42. =trump.= "For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first."--_1 Thessalonians_ iv. 16. =wakefull.= Awakening. 43. =rang.= See Exodus xix. 44. =session.= Assize. Both words were originally from the same root, Lat. _sedeo_, _sessum_. =spread.= Prepare, make ready. A similar use of the word survives in the idiom "to spread the table." 45. =Dragon.= See Revelation xii. 9. 46. =Swindges.= Swings about violently. This is the only case in which Milton uses this word. It is used several times by Shakespeare in the sense of _to whip_, _to scourge_. 47. =oracles are dumm.= Keightly says: "This was a frequent assertion of the Fathers, who ascribed to the coming of Christ what was the effect of time. They regarded the ancient oracles as having been the inspiration of the devil." Spenser, quoting the story which Plutarch relates in "his Booke of the ceasing of miracles," says, "For at that time, as hee sayth, all Oracles surceased, and enchaunted spirites that were woont to delude the people thenceforth held their peace."--_Glosse to Shepheards Calendar, May._ 48. =Delphos.= The mediæval form of the word _Delphi_. The temple where was the chief oracle of Apollo was at Delphi, built at the foot of a precipitous cliff two thousand feet high. This oracle was suppressed by the Emperor Theodosius. 49. =weeping.= Compare Matthew ii. 19, and Jeremiah xxxi. 15. Spenser, in the same _Glosse_, quoted from above, says, "About the same time that our Lorde suffered his most bitter passion for the redemption of man, certaine persons sailing from Italie to Cyprus and passing by certaine iles called Paxæ, heard a voice calling aloud Thamus, Thamus, (now Thamus was the name of an Egyptian which was pylote of the ship), who, giving ear to the crie, was bidden, when he came to Palodes to tell that great Pan was dead: which hee doubting to doe, yet for that when hee came to Palodes, there suddenly was such a calme of winde that the ship stoode still in the sea unmooved, he was forced to crie aloude that Pan was dead: wherewithall there was heard such piteous outcries, and dreadfull shriking as hath not beene the like." 50. =parting.= Departing. Frequently used in Old English. =Genius.= Spirit. See "Lycidas," 182: "Henceforth thou art the Genius of the shore." 51. =consecrated earth--holy hearth.= Referring to the places specially haunted by the Lars and Lemures. The Lemures were the spirits of the dead, and were said to wander about at night, frightening the living. The Lares were the household gods, sometimes referred to as the spirits of good men. The former frequented the graveyards; the latter, the hearths. 52. =Flamins.= Priests. 53. =forgoes.= Goes from, gives up, abandons. 54. =Peor and Baälim.= Compare the proper names which occur in this and the following stanzas with those in "Paradise Lost," I, 316-352.