eried angels lackey her~, _i.e._ ministering angels attend her.
So, in _L'Alleg._ 62, "the clouds in thousand _liveries_ dight"; a
servant's livery being the distinctive dress _delivered_ to him by his
master. 'Lackey,' to wait upon, from 'lackey' (or lacquey), a footboy,
who runs by the side of his master. The word is here used in a good
sense, without implying servility (as in _Ant. and Cleop._ i. 4. 46,
"_lackeying_ the varying tide"). 'Her': the soul. Milton is fond of the
feminine personification: see line 396.

457. ~vision~: a trisyllable.

458. ~no gross ear~. See notes, l. 112 and 997.

459. ~oft converse~, frequent communion. _Oft_ is here used adjectively:
this use is common in the English Bible, _e.g._ i. _Tim._ v. 23, "thine
_often_ infirmities."

460. ~Begin to cast ... turns~. 'Begin' is subjunctive; 'turns' is
indicative: the latter may be used to convey greater certainty and
vividness.

461. ~temple of the mind~, _i.e._ the body. This metaphor is common: see
Shakespeare, _Temp._ i. 2. 57, "There's nothing ill can dwell in such a
_temple_"; and the Bible, _John_, ii. 21, "He spake of the _temple_ of
his body."

462. ~the soul's essence~. As if, by a life of purity, the body gradually
became spiritualised, and therefore partook of the soul's immortality.

465. ~most~, above all.

467. ~soul grows clotted~. This doctrine is expounded in Plato's _Phaedo_,
in a conversation between Socrates and Cebes:

_Socrates_ (speaking of the pure soul). That soul, I say, herself
invisible, departs to the invisible world--to the divine and
immortal and rational: thither arriving, she is secure of bliss,
and is released from the error and folly of men, their fears and
wild passions and all other human ills, and for ever dwells, as
they say of the initiated, in company with the gods. Is not this
true, Cebes?

_Cebes._ Yes; beyond a doubt.

_Soc._ But the soul which has been polluted, and is impure at the
time of her departure, and is the companion and servant of the body
always, and is in love with and fascinated by the body and by the
desires and pleasures of the body, until she is led to believe that
the truth only exists in a bodily form, which a man may touch and
see and taste, and use for the purposes of his lusts--the soul, I
mean, accustomed to hate and fear and avoid the intellectual
principle, which to the bodily eye is d