ugh_. 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.

785. ~sublime notion and high mystery~. In the _Apology for Smectymnuus_
Milton tells of his study of the "divine volume of Plato," wherein he
learned of the "abstracted sublimities" of Chastity and Love: also of
his study of the Holy Scripture "unfolding these chaste and high
mysteries, with timeless care infused, that the body is for the Lord,
and the Lord for the body."

790. ~dear wit~. 'Dear' is here used in contempt: its original sense is
'precious' (A.S. _deore_), but in Elizabethan English it has a variety
of meanings, _e.g._ intense, serious, grievous, great, etc. Comp. "sad
occasion _dear_," _Lyc._ 6; "_dear_ groans," _L. L. L._ v. 2. 874. Craik
suggests "that the notion properly involved in it of love, having first
become generalised into that of a strong affection of any kind, had
thence passed on to that of such an emotion the very reverse of love,"
as in my _dearest_ foe. ~gay rhetoric~: here so named in contempt, as
being the instrument of sophistry.

791. ~fence~, argumentation, _Fence_ is an abbreviation of _defence_:
comp. "tongue-fence" (Milton), "fencer in wits' school" (Fuller), _Much
Ado_, v. 1. 75.

794. ~rapt spirits~. 'Rapt' = enraptured, as if the mind or soul had been
_carried out of itself_ (Lat. _raptus_, seized): comp. _Il Pens._ 40,
"Thy _rapt_ soul sitting in thine eyes." Milton also uses the word of
the actual snatching away of a person: "What accident hath _rapt_ him
from us," _Par. Lost_, ii. 40.

797. ~the brute Earth~, etc., _i.e._ the senseless Earth would become
sensible and assist me. 'Brute' = Lat. _brutus_, dull, insensible: comp.
Horace, _Odes_, i