BAPTISM-COTYTTO: MILTON
John Milton, 1608-1674
Comus (A Mask Presented at Ludlow Castle), 1634: A masque (play) in honour of chastity
(Greek: βαπτ… - Κοτυ[τ]τώ / Κότυς)
An Explanatory and Pronouncing Dictionary of the Noted Names of Fiction, Wheeler, 1889, p. 85, “Co-tyt’to”:
http://www.bartleby.com/81/4197.html, E. Cobham Brewer 1810–1897. Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. 1898, “Cotyt’to”:
The Thracian goddess of immodesty, worshipped at Athens with nocturnal rites.
“Hail! goddess of nocturnal sport,
Dark-veiled Cotytto.”
Milton: Comus, 129, 130.
http://www.bibliomania.com/2/3/174/1113/14625/3/frameset.html, “Cotytto”:
Cotytto, goddess of the Edoni of Thrace. Her orgies resembled those of the Thracian Cybelę .
Hail, goddess of nocturnal sport,
Dark-veiled Cotytto, to whom the secret flame
Of midnight torches burns!
—Milton: Comus, 139, etc. (1634).
http://www.blackmask.com/thatway/books146c/charasa.htm, Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1: The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.:
COTYTTO, Groddess of the Edoni of Thrace. Her orgies resembled those of the Thracian Cybele (3 syl).
Hail goddess of nocturnal sport,
Dark-veiled Cotytto, to whom the secret flame
Of midnight torches burns.
Milton, Comus, 136, etc. (1634.)
http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/swinburne/doloresnotes.html:
Cotytto, a Thracian goddess worshipped in particularly licentious rites, appears in Milton's Comus:
Goddesse of Nocturnal sport
Dark vaild Cotytto, t' whom the secret flame
Of mid-night Torches burns; mysterious Dame
That ne're art call'd, but when the Dragon woom
Of Stygian darknes spets her thickest gloom,
And makes one blot of all the ayr. [ll. 129-36; text transcribed by Judith Bass
at U. of Oregon site]
The entire play:
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~milton/reading_room/comus/index.shtml, A Mask Presented at Ludlow Castle, 1634.