145

"Irreconcileable to our grand foe,

1

"Who now triumphs, and in the excess of joy
"Sole reigning holds the tyranny of Heaven."
So spake th' apostate angel, though in pain,
Vaunting aloud, but rack'd with deep despair: 2
And him thus answer'd soon his bold compeer :

"O Prince! O chief of many throned Powers!
"That led the embattled seraphim to war
"Under thy conduct; and, in dreadful deeds
"Fearless, endanger'd heav'n's perpetual King,3
"And put to proof his high supremacy,
"Whether upheld by strength, or chance, or fate;
"Too well I see, and rue the dire event,

"" That with sad overthrow and foul defeat

"Hath lost us heaven; and all this mighty host

In horrible destruction laid thus low,

"As far as gods and heav'nly essences

"Can perish; for the mind and spirit remains
"Invincible, and vigour soon returns,

"Though all our glory extinct, and happy state
"Here swallow'd up in endless misery.

"But what if He our Conqueror (whom I now

"Than such could have o'erpower'd such force as ours)

1 Tupas, generally the act of tyrannizing, here means absolute power. Milton, when speaking in his own person, 42, called it the monarchy of God; but Satan characteristically uses a harsher name.-(Th.)

Callender, an excellent critic, while quoting the following parallel passages, pronounces (I think correctly) Milton's verse superior, in the brevity and energy of expression, and justness of thought, arising from the nature of the foregoing speech, and Satan's present misery. Æn. i. 212:

Talia voce refert, curisque ingentibus æger
Spem vultu simulat,-premit altum corde dolorem."

Theocrit. Idyl. i. 95:

· 2 Κύπρις γελαρισα

Λαθρα μεν γελαεισα, βαρυν δ' ανά θυμον έχουσα,

Homer has applied a similar description to Juno:

8 He does not call him eternal king, for, if he were so, his throne could not be endangered; but perpetual king, i. e. one reigning only from time immemorial, without interruption. (See v. 637.) Ovid. Met. i. 4:

--"primaque ab origine mundi

Ad mea perpetuum deducite tempora carmen."-(N.)

Like a bright light. So, metaphorically, Æn. iv. 322 :

--"Te propter eundem

Extinctus pudor, et, quà solà sidera adibam,
Fama prior."-(T.)

"Extinct" here is, be extinct; so, after, "swallowed" means, be swallowed up. I.e. by force, or from necessity. So Big is used in Greek.

174

66

"Have left us this our spirit and strength entire,
Strongly to suffer and support our pains,
"That we may so suffice his vengeful ire;
"Or do him mightier service, as his thralls
By right of war, whate'er his business be
Here in the heart of hell to work in fire,
"Or do his errands in the gloomy deep?1
"What can it then avail, though yet we feel

66

2

Whereto with speedy words th' Arch-fiend replied:
Fall'n Cherub! 3 to be weak is miserable,

66 Doing, or suffring; but of this be sure,
"To do aught good never will be our task,
"But ever to do ill our sole delight,
"As being the contrary to His high will,
"Whom we resist. If then his providence
"Out of our evil seek to bring forth good,
"Our labour must be to pervert that end,
"And out of good still to find means of evil;
"Which oft-times may succeed, so as perhaps
"Shall grieve him, if I fail not, and disturb
"His inmost counsels from their destin'd aim.
"But see! the angry Victor hath recall'd

"His ministers of vengeance and pursuit

4

"Back to the gates of heav'n: the sulph'rous hail,
"Shot after us in storm, o'erblown hath laid
"The fiery surge," that from the precipice

"Of Heav'n receiv'd us falling; and the thunder,

1 Prom. Vinct. 219:-Ταρταρου μελαμβαθης κευθμών.

So, EREX Tεpoet, Homer. There is a peculiar propriety in the words here, as the last words of Beelzebub startled Satan.-(N.)

3 In the spirit of what he himself said, 116, he replies to what Beëlzebub said, 146, etc. He says it is an advantage to have our strength entire; for whether we are to act or suffer, it is a miserable thing to be weak. So ii. 199: "To suffer, as to do, our strength is equal." "Doing or suffering," is here the absolute case.-(P.)

