170 His ministers of vengeance and pursuit Back to the gates of heav'n: the sulphurous hail What reinforcement we may gain from hope, : could not all be effected by a single hand and what a sublime idea must it give us of the terrors of the Messiah, that he alone should be as formidable as if the whole host of heaven were pursuing! So that this seeming contradiction, upon examination, proves rather a beauty than any blemish to the poem. 181. The seat of desolation,] As in Comus, 428. -where very desolation dwells. 175 180 185 190 T. Warton. 186. our afflicted Powers,] The word afflicted here is intended to be understood in the Latin sense, routed, ruined, utterly broken. Richardson. 191. If not what resolution] What reinforcement; to which is returned If not: a vicious syntax: but the poet gave it If none. Bentley. Thus Satan talking to his nearest mate 193. With head up-lift above the wave, and eyes That sparkling blaz'd, his other parts besides Prone on the flood,] Somewhat like those lines in Virgil of two monstrous serpents. Æn. ii. 206. Pectora quorum inter fluctus arrecta, Sanguineæ exuperant undas; pars 196. Lay floating many a rood,] A rood is the fourth part of an acre, so that the bulk of Satan is expressed by the same sort of measure, as that of one of the giants in Virgil, Æn. vi. 596. Per tota novem cui jugera corpus And also that of the old dragon cant. ii. st. 8. That with his largeness measured much land. 198. Tilanian, or Earth-born,] -Genus antiquum terræ, Titania pubes. En. vi. 580. 199. Briareos] So Milton writes it, that it may be pro 195 200 nounced as four syllables; and Et centum geminus Briareus. 199.- —or Typhon, whom the den By ancient Tarsus held,] Typhon is the same with Typhoeus. That the den of Typhoëus was in Cilicia, of which Tarsus told by Pindar and Pomponius was a celebrated city, we are Milton did not make use of FarMela. I am much mistaken, if naby's note on Ovid, Met. v. 347. to which I refer the reader. He took ancient Tarsus perhaps from Nonnus: Ταρσος αειδομένη πρωτοπτολις, which is quoted in Lloyd's Dic- θεων πολέμιος νυμον αντρον. 200. Pind. Py. i. 30. -that sea-beast Leviathan,] E. The best critics seem now to be Leviathan, which God of all his works Created hugest that swim th' ocean stream: Him haply slumb'ring on the Norway foam The pilot of some small night-founder'd skiff Deeming some island, oft, as sea-men tell, agreed, that the author of the book of Job by the leviathan meant the crocodile; and Milton describes it in the same manner partly as a fish and partly as a beast, and attributes scales to it: and yet by some things one would think that he took it rather for a whale, (as was the general opinion,) there being no crocodiles upon the coasts of Norway, and what follows being related of the whale, but never, as I have heard, of the crocodile. 202. Created hugest, &c.] This verse is found fault with as being too rough and absonous, but that is not a fault but a beauty here, as it better expresses the hugeness and unwieldiness of the creature, and no doubt was designed by the author. 202. -th' ocean stream:] The Greek and Latin poets frequently turn substantives into adjectives. So Juvenal xi. 94. according to the best copies, Qualis in oceano Auctu testudo nataret: ver. 113. Littore ab oceano Gallis venientibus Jortin. 204.-night-founder'd skiff] Some little boat, whose pilot dares not proceed in his course for fear of the dark night; a metaphor taken from a foundered horse that can go no farther. Hume. 205 over Dr. Bentley reads nigh-founder'd; but the common reading is better, because if (as the Doctor says) foundering is sinking by a leaking in the ship, it would be of little use to the pilot to fix his anchor on an island, the skiff would sink notwithstanding, if leaky. By nightfounder'd Milton means taken by the night, and thence at a loss which way to sail. That the poet speaks of what befel the pilot by night, appears from ver. 207. while night invests the sea. Milton, in his poem called the Mask, uses the same phrase: the two brothers having lost their way in the wood, one of them says, With fixed anchor in his scaly rind Moors by his side under the lee, while night So stretch'd out huge in length the Arch-Fiend lay 210 215 220 And o'er the dark her silver mantle threw. 207. Moors by his side under speaking of the moon, iv. 609. the lee,] Anchors by his side under wind. An instance this among others of our author's affectation in the use of technical terms. while night 207. Invests the sea,] A much finer expression than umbris nox operit terras of Virgil, Æn. iv. 352. But our author in this (as Mr. Thyer remarks) alludes to the figurative description of night used by the poets, particularly Spenser. Faery Queen, b. i. cant. ii. st. 49. By this the drooping day-light 'gan to fade, And yield his room to sad succeeding night, Who with her sable mantle 'gan to The face of earth. 209. So stretch'd out huge in length the Arch-Fiend lay] The length of this verse, consisting of so many monosyllables, and pronounced so slowly, is excellently adapted to the subject that it would describe. The tone is upon the first syllable in this line, the Arch-Fiend lay; whereas it was upon the last syllable of the word in ver. 156. th' ArchFiend replied; a liberty that Milton sometimes takes to pronounce the same word with a different accent in different places. We shall mark such words as are to be pronounced with an accent different from the common use. Forthwith upright he rears from off the pool His mighty stature; on each hand the flames Then with expanded wings he steers his flight That felt unusual weight, till on dry land 221. Forthwith upright he rears, &c.] The whole part of this great enemy of mankind is filled with such incidents as are very apt to raise and terrify the reader's imagination. Of this nature is his being the first that awakens out of the general trance, with his posture on the burning lake, his rising from it, and the description of his shield and spear. To which we may add his call to the fallen angels, that lay plunged and stupified in the sea of fire. He call'd so loud that all the hollow deep Of bell resounded. But there is no single passage in -He above the rest Addison. 226. -incumbent on the dusky air That felt unusual weight,] 225 230 This conceit is borrowed from Spenser, who speaking of the old dragon has these lines, b. i. cant. ii. st. 18. Then with his waving wings displayed wide, Himself up high he lifted from the ground, And with strong flight did forcibly divide The yielding air, which nigh too feeble found Her flitting parts, and element unsound, To bear so great a weight. Thyer. 229. —liquid fire ;] Virg. Ecl. vi. 33. Et liquidi simul ignis. 231. Of subterranean wind] Dr. Pearce conjectures that it should be read subterranean winds, because it is said aid the winds afterwards, and the conjecture seems probable and ingenious: the fuell'd entrails, sublim'd with mineral fury, aid and increase the winds which first blew up the fire. |