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560. The turn of these words, rendered more beautiful by the addition of an epithet to each, very well expresses the mazes of these disquisitions. He refers to the studies of the schoolmen and metaphysicians, and the subjects of disputation among the heathen philosophers. -(N., Gil.)

568, 569. Hor. i. Od. iii. 9:

"Illi robur, et æs triplex,

Circa pectus erat."

575. This elegant description gives a correct Greek definition of the meaning of those five rivers mentioned by the Greek and Latin writers as flowing through hell. Styx or Stygs, from stugeo, to abhor; Acheron, from acheo, to sorrow: Cocytus, from cocuo, to lament; Phlegethon, from phlego, to inflame; Lethe, oblivion. Dante, Inferno xiv. 136, describes Lethe as rolling at a distance from the other infernal rivers.

588, 589. "Dire hail." Hor. i. Od. ii. 1:

"Jam satis terris nivis atque diræ
Grandinis misit pater.

See Note, v. 285.

592, 593. Serbonis was a lake of two hundred furlongs long, and one thousand in compass, between the ancient mount Cassius, and Damiata, a city of Egypt, on one of the more eastern mouths of the Nile. It was surrounded on all sides by hills of loose sand, which, carried into the waters by high winds, so thickened the lake as not to be distinguished from part of the continent. Here whole armies have been swallowed up. See Herod. iii.; Lucan, Pharsal. viii. 539.-(H.) In the scansion the final a in Damiata is to be suppressed. See Diod. Sicul. b. i. c. 11.

"Bo

595. "Burns frore." Frore, an old word for frosty. The parching air burns with frost. So Virg. Georg. i. 93: reæ penetrabile frigus adurat:" and Ecclus. xlii. 20, 21: "The cold north wind burneth the wilderness and consumeth the

grass as fire."—(N.) Here I may observe, that penetrabile, in this passage of Virgil, is to be taken actively for penetrans. There are instances in the ancient classics of this transposed meaning of participles from passive to active, and from active to passive: there is a remarkable one in that phrase of Horace, Od. iii. 3, b. I. " oceano dissociabili." Milton occasionally takes this liberty.

596. "Harpy-footed Furies." There is no impropriety in applying "harpyfooted" to "Furies." Celano, the harpy, (Æn. iii. 252) calls herself" the greatest

of the Furies." The harpies are described in that passage-" Turba sonans prædam pedibus circumvolat uncis."

600. Newton thinks Milton derived this idea of punishment by periodical transition from heat to cold from the Latin vulgar translation of Job xxiv. 19, which he often used: "Ad nimium calorem transeat ab aquis nivium." So Jerome and others understand it. But the same mode of punishment is mentioned by Shakspeare, Meas. for Meas. iii. 1:— "And the delighted spirit

To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside In thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice." So also Dante, Inferno iii. 86. The notion was current in Milton's time.—(T.)

610. This is a fine allegory to show that there is no forgetfulness in hell; memory being a part of the punishment of the damned. "Fate withstands:" "fata obstant." (Æn. iv. 440.) Medusa was one of the Gorgons, whose locks, entwined with snakes, were so terrible to look on, that they turned the beholder into stone. Ulysses (Odys. xi. 633) was desirous, when he visited the infernal regions, of seeing more of the departed heroes; but I was afraid, says he, Proserpine might send her GorgonΜη μοι Γοργειην κεφαλήν δεινοιο πελώρου Εξ Αίδος πεμψειεν αγανη Περσεφόνεια.-(Ν.)

614. "Tantalus a labris sitiens fugientia flumina captat." Hor. b. I. sat. i.

621. The commentators say, that the time and labour in pronouncing this rough verse, which consists of monosyllabic terms, each conveying a distinct idea, are expressive of the tediousness and difficulty of the journey. Burke, (On the Sublime and Beautiful) says that the high idea caused by the word "death," annexed to the others, which is raised higher by what follows, "A universe of death," raises a great degree of the sublime.

628. Addison seems to disapprove of the introduction of these fictitious beings in hell. But, as Newton has well observed, Milton had such high authority as Virgil, Æn. vi. 273-281; Seneca, Hercul. Fur. 686; Statius Thebais vii. 47; Claudian in Rufin. i. 30; and Spenser, Fairy Queen, ii. 7, 21.

