BOOK IX. THE ARGUMENT. Satan, having compassed the earth with meditated guile, re turns as a mist by night into Paradise, erters into the serpent sleeping. Adam and Eve in the morning go forth to their labours, which Eve proposes to divide in several places, each labouring apart: Adam consents not, alleging the danger, lest that enemy, of whom they were forewarned, should attempt her, found alone: Eve, loath to be thought not circumspect or firm enough, urges her going apart, the rather desirous to make trial of her strength: Adam at last yields: The Serpent finds her alone; his subtle ap proach, first gazing, then speaking, with much flattery extolling Eve above all other creatures. Eve wondering to hear the Serpent speak, asks how he attained to human speech and such understanding not till now: the Serpent answers, that by tasting of a certain tree in the garden he attained both to speech and rea. son; till then void of both: Eve requires him to bring her to that tree, and finds it to be the tree of knowledge, forbidden: The Serpent, now grown bolder, with many wiles and arguments, in duces her at length to eat; she, pleased with the taste, deliberates a while whether to impart thereof to Adam or not, at last brings him of the fruit, relates what persuaded her to eat thereof: Adam, at first amazed, but perceiving her lost, resolves, through vehemence of love, to perish with her; and extenuating the trespass, eats also of the fruit: The effects thereof in them both; they seek to cover their nakedness; then fall to variance and accusation of one another. No more of talk where God or Angel guest With Man, as with his friend, familiar used Venial discourse, unblamed: I now must change 5 Those notes to tragic; foul distrust, and breach And disobedience: on the part of Heav'n Now alienated, distance and distaste, Anger and just rebuke, and judgment given, 10 1. Milton has arranged the divisions of his poem with great skill. The reader is by turns filled with awe and delight, astonishment and wonder: after having been terror-stricken at the sublime account of the fall of the angels, he is charmed and soothed by the description of Paradise, and the sweet discourse of philosophy, carried on between Raphael and Adam. A new order of feelings are now to be awakened, and pity, mingled with fear, possesses us through the whole book. 11. Nothing can be in worse taste than this and other such puns; but not a great poet is perhaps to be found, with a taste so pure, that it could resist altogether the corruptions of the popular one. Death's harbinger. Sad task! yet argument 15 20 Or tilting furniture, emblazon'd shields, 35 21. The picture of Milton, which here rises to the mind, is among the most beautiful of the visions to which the poem gives birth. Blind, deserted, but inspired, how like a character in the work does he seem to the imagination, while thus speaking of his Communion with the heavenly muse. 26. He had, long before commencing Paradise Lost, or designing it even, determined to write an Epic on the subject of King Arthur's history. 28. Allusion is made in this passage to the principal Epics, the subjects of which are almost all drawn from the wars of one country or the other. The most ardent lover of the classic poems cannot but feel Milton's objection to be correct; the only caution to be observed, is, not to mistake his dislike of their subjects for any depreciation of the sublime geniuses which composed them. 35. Impresses quaint; witty devices on the shields-Bases, or housings-Sewers, servants who placed the dishes on the table. Seneschal, a principal servant, or steward. Remains, sufficient of itself to raise The sun was sunk, and after him the star 45 50 'Twixt day and night, and now from end to end Night's hemisphere had veil'd th' horizon round, 55 On Man's destruction, maugre what might hap 60 That kept their watch: thence full of anguish driven, He circled; four times cross'd the car of night 65 On th' eighth return'd, and on the coast averse Now not, tho' sin, not time, first wrought the change, Where Tigris at the foot of Paradise 71 Into a gulf shot under ground, till part Rose up a fountain by the tree of life : In with the river sunk, and with it rose Satan involved in rising mist, then sought 75 Where to lie hid. Sea he had search'd and land From Eden over Pontus, and the pool Mæotis, up beyond the river Ob; Downward as far antarctic; and in length 80 77. Pontus, the Euxine or Black Sea. The pool Meoli, Palus Mæotis, a lake on the coast of Crim Tartary.-Ob, a river of Muscovy, Orontes, a river of Syria.-Darion, the Isthmus which ioins North and South America.-Ocean bar'd, see Job xxxviii, 19, Ganges and Indus: thus the orb he roam'd Most opportune might serve his wiles, and found 85 Him, after long debate, irresolute Of thoughts revolved, his final sentence chose Fit vessel, fittest imp of fraud, in whom To enter and his dark suggestions hide From sharpest sight: for in the wily snake, Whatever sleights none would suspicious mark, Proceeding, which in other beasts observed 95 100 O Earth, how like to Heav'n, if not preferr'd More justly! seat worthier of Gods! as built With second thoughts, reforming what was old! For what God after better worse would build! Terrestrial Heav'n, danced round by other Heav'ns That shine, yet bear their bright officious lamps, Light above light, for thee alone, as seems, In thee concentring all their precious beams Of sacred influence! As God in Heav'n Is centre, yet extends to all, so thou 105 111 Centring receiv'st from all those orbs; in thee, 86. The subtlety of the serpent has been always noticed. It is supposed, that Satan might choose this animal in preference to any other, for his purpose, since its subtlety being known it would excite less surprise in the minds of his victims, to find it speaking and reasoning, than would have been the case in respect to any other of the beasts of the field. 113. It were to be wished that Milton had not so nearly approached in expression the ideas of the materialists. He has been accused of formally supporting their doctrines, but the contents of the poem and the elevation of his sentiments on the mysteries of universal being tend greatly to prove he was by no means an advocate of opinions which are as insupportable by reason as they are by Christianity. 115 If I could joy in aught, sweet interchange 120 Of contraries: all good to me becomes Bane, and in Heav'n much worse would be my state. But neither here seek I, no, nor in Heav'n To dwell, unless by mast'ring Heav'n's Supreme; Nor hope to be myself less miserable 126 By what I seek, but others to make such As I, though thereby worse to me redound: To my relentless thoughts; and him destroy'd, 130 135 140 Th' angelic name, and thinner left the throng Of his adorers; he to be avenged, And to repair his numbers thus impair'd, Whether such virtue spent of old now fail'd 145 More Angels to create, if they at least Are his created, or to spite us more, A creature form'd of earth, and him endow, 150 With heav'nly spoils, our spoils. What he decreed He' effected; Man he made, and for him built And flaming ministers, to watch and tend 156. Ps. civ. 4. 158 |