Comus was a masque performed before the President of Wales, the Earl of Bridgewater, at Ludlow, Shropshire (near the border between England and Wales) in 1634, to music by Henry Lawes.

Star : Hesperus (Venus), the evening star.

Gilded car : in Roman mythology, the sun god was seen as driving a chariot across the sky each day.

Allay : temper or cool.

Slope sun...: elaborate metaphors for the movement of the sun.

Northern : later changed to ‘dusky’, which fits oddly with ‘pole’.

Welcome : is here a verb (not an adjective).

Dropping odors, dropping wine : evokes ideas of intoxication with fragrances and drink.

Grave saws : serious maxims, not implements to cut up graves.

Swift round : fast succession.

Sounds : passages of water connecting two seas.

Finny drove : fish.

Morris : as in morris dance, an elaborate dance with pipes, handkerchiefs, bells and clapping, usually performed on village greens by men in hobnailed boots.

Cotytto was a Thracian divinity who was celebrated in licentious nocturnal rites.

Stygian : according to Roman mythology, the river Styx ran through the underworld.

Spets : spits

Ebon chair : ebony (black) carriage.

Hecat’ : Hecate, goddess of the underworld.

Indian steep : the Himalayas.