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النشر الإلكتروني

At home, scarce view'd the Galilean towns,

And once a year Jerusalem, few days

Short sojourn; and what thence couldst thou observe? 235
The world thou hast not seen, much less her glory,
Empires, and monarchs, and their radiant courts,
Best school of best experience, quickest insight

In all things that to greatest actions lead.
The wisest, unexperienced, will be ever
Timorous and loth, with novice modesty,
(As he who, seeking asses, found a kingdom)
Irresolute, unhardy, unadventurous:

Those rudiments, and see before thine eyes

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But I will bring thee where thou soon shalt quit

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The monarchies of the earth, their pomp and state;
Sufficient introduction to inform

Thee, of thyself so apt, in regal arts

And regal mysteries; that thou mayst know

How best their opposition to withstand.

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With that, (such power was given him then) he took
The Son of God up to a mountain high.

It was a mountain, at whose verdant feet

A spacious plain, outstretch'd in circuit wide,

Lay pleasant; from his side two rivers flow'd,

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The one winding, the other straight, and left between
Fair champain with less rivers intervein'd,

Then meeting join'd their tribute to the sea:
Fertile of corn the glebe, of oil, and wine;

With herds the pastures throng'd, with flocks the hills; 260
Huge cities and high-tower'd, that well might seem
The seats of mightiest monarchs; and so large
The prospect was, that here and there was room
For barren desert, fountainless and dry.
To this high mountain top the tempter brought
Our Saviour, and new train of words began:

Well have we speeded, and o'er hill and dale,
Forest and field and flood, temples and towers,
Cut shorter many a league: here thou behold'st
Assyria, and her empire's ancient bounds,
Araxes and the Caspian lake; thence on
As far as Indus east, Euphrates west,
And oft beyond: to south the Persian bay,
And, inaccessible, the Arabian drouth:
Here Nineveh, of length within her wall
Several days' journey, built by Ninus old,
Of that first golden monarchy the seat,

242. As he, &c. Saul. See 1 Sam. ix. 20, 21.

253. It was a mountain. As the Scriptures have not mentioned the particular mountain, the poet was at liberty to select such as answered his purpose best. He has therefore selected, probably, Mount Niphates, a high range of moun

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tains in Armenia, and a part of the great chain of Mount Taurus, from the top of which the Caspian Sea, the ancient Assyrian empire, the sources of "two rivers," the Euphrates and Tigris, &c., could be seen.

257. Fuir champain. Mesopotamia. 277. Golden, alluding to its great riches.

And seat of Salmanassar, whose success
Israel in long captivity still mourns:
There Babylon, the wonder of all tongues,
As ancient, but rebuilt by him who twice
Judah and all thy father David's house
Led captive, and Jerusalem laid waste,
Till Cyrus set them free; Persepolis,
His city, there thou seest, and Bactra there;
Ecbatana her structure vast there shows,
And Hecatompylos her hundred gates;
There Susa by Choaspes, amber stream,
The drink of none but kings; of later fame,
Built by Emathian or by Parthian hands,
The great Seleucia, Nisibis, and there
Artaxata, Teredon, Ctesiphon,
Turning with easy eye, thou mayst behold.
All these the Parthian, (now some ages past,
By great Arsaces led, who founded first
That empire) under his dominion holds,
From the luxurious kings of Antioch won.
And just in time thou com'st to have a view

Of his great power; for now the Parthian king
In Ctesiphon hath gather'd all his host
Against the Scythian, whose incursions wild
Have wasted Sogdiana; to her aid

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He marches now in haste: see, though from far,
His thousands, in what martial equipage

They issue forth, steel bows and shafts their arms,

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Of equal dread in flight or in pursuit;

All horsemen, in which fight they most excel:
See how in warlike muster they appear,

In rhombs, and wedges, and half-moons, and wings.
He look'd, and saw what numbers numberless

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The city gates out-pour'd, light-armed troops,

In coats of mail and military pride;

In mail their horses clad, yet fleet and strong,
Prauncing their riders bore, the flower and choice
Of many provinces from bound to bound;
From Arachosia, from Candaor east,
And Margiana to the Hyrcanian cliffs

284. Persepolis, the capital of the Persian empire. Bactra, the chief city of Bactriana. Echatana, the capital of Media. Hecatompylos, the capital of Par

thia.