The account by Chaos, ii. 996, corresponds with this. But Bentley shows that these are contradicted by Raphael's account, vi. 860, when it is said that Messiah pursued them only to the bounds of heaven, and then returned; and 882, that the saints stood witnesses. Newton well replies, that from the confusion of Satan, after he woke from his trance, when he lay "confounded," 54, and of Chaos, who was equally "confounded," vi. 871, they spoke from their own disturbed and frightened imagination. And as, vi. 830, the sound of Messiah's chariot is compared to the sound of "a numerous host," they may well fancy that a host was engaged in the pursuit. Besides, as the rebellion was raised on account of the preference shown to Messiah, Satan's pride might have induced him to ascribe his defeat rather to the whole host of heaven than to him alone.-(N.P.T.) 5 The meaning of this passage is plain. The surge had been laid in consequence of the blowing over, or cessation, of the hail. But I think the construction is very unusual in English. When the hail blew over, or ceased, it did not exist, and therefore could not, strictly speaking, be said to have laid in the surge. However, there are examples of such a mode of expression in the classics. So En. v. :-"Placidi straverunt æquora venti."

1

"Wing'd with red lightning and impetuous rage,
"Perhaps hath spent his shafts, and ceases now
"To bellow through the vast and boundless deep :
"Let us not slip th' occasion, whether scorn,

2

"Or satiate fury, yield it from our foe.

"Seest thou yon dreary plain, forlorn and wild,
"The seat of desolation, void of light,

"Save what the glimm'ring of these livid flames
"Casts pale and dreadful? Thither let us tend
"From off the tossing of these fiery waves;

"There rest, if any rest can harbour there;

66

And, reassembling our afflicted" pow'rs,

"Consult how we may henceforth most offend
"Our enemy-our own loss how repair-
"How overcome this dire calamity-

"What re-enforcement we may gain from hope→
"If not what resolution from despair."

Thus Satan, talking to his nearest mate,
With head uplift above the wave, and eyes
That sparkling blaz'd: his other parts besides,
Prone on the flood,' extended long and large,
Lay floating many a rood; in bulk as huge
As whom the fables name of monstrous size,
198 Titanian, or Earth-born, that warr'd on Jove,

1 "His" and "bellow" show a peculiar beauty, as they exhibit the personification of the thunder as a terrible monster.

2 Satiated. So after, 193, "uplift," for uplifted.

3 So Shakspeare, Rich. II. act v. se. 1.:

"Here let us rest, if this rebellious earth

Have any resting."-(Bo.)

"Afflicted" is generally used by Milton in the sense of afflictus, routed, dashed down, broken.-(R.)

5 Bentley says "if not" makes the construction ungrammatical, and proposes "if none." But it is a common classical mode of phrase, like sin minus, eɩ de μn, and is quite admissible here. The sentiment here is similarly expressed in Seneca, Med. 163, 'Qui nihil potest sperare, nihil desperet."

6 Milton seems to have had the following passages in view-the description of the old dragon, Fairy Queen, I. xi. 14.

"His blazing eyes, like two bright shining shields,

Did burn with wrath, and sparkled living fire."

So Virgil, speaking of the serpents, Æn. ii. 206:-

"Pectora quorum inter fluctus arrecta, jubæque

Sanguineæ exsuperant undas; pars cætera pontum
Pone legit."-(T. N.)

7 The number of monosyllables, and the slow and encumbered motion of the feet in this line, as in lines 202, 209, must strike the reader as beautifully expressive of the subject-a vast, prostrate body. So Spenser, Fairy Queen, I. ii. 8. describes the old dragon, "that with his largeness measureth much land." Virgil, Æn. vi. 596, describes the giant as extending over nine acres, "Per tota novem cui jugera corpus porrigitur." But the indefinite description which Milton gives is far better, in my opinion, than the precise specification of dimensions in Virgil, as the reader's imagination is not confined to any particular measure.

222

Briareös, or Typhon, whom the den
By ancient Tarsus held; or that sea-beast
Leviathan, which God of all his works
Created hugest that swim the ocean stream:
Him haply slumb'ring on the Norway foam,
The pilot of some small night-founder'd skif
Deeming some island oft, as seamen tell,
With fixed anchor in his scaly rind

Moors by his side under the lee, while night
Invests the sea, and wished morn delays:

So stretch'd out huge in length the Arch-fiend lay,*
Chain'd on the burning lake : nor ever thence
Had ris'n, or heav'd his head, but that the will
And high permission of all-ruling Heav'n
Left him at large to his own dark designs;
That with reiterated crimes he might

Heap on himself damnation, while he sought
Evil to others; and, enrag'd, might see

How all his malice serv'd but to bring forth
Infinite goodness, grace, and mercy, shown
On man by him seduc'd; but on himself
Treble confusion, wrath, and vengeance, pour'd.
Forthwith upright he rears from off the pool
His mighty stature on each hand the flames,

1 "Genus antiquum terræ, Titania pubes." Æn. vi. 580. Briareus is here a word of four syllables, though in Greek and Latin it has only three; and one of the first two syllables is long, though in Greek and Latin both are short. Milton follows Pindar (Pyth. 130), Homer (II. ii. 783), and Pomponius Mela (de S. O. i. 14), in placing his den in Cilicia, of which Tarsus was the ancient capital. (Hom. II. i. 403.)