631. It appears, from i. 225, that he already had wings on, and that they were always on: when had he put them off? "Puts on" is here used, as induo in Latin sometimes is, to signify to prepare, to get ready for use. This, I think, is the

simplest mode of solution. See note, b. v. 285.

634. So Æn. v. 217 :

"Radit iter liquidum, celeres neque commovet alas."

See Note, v. 285.

635. This simile has justly been considered eminently grand and picturesque. Satan, " towering high" with expanded wings, is compared, not to a single ship, however large, under spread sails; but, as giving a nobler image, to a whole fleet of the largest ships at that time known, the Indiamen, or vessels trading with India, seen just as a fleet, when sailing closely, notoriously appears in the distance, "hanging in the clouds." The length of the Indiamen's voyage will convey the idea of Satan's distant expedition; and the foreign names give a more dignified cast to the similitude.-" Bengala," in Milton's time a powerful kingdom, is now one of the provinces of British India, Bengal. "Ternate, and Tidore," two of the Molucca Islands." Equinoctial winds," the trade winds that blow about the equinox.-" Æthiopian," the part of the Indian ocean bordering on Ethiopia. -"The Cape," the Cape of Good Hope. -"The pole," the north pole, northward." Stemming nightly," i. e. working on against the current at night, expresses Satan's laborious flight in the dark against all opposition.-(N.) 650. Virgil, Æn. vi. 574:

"Cernis custodia qualis Vestibulo sedeat? facies quæ limina servet? Quinquaginta atris immanis hiatibus Hydra Sævior intus habet sedem."

" I

The Italian and old English poets have dealt in allegories of this sort; but Milton has not only concentrated, but improved what was excellent in all of them, in this famous allegory, of which the learned Atterbury, in a letter to Pope, says, challenge you to show me any thing equal to the allegory of Sin and Death, either as to the greatness and justice of the invention, or the height and beauty of the colouring." See Spenser's description of Error in the mixed shape of a woman and serpent, F. Q. I. i. 14, and of Echidna, VI. vi. 10; Dante, Inferno 17. — (N., T., Wart.) James i. 15: "When Lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth Sin, and Sin when it is finished, bringeth forth Death."—(R.)

660. See Ovid, Met. xiv. beginning; Virgil, Æn. iii. 424.

662. A superstitious belief in this circumstance was not exploded in Milton's

time. The ancients believed that the moon was greatly affected by magical practices; and the Latin poets called the eclipses of the moon, labores luna.— (Rich.)

663. Thus the witches in Macbeth are represented as riding through the air. 667. Fairy Queen, VII. vii. 46 :— "But after all came Life, and lastly Death; Death with most grim and grisly visage seenYet is he nought but parting of the breath, Ne aught to see, but like a shade to ween, Unbodied, unsoul'd, unheard, unseen."

(Th.) Euripides, in his tragedy of Alcestis, personifies avaros, or Death; a passage that Warton thinks Milton had in his eye. Andreini, too, in his Adamo, makes Death a person; and perhaps, says Todd, he had him in view; but whether Death here was an imitation or an original creation of the fancy, it is acknowledged on all hands that his description has many masterly touches of horrible magnificence, which are unequalled.

670. Like the ghost in Homer (Od. xi. 605)::

ὁ δ' ερεμνῃ νυκτι εοικως Γυμνον τοξον έχων, και επι νευρηφιν οἴστον, Δεινον παπταίνων, αίει βαλεοντι εοικως.-(Ν.) 675. Fairy Queen, I. vii. 8:

"His monstrous enemy With sturdy steps came stalking in his sight, An hideous giant, horrible, and hie,

That with his tallness seem'd to threat the skie:

The ground eke groaned under him for dread." See Il. vii. 211.

See Ariosto, Orl. Fur. vii. 5, 6, D.— (Bowles.)

