Grew darker at their frown, fo match'd they stood; To meet fo great a foe: and now great deeds 721 Faft by Hell gate, and kept the fatal key, 725 O Father, what intends thy hand, fhe cry'd,. Against thy only Son? What fury', O Son, Poffeffes thee to bend that mortal dart Against thy Father's head? and know'ft for whom; 729 For Or as when clouds together crush'd and bruis'd, Pour down a tempeft by the Caf pian fhore. 722.- -Jo great a foe:] Jefus Christ who (as it follows ver. 734.) 715.-Heav'n's artillery] Thun- will one day destroy both Death der. Juv. Sat. XIII. 9. Ufque and him that has the power of death, that is the Devil. Heb. II. i 14. 720.- and know'ft for whom :] Thefe words are read with a femicolon in Mi ton's own editions, and not with a note of interrogation, as in fome others: and the meaning is, at the fame time that thou knoweft for abom; Cum noris bene cui facias hoc; as Dr Trapp tranflates it. If this is not te And fo Fairfax, in Taffo, Cant. 6. fenfe of the words, they must be St. 38. read with a note of interrogation, For him who fits above and laughs the while She spake, and at her words the hellish pest 735 Forbore, then thefe to her Satan return'd. So ftrange thy outcry, and thy words so strange I know thee not, nor ever faw till now Son 740 745 T'whom thus the portrefs of Hell gate reply'd. Haft thou forgot me then, and do I seem In Heav'n, when at th' affembly, and in fight 737. So frange thy outcry, and thy words to frange] The change in the position of the words Jo ftrarge in this verfe has a peculiar beauty in it, which Dr. Bentley's alteration of the latter frange into new utterly defiroys. Of So ftrange thy outcry, and thy words fo new. How flat, lifelefs, and unharmonious, campar'd with the common reading! 758. Out of thy head I fprung: Sin is rightly made to fpring out of Of all the Seraphim with thee combin'd In bold confpiracy against Heav'n's king, Surpris'd thee, dim thine eyes, and dizzy swum 750 760 In darkness, while thy head flames thick and fast of the head of Satan, as Wisdom or Minerva did out of Jupiter's: and Milton describes the birth of the one very much in the fame manner, as the ancient poets have that of the other, and particularly the author of the hymn to Mi 765 (For nerva vulgarly afcribed to Homer. And what foliows feems to be an hint improv'd upon Minerva's being ravith'd foon after her birth by Vulcan, as we may learn from Lucian. Dial, Vulcani & Jovis, & De Domo. L 4 7/1-the (For what could elfe?) to our almighty foe Clear victory, to our part lofs and rout 770 Through all the empyréan: down they fell I; at which time this pow'rful key Into my hand was giv'n, with charge to keep 771 -the empyrean:] It is fonic what remarkable that tho' the word en pyreal and empyrean are both fpelt in the fame manner, yet Milton cenitantly pronounces empyreal with the accent upon the thi d fyllall: from the end, and empyrean with the accent upon the fecond. I once imagin'd that he did it to diftinguish the fubftantive 1.om the adjective; but I find one infance where he uses the word empyrean as an adjective, and yet gives it the fame accent as when he makes it a iuftantive, X. 321. The confins me of empyrean Heaven. 773 780 785 Tore through my entrails, that with fear and pain And in embraces forcible and foul Ingendring with me, of that rape begot These yelling monsters, that with ceaseless cry 795 Surround me, as thou faw'ft, hourly conceiv'd And Infonuere cave, gemitumque de- only Death is made the laft word in the fentence, and Eurydice for the fake of the verfe the first. and There is the like repetition in Ecl. VI. 43. I fled and cry'd out Death Eurydicen vox ipfa et frigida lin His adjungit, Hylan nautæ quo 796. as thou faw'ft,] One would think it fhould be as thou feeft; but we muft fuppofe that now at this time thefe monsters were crept into her womb, and lay there unfeen. 809.- So |