452. ~blank awe~: the awe of one amazed. Comp. the phrase, 'blank astonishment,' and see _Par. Lost_, ix. 890.
455. ~liveried 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.
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.
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?
_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 dark and invisible and can be attained only by philosophy;--do you suppose that such a soul will depart pure and unalloyed?