[Milton-L] Poetry Daily

[Harold Skulsky]

Come to think of it, the original Latin sense of *liquidus* is "flowing"; the derivative Latin sense is "clear." But the latter sense allows Roman poets to apply it to sounds, especially to birdsong, as in Lucretius 2.146 "variae volucres liquidis loca vocibus opplent" ("many-colored birds fill the region with their liquid voices." As others in this thread have argued, it seems that Milton is following his Roman models in exploiting both senses--figurative and nonfigurative--at the same time.