2 Though the leviathan, first mentioned in Job xli. 1, is considered by some of the best biblical critics to be the crocodile, from the mention of scales in that passage, yet it is evident that Milton here means the whale, as the crocodile is not found on the Norway coast, and is too small and agile an animal to answer the description here. "Scaly rind," is but a poetic figure to express the rough, wrinkled, hard skin of that animal. "The ocean stream," WREXVOY KOTKμOV. (Homer, Odys. xi. 638.)—(N. T.)

"Haply," quasi, happeningly, accidentally.-"Foam," a boisterous sea throwing up a high surf, or foam.-"Night-foundered skiff," a boat prevented by the darkness of the night from proceeding; founder is a nautical word applied to a disabled ship. Comus,

483:

-"some one like us night-foundered here."

Bentley proposes "nigh foundered," as the word is used ii. 940. But the words, "while night invests the sea," after, appear to me to decide for the present reading. "Under the lee," i. e. under the lee or sheltered side of him.

"Invests," i. e. clothes, as if with a mantle. So Fairy Queen, I. xi. 49:—

"By this the drooping daylight 'gan to fade
And yield his room to sad succeeding night,
Who with her sable mantle 'gan to shade
The face of earth."-(N.)

Though several books of voyages in Milton's time stated the fact of vessels anchoring under shelter of a sleeping whale, yet he avoids the responsibility of its truth by saying "as seamen tell."

3 Mɛyaç pɛyakwete Execto. (II. xviii. 26.) The last foot in this line must be read as a spondee.

The first foot in this line is a trochee.

248

Driv'n backward, slope their pointing spires, and roll'd
In billows, leave in the midst a horrid vale:

Then with expanded wings he steers his flight
Aloft, incumbent on the dusky air,

3

1

That felt unusual weight; till on dry land
He lights, if it were land that ever burn'd
With solid, as the lake with liquid fire;2
And such appear'd in hue, as when the force
Of subterranean wind transports a hill
Torn from Pelorus, or the shatter'd side
Of thundering Etna, whose combustible
And fuell'd entrails thence conceiving fire,
Sublim'd with mineral fury, aid the winds,
And leave a singed bottom all involv'd
With stench and smoke. Such resting found the sole
Of unblest feet! 5 Him follow'd his next mate;
Both glorying to have 'scap'd the Stygian flood,
As Gods, and by their own recover'd strength,
Not by the suff'rance of supernal pow'r.

"Is this the region, this the soil, the clime, "-
Said then the lost archangel," this the seat

"That we must change for Heav'n?-this mournful gloom, "For that celestial light? Be it so, since He,

6

"Who now is Sov'reign, can dispose, and bid

"What shall be right! Farthest from him is best,"

"Whom reason hath equall'd, force hath made supreme

1 The conception here bears a strong resemblance to Spenser's, in his description of the dragon, Fairy Queen, I. ii. 18:

"Then with his waving wings displayed wide,
Himself upright he lifted from the ground,
And with strong flight did forcibly divide
The yielding air. which nigh too feeble found
Her flitting parts and elements unsound
To bear so great a weight."—(Th.) -

2 So Virg. Ecl. vi. 33, "liquidi simul ignis."

3 Pearce and other commentators propose to read winds here, as in 235. But it may be a question whether Milton did not here mean to express the element collectively, and in the other passage its various currents, whose contrary action partly caused the disruption. It is generally believed that Sicily was separated from Italy by a convulsion of nature. Pelorus, now Capo di Faro, is a promontory of Sicily at the straits, which are there about two miles broad. En. iii. 687, 571:

"Angusta ab sede Pelori...

Terrificis juxta tonat Etna ruinis."

An expression in chemistry, by which is meant the separation of the finer parts (from the grosser), which thus mount and acquire additional force. It is opposed to precipitated.

5 This phrase, "such resting found the sole of unblest feet," I think must induce the supposition that Milton had in view the dove sent out of the ark, Gen. viii. 9, which "found no resting for the sole of her feet, and returned unto him.”

6 Sovran, i.e. sovereign, from the Italian sovrano, which is evidently derived from supernus, is another reading.

7 Пopów Acos xxt nepavvov. Greek proverb. Bentley.