The happy isle? what strength, what art can then Suffice, or what evasion bear him safe Through the strict senteries and stations thick Of angels watching round? here he had need All circumspection; and we now no less Choice in our suffrage: for on whom we send, The weight of all, and our last hope, relies.
This said, he sat; and expectation held His looks suspense, awaiting who appear'd To second or oppose, or undertake
The perilous attempt: but all sat mute,
Pondering the danger with deep thoughts; and each In other's countenance read his own dismay, Astonish'd: none among the choice and prime
Of those heaven-warring champions could be found, So hardy, as to proffer, or accept
Alone the dreadful voyage: till at last,
Satan, whom now transcendent glory raised Above his fellows, with monarchal pride,
Conscious of highest worth, unmoved thus spake: O progeny of heaven, empyreal thrones, With reason hath deep silence and demur Seized us, though undismay'd. Long is the way And hard, that out of hell leads up to light: Our prison strong, this huge convex of fire, Outrageous to devour, immures us round Ninefold; and gates of burning adamant Barr'd over us prohibit all egress. These pass'd, if any pass, the void profound Of unessential Night receives him next, Wide gaping; and with utter loss of being Threatens him, plunged in that abortive gulf. If thence he 'scape into whatever world, Or unknown region; what remains him less Than unknown dangers and as hard escape? But I should ill become this throne, O peers,
And this imperial sovranty, adorn'd
With splendour, arm'd with power, if aught proposed
And judged of public moment, in the shape
Of difficulty or danger, could deter
Me from attempting. Wherefore do I assume
These royalties, and not refuse to reign, Refusing to accept as great a share
Of hazard as of honour, due alike
To him who reigns, and so much to him due Of hazard more, as he above the rest
410. The happy isle. The earth hangng in the sea of air. "He stretcheth out the north over the empty place, and hangeth the earth upon nothing."-Job xxvi. 7.
439 Unessential. Void of being, as
darkness approaches nearest to nonentity.
445. But I should ill become, &c. "The whole speech, from this line, is wonderfully beautiful in every respect."-MON
High honour'd sits? Go, therefore, mighty powers, Terrour of heaven, though fallen! intend at home, While here shall be our home, what best may ease The present misery, and render hell
More tolerable; if there be cure or charm To respite, or deceive, or slack the pain Of this ill mansion. Intermit no watch Against a wakeful Foe; while I abroad Through all the coasts of dark destruction seek Deliverance for us all: this enterprize None shall partake with me. Thus saying rose The monarch, and prevented all reply; Prudent, lest from his resolution raised Others among the chief might offer now, Certain to be refused, what erst they fear'd; And so refused might in opinion stand His rivals; winning cheap the high repute, Which he through hazard huge must earn. Dreaded not more the adventure, than his voice Forbidding; and at once with him they rose: Their rising all at once was as the sound
Of thunder heard remote. Towards him they bend With awful reverence prone; and as a god
Extol him equal to the Highest in heaven.
Nor fail'd they to express how much they praised, That for the general safety he despised
His own: for neither do the spirits damn'd
Lose all their virtue; lest bad men should boast
Their specious deeds on earth, which glory excites,
Or close ambition varnish'd o'er with zeal.
Thus they their doubtful consultations dark Ended, rejoicing in their matchless chief: As when from mountain tops the dusky clouds Ascending, while the north wind sleeps, o'erspread Heaven's cheerful face; the louring element Scowls o'er the darken'd landskip snow, or shower: If chance the radiant sun with farewell sweet Extend his evening beam, the fields revive, The birds their notes renew, and bleating herds Attest their joy, that hill and valley rings. O shame to men! devil with devil damn'd Firm concord holds; men only disagree Of creatures rational, though under hope
have been a sarcasm on the bad men of Milton's time.-BRYDGES.