288. Susa, the Shushan of Daniel (viii. 2.) The Choaspes, the same as the Euleus, or Ulai. The kings of Persia, according to Herodotus (i. 188) drank no other water, and wherever they went they were attended by a number of four-wheeled carriages, drawn by mules, in which the water of this river, being first boiled, was deposited in vessels of silver.

290. Emathia was the ancient name

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of Macedonia. Parthian hands, the suc cessors of Alexander.

291. Seleucia on the Tigris. Nisibis in Mesopotamia. Artazata on the Araxes. Teredon near the Persian Gulf. Cesiphon near Seleucia.

314. Arachosia, a province of the Persian empire, west of the Indus, and north of Gedrosia. Candaor, same as Candahar, a province of Affghanistan. Margiana, and Hyrcania were south of the river Oxus. Adiabene, east of the Tigris, and between the greater and lesser Zab. Balsara same as Bassorah, at the head of the Persian Gulf.

Of Caucasus, and dark Iberian dales;

From Atropatia and the neighbouring plains
Of Adiabene, Media, and the south
Of Susiana, to Balsara's haven.

He saw them in their forms of battel ranged,

How quick they wheel'd, and flying behind them shot
Sharp sleet of arrowy showers against the face
Of their pursuers, and overcame by flight:
The field all iron cast a gleaming brown:
Nor wanted clouds of foot, nor on each horn
Cuirassiers all in steel for standing fight,
Chariots, or elephants indorsed with towers
Of archers; nor of labouring pioneers
A multitude, with spades and axes arm'd
To lay hills plain, fell woods, or valleys fill,
Or where plain was raise hill, or overlay
With bridges rivers proud, as with a yoke:
Mules after these, camels and dromedaries,
And waggons, fraught with útensils of war.
Such forces met not, nor so wide a camp,
When Agrican with all his northern powers
Besieged Albracca, as romances tell,
The city of Gallaphrone, from thence to win
The fairest of her sex, Angelica,

His daughter, sought by many prowest knights,
Both Paynim, and the peers of Charlemain.
Such and so numerous was their chivalry:
At sight whereof the fiend yet more presumed,
And to our Saviour thus, his words renew'd;

That thou mayst know I seek not to engage
Thy virtue, and not every way secure

On no slight grounds thy safety; hear, and mark,
To what end I have brought thee hither, and shown

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All this fair sight: thy kingdom, though foretold

By prophet or by angel, unless thou

Endeavour, as thy father David did,

Thou never shalt obtain; prediction still

In all things, and all men, supposes means;

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Without means used, what it predicts revokes.

But, say thou wert possess'd of David's throne,
By free consent of all, none opposite,
Samaritan or Jew; how couldst thou hope
Long to enjoy it, quiet and secure,
Between two such enclosing enemies,

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329. Indorsed, from the Latin in and than two millions two hundred thousand. dorsum, on the back.

338. Agrican. What Milton here alludes to is related in Boiardo's Orlando Innamorato. The number of forces said to be there assembled is incredible, and extravagant even beyond the common extravagancy of romances. Agrican the Tartar king brings into the field no less

Angelica is the same character that afterwards made her appearance in Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, which was intended as a continuation of the story which Boiardo had begun.-THYER.

