then, of rime, so little is to be taken for a defect, though it may seem so perhaps to vulgar readers, that it rather is to be esteemed an example set, the first in English, of ancient liberty recovered to heroic poem from the troublesome and modern bondage of riming. 5th; in 54 and 615, after the 6th; in 53 and 309, after the 7th; in 12 and 742, after the 8th; in 386 and 443, Book I., and 547 and 573, Book II., after the 9th. Point out other instances of this cæsura in each position. An example set, the first in English, etc. Here we have a casual glimpse of Milton's boldness, amounting at times almost to audacity. It is a hint, too, of that passion for liberty which in one form or another appears in almost everything he wrote: yet the reader will observe with what reverent caution Milton shrinks from prying into the forbidden mysteries of God (see VII. 94, 95, 111, 120, 121; VIII. 167–8, 172–3, etc.); and how the poem emphasizes, most of all, obedience (see V. 611-12, 822, 900; VI. 36, 909 to 912; VIII. 633 to 643). — Bondage of riming. It will be interesting and profitable to study the advantages and disadvantages of rhyme, to collect choice passages illustrative of its beauty, and to balance against them the finest unrhymed lines. (See in Masson's Introduction to Paradise Lost, pp. 14, 15, an account of Dryden's interview with Milton, and Dryden's attempt 'to putt Paradise Lost into a drama in rhyme'! See the verses of Andrew Marvell prefixed to the 2d edition of Paradise Lost.) Says Keightley, "The verse of Milton and the great dramatists is not decasyllabic, but five-foot; . . . besides the two dissyllabic feet it admits two trisyllabic, namely, the anapest (~~) and the amphibrach (~—~), which feet may occupy any place and extend to any number. Thus in Shakespeare and Fletcher there are lines of fourteen syllables, four of the feet being trisyllabic. Of these Milton never admits more than two, so that his lines never go beyond twelve syllables; like the dramatists he also uses the six-foot line." The student should verify or disprove these statements by actual inspection. PARADISE LOST. BOOK I. THE ARGUMENT. THE FIRST BOOK proposes, first in brief, the whole subject, man's dis obedience, and the loss thereupon of Paradise, wherein he was placed; then touches the prime cause of his fall, the serpent, or rather Satan in the serpent, who, revolting from God, and drawing to his side many legions of angels, was, by the command of God, driven out of heaven, with all his crew, into the great deep. Which action passed over, the poem hastens into the midst of things, presenting Satan with his angels now fallen into Hell, described here, not in the centre, (for Heaven and Earth may be supposed as yet not made, certainly not yet accursed,) but in a place of utter darkness, fitliest called Chaos: here Satan, with his angels, lying on the burning lake, thunderstruck and astonished, after a certain space recovers, as from confusion; calls up him who next in order and dignity lay by him; they confer of their miserable fall; Satan awakens all his legions, who lay till then in the same manner confounded; they rise; their numbers; array of battle; their chief leaders named according to the idols known afterwards in Canaan and the countries adjoining. To these Satan directs his speech, comforts them with hope yet of regain ing heaven, but tells them lastly of a new world and a new kind of creature to be created according to an ancient prophecy or report in heaven; for that angels were long before this visible creation was the opinion of many ancient fathers. To find out the truth of this prophecy, and what to determine thereon, he refers to a full council. What his associates thence attempt. Pandemonium, the palace of Satan, rises, suddenly built out of the deep; the infernal peers there sit in council. Or man's first disobedience, and the fruit Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste Line 1. Of man's first disobedience, etc. The origin of evil, a problem of universal and never-failing interest, is here suggested. Like Homer, but unlike Virgil and Tasso, Milton combines the announcement of Brought death into the world, and all our woe, With loss of Eden till one greater Man Sing, heavenly Muse, that on the secret top 5 the subject with the invocation of the Muse. Like Homer in the Iliad, but unlike the others, Milton keeps himself out of sight at the first. Observe, too, that Milton's opening, like that of Virgil's first Georgic, keeps the mind in suspense, the interest deepening, and the tone swelling through several lines. The accumulated emphasis falls on sing. For dignity, modesty, compactness, and comprehensiveness, compare these exordiums. Fruit. Is this word to be taken literally? or as equivalent to result?-2. Tree. What trees are named in Genesis as having been in Eden? Mortal (Lat. mors, death, mortalis, subject to death; mortalis in ecclesiastical Lat. means deadly, which is said to be the sense of mortal in this line. But is it likely that Milton repeats the notion of death-bringing? May 'mortal taste