678. The subtlety and hypercriticism that would find absurdity in this passage, as if it could appear from it that God and his Son were created beings, would render some of the finest passages in ancient and modern poetry less acceptable to our taste and judgment. Richardson thinks except here is used with the same liberty as but, 333, 336. So in his prose works, (1698, vol. i. p. 277,)" No place in heaven or earth, except hell, where charity may not enter." Todd says, except here is a verb in the imperative mood; "include not God and his Son; them he did fear; but created thing he valued not." So Shakspeare (Rich. III. act v. sc. 8):"Richard except, those whom we fight against

Had rather have us win than him they follow." Peck, on the recommendation of "a learned friend," proposes the following punctuation and correction :

"The undaunted Fiend what this might be admired;

Admired; nought feared, God and his Son except;

Created thing not valued he, nor shunned." 681. Il. xxi. 150:

Τις, ποθεν εις ανδρων, ὁ μεν ετλης αντιος ελθειν ;

689. Much in the manner of the spirited speech in Spenser (Fairy Queen, VI. vi. 25):-"Art thou he, traytor," &c.-(T.)

693. "Conjured." In the sense of the Latin conjuratus, sworn together in conspiracy.

697. "Hell-doomed" is a retort for "hell-born," line 687.

699, 700. The emphasis is to be laid on thy, which is here a long syllable. The first foot in the next line is also a spondee.

700. "False," because he called himself a spirit of heaven, line 687.

708. The ancient poets frequently compare a hero in shining armour to a So Æn. x. 272:

comet.

"Non secus ac liquida si quando nocte comætæ Sanguinei lugubre rubent, aut Sirius ardor. Ille sitim morbosque ferens mortalibus ægris Nascitur, et lævo contristat lumine cœlum." But this comet is so large as to fire the length of the constellation Ophiuchus,(i. e.

Serpent-holder," the Greek name of Serpentarius,) a length of about forty degrees in the northern hemisphere. Extraordinary events, generally of a disastrous kind, were supposed to follow on the appearance of comets, eclipses, and the like. See i. 598. So Tasso compares Argantes to a comet, and mentions the like fatal effects (VII. 52.) also Fairy Queen, III. i. 16.—(N., T.) The comparison here, in my opinion, has nothing to do with shining armour, but refers to the indignant flashing of his

countenance.

See

716. The simile is very properly drawn from the Caspian Sea, as being very tempestuous, and in a dreary, solitary, and savage region. See Hor. ii. Od. ix. 2. -(Bowles.)

721. i.e. on the appearance of Christ. 722-724. It is the same turn of phrase in Iliad vii. 273:—

Και να κε δη ξιφέεσσ' αυτοσχεδόν ουτάζοντο Ει μη κηρυκες Διος αγγελοι ηδε και ανδρων Ηλθον

Μηκέτι παίδε φίλω πολεμίζετε.-(Stil.)

729. "Bend that dart." Bend, sometimes, as here, is applied to a weapon in the sense of getting it ready, and directing it to the object; by a metaphor borrowed from bending a bow.-(Johnson.)

730. "And know'st for whom." i. e. at the same time that thou knowest for whom. This is the reading of Milton's own Edition.-(N.) Tickell reads the words with a note of interrogation.

743. The first foot is a spondee. 758. Sin is rightly made to spring out of the head of Satan, as Minerva or Wisdom did out of Jupiter's.

768."Fields" is elsewhere used by Milton for battles.

771. Milton always accents the third syllable of empyrean, and the second of empyreal.-(N.) The word means, the seat of fire, from ev and up.

772. The emphatic repetition of down is here a great poetic beauty.-(Stil.) 786. n. xii. 919: "Telum fatale coruscat."

789. Æn. ii. 53,

"Insonuere cavæ gemitumque dedere cavernæ "

(H.)

There is a beautiful repetition similar to this of death, in Virgil (Georg. iv. 525), where the floating head of Orpheus called out" Eurydice," which the banks of the river echoed all along:

"Tum quoque marmoreum caput â cervice revulsum

Gurgite quum medio portans agrius Hebrus Volveret, Eurydicen vox ipsa et frigida lingua, Ah miseram Eurydicen! anima fugiente, vocabat;

Eurydicen toto referebant flumine ripa."

(N.)

809. Milton with great propriety makes the fallen Angels, and Sin here, attribute events to fate, without any mention of the Almighty.-(N.) This was intended as some palliation for themselves, as if a power superior to God had ruled them.

813. "Dint," or dent, means stroke.

