Obrázky na stránke
PDF
ePub

BOOK III.

HORACE advises a poet to consider thoroughly the nature and force of his genius. Milton seems to have known perfectly well wherein his strength lay, and has therefore chosen a subject entirely conformable to those talents, of which he was master. As his genius was wonderfully turned to the sublime, his subject is the noblest that could have entered into the thoughts of man. Every thing that is truly great and astonishing has a place in it. The whole system of the intellectual world; the Chaos and the Creation; Heaven, Earth, and Hell, enter into the constitution of his poem. Having in the first and second books represented the infernal world with all its horrors, the thread of his fable naturally leads him into the opposite regions of bliss and glory. Addison.

1. Hail boly Light, &c.] Our author's address to Light, and lamentation of his own blindness, may perhaps be censured as an excrescence or digression not agreeable to the rules of epic poetry; but yet this is so charming a part of the poem, that the most critical reader, 1 imagine, cannot wish it were omitted.

3.

-since God is light, And-in unapproached light

Dwelt From 1 john i. 5.

II.

The rising world of waters dark and deep,] For the world was only in a state of fluidity, when the light was created; as Moses says, Gen. i. 2, 3.

12.

Won from the void and formless infinite.] Void must not here be understood as emptiness, for Chaos is described full of matter; but void, as destitute of any formed being, void as the earth was when first created Richardson.

17.

With other notes than to th' Orphéan lyre, &c.] Orpheus made a hymn to Night, which is still extant; he also wrote of the creation out of Chaos. See Apoll. Rhodius i. 493.

It

25 So thick a drop serene hath quench'd their orbs, Or dim suffusion veil'd.] Drop serene or gutta serena. was formerly thought that that sort of blindness was an incurable extinction or quenching of sight by a transparent, watery, cold humour distilling upon the optic nerve, though making very little change in the eye to appearance, if any; it is now known to be most commonly an obstruction in the capillary vessels of that nerve, and curable in some

cases.

30.-.

-the flowry brooks beneath,] Kedron and Siloah. He still was pleased to study the beauties of the ancient poets, but his highest delight was in the songs of Sion, in the holy Scriptures.

35. Blind Thamyris and blind Mæonides.] Mæonides is Homer, so called from the name of his father Mæon and no wonder our poet desires to equal him in renown, whose writings he so much studied, admired, and imitated. The character of Thamyris is not so weil known and established: but Homer mentions him in the Iliad, ii. 595; and Eustathius ranks him with Orpheus and Musæus, the most celebrated poets and musicians. That lustful challenge of his to the nine Muses was probably nothing more than a fable invented to express his violent love and affection for poetry. Plato mentions his hymns with honour in the beginning of his eighth book of Laws, and towards the conclusion of the last book of his Republic feigns upon the principles of transmigration, that the soul of Thamyris passed into a nightingale. He was a Thracian by birth, and invented the Doric mood or measure, according to Pliny, I. vii. c. 57. Plutarch in his treatise of Music says that he had the finest voice of any of his time, and wrote a poem of the war of the Titans with the Gods: and from Suidas we learn that he composed likewise a poem of the generation of the world, which being subjects near of kin to Milton's might probably occasion the mention of him in this place.

36. And Tiresias and Phineus prophets old.] The one a

Theban, the other a king of Arcadia, famous blind prophets and poets of antiquity, for the word prophet sometimes comprehends both characters, as vates does in Latin.

37.that voluntary move

Harmonious numbers; &c.] The reader will observe the flowing of the numbers here with all the ease and harmony of the finest voluntary: and this harmony appears to greater advantage from the roughness of some of the preceding verses, which is an artifice frequently practised by Milton, to be careless of his numbers in some places, the better to set off the musical flow of those which immediately follow.

49.-ras'd,] Of the Latin radere; the Romans, who writ on waxed tables with iron stiles, when they struck out a word, did tabulam radere rase it out. Light and the blessings of it were never drawn in more lively colours and finer strokes; nor was the sad loss of it and them ever so passionately and so patiently lamented. Homer bemoan

ing the same misfortune, falls short of this.

56. Now bad th' almighty Father, &c.] The survey of the whole creation, and of every thing that is transacted in it, is a prospect worthy of Omniscience; and as much above that, in which Virgil has drawn his Jupiter, as the Christian idea of the Supreme Being is more rational and sublime than that of the Heathens. The particular objects, on which he is described to have cast his eye, are represented in the most beautiful and lively manner. Addison. 62.- -on bis right

The radiant image of his glory sat,

His only Son ;] According to St. Paul, Heb. i. 3.