489. While the north wind sleeps. "A simile of perfect beauty: it illustrates the delightful feeling resulting from the contrast of the stormy debate with the light that seems subsequently to break in upon the assembly."-BRYDGES. "Per haps this delightful passage is one of the finest instances of picturesque poetry which can be produced."-TODD.
Of heavenly grace; and, God proclaiming peace, Yet live in hatred, enmity, and strife Among themselves, and levy cruel wars, Wasting the earth, each other to destroy: As if, which might induce us to accord, Man had not hellish foes enow besides, That day and night for his destruction wait.
The Stygian council thus dissolved; and forth In order came the grand infernal peers: Midst came their mighty paramount, and seem'd Alone the antagonist of Heaven; nor less Than hell's dread emperour, with pomp supreme And God-like imitated state: him round A globe of fiery seraphim inclosed, With bright imblazonry and horrent arms.. Then of their session ended they bid cry With trumpets' regal sound the great result: Toward the four winds four speedy Cherubim Put to their mouths the sounding alchymy, By herald's voice explain'd: the hollow abyss Heard far and wide; and all the host of hell With deafening shout return'd them loud acclaim. Thence more at ease their minds, and somewhat raised By false presumptuous hope, the ranged powers Disband; and, wandering, each his several way Pursues, as inclination or sad choice
Leads him perplex'd; where he may likeliest find Truce to his restless thoughts, and entertain The irksome hours, till his great chief return. Part, on the plain, or in the air sublime, Upon the wing or in swift race contend, As at the Olympian games, or Pythian fields: Part curb their fiery steeds, or shun the goal With rapid wheels, or fronted brigads form. As when to warn proud cities war appears Waged in the troubled sky, and armies rush To battel in the clouds, before each van
Prick forth the aery knights, and couch their spears Till thickest legions close: with feats of arms From either end of heaven the welkin burns. Others, with vast Typhoean rage more fell, Rend up both rocks and hills, and ride the air In whirlwind: hell scarce holds the wild uproar. As when Alcides, from Echalia crown'd
512. Globe is used in the Latin sense of globus, “a troop," "a crowd;" and horrent in the sense of horreo, "to bristle," to stand erect," "to stand on end:" horrentes hasta.
"And each particular hair to stand on end Like quilis upon the fretful porcupine." Shaks. Hamlet, Act I. Sc. v. 536 To couch the spear, is to fix it in
its rest; from the French coucher, "to place."
542. Alcides: Hercules, the grandson of Alcæus. Echalia: a city of Thessaly. Lichas was the bearer of the poison robe sent to Hercules by his wife, in a fit of jealousy. See Keightley's Mythology, or Smith's Classical Dictionary.
With conquest, felt the envenom'd robe, and tore Through pain up by the roots Thessalian pines; And Lichas from the top of Eta threw Into the Euboic sea. Others more mild, Retreated in a silent valley, sing With notes angelical to many a harp Their own heroic deeds, and hapless fall By doom of battel; and complain that fate Free virtue should inthral to force or chance. Their song was partial; but the harmony, (What could it less when spirits immortal sing?) Suspended hell, and took with ravishment
The thronging audience. In discourse more sweet, (For eloquence the soul, song charms the sense,) Others apart sat on a hill retired,
In thoughts more elevate, and reason'd high Of providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate; Fix'd fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute: And found no end, in wandering mazes lost. Of good and evil much they argued then, Of happiness and final misery, Passion and apathy, and glory and shame; Vain wisdom all, and false philosophy: Yet with a pleasing sorcery could charm Pain for a while or anguish, and excite Fallacious hope; or arm the obdured breast With stubborn patience as with triple steel. Another part, in squadrons and gross bands, On bold adventure to discover wide That dismal world, if any clime perhaps Might yield them easier habitation, bend Four ways their flying march, along the banks Of four infernal rivers, that disgorge Into the burning lake their baleful streams; Abhorred Styx, the flood of deadly hate; Sad Acheron, of sorrow, black and deep; Cocytus, named of lamentation loud
Heard on the rueful stream; fierce Phlegethon Whose waves of torrent fire inflame with rage. Far off from these a slow and silent stream, Lethe, the river of oblivion, rolls Her watery labyrinth; whereof who drinks, Forthwith his former state and being forgets,
500. Pix'd fate, &c. "The turn of the words is here admirable, and very well expresses the wanderings and mazes of their discourse."-NEWTON. Milton might here have had an eye to that large class of preachers who are constantly battling theological points, instead of preaching practical righteousness.