817. See a similar structure of sentence in the beginning of Satan's opening speech (12), and in Beelzebub's (311). Satan having now learned "his lore," or lesson, changes with great art his address into blandishment.

837. "Be this." i. e. if this, or whether this be; sit, in Latin, is thus used sometimes without the conjunction.

841, 842. Somewhat in the same way Hesiod (Opp. et Dies, 102) mentions the journeyings of diseases :

Νουσοι δ' ανθρωποισιν εφ' ἡμέρῃ ἠδ' επί νυκτι Αυτόματοι φοιτώσι, κακα θνητοίσι φέρουσαι Σιγῃ.-(Stil.)

842. "Buxom." Yielding, elastic. Some say, quick and active.

846. Several of the most eminent poets have attempted to describe a hideous

smile. Hom. Il.: μειδιων βλοσυροισι προσωπασι. But none so successfully as Milton here.-(N.)

864. The emphatic word is thou; hence the first foot is a trochee.

868. "The gods who live at ease." A translation of Homer's words, beoi peia ζοώντες.

871. As the opening of hell's gates was an event so important to the future history of the poem, he describes it minutely and with the most masterly force of expression; the laborious motion of the feet, and the harsh discordant sound of the versification, and the sudden breaks, heightened by the frequent use of the letter r, are admirably expressive of the sense; and then when they are once flung open and for ever, the lines flow on with a pomp and swell which it requires a volume of breath to read with adequate effect. So after, when he describes the illimitable ocean, the various pauses which the mind is obliged to make, express so many sections, so to speak, of its boundless proportions, and its many ingredients. How petty, says Newton, very justly, is the following description of hell's gates by Virgil compared with this, Æn. vi. :—

"Horrisono stridentes cardine sacræ Panduntur portæ."

874. "Portcullis," qu. porta clausa, was a huge wooden gate resembling a harrow, formerly hung over the gateways of fortified places, ready to be let down suddenly in case of surprise.-(Mas.)

888. Read a comma after "stood." 898. Milton has borrowed the elements of Ovid's description of Chaos (Met. i. 18, &c.) avoiding all his puerilities.

The light, shifting sands of Barca and Cyrene, ancient names of desert tracts in the north of Africa, are thus described by Addison in his tragedy of Cato :"Seest where yon vast Numidian plains extend?

Sudden the impetuous hurricanes descendSweep through the air-in circling eddies play

Tear up the sands, and sweep whole plains away

The helpless traveller with wild surprise
Sees the dry desert all around him rise,
And smothered in the dusky whirlwind-
dies."

910,911. Lucretius, v. 260 :-" Omniparens eadem rerum commune sepulchrum." Compare Spenser's description of Chaos (Fairy Queen, III. vi. 36.(T., Th.)

917. The period properly begins at 910, but the poet lingers in his description of Chaos, as Satan lingers to reconnoitre, before he proceeds. "Stood and looked," the same as standing looked. The first part of the sentence depends on the latter verb, as 5, 368.-(R., P.) 919. "Frith." Fretum, a strait.

924 Hor. iii. Od. iii.: "Si fractus illabatur orbis."

927. "Vans," from vannus, properly a fan, or large winnowing machine. So v. 269.

929. Hor. iii. Od. ii. : "Spernit humum fugiente penna."

932, 933. Hesiod (Theog. 739) ::Χασμα μεγ' ουδε κε παντα τελεσφορον εις

ενιαυτόν

Ουδας ίκοιτ', ει πρωτα πυλέων εντοσθε γένοιτο Αλλα κεν ένθα και ένθα προ θυελλα θυέλλη Αργαλέη.-(Τ.)

"Pennons," from the Latin penna, pinions. 939, 940. So Lucan (Pharsal. ix. 304) "Syrtis-in dubio pelagi terræque reliquit."-(H.)

942. It behoves him now to use every effort, as galleys hard pressed do. "Remis velisque," was a proverb for might and main.-(H.)

943. Gryphons were fabulous crea. tures, with the wings and head of an eagle, and the body of a lion; and are said to guard gold. The Aremaspians were said to be a one-eyed people in Scythia, who adorned their hair with gold. See Lucan. Pharsal. iii. 280. Herodotus (iii. 116, iv. 27,) and other authors relate that there were continual wars between them and the Gryphons about gold, the Gryphons guarding it, and the Arimaspians taking it whenever they had an opportunity. See Plin. Nat. Hist. vii. 2. -(N.) Eschylus has a reference to them (Prom. Vinct. 820.):

Οξυστόμους γαρ Ζηνος ακραγείς κυνας Γρύπας φυλαξαι, τον τε μουνωπα σρατον Αριμασπον ίπποβάμον, οἱ χρυσόρρυτον Οίκουσιν αμφι ναμα Πλούτωνος πόρου.(Stil.) 948. The difficulty, irregularity, and uncertainty of Satan's voyage are incomparably expressed by the number of monosyllables and pauses here. There is a memorable instance of the roughness of a road admirably described by a single verse in Homer (II. xxiii. 116) where there are a number of breaks as here:

Πολλα δ' αναντα, καταντα, παραντα τε, δοχμια τ', ήλθον.

So Spenser (Fairy Queen, I. xi. 28) describes the distress of the Red Cross Knight:

"Faint, weary, sore, emboyled, grieved, brent, With heat, toil, wounds, arms, smart, and inward fire."-(N., Th.)

This great beauty is heightened by the irregular combination, and studied disorder in the opposition of the words.

956. "Nethermost abyss." Though the throne of Chaos was above hell, and consequently part of the abyss was so, yet a part of the abyss into which Satan fell in his voyage was also far below it; so that, considered altogether, it was nethermost in respect to hell. Therefore there is no impropriety in applying "nethermost abyss" to Chaos.-(P.)

962. μελαμπέπλος νυξ. (Eurip. Ion.) See Spenser's fine description of night, which is very much in the taste of this allegory. Fairy Queen, I. v. 20.—(N.)

965. Demogorgon was a frightful, nameless deity which the ancients thought capable of producing the most terrible effects, and whose name they dreaded to pronounce. He is mentioned as of terrible power in incantations. See Lucan, Pharsal. vi. 744; Stat. Theb. iv. 514. Spenser, Fairy Queen, I. v. 22; Tasso, Gier. Lib. xiii. 10. Virgil (Æn. vi. 273) places similar imaginary beings within hell.-(N.)

972. "Secrets." Like secreta sometimes, secret places. So Virg. (Geor. iv. 403):

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fetch the golden fleece. Bosphorus, the straits of Constantinople, from Bous ropes, the ox ford, the sea being there so narrow that cattle are said to have swam across it. The "justling rocks,"two rocks at the entrance into the Black Sea, called by the Greeks Symplegades, from συμπληγ dny, dashing together; which Milton very properly translates, the justling rocks, because they were so near, that at a distance, from the rocking of the sea, they seemed to open and shut, and justle one another, as the ship varied its course this way and that. Hence, at one time they were supposed to float, and were called Sundromades, and by Juvenal (xv. 19) 66 concurrentia saxa."-(N.) They were sometimes called Cuaneai, or dark blue, from the mist that hung constantly over them. The voyages of Jason through the Symplegades, and of Ulysses through Scylla and Charybdis, were the most famous and hazardous in all antiquity.

1019. "Larboard." Ulysses sailing on the larboard (to the left hand, where Scylla was) did thereby shun Charybdis, which was on the starboard, or right hand. Virgil, Æn. iii. 425, describes Scylla as a whirlpool, "Naves in saxa trahentem." (See the whole description.) Scylla is a rock in a small bay on the Italian coast, into which the tide runs so strongly as to draw in the ships which are within the compass of its force, and either dash them against the rocks or swallow them in the eddies; for, when the currents so rush in, they are driven back by the rock at the farther end, and so form an eddy or whirlpool.-(P.) See Athan. Kircher's account.

1022. The repetition of the words are designed to fix the reader's attention to the labour and difficulty; and the closing of the repetition with the word "he" seems to convey a greater idea of it. Even "he," the most adventurous, sagacious, and powerful of the spirits, found it so.

1039. "Her," i. e. nature's works. 1042. See Seneca, Hercul. Fur. 668. —(T.)

1043. "Holds the port;""occupat portum." (Hor.)

1046. See Tasso, Gier. Liber. i. 14.

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