75. Firm land imbosom'd, without firmament, &c.] The universe appeared to Satan to be a solid globe, incompassed on all sides, but uncertain whether with water or air, but without firmament, without any sphere or fixed stars over it, as over the earth.

79. Thus to his only Son foreseeing spake.] If Milton's majesty forsakes him any where, it is in those parts of his pom, where the divine Persons are introduced as speakers. We may observe, that the author proceeds with fear and trembling, whilst he describes the sentiments of the Almighty. He dares not give his imagination its full play,

The

but chooses to confine himself to thoughts drawn from the books of the most orthodox divines, and to expressions in Scripture. The beauties, therefore, which we are to look for in these speeches, are not of a poetical nature, nor sq proper to fill the mind with sentiments of grandeur, as with thoughts of devotion. The passions, which they are designed to raise, are a divine love and religious fear. particular beauty of the speeches in the third book consists in that shortness and perspicuity of stile, in which the poet has couched the greatest mysteries of Christianity, and drawn together in a regular scheme the whole dipensation of Providence with respect to Man. He has represented all the abstruse doctrines of predestination, free-will and grace, as also the great points of incarnation and redemption, in a clearer and stronger light than I ever met with in any other writer. Addison.

108 →(reason also is choice)] The author had expressed the same sentiment before in prose. "Many there be that complain of divine Providence for suffering Adam to transgress. Foolish tongues! When God gave him reason he gave him freedom to choose, for reason is but choosing: he had been else a mere artificial Adam, &c. Speech for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing, p. 149, and 1

150.

135 Thus while God stake, &c. Milton here shows, that he was no servile imitator of the Ancients. It is very well known that Homer, and all who followed him, where they are representing the Deity speaking, describe a scene of terror and awful consternation. The Heavens, Seas, and Earth tremble, &c. and this was consistent enough with their natural notions of the Supreme Being: but it would not have been so agreeable to the mild, merciful, and benevolent idea of the Deity upon the Christian scheme, and therefore our author has very judiciously made the words of the Almighty diffusing delight to all around him.

140. Substantially express'd;] According to Heb. i. 3. 153-that be from thee far, &c.] An imitation of Genesis, xviii. 25.

168. O Sen, &c.] The Son is here addressed by several titles and appellations borrowed from Scripture. Matt. ii. 17. John 1, 18. Rev. xix. 13. 1. Cor. i. 24.

183. Some I have chosen of peculiar grace, &c.] Our author did not hold the doctrine of rigid predestination; he was of the sentiments of the more moderate Calvinists, and thought that some indeed were elected of peculiar grace, the rest might be saved, complying with the terms and conditions of the Gospel.

215-and just th' unjust to save ?] That is which of ye will be so just as to save the unjust? Which of ye will be righteous enough to supply the defects of others righteousness? It is plainly an allus.on to 1 Pet. iii. 18.

217-stood mute,] I need not point out the beauty of that circumstance, wherein the whole host of Angels are represented as standing mute, nor show how proper the occasion was to produce such a silence in Heaven.

Addison.

This beautiful circumstance is raised upon Rev. viii. 1. where upon a certain occasion it is said, "There was silence in Heaven." And so, as there was silence in Hell, when it was proposed who should be sent on the dangerous expedition to destroy mankind, there is likewise silence in Heaven, when it is asked who would be willing to pay the price of their redemption. Satan alone was fit to undertake the one, as the Son of God the other. But though the silence is the same in both places, the difference of the expression is remarkable. In Hell it is said all sat mute, ii. 420, as there the infernal peers were sitting in council; but here it is said they stood mute, as the good Angels were standing round about the throne of God.

219.---intercessor none] Isaiah lix. 16.

244. Life in myself for ev'r;] According to John v. 26. 249.with corruption there to devell;] According to Psal. xvi. 10; applied to our Saviour's resurrection by St. Peter, Acts ii. 20, 21, &c.

254. I through the tempie air in triumph high, &c.] According to Psal. xviii. 18. and Col. ii. 15.

259.

Death last,] According to 1 Cor. xv. 26. 266. His words here ended, but his meek aspect

Silent yet spake, &c.] What a lovely picture has Milton given us of Christ considered as our Saviour, not in the least inferior to that grander one in the sixth book, where he de

« PredošláPokračovať »