WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - The Poetry Fix: Comus, Part Two
Episode Date: December 8, 2025Today, Erika Kyba continues to analyze Milton's "Comus," and we learn what makes the wicked spirit, Comus so dangerous: he menaces the rational faculties of men, and tempts them, through inor...dinate pleasure, to animality and indignity. Alexandra Comus joins us once again to narrate the part of the Attendant Spirit.
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Welcome to the Poetry Fix on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.1.m.Fm.
I'm your host, Erica Kaiba, bringing you your weekly fix of poetry from across time.
Today we're continuing our journey through Milton's Comus.
In the last episode, we heard the attendant spirit begin to set up his mission
to protect the Egerton children from the wicked spirit, Comus.
We're about to learn just what makes Comus so dangerous.
Combining the arts of his father, Dionysus, the god of wine,
and his mother, Circe, who transformed Odysseus' men into pigs in the Odyssey,
comus brews a liquor which turns the heads of weary travelers into the heads of beasts.
Whereas the spirit opened with the promise that some men may by upward steps aspire to heavenly
virtue, Comus poses the threat of leading men by downward steps into animality and the loss of their
rational faculties. What's more, these men that Comus tempts desire to quench the draft of Phoebus,
or rather quench the thirst brought on by the sun. On the little,
literal level, these men are tired and dehydrated and sunsick. But there's more to it than that.
The spirit already established the possibility of an upward, that is, heavenly, or sunward, path.
This path can be exhausting, though, and this is exactly where Comus steps in to lure them off
the heavenly path, promising them pleasure. The unsuspecting travelers, however, have unwittingly
signed up for much more than good times and refreshment. Their heads, the sea,
of the intellect, are turned to those of animals, and Comus takes away from them even the ability
to realize what has happened to them or to remember where they came from. With all that said,
let's dive in. Comus by John Milton, narrated by Alexandra Comus. Offering to every weary traveler
is orient liquor in a crystal glass to quench the draft of Phoebus, which as they taste,
for most do tastes through fond and temperate thirst.
Soon as the potion works, their human countenance, the express resemblance of the gods,
is changed into some brutish form of wolf, or bear, or ants, or tiger, hog, or bearded
goat, all other parts remaining as they were, and they so perfect is their misery.
Not once perceived their foul disfigurement, but boast themselves more comely than before,
and all their friends in native home forget to roll with pleasure in essential sty.
Before, when any favorite of High Jove, chances to pass through this adventurous glade, swift
is the sparkle of a glancing star.
I shoot from heaven to give him safe convoy, as now I do, but first I must put off.
These my sky robes spun out of Iris Woof, and take the weeds in likeness of a swain
that to the service of this house belongs, who, with his soft pipe and smooth dittyed song,
well knows to steal the wild winds when they roar, and hush the waving woods.
nor of less faith, and in this office of his mountain watch,
likeliest, and nears to the present aid of this occasion.
But I hear the tread of hateful steps. I must be viewless now.
You've been listening to The Poetry Fix with Erica Kaiba.
If you enjoyed this episode, consider following the Poetry Fix on Spotify, YouTube, or Apple Podcasts.
And if you have any poems you want to see in a future episode,
email your suggestions to The Poetry Fix at Gene.
email.com. Join me next week, and we'll be reading Arthur Zay's Architects Watercolor.
Thank you.