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Drawings

Illustration 2 to Milton's "Comus": Comus, Disguised as a Rustic, Addresses the Lady in the Wood

Type
Drawings(Opens in new tab)
Date
ca. 1801
Accession number
000.21
Maker
William Blake(Opens in new tab) (British, 1757–1827)
Dimensions
8 5/8 x 7 5/16 in. (21.9 x 18.5 cm.) mount: 21 15/16 x 17 7/8 in. (55.7 x 45.4 cm.)
Medium
pen and watercolor
Description
Comus, who has now assumed the appearance of a "harmless Villager/Whom thrift keeps up about his Country gear" (166-67), addresses the Lady (265-330). Her face and gesture express her confused and unhappy plight, for she is lost in the "rough shades" and "leavy Labyrinth" of the "tall Wood" (266, 270, 278). Comus hides his magic wand (see 000.20) behind his back, even though it now takes on the character of a gnarled walking stick. His long coat and broad-brimmed hat are typical accoutrements of travelers in Blake's art.[1] The attendant Spirit is not present in this scene in the text (244-330), but has a prominent role in the design. Rays of light emanate from his angelic form. Much later in the masque, the Spirit describes the magical root of "Haemony" (629-47) he gives the Lady's Brothers to protect them from Comus' spells. In "another Country," Heamony "Bore a bright golden flow'r, but not in this soil." A flower, even one specifically described as absent from the "soil" of this masque, has an obvious pictorial superiority over an "unsightly root" (629), and thus Blake places a small yellow flower in the Spirit's right hand. Once again, Blake has taken a motif named in a later scene and introduced it into an early illustration as an emblem prophetic of the Lady's eventual salvation. In the Boston version, the attendant Spirit hovers closer to the ground, with wings extended upwards, and wears a transparent gown indicated only by a collar and a few filmy lines around his legs and right hip. A halo, arching over his head, replaces the more encompassing radiance of the Huntington design. His hands, palms outward, echo the Lady's gesture, but suggest disapproval as much as surprise. There is no flower. The Lady's hands are farther from her shoulders; her face expresses more confusion than sadness. Comus' disguise is much the same, but he looks younger and is slightly less stooped. There are now three trees immediately behind the Lady and Comus and two in the middle distance behind the Spirit. The changes in the trees, Comus' posture, and the Spirit's wings give the Boston version a much stronger vertical axis. The tree trunks are more columnar, branching into a canopy only at the top of the design. Notes 1. See for example the ninth and eleventh watercolor illustrations to Thomas Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country Church-Yard" (Paul Mellon collection; Butlin 1981, Nos. 335.113 and 335.115), the frontispiece to Jerusalem, and Blake's ninth wood engraving to Robert John Thornton, The Pastorals of Virgil (London, 1821).
Credit
The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens
Department
European Art
Find out more
View in the Art Museum catalog(Opens in new tab)
The gestures and facial expression of the Lady indicate her confusion as she is confronted by Comus, now disguised as an old man. The attendant Spirit on the right holds a magical flower as protection against Comus's spells.

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