SATAN'S ADDRESS TO THE SUN.1 (Abridged.)
O THOU! that, with surpassing glory crowned, Look'st from thy sole dominion like the God Of this new world; at whose sight all the stars Hide their diminished heads; to thee I call, But with no friendly voice, and add thy name, O Sun! to tell thee how I hate thy beams, That bring to my remembrance from what state I fell how glorious once above thy sphere!— Till pride and worse threw me down
Warring in Heaven against Heaven's matchless King. Ah, wherefore! He deserved no such return From me, whom he created what I was In that bright eminence, and with his good Upbraided none; nor was his service hard. What could be less than to afford him praise, The easiest recompence, and pay him thanks, How due! yet all his good proved ill in me, And wrought but malice; lifted up so high I'sdained subjection, and thought one step higher Would set me highest, and in a moment quit The debt immense of endless gratitude, So burdensome, still paying, still to owe: Forgetful what from him I still received; And understood not that a grateful mind By owing owes not, but still pays, at once Indebted and discharged; what burden then? Oh! had his powerful destiny ordained Me some inferior angel, I had stood
(1) "Paradise Lost," book iv. "The opening of this speech to the sun," says Addison, "is very bold and noble. It is, I think, the finest ascribed to Satan in the whole poem." The consummate skill, too, with which the poet describes the conflict of passions in the mind of Satan is commended by the same judicious critic.
(2) This new world-Satan has now alighted on earth, and from the top of Mount Niphates thus addresses the sun, which "sat high in his meridian tower." The ruined archangel, the mighty orb of day, the lone mountain-summit, each the greatest of its kind, present in their combination a magnificent picture.
(3) Worse ambition-worse, because it led to daring impiety and its retribution. (4) What could be, &c.-i. e. what service could be less hard, &c.
(5) I'sdained-I disdained.
(6) So burdensome, &c.-i. e. it being so burdensome, &c.
Then happy; no unbounded hope had raised Ambition. Yet why not? some other
power As great might have aspired, and me, though mean, Drawn to his part; but other powers as great Fell not, but stand unshaken, from within
Or from without, to all temptations armed. Hadst thou the same free will and power to stand? Thou hadst. Whom hast thou then, or what, to accuse, But Heaven's free love, dealt equally to all?
Be then his love accursed, since love or hate, To me alike, it deals eternal woe.
Nay, cursed be thou; since against his thy will Chose freely what it now so justly rues. Me miserable! which way shall I fly Infinite wrath, and infinite despair? Which way I fly is hell; myself am hell ! And, in the lowest deep, a lower deep Still threatening to devour me opens wide, To which the hell I suffer seems a heaven.
So on he fares, and to the border comes Of Eden, where delicious Paradise,
Now nearer, crowns with her enclosure green, As with a rural mound, the champaign head3 Of a steep wilderness, whose hairy sides
With thicket overgrown, grotesque and wild,
(1) "Paradise Lost," book iv. This beautiful description has been compared with the finest specimens of the same kind, as Homer's description of the gardens of Alcinous, and of Calypso's shady grotto, Ariosto's of the garden of Paradise, Tasso's of the garden of Armida, and Marino's of the garden of Venus, and though doubtless a general imitation of some of them, is thought greatly to exceed them all. In reference to Milton's power of delineating external scenery, Macaulay remarks ("Edinburgh Review," vol. xlii.):-"Neither Theocritus nor Ariosto had a finer or a more healthful sense of the pleasantness of external objects, or loved better to luxuriate amidst sunbeams and flowers, the song of nightingales, the juice of summer fruits, and the coolness of shady fountains. His poetry reminds us of the miracles of Alpine scenery. Nooks and dells, beautiful as fairyland, are embosomed in its most rugged and gigantic elevations. The roses and myrtles bloom unchilled on the verge of the avalanche."
(2) Fares-from the Anglo-Saxon far-an, to go-goes. We have the same element in "thoroughfare "-i. e. through-go.
(3) Champaign head, &c.-Open top or table-land of a steep hill, whose rough and prickly sides were covered with a wild growth of thickets and bushes.
Access denied; and over-head1 up grew Insuperable height of loftiest shade, Cedar and pine, and fir, and branching palm, A sylvan scene; and, as the ranks ascend Shade above shade, a woody theatre
Of stateliest view. Yet higher than their tops The verdurous wall of Paradise up sprung; Which to our general sire gave prospect large Into his nether empire neighbouring round: And higher than that wall a circling row Of goodliest trees, loaden with fairest fruit,3 Blossoms and fruits at once of golden hue, Appeared with gay enamelled colours mixed; On which the sun more glad impressed his beams, Than in fair evening cloud, or humid bow,
When God hath showered the earth; so lovely seemed That landscape and of pure now purer air Meets his approach, and to the heart inspires Vernal delight and joy, able to drive All sadness but despair: now gentle gales, Fanning their odoriferous wings, dispense Native perfumes, and whisper whence they stole Those balmy spoils. As when to them who sail Beyond the Cape of Hope, and now are past Mozambic, off at sea north-east winds blow Sabæan odours from the spicy shore
Of Araby the blest; with such delay
Well pleased they slack their course, and many a league Cheered with the grateful smell old Ocean smiles:
So entertained those odorous sweets the fiend
Beneath him with new wonder now he views,
To all delight of human sense exposed,
In narrow room, Nature's whole wealth, yea, more,
(1) Overhead, &c.-i. e. overhead above these thickets, on the side of the hill likewise, grew the loftiest trees, rising one above another like the seats of an amphitheatre.
