Comus (Miltonic / Classical tradition)

In classical Greek cultural vocabulary the word komos named the nocturnal revel or procession; from that social phenomenon a personified spirit, Κῶμος (Kōmos), appears in later antiquity as one of the minor attendants of Dionysus who embodies the mood of the drinking-bout. This figure is attested in descriptions of Bacchic retinues in which Comus appears alongside satyrs, bacchantes, Gelos (Laughter) and Silens. In the early modern reception John Milton dramatically reinvents Comus for his 1634 masque, giving him a literary genealogy (Milton names him son of Bacchus and Circe) and recasting the personification into an individual tempter who kidnaps and attempts to seduce a virtuous lady, thereby transforming a communal spirit into a moral antagonist within an allegorical drama.

Classical descriptions (summarising Philostratus) represent Comus as a youthful Bacchic figure—a winged youth or child-like satyr—often depicted as a young man nearly unconscious from drink, wearing a wreath of flowers. Renaissance and Miltonic portrayals adapt and expand the imagery: Milton's masque and subsequent art visualize Comus as a licentious, seductive figure (artists such as Blake, Palmer, and Landseer produced postcard and painting motifs) sometimes combining satyric and human features and set in moonlit natural clearings.

In classical context Comus functions as the embodiment and instigator of binge-drinking, nocturnal revels and the looseness of social restraint characteristic of komos; he 'leads Gelos and Komos' among Dionysus's mixed throng. In Milton's masque the figure is dramatized as an agent of temptation and enchantment: he attempts to seduce and corrupt a kidnapped Lady and is credited in the drama and its pictorial captions with placing her under a 'spell.' Sources limit claims of magical casting to Milton's literary treatment rather than to ancient cult practice.