XV. Yea Truth and Justice then Will down return to men, Orb'd in a rainbow; and like glories wearing Mercy will sit between, Thron'd in celestial sheen, 145 With radiant feet the tissued clouds down steering, And heav'n, as at some festival, Will open wide the gates of her high palace hall. But wisest Fate says no, This must not yet be so, XVI. The babe lies yet in smiling infancy, That on the bitter cross Must redeem our loss So both himself and us to glorify: Yet first to those ychain'd in sleep, 150 155 The wakeful trump of doom must thunder through the deep, -Regna recludat Pallida, diis invisa; superque immane barathrum Cernatur, trepidentque immisso lumine Manes. Peering, that is, overlooking or prying, is frequent in Spenser and Shakespeare. I will give one instance from Coriolan. a. ii. s. 3. And mountainous Error be too For Truth to over-peer. Compare Homer, Il. Y. 61. Εδδεισεν δ' ὑπενερθεν αναξ ενέρων Αϊδωνεύς 143. Orb'd in a rainbow; and like glories wearing Mercy will sit between,] The author thus corrected it in the edition of 1673: in the first edition of 1645 it was thus, Th' enamell'd Arras of the rainbow wearing; And Mercy set between, &c. 156. The wakeful trump of doom must thunder through the Δείσας δ' εκ θρόνου αλτο, και ιαχε, μη οἱ deep,] A line of great energy, ὑπερθε elegant and sublime. T. Warton. XVII. With such a horrid clang As on mount Sinai rang, While the red fire, and smouldring clouds out brake: The aged earth aghast, With terror of that blast, Shall from the surface to the centre shake; When at the world's last session, 160 The dreadful Judge in middle air shall spread his throne. XVIII. And then at last our bliss Full and perfect is, But now begins; for from this happy day Th' old Dragon under ground In straiter limits bound, Not half so far casts his usurped sway, And wroth to see his kingdom fail, Swinges the scaly horror of his folded tail. 157. With such a horrid clang] Clang is clangour. So of a multitude of birds, Par. Lost, vii. 422. -Soaring the air sublime 159. and smouldring clouds] A word that I find neither in Junius, nor Skinner, nor Bailey, but in Spenser and Fairfax. Faery Queen, b. i. cant. viii. st. 9. Inroll'd in flames, and smouldring dreariment: b. ii. cant. v. st. 3. The smouldring dust did round about him smoke: and Fairfax, xii. 46. 165 170 A mass of solid fire burning bright Roll'd up in smouldring fumes there bursteth out: and xiii. 61. And in each vein a smouldring fire there dwelt. 159. Spenser also has smouldry, F. Q. i. vii. 13. and iii. xi. 21. Smouldring or smouldry, hot, sweltering. Perhaps from the Anglo-Saxon, Smolt, hot weather. T. Warton. 172. Swinges the scaly horror of his folded tail.] These images are plainly copied from Spenser's description of the old dragon: and no wonder Milton was fond of it in his younger years, for he The oracles are dumb, No voice or hideous hum XIX. Runs through the arched roof in words deceiving. 175 Apollo from his shrine Can no more divine, With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving. No nightly trance, or breathed spell Inspires the pale-ey'd priest from the prophetic cell. 180 XX. The lonely mountains o'er And the resounding shore, A voice of weeping heard and loud lament; was still pleased with it when he was older, and had his eye upon it several times in the Paradise Lost. 172. This image is copied, says Dr. J. Warton, from the descriptions of serpents and dragons in the old Romances and Ariosto. Compare Sylvester's Du Bartas (p. 205. 4to.) W. i. D. 6. had commanded her to leave that temple and return to hell. See Suidas in Augustus Cæsar. 180. Inspires the pale-ey'd priest.] Milton was impressed with reading Euripides's Tragedy of Ion, which suggested these ideas. T. Warton. 