Faery Mab (Symbol)
During one of the evening celebrations in "L'Allegro," the shepherds describe their encounters with Faery Mab, a fairy queen famous for pulling pranks on people as they sleep. Faery Mab first appeared in Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet," where Mercutio gives a famous monologue on Mab sowing disorder among her victims. Mercutio begins by describing how Mab causes people to fall in love, and lists the trivial mishaps that follow, but the tone of his speech soon changes. The figure of Mab becomes more sinister as he describes her inspiring soldiers to go to war and the chaos of violence. Since Mercutio's speech, poets have alluded to Mab as a symbol of chaos. She's the party that becomes a riot, the dark edge to the speaker's argument for joy in "L'Allegro."
Hunt (Allegory)
When Milton describes shepherds “dancing in the chequer'd shade," he's drawing from the pastoral tradition, where shade is used to evoke secrecy, conspiracy, sexual escapades, and political plots; but more specifically, he is alluding to a scene in Shakespeare’s play, “Titus Andronicus,” where a corrupt queen and her servant sleep together in the “chequer’d shadow” and laugh at how the hunting horns they hear indicate two separate hunts: one on deer, the other on their political rivals. By alluding to the scene from Shakespeare, Milton gives a sinister undertone to the hunt that takes place in "L'Allegro. Though his speaker describes the scene joyfully—the dogs "cheerily rouse" the morning with their barks—it's easy enough to read the scene in a different light. The victims of the hunt, which the speaker never describes, become an allegory for the victims of a life full of pleasure: the people damaged by someone blinded by the life of joy.