575. Four infernal rivers. The Greeks called three of these rivers of Hell after
the names of noxious streams in their own country. The Styr (called abhorred, from the Greek orvyɛw, to hate) was a torrent in Arcadia, whose waters were said to be poisonous; and the Acheron, (from axos grief, and pew, to flow, flowing with grief.) and the Cocytus. (from Kokvo, to lament,) were rivers of Epirus. Phlegethon is from pλɛyw, to burn'; and Lethe, from Anen, forgetfulness.
Forgets both joy and grief, pleasure and pain. Beyond this flood a frozen continent
Lies, dark and wild, beat with perpetual storms Of whirlwind, and dire hail which on firm land Thaws not; but gathers heap, and ruin seems Of ancient pile: all else deep snow and ice; A gulf profound as that Serbonian bog Betwixt Damiata and mount Casius old, Where armies whole have sunk: the parching air Burns frore, and cold performs the effect of fire. Thither by harpy-footed furies haled, At certain revolutions all the damn'd
Are brought; and feel by turns the bitter change
Of fierce extremes, extremes by change more fierce: From beds of raging fire to starve in ice
Their soft ethereal warmth; and there to pine Immovable, infix'd, and frozen round,
Periods of time; thence hurried back to fire.
They ferry over this Lethean sound
Both to and fro, their sorrow to augment,
And wish and struggle, as they pass, to reach
The tempting stream, with one small drop to lose
In sweet forgetfulness all pain and woe, All in one moment, and so near the brink:
But Fate withstands, and to oppose the attempt Medusa with Gorgonian terrour guards
The ford, and of itself the water flies
All taste of living wight, as once it fled The lip of Tantalus. Thus roving on
In confused march forlorn, the adventurous bands,
With shuddering horrour pale, and eyes aghast, View'd first their lamentable lot, and found
No rest: through many a dark and dreary vale They pass'd, and many a region dolorous, O'er many a frozen, many a fiery Alp,
Rocks, caves, lakes, fens, bogs, dens, and shades of death, A universe of death, which God by curse Created evil, for evil only good,
592. Serbomian bog. Serbonis was a lake between Egypt and Palestine, near Mount Casius. "It was surrounded on all sides by loose hills of sand, which, carried into the water by high winds, so thickened the lake, that it could not be distinguished from the parts of the continent: here whole armies have been swallowed up."-HUME. Read Herodotus, book iii. 5; and Lucan's Pharsalia, viii. 539.
595. Burns frore. Frore, an old word for frosty. "When the cold north wind bloweth, it devoureth the mountains, and burneth the wilderness, and consumeth the grass as fire."-Ecclesiasticus xliii. 20, 21.
600. To starve, to kill with cold.
611. The names of the three fabulous
sisters, the Gorgons, were Stheno. Euryale, and Medusa. They are described as girded with serpents, raising their heads, vibrating their tongues, and gnashing their teeth: some add wings and claws to them. Some say that Medusa was at first a beautiful maiden, but that for her crimes, Minerva changed her hair into serpents, which had the power of changing every one who looked at it into stone.
621. "Milton's are the Rocks, caves, fens, bogs, dens, and shades of death; and the idea caused by a word, which nothing but a word could annex to the others, raises a very great degree of the sublime; which is raised yet higher by what follows,-A UNIVERSE OF DEATH."— BURKE,
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