=Peor.= The name of a mountain of Palestine is here used as one of the titles of Baal, who was worshipped there. =Baälim.= Plural of Baal, meaning that god in his various modifications. =Ashtaroth.= The Syrian goddess Astarte. But her worship was identified rather with the planet Venus than with the moon. =Hammon.= A Libyan deity, represented as a ram or as a man with ram's horns. 55. =twise batter'd god.= Dagon. See 1 Samuel v. 56. =mourn.= In Phoenicia, in the ancient city of Byblos, a festival of two days was held every year in honor of Adonis, or Thammuz, as the Phoenicians called him. The first day was observed as a day of mourning for the death of the god; the second, as a day of rejoicing because of his return to the earth. The principal participants were young women. The prophet Ezekiel alludes to this subject: "Then he brought me to the door of the gate of the Lord's house which was toward the north; and, behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz."--_Ezekiel_ viii. 14. Milton, in "Paradise Lost," says: "Thammuz came next behind, Whose annual wound in Lebanon allur'd The Syrian damsels to lament his fate In amorous ditties all a summer's day." 57. Compare with "Paradise Lost," I, 392-405. In _Sandys's Travels_, published in 1615, and a popular book in Milton's time, the following description is given of the sacrifices made to Moloch: "Therein the Hebrews sacrificed their children to Moloch, an idol of brass, having the head of a calf, the rest of a kingly figure, with arms extended to receive the miserable sacrifice seared to death with his burning embracements. For the idol was hollow within and filled with fire." 58. =grisly.= Frightful, hideous. Probably from A.-S. _agrisan_, to dread. 59. =brutish.= Shaped like a brute; animal. =Isis.= The Egyptian earth-goddess, afterwards worshipped as the goddess of the moon. =Orus.= The Egyptian god of the sun. the dog =Anubis=. Juvenal says, "Whole towns worship the dog."--_Sat._, XV, 8. 60. =unshowr'd.= A reference to the general, though erroneous, idea that it does not rain in Egypt. =Osiris=, or Apis, one of the chief gods of the Egyptians, was represented by a bull. =sacred chest= = =worshipt ark=, below. 61. =eyn.= The old plural form of eyes. This form of the plural survives in _oxen_, _children_, _brethren_, _kine_, _swine_. =Typhon.= A monster among the gods, variously described by the poets. He was a terror to all the other deities. 62. =in bed.= The sun has not yet risen. 63. =youngest teemed.= Referring to the Star of Bethlehem. 64. Compare Milton's "Sonnet on his Blindness": "They also serve who only stand and wait." BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE.