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side, as being nearer to the heart. The description of Eve (471) resembles the picture of Helen drawn by Venus for Paris, Marino Adon. ii. 173. Her disappearance leaving him dark (478) is a beautifully poetic figure, to express his gloomy and forlorn state; light, in almost all languages being a metaphor for joy and comfort. So, in his sonnet on his deceased wife :

"She fled, and day brought back my night." (N., Th., T., D.) Pws in Homer is used for a gleam of joy and hope, a ray of safety.

Nor thinkest

494. "Nor enviest." this gift too good for me. So i. 260; iv. 517; ix. 770. The word is to be connected with "hast fulfilled."—(P.)

498. Gen. ii. 23, 24. This is a proof that his sleep was a trance, in which he saw every thing. Milton's monosyllabic lines often possess great force and beauty. See ii. 621, 950.-(H., N.)

502. "Conscience," conscientia, here, as in our English version of the Bible, Heb. x. 2; 1 Cor. viii. 7, means, consciousness.-(P.)

503. So Shakspeare:

"She's beautiful, and therefore to be woo'd; She is a woman, therefore to be won.'

(T.)

511. "Blushing like the morn." Milton's is an elegant comparison in the Eastern style; the bride of Solomon being likened to the morning, Cant. vi. 10: "Who is she that looketh forth as the morning?"-(T.) Burke, in his usually matchless style, has applied this comparison, in his Essay on the French Revolution, to the young queen, afterwards beheaded."Just risen above the horizon, glittering like the morning star, full of life, and splendour, and joy."

513. See Il. xiv. 347.-(T.)

Ca

520. Milton writes here in classical language. The evening star was the signal among the ancients to light their lamps and torches in order to conduct the bride home to the bridegroom. tullus "vesper adest, juvenes consurgite," &c. See xi. 588.—“ Hill top” is a classical expression for above the hills. See Virg. n. ii. 801. Ecl. viii. 30. So Spenser, Fairy Queen, I. ii. 1 :— "Phoebus' fiery car In haste was climbing up the eastern hill." (N.) 537. See Samson Agonistes, 1025.— (N.)

543. It seems that here the image of God in man was the dominion given him over the other creatures. This does not agree with 440; but he sometimes varies his hypothesis as may best suit his subject.—(Th.)

547. "Absolute." See note 421.

550. "Wisest, virtuousest, discreetest, best." The number of superlatives here without the conjunction, or, as it is by grammarians called, the asyndaton construction, is evidently designed to fix the attention; the necessarily slow motion of the verse, too, serves that purpose: the word "virtuousest," too, is artfully introduced; it is an unusual superlative of the word virtuous, and must be considered as a classical imitation; piissimus being found in some of the old Latin poets for maxime pius. So piousest and virtuousest may be poetically used for most pious, and most virtuous.

569. He uses these three words which are in the Marriage Service agreeably to Scripture, Ephes. v. 28, 29; 1 Pet. iii. 7. -(N.)

576. "Adorn," by poetic license for adorned. So Ital. adorno for adornato. So iii. 627,"fledge" for fledged; ix. 901, "devote" for devoted.-(N.)

589. "Love refines the thoughts," &c. So Spenser, Fairy Queen, III. v. 2, and Hymn of Love, 190; but there is no doubt that both these admired poets had in view the refined theory of love of the divine Plato, and that Milton in particular, in what he says here, had his eye especially upon that passage, where the scale by which we must ascend to heavenly love is both mentioned and described, Plat. Conviv.-(Th.) See c. ii. of "Life of Milton" (prefixed to this ed.) at the end.

591. i. e. Pure love chooses proper qualities in the object.—(P.) 598. "The genial bed." The lectus See iv. 743. genialis, or marriage bed. 607. "Subject not." Do not enslave

me.

627-629. i. e. spirits not only mix total, but at a distance, without approaching one another, as the human body to mix with body, and soul with soul must.-(P.) 631. " Cape," is Cape de Verd, the most western point of Africa, off which lie the Cape de Verd Islands, called here the "verdant isles."-" Hesperian sets," i. e. sets westward, from Hesperus, the evening star, appearing there. He very properly closes the discourse with those moral reflections which were designed to

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by the ellipsis of "it is necessary." So de, it must be, is often understood in Greek. As he is just departing, Adam uses brevity of speech.-(P., Monbod.)

647. "From whose goodness." From him whose goodness. The antecedent is often omitted by Milton, in imitation of the Greeks.

652. When the angel rose to depart, Adam followed him from the bower where they had been conversing to a shady walk that led to it, and here they parted."Bower" here means his inmost bower, or place of rest, iv. 738.-(N.) Compare the parting of Jupiter and Thetis, in the first Iliad:

Τω γ' ώς βουλευσαντε διετμαγον' ή μεν επειτα Εις άλα άλτο βαθείαν, απ' αιγλήεντος Ολυμπου Ζευς δε έον προς δωμα.-(Τ.)

BOOK IX.

THE Ninth Book is raised upon that brief account in Scripture, Gen. iii. wherein we are told the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field; that he tempted the woman to eat of the forbidden fruit; that she was overcome by his temptation; and that Adam followed her example. From these few particulars Milton has formed one of the most entertaining fables that invention ever produced. He has disposed of these circumstances among so many agreeable fictions of his own, that his whole story looks only like a comment on Holy Writ, or rather seems a complete relation of what the other is only an epitome. The disposition and contrivance of the fable I look upon to be the principal beauty of the Ninth Book, which has more story in it, and is fuller of incidents, than any other in the whole poem.-(Addison.)

1. "I cannot but own that an author is generally guilty of an unpardonable self-love, when he lays aside his subject to descant upon himself: but that human frailty is to be forgiven in Milton; nay, I am pleased with it; he gratifies the curiosity he has raised in me about him. When I admire the author, I desire to know something of the man; and he whom all readers would be glad to know

is allowed to speak of himself. But this, however, is a very dangerous example for a genius of an inferior order, and is only to be justified by success."-(Voltaire, Essay on Epic Poetry.) It is clear that Milton thought a great poet may digress from his subject to speak of himself, long before he commenced this poem: for in his Discourse on "the Reason of Church Government," apologizing for saying so much of himself, he says: "A poet soaring in the high region of his fancies, with his garland and singing robes about him, might without apology speak more of himself than I mean to do." The poet says that he must now treat no more of familiar discourse with God or angel. In the preceding episode, which was a conversation between Adam and the angel, it is stated that Adam held discourse with God (viii. 455.) The Lord God and the angel Michael hold discourse with Adam in the following books; but these discourses are not familiar conversation as with a friend, for the one comes to judge, and the other to expel him from paradise. "The Lord spake to Moses face to face, as a man speaketh to his friend," Exod. xxxiii. 11. Milton, who knew the Scriptures thoroughly, and continually profits from their vast sublimity and treasures, has done it here

remarkably. The episode is taken from the 18th chapter of Genesis, where the Lord, or (according to an ancient opinion, and that of many of the modern scholars,) Christ, and two angels are said to have been entertained by Abraham; or "God" may here mean that the di vine presence was so effectually with his messengers that himself was also there. -(Th., R., N.)

5. As the author is now changing his subject, he professes likewise to change his style agreeably to it. The reader must not therefore expect henceforward such lofty images and descriptions as before; which may serve as an answer to those critics who censure the latter books as falling below the former.-(N.) "Venial" here is quoted as an example by Johnson, of the word meaning permitted, allowed, from venia. But to "permit permitted discourse" is awkward tautology. I rather imagine it means moderate, excusable, inoffen. ive."

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7. Read disloyal, on the part."

12. "Misery" here means sickness, and all sorts of mortal pains See xi. 475. Atterbury and Warburton think "a world of woe" is to be taken in apposition to "this world," (see viii. 332,) in order to avoid the low quaintness of making the words depend on "brought." -(N., T.)

14-28. Though several particulars are specified as parts of his present subject, (6, &c.), that of the "anger of God," (10), was the consequence of those, and his only subject. It is this which he places in opposition to the anger of men and gods, in which he has the advantage of Homer and Virgil; the anger of the true God being an argument much more heroic than theirs. His theme was in truth more sublime than the wrath of Achilles, who dragged his dead foe Hector thrice round the walls of Troy; or of Neptune, who caused the shipwreck of Ulysses; both celebrated by Homer in his Iliad and Odyssey: or of Turnus, who was deprived of his espoused, or betrothed bride Lavinia, by Æneas, the son of Cytherea, or Venus; or of Juno, who was the great persecutor of Æneas, fearing him as the remote cause of the foundation of Rome, the fatal rival of her favourite Carthage; both celebrated by Virgil in the Æneid. From this and iii. 32, and from passages in his 5th Elegy, 6 and 23, written when he was only twenty years old, it appears that the inspiration came upon him chiefly at night and in spring.

See also vii. 29. It is stated that he first proposed as the subject of the epic poem the story of King Arthur, the British hero of romance, and changed it for the reasons here assigned. Aubrey relates in his manuscript account of Milton, preserved in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, that Milton began his Paradise Lost about two years before the Restoration, and completed it about three years after that event.-(Rich., T., Wart., N., T.)

28-40. As Virgil rivalled Homer, Milton rivals and surpasses both. Both occupied the provinces of war, morality, and politics; Milton took up another species, that of religion. The principal subjects of the heroic poems from the time of Homer downwards, were wars, games, and festivals. Homer, in the 23d book of the Iliad, Virgil, in the 5th book of the Æneid, and Statius, in the 6th book of the Thebaid, have described games and races. So "jousts (or tilts) and tournaments," are often the subjects of the modern poets, as Ariosto, Spenser, &c. The joust usually meant the combat of lances between two persons only; the tournament included all martial games. The combatants were called tilters, from their running at each other on horseback, with uplifted spears, and then thrusting; most probably from the verb tollo, to raise. Tournament is supposed to be derived from the Italian tornare, turning, or wheeling round during the action, and returning to the charge.-" Emblazoned shields." He glances at the Italian poets, who were in general too circumstantial about these particulars. Impresses quaint," i.e. emblems and devices on the shield, alluding to the name, the condition, or the fortune of the wearer, which were often curious, obscure, and fantastical.Bases;" the housings of the horses, which hung down to the ground.-"Marshalled, sewers, seneshals." The marshal placed the guests according to their rank, and saw that they were properly served. The "sewer" marched in before the meats, and arranged them on the table, and was originally called "asseour," from the French asseoir, to set down or place. And the "seneshal" was the household steward; a name of frequent occurrence in old books. (See N., R., Johns., T.) Nares, in his Glossary, says it is quite wrong to apply "bases" to the housings or saddle cloths of the horses; "bases" properly means a kind of embroidered mantle, reaching from the middle down to the knees, or lower, worn by knights on

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horseback. In Butler's Hudibras, I. ii. 769, it is used for a butcher's apron. In Fairy Queen, V. v. 20, a woman's petticoat and apron serve for cuirass and bases.

41. "Me, of these nor skilled." The usual construction in English is, "skilled in a thing" but the Latin construction is, 'peritus alicujus rei," skilled of a thing. - (Monbod.) "Remains." Milton elsewhere uses this word actively, in the sense of " awaits ;" as maneo is sometimes used in Latin.

44, 45. And it is surprising that at his time of life, and after such troublesome times as he had passed through, he should have so much poetical fire remaining; for he was near sixty when this poem was published.-(N.) See Life of Milton" prefixed to this edition, c. ii. s. 7-end.

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58. Job i. 7: "And the Lord said unto Satan, Whence comest thou? And Satan answered, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it."—(T.)

64-66. "Thrice the equinoctial line he circled." He travelled on with the night three times round the equator; he was three days moving round from east to west as the sun does, but always on the opposite side of the globe in darkness; "four times crossed the car of night from pole to pole;" i e. did not move directly on with the night as before, but crossed over from the northern to the southern, and from the southern to the northern pole. "Traversing each colure;" as the equinoctial line or equator is a great circle encompassing the earth from east to west, and from west to east again; so the colures are two great circles intersecting each other at right angles in the poles of the world, and encompassing the earth from north to south, and from south to north again; and therefore, as Satan was moving from pole to pole at the same time that the car of night was moving from east to west, if he would still keep in the shade of night as he desired, he could not move in a straight line, but must move obliquely, and thereby cross the two colures. In short, Satan was three days compassing the earth from east to west, and four days from north to south, but still kept always in the shade of night, and on the eighth night returned.—(N.) "Colure," from Koλos, mutilated, and oupa, a tail, so named because a part is always beneath the horizon. They are called the equinoctial and solstitial colures, one passing through the equinoctial

points Aries and Libra, the other through the solstitial points Cancer and Capricorn, and divide the ecliptic into four equal parts. The points where they intersect the ecliptic are called the Cardinal Points.

72. See iv. 224, &c.

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75. So Thetis rose in the Il. i. 359:· ανέδυ πολιής άλος ηὔτ ̓ ομιχλη - (Ν.) 76-82. As we had before an astronomical, so here we have a geographical account of Satan's peregrinations. He searched sea and land northward from Eden over Pontus Euxinus, the Euxine Sea, now called the Black Sea, north of Constantinople, and the Palus Mœotis, now the sea of Azoph, above the Black Sea, and communicating with it by the Cimmerian Bosphorus ; up beyond the river Oby" in Muscovy, near the north pole; "downward as far antarctic," as far southward. The northern hemisphere being elevated on our globes, the north is called "up," and the south, 'downwards;" " antarctic," south, the contrary to arctic, north, from Apxтos, the Bear, the most conspicuous constellation near the north pole. But no particular place is mentioned near the south pole, because in Milton's time all sea and land there were unknown.-In "length," i. e. west and east, (see note on iii. 555, and 574,) from Orontes," a famous river in Syria, to the isthmus of " Darien," which separates North and South America, and hinders the ocean as it were with a bar from flowing between them; and thence to Hindostan or India -(N.)

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86. So Gen. iii. 1: "Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field." The subtlety of the serpent is commended likewise by Aristotle and other naturalists.-(N.)

89. "Fittest imp of fraud." Fittest stock to graft his devilish fraud on.—(H.) "Imp," Welsh, properly a young slip of a tree; hence, offspring. Johnson says the word here means, "subaltern, or puny devil, a sense in which the word is still used."

99, &c. This speech has not been particularly noticed by Addison, and has been censured by some critics as commencing with an extravagant, if not false praise of the earth, and inconsistent with Satan's observations of the stars and planets, that they were in appearance inhabited worlds, iii. 566, &c. But an examination of the whole speech will convince any judicious reader that there is not in the whole poem a more

masterly passage, or more characteristic speech. It is a concentration of Satan's usual habit of depreciating the Almighty

of his envy, remorse, ambition, and malignant spite. It is a thoroughly Satanic speech. Having for the first time had a full survey of the earth (and it must be borne in mind that it is the earth before the change produced in it by the fall of man,) he says, in his natural admiration of it, and his disposition to sink the character of God, that it was the most complete of his works, as created last, and being built on second thought. Besides, he felt a complacency at the idea of reducing to his empire this (as he calls it) the noblest work of God. It is common with people to undervalue what they have lost by their folly or wickedness, and to overvalue any good they hope to attain. So Satan here questions if earth be not preferable to heaven. Spenser has, on a like occasion, the same thought, (Fairy Queen, IV. x. 23,) for, describing the gardens surrounding the temple of Venus, he says,—

"That if the happy souls which do possess

The Elysian fields, and live in lasting bliss,
Should happen this with living eye to see,
They soon would loath their lesser happi-
ness."

(See N., Th.)

113. The three kinds of life rising by steps, the vegetable, animal, and rational. Man grows as plants, minerals, and all things inanimate; he has sense or feeling like all animals; and, moreover, has reason.-(R.)

119. "Place or refuge." Some commentators are unnecessarily captious here. The passage clearly means, there is no "place" here for me to dwell in, nor if there were, could it be a "refuge" from my mental torments; for I cannot hope to be less miserable.

127. Such as 1," i.e. I am. The usual Syntax is, such as me.-(N.)

130. "Him destroyed;" properly, "he destroyed." What the Latins make the ablative absolute, is in English the nominative absolute. Milton, however, sometimes adopts the Latin form, as, vii. 142; Samson, 463.-( T.)

164. See note on 400.

169. "Down." Milton, in imitation of Homer, who uses the adverb av, ava, elliptically, the verb of motion being understood, uses "up" here, and x 503, in the same way. Newton quotes a beautiful instance of the use of such adverbs from Shakspeare, Hen. IV. p. ii. :

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δυ δε μιν Άρης

Δεινος ενυάλιος πλησθεν δ' αρα οἱ μελε' εντός Αλκης και σθενεος.-(Stil.)

192, 193. This was the morning of the ninth day, as far as we can reckon the time in this poem, a great part of the action lying out of the sphere of day. The first day we reckon that wherein Satan came to the earth; the space of seven days after he was coasting round the earth; and he comes to Paradise again on the night previous to this morning. The morning is often called "sacred" by the poets, because that time is usually allotted to sacrifice and devotion, as Eustathius says in his remarks on Homer. —(N.) Breathed" is classically used here in an enlarged sense, like the Latin spirare, to mean, emitted the steam or vapour of; subsequent poets have imitated this use of it, as Gray in his Elegy

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"The breczy call of incense breathing morn." (Th., T.)

Halare is strictly used in this sense, Lucret. ii. 847:

"Et nardi florem, nectar qui naribus halat."

197. So Gen. viii. 21: "The Lord smelled a sweet savour;" a poetic reference to the ancient sacrifices.

199. "Creatures wanting voice," i. e. human voice. But they could emit sounds in their orison worship to the Deity.

211. This is an improvement upon Virg. Georg. ii. 201 :"Et quantum longis carpent armenta diebus, Exigua tantum gelidus ros nocte reponet. (T.)

218. " Spring of roses." "Spring' here means poetically and figuratively, the production of spring, a bed, or shrubbery of springing roses. Lucretius, b. ix. epigr. 14, uses ver for flores,"Cum breve Cecropiæ ver populantur apes." See note on v. 394.

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