767. ~dictate~. The accent in Milton's time was on the first syllable, both in noun and verb. ~spare Temperance~. For Milton's praises of Temperance comp. _Il Pens._ 46, "Spare Fast that oft with gods doth diet"; also the 6th Elegy, 56-66; _Son._ xx., etc. "There is much in the Lady which resembles the youthful Milton himself--he, the Lady of his college--and we may well believe that the great debate concerning temperance was not altogether dramatic (where, indeed, is Milton truly dramatic?), but was in part a record of passages in the poet's own spiritual history." Dowden's _Transcripts and Studies_. 768. If Nature's blessings were equally distributed instead of being heaped upon a luxurious few, then (as Shakespeare says, _King Lear_, iv. 1. 73) "distribution should undo excess, And each man have enough." 769. ~beseeming~, suitable. The original sense of _seem_ is 'to be fitting,' as in the words _beseem_ and _seemly_. 770. ~lewdly-pampered~; one of Milton's most expressive compounds = wickedly gluttonous. _Lewd_ has passed through several changes of meaning: (1) the lay-people as distinct from the clergy; (2) ignorant or unlearned; and finally (2) base or licentious. 774. ~she no whit encumbered~, _i.e._ Nature would not be in the least surcharged (as Comus represented in l. 728). _No whit_, used adverbially = not in the least, lit. 'not a particle.' Etymologically _aught_ = a whit, _naught_ = no whit. 776. ~His praise due paid~, _i.e._ would be duly paid. On _due_, see note, l. 12. ~gluttony~: abstract for concrete. 779. ~Crams~, _i.e._ crams himself. There are many verbs in English that may be thus used reflexively without having the pronoun expressed, _e.g._ _feed_, _prepare_, _change_, _pour_, _press_, etc. 780. ~enow~. 'Enow' conveys the notion of a number, as in early English: it is also spelt _anow_, and in Chaucer _ynowe_, and is the plural of _enough_. It still occurs as a provincialism in England. On lines 780-799 Masson says: "A recurrence, by the sister, with much more mystic fervour, to that Platonic and Miltonic doctrine which had already been propounded by the Elder Brother (see lines 420-475)." 782. ~sun-clad power of chastity~. With 'sun-clad' compare 'the sacred rays of chastity,' l. 425. Similarly in the _Faerie Queene_, iii. 6, Spenser says of Belphoebe, who represents Chastity, "And Phoebus with fair beams did her adorn." 783. ~yet to what end?~ A rhetorical question, = it would be to no purpose. 784. ~nor ... nor~. These correlatives are often used in poetry for _neither ... nor_ (Shakespeare often omitting the former altogether), and are equally correct. _Nor_ is only a contraction of _neither_, and the first may as well be contracted as the second.