(2) Verdurous wall-i. e. a sort of bank set with a green hedge, over which Adam could look downwards on Eden. All the scenery hitherto described is outside of the garden itself.
(3) Fruit-used here in the sense of produce, including both blossoms and fruit. (4) Of pure, &c.-Of frequently implies change of circumstance, as in "Paradise Lost," book x., v. 720—“O miserable of happy."
A heaven on earth: for blissful Paradise Of God the garden was, by him in the east Of Eden planted; Eden stretched her line From Auran' eastward to the royal towers Of great Seleucia, built by Grecian kings; Or where the sons of Eden long before Dwelt in Telassar. In this pleasant soil His far more pleasant garden God ordained : Out of the fertile ground he caused to grow All trees of noblest kind, for sight, smell, taste And all amid them stood the Tree of Life, High eminent, blooming ambrosial fruit Of vegetable gold; and next to life,
Our death, the Tree of Knowledge, grew fast by ;- Knowledge of good bought dear by knowing ill! Southward through Eden went a river large, Nor changed his course, but through the shaggy hill Passed underneath ingulfed: for God had thrown That mountain as his garden-mould, high raised Upon the rapid current, which, through veins Of porous earth with kindly thirst up-drawn, Rose a fresh fountain, and, with many a Watered the garden; thence united fell Down the steep glade, and met the nether flood, Which from his darksome passage now appears, And now, divided into four main streams, Runs diverse, wandering many a famous realm And country, whereof here needs no account; But rather to tell how, if art could tell,
How from that sapphire fount the crisped brooks, Rolling on orient pearl and sands of gold, With mazy error under pendent shades Ran nectar, visiting each plant, and fed Flowers worthy of Paradise; which not nice art In beds and curious knots, but nature boon Poured forth profuse on hill, and dale, and plain; Both where the morning sun first warmly smote The open field, and where the unpiercéd shade
(1) Auran—i, e. Haran or Charræ, in Mesopotamia. (2) Telassar-See Isaiah xxxvii. 12.
(3) Which, through, &c.-i. e. the water of the river being absorbed, it rose up through the mound placed upon it, and gushed out in the garden as a fountaina feat of enchantment scarcely harmonizing with the general character of the scene, in which nature is elevated and adorned, but not violated.
Imbrowned the noon-tide bowers. Thus was this place A happy rural seat of various view;
Groves, whose rich trees wept odorous gums and balm; Others whose fruit, burnished with golden rind, Hung amiable (Hesperian fables 2 true,
If true, here only), and of delicious taste. Betwixt them lawns, or level downs, and flocks Grazing the tender herb, were interposed, Or palmy hillock; or the flowery lap
Of some irriguous3 valley spread her store ;- Flowers of all hue, and without thorn the rose. Another side, umbrageous grots, and caves Of cool recess, o'er which the mantling* vine Lays forth her purple grape, and gently creeps Luxuriant meanwhile, murmuring waters fall Down the slope hills, dispersed, or in a lake, That to the fringéd bank with myrtle crowned Her crystal mirror holds, unite their streams. The birds their quire apply: airs, vernal airs, Breathing the smell of field and grove, attune The trembling leaves; while universal Pan, Knit with the Graces and the Hours in dance, Led on the eternal Spring. Not that fair field Of Enna, where Proserpine gathering flowers, Herself a fairer flower, by gloomy Dis
Was gathered, which cost Ceres all that pain To seek her through the world; nor that sweet grove Of Daphne by Orontes, and the inspired Castalian spring, might with this Paradise
(1) Groves, &c.-"In the description of Paradise, the poet has observed Aristotle's rule of lavishing all the ornaments of diction on the weak, inactive parts of the fable, which are not supported by the beauty of sentiment and character."-Addison.
(2) Hesperian fables, &c.—i. e. "What is said of the Hesperian gardens is true here only; if all is not pure invention, this garden was meant."-Richardson. (3) Irriguous-well-watered, full of springs and rills.
(4) Mantling-covering as with a mantle, spreading luxuriantly.
(5) While universal Pan, &c.-" The ancients personified everything. Pan is Nature, the Graces are the beautiful Seasons, and the Hours are the time for the production and perfection of things."-Richardson.
(7) Daphne-" A grove near Antioch, in Syria, on the banks of the river Orontes; there also was the Castalian spring, of the same name with that in Greece, and extolled for its prophetic qualities."--Newton.
« 上一頁繼續 » |