29). The symbolic darkness in the later stanzas, seen against the intermingled and identified light and music of the earlier ones, is dispersed, as Rosemond Tuve reminds us in Images and Themes, p. 71, by the heavenly love, described in XXVII in images of brightness, which will work a perpetual peace. The fullest annotation will be found in Albert S. Cook’s notes on the ode in Trans. of the Connecticut Acad. of Arts and Sciences, XV (1909), 307–68. See Maren-Sofie Røstvig’s numerological analysis in The Hidden Sense and Other Essays (Oslo, 1963) for the contrast between the earthly concepts of the proem and the regenerative aspects of the hymn itself.

2 Tne reversed combinations “wedded Maid” and “Virgin Mother” create a chiasmus, or X, the sign of Christ.

3 Christ’s kenosis or emptying himself of his godhead (Phil. ii. 6-8).

4 the three Wise Men.

5 anticipate.

6 Isa. vi. 6-7: “Then flew one of the seraphims unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar: And he laid it upon my mouth, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips.”

7 polluted.

8 Rev. iii. 18: “I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see.”

9 The dove Peace (the “turtledove” of l. 50) brought an olive branch to the ark as a sign of harmony with nature; the reference suggests the descent of the dove (the Spirit of God) at Christ’s baptism. The myrtle wand, sacred to Venus, emphasizes the Love which has created Peace on Earth.

10 the heavens.

11 No war took place in the Roman Empire for some years before Jesus’ birth.

12 hushed.

13 the halcyons, which were supposed to breed only when the sea is calm; the waves are thought of as under a spell. The halcyon, or kingfisher, was a symbol of Christ. Compare PL I, 19-22; VII, 233-37.

14 The stars, shining toward Bethlehem, are exerting all their power of good fortune on the Christ-child.

15 the morning star.

16 the axle of the sun’s chariot.

17 Compare Luke ii. 8-20.

18 Christ, the Good Shepherd.

19 both “in kindness” and “in kinship” as man.

20 simple.

21 cadence.

22 orb of the moon.

23 in the union both of nature and of divine and human natures in the Incarnation.

24 inexpressible.

25 Job xxxviii. 6–7: “Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened?… When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?”

26 The music of the nine spheres (the ninth being the Crystalline) resulted from the harmony of single tones uttered by each of the sirens as she traveled about the earth on her allotted sphere (Rep., X, 616–17). Pythagoreans believed that only the sinless could hear this “silver chime.”

27 concert, group.

28 the early age when Saturn ruled the world. It was an age of innocent happiness when men lived without strife, labor, or injustice.

29 polluted, abominable. The phrase may translate Horace’s “maculosum nefas” (Odes, IV, v, 22) with reference to Ecclesiastes.

30 appearing, scrutinizing, equalizing.

31 See Mask, n. 12. The collocation of Truth, Justice, and Mercy comes from Ps. lxxxv. 10; they are the so-called daughters of God, representing the three persons of the Holy Trinity (Father, Holy Spirit, and Son), who combined constitute the fourth daughter, Peace (see ll. 45-52).

32 death.

33 1 Thess. iv. 16: “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.”

34 The giving of the ten commandments (Exod.