183. A voice of weeping heard and loud lament;] Alluding to the story of a voice proclaiming and immediately was heard that the great Pan was dead, great groaning and lamentation. See more to this purpose in Plutarch's treatise De oraculorum defectu. a 183. Although Milton was well acquainted with all the Greek writers in their original languages, and might have seen the ground-work of this tradition of a voice proclaiming the death of the great Pan, and cessation of oracles, in Plutarch on the Defect of Oracles, and the fifth book of Eusebius's Præparat. Evangel. yet it is most probable, From haunted spring, and dale Edg'd with poplar pale, The parting Genius is with sighing sent; With flow'r-inwoven tresses torn 185 The nymphs in twilight shade of tangled thickets mourn. that the whole allusion was suggested to his imagination by a note of the old commentator on Spenser's Pastorals in May, who copied Lavaterus's treatise de Lemuribus, newly translated into English. "About the time that "our Lord suffered his most "bitter passion, certaine persons "sayling from Italie to Cyprus, "and passing by certaine iles "called Paxa, heard a voyce calling Thamus, Thamus, the "pylot of the ship; who, giving "eare to the cry, was bidden "when he came to Palodas to "tell, that the great god Pan "was dead: which he doubting "to doe, yet for that when he "came to Palodas there was ❝ such a calme of wind, that the "ship stood still in the sea un"moored, he was forced to cry aloud, that Pan was dead: "wherewithall, there was heard "such piteous outcries and dread"ful shrieking, as hath not been "the like. By which Pan, though of some be understood "the great Sathanas, whose 66 kingdom was at that time by "Christ conquered, and the gates "of hell broken up, for at that "time all Oracles surceased, and "enchanted spirits that were "wont to delude the people "thenceforth held their peace, "&c." So also Hakewill in his Apologie, lib. iii. sect. ii. p. 208. VOL. III. ed. 1630. But this is a second edition. And Sandys has much the same story. Travels, p. 11. ed. 1627. Compare Par. Reg. i. 456. If we connect the three lines (181-183.) with the general subject of the last stanza, undoubtedly Milton, in the voice of weeping and loud lament, referred to this story, from whatsoever source it was drawn. But if, without such a retrospect, they belong only to the context and purport of their own stanza, he implies the lamentations of the nymphs and wood-gods at their leaving their haunts. And surely nothing could be more allowable, not only in a young poet, but in a poet of any age, than this allusion to the notion of the cessation of oracles at the coming of Christ. And how poetically is it extended to the pagan divinities and the oriental idolatries? The words of v. 183. a voice of weeping &c. are from Matt. ii. 18. In Rama was there a voice heard, lamentation, and weeping, &c. T. Warton. 187. With flow'r-inwoven tresses torn.] See note on interwove in Par. Lost, i. 261. Inwove is also not uncommon in Milton. See Par. L. iii. 352. iv. 693. Spenser gives the first instance that I can recollect. T. Warton. B b In consecrated earth, And on the holy hearth, XXI. 190 The Lars, and Lemures moan with midnight plaint; In urns, and altars round, A drear and dying sound Affrights the Flamens at their service quaint; And the chill marble seems to sweat, While each peculiar pow'r foregoes his wonted seat. Peor and Baälim XXII. Forsake their temples dim, With that twice batter'd God of Palestine; And mooned Ashtaroth, Heav'n's queen and mother both, Now sits not girt with tapers holy shine; The Lybic Hammon shrinks his horn, 195 200 In vain the Tyrian maids their wounded Thammuz mourn. XXIII. And sullen Moloch fled, 191. Lars, and Lemures] Household gods and night spirits. Fla mens, priests. 199. With that twice batter'd God of Palestine;] Dagon, who was twice battered by Samson, Judges xvi. and by the ark of God, 1 Sam. v. Our author is larger in his account of these deities in the first book of the Paradise Lost, and thither we must refer our reader, and to the notes there. Selden had a few years before published his De Diis Syris Syntagmata duo, and 205 therefore we may suppose Milton was so well instructed in this kind of learning. 201. Heav'n's queen and mother both,] She was called regina cœli and mater Deúm. See Selden. 202. Shine is a substantive in Harrington's Ariosto, c. xxxvii. 15. In Jonson's Panegyre, 1603. And Drummond, Sonnets, sign. B. ed. 1616. And in other places: but see Observat. on Spenser's F. Q. ii. 181. T. Warton. 205. And sullen Moloch fled, &c.] In Sandys's Travels, p. 186. |