342. Prowest, the superlative of prow, from the old French preuz, valiant.

Rɔman and Parthian? Therefore one of these

Thou must make sure thy own; the Parthian first
By my advice, as nearer and of late

Found able by invasion to annoy

Thy country, and captive lead away her kings,
Antigonus and old Hyrcanus, bound,

Maugre the Roman: it shall be my task

To render thee the Parthian at dispose;

Choose which thou wilt, by conquest or by league:

By him thou shalt regain, without him not,
That which alone can truly re-install thee
In David's royal seat, his true successour,
Deliverance of thy brethren, those ten tribes,
Whose offspring in his territory yet serve,
In Habor, and among the Medes dispersed:
Ten sons of Jacob, two of Joseph, lost
Thus long from Israel, serving, as of old
Their fathers in the land of Egypt served,
This offer sets before thee to deliver.
These if from servitude thou shalt restore
To their inheritance; then, nor till then,
Thou on the throne of David in full glory,
From Egypt to Euphrates, and beyond,
Shalt reign, and Rome or Cæsar not need fear.

To whom our Saviour answer'd thus, unmoved:

Much ostentation vain of fleshly arm

And fragile arms, much instrument of war,
Long in preparing, soon to nothing brought,
Before mine eyes thou hast set; and in my ear
Vented much policy, and projects deep
Of enemies, of aids, battels, and leagues,
Plausible to the world, to me worth naught.
Means I must use, thou say'st; prediction else
Will unpredict, and fail me of the throne.
My time, I told thee, (and that time for thee
Were better farthest off) is not yet come:
When that comes, think not thou to find me slack
On my part aught endeavouring, or to need

Thy politick maxims, or that cumbersome

Luggage of war there shown me, argument

Of human weakness rather than of strength.

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My brethren, as thou call'st them, those ten tribes,

374. Ten tribes. These were the ten of these were sons of Jacob; the two tribes whom Shalmaneser, king of Assy-others were sons of Joseph. I would ria, carried captive into Assyria, "and suppose, therefore, that the poet meant put them in Halah and in Habor by the to give it, river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes." 2 Kings xviii. 11; which cities were now under the dominion of the Parthians.-NEWTON.

377. Ten sons, &c. The ten captive tribes were Reuben, Simeon, Zebulon, Issachar, Dan, Gad, Asher, Naphtali, Ephraim, and Manasseh. Only eight

Eight sons of Jacob, two of Joseph lost. Otherwise he must have included in the ten sons of Jacob both Levi and Joseph. It seems incorrect to refer to Joseph as the head of a tribe when he was really merged in the tribes of his two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh.

I must deliver, if I mean to reign

David's true heir, and his full sceptre sway

To just extent over all Israel's sons.

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But whence to thee this zeal? where was it then

For Israel, or for David, or his throne,

When thou stood'st up his tempter to the pride
Of numbering Israel, which cost the lives
Of threescore and ten thousand Israelites
By three days' pestilence? Such was thy zeal
To Israel then; the same that now to me!
As for those captive tribes, themselves were they
Who wrought their own captivity, fell off
From God to worship calves, the deities

Of Egypt, Baal next and Ashtaroth,

And all the idolatries of heathen round,

Besides their other worse than heathenish crimes;
Nor in the land of their captivity

Humbled themselves, or penitent besought

The God of their forefathers; but so died

Impenitent, and left a race behind

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Like to themselves, distinguishable scarce
From Gentiles, but by circumcision vain;
And God with idols in their worship join'd.
Should I of these the liberty regard,

Who, freed, as to their ancient patrimony,
Unhumbled, unrepentant, unreform'd,

Headlong would follow; and to their gods perhaps
Of Bethel and of Dan? No; let them serve
Their enemies, who serve idols with God.
Yet he at length, (time to himself best known)
Remembering Abraham, by some wondrous call
May bring them back repentant and sincere,
And at their passing cleave the Assyrian flood,
While to their native land with joy they haste:
As the Red Sea and Jordan once he cleft,
When to the Promised Land their fathers pass'd:
To his due time and providence I leave them.

So spake Israel's true king, and to the fiend
Made answer meet, that made void all his wiles.
So fares it when with truth falsehood contends.

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ing is clear: headlong would follow on in their old ways, and return to their idol gods. Bethel, about twelve miles north of Jerusalem, and Dan the northernmost, city of Palestine, were desecrated by the idolatrous worship of two golden calves erected by Jeroboam. See 1 Kings xii. 28-33.

636. Assyrian flood, the Euphrates.

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