relative clause co-ordinate _in sense_ with the next clause; but by a change of thought the phrase "and filled their lamps" is treated as a principal clause, and a new object is introduced: comp. l. 6. 203. ~rife~, prevalent. ~perfect~, distinct; see note, l. 73. 204. ~single darkness~, darkness only. _Single_ is from the same base as _simple_; comp. l. 369. 205. ~What might this be?~ This is a direct question about a past event, and has the same meaning as "what should it be?" in line 482: see note there. ~A thousand fantasies~, etc. On this, passage Lowell says: "That wonderful passage in _Comus_ of the airy tongues, perhaps the most imaginative in suggestion he ever wrote, was conjured out of a dry sentence in Purchas's abstract of Marco Polo. Such examples help us to understand the poet." Reference may also be made to the _Anat. of Mel._: "Fear makes our imagination conceive what it list, ... and tyrannizeth over our fantasy more than all other affections, especially in the dark"; also to the song prefixed to the same work, "My phantasie presents a thousand ugly shapes," etc. On the power of imagination or phantasy, Shakespeare says: "As imagination bodies forth The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen Turns them to _shapes_, and gives to _airy nothing_ A local habitation and a name."-- _M. N. D._ v. 1. 14. Compare also Ben Jonson's _Vision of Delight_: "Break, Phant'sie, from thy cave of cloud, And spread thy purple wings; Now all thy figures are allow'd, And various shapes of things: Create of _airy forms_ a stream ... And though it be a waking dream," etc. 207. ~Of calling shapes~, etc. In Heywood's _Hierarchy of Angels_ there is a reference to travellers seeing strange shapes beckoning to them. Such words as 'shapes,' 'shadows,' 'airy tongues,' etc., illustrate Milton's power to create an indefinite, yet expressive picture. Comp. _Aen._ iv. 460. ~beckoning shadows dire~. A characteristic arrangement of words in Milton: comp. lines 470, 945. 208. ~syllable~, pronounce distinctly. 210. ~may startle well~, may well startle. 212. ~siding champion, Conscience~. To side is to take a side, and hence to assist: comp. _Cor._ iv. 2. 2: "The nobles who have _sided_ in his behalf." 'Conscience' (here a trisyllable) is used in its current sense: in _Son._ xxii. 10 it means consciousness. Comp. _Hen. VIII._ iii. 2. 379: "A peace above all earthly dignities, A still and quiet Conscience."