Their earnest eyes they 'fix'd, imagining For one forbidden tree a multitude Now ris'n, to work them further woe or fhame; 555 grew The fruitage fair to fight, like that which Near that bituminous lake where Sodom flam'd; This more delufive, not the touch, but tafte 560. That curl'd Megara:] She was one of the Furies, whale hair was ferpents, as Medufa's; crinita draconibus ora. Ov. Met. IV. 771. Deceiv'd; diffolving into afhes; but this indur'd the handling, the more to vex and disappoint their tafte, by filling the mouths of the damned with grating cinders and bitter ashes, instead of allaying their feorching thirt provoking and inflaming it: fo handfomely has our author improved their punishment. Hume. 568. drug'd] It is a metaphor taken from the general naufeoufnels Pearce. 562. Near that bituminous lake where Sodom flam'd;] The lake Afphaltites near which Sodom and Gomorrah were fituated. Jofephus affirms, the shapes and fashions of them and three other cities, called of drugs, when they are taken by the cities of the plain, were to be way of medicine. feen in his days, and trees loaden Phyfic'd, tormented with the hateful with fair fruit (filed the apples of taffe ufually found in drugs. Sodom) rising out of the ashes, which at the firft touch diffolved into ashes and smoke. B. 4. of the Wars of the Jews, c. 8. But this fair fruitage was more deceitful and difappointing than Sodom's cheating apples, which only deceiv'd the touch, by Richard 569. With hatefullest e writh'd their jaws] Virg. Georg. II. 246. et ora Triftia tentantum fenfu torquehit amaror. The 565 Deceiv'd; they fondly thinking to allay Their appetite with gust, instead of fruit The found of Virgil's words admirably expreffes the thing; nor are Milton's lefs expreffive in this line, and that foregoing, which th' offended tafte With fpattering noise rejected. 572: Whom they triumph'd once laps'd.] Is the conftruction thus, Not as Man whom they triumph'd over, once laps'd, femel lapfus eft: Or thus rather, Quo femel lapfo triumpharunt, Wbom being once laps'd they triumph'd? Mr. Fenton's pointing would lead one to the former fenfe, but Milton's own will rather determin one to the latter; and thus Dr. Trapp tranflates it, Non ut homo; quo, egere, femel, labente, triumphos. The antithefis is between fo oft they fell and once laps'd; and as fo oft they 570 [plagu'd Yearly injoin'd, fome fay, to undergo 573 This annual humbling certain number'd days, with famin and long and ceaseless bifs; but that might be remedied thus, And worn with famin, and long ceafelefs hifs: 575.- Some Say.] I know not, or cannot recollect, from what author or what tradition Milton hath borrow'd this notion. Mr. Warburton believes that he took the hint from the old romances of which he was a great reader; where it is very common to meet with these annual, or monthly, or weekly penances of men changed into animals: but the words fome fag feem to imply that he has fome exprefs authority for it, and what approaches nearest to it is the fpeech of the faery Manto in Ariofo, Cant. 43. St. 98. Ch' ogni fettimo giorno ogn' una è certa, Che la fua forma in biscia fi con verta. Each fev'nth day we conftrained 580. And fabled bow the Serpent,&c] Dr. Bentley is for rejecting this whole paffage: but our author is endevoring to fhow, that there was fone tradition, among the Heathen, oí tain'd over mankind. And this be the great power that Satan bad ob with Eurgnome. Ophion with Ex proves by what is related of Ophin ryname, he says, bad firft the rake of high Olympus, and were driven the by Saturn and Ops or Rhea, et yt their fon Dictaan Jove was born, fo call'd from Dicte a mountain of Crete where he was educated. And Milton feems to have taken this ftory from Apollonius Rhodius, Argonaut. I. 503. Heider dow's @para Opis E- ολυμποιο. Ωςε βίη και χερσιν, ὁ μεν Κρόιφ εικαθε τιμής, Η δε Ρεμ επεσον δ' ενι κυμασι Ωκεανία. Οι δε τεως μακαρέαι θεοις Τίτε Encroaching Eve perhaps, had first the rule Όφρα Ζευς ετι κυρΘ επι φρεσι νηπια είδως Δικαιον ναιεσκεν υπο σπεος. 585 Clofe "took this ftory from Apollonius I. "who is quoted by Lloyd's Dictionary, under the word Ophion. Pro"metheus in Æfchylus, ver. 956. 66 66 not to Eurynome. He calls Eve "wide-encroaching, because, as he "tells us, fhe wanted to be fuperior "to her husband, to be a Goddess "&c." Now Ophion according to the Greek" fays that two Gods had borne rule etymology fignifies a Serpent, and "before Jupiter: where the Schothere fore Milton conceives that by " liaft; εβασιλευσε πρωτον μεν ὁ Ophin the old Serpent might be in- σε Οριων και Ευρυνόμη. επειτα tended, the Serpent whom they call'd Κρονος και Ρέα μετα ταυτα δε Ophion: and Eurynome fignifying "Zeus naι Hpa. Others will wide-ruling, he fays but fays doubt-"have it that Oupavos and In fully that he might be the wide- " reigned firft. I think the epithet encroaching Eve perhaps. For I un- "wide-encroaching belongs to Eve derft and the wide encroaching not as an epithet to Eurynome, explaining her name, but as an epithet to Eve, Milon having placed the comma afte Eurynome, and not after the wide-encroaching. And befides fome epitet fhould be added to Eve to fhow the fimilitude between her and Eurome, and why he takes the one for the other; and therefore in allufion to the name of Eurynome he files Eve the wide-encroaching, as extending her rule and dominion farther than the should over her hufband, and affecting Godhead. This explanation may be farther confirm'd and illuftrated by the following note of the learned Mr. Jortin. "Milton 586. · Sin there in pow'r before, Once actual, now in body, and to dwell Habitual babitant;] The sense is, That before the fall Sin was in pow'r, or potentially, in Paradife; that once viz. upon the fall, it was actually there, tho' not bodily; but that now, upon its arrival in Paradise, it was there in body, and dwelt as a conftant inhabitant. The words in body allude to what St. Paul fays Rom. VI. 6. that the body of fin might be defroy'd. Pearce, 590. On Close following pace for pace, not mounted yet 590 Second of Satan fprung, all conqu❜ring Death, What think'st thou of our empire now, though earn'd With travel difficult, not better far Than ftill at Hell's dark threshold to' have fat watch, There beft, where moft with ravin I may meet; 590. On his pale horse:] Tho' the author in the whole courfe of his poem, and particularly in the book we are now examining, has infinite allufions to places of Scripture, I have only taken notice in my remarks of fuch as are of a poetical nature, and which are woven with great beauty into the body of his fable. Of this kind is that paffage in the prefent book, where defcribing Sin and Death as marching through the works of Nature, he adds, -behind her Death Close following pace for pace, not Thou Which alludes to that paffage in Scripture, fo wonderfully poetical, and terrifying to the imagination, Rev. VI. 8. And I looked and bebrid a pale horse; and his name that fat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him: and power was given unto them, over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with fword, and with bunger, and with death, and with the beafts of the earth. Addifon. 601.-this vaft unhide-bound corps.] It is ftrange how Dr. Bentley and others have puzled this paffage. The meaning is plain enough. For Death though lean is yet defcrib'd as a valt monster in Book II. And his skin Was |