Note 822 — INDEX TO THE NOTES.

Melibœus. The name of a shepherd in Virgil’s Eclogue i. Possibly the poet Spenser is here meant, as the tale of Sabrina is given in the Faerie Queene, ii. 10, 14. The tale is also told by Geoffrey of Monmouth and by Sackville, Drayton and Warner. As Milton refers to a ‘shepherd,’ i.e. a poet, and to ‘the soothest shepherd,’ i.e. the truest poet, and as he follows Spenser’s version of the story in this poem, we need not hesitate to identify Meliboeus with Spenser.

823. soothest, truest. The A.S. sóth meant true; hence also ‘a true thing’ = truth. It survives in soothe (lit. to affirm to be true), soothsay (see l. 874), and forsooth (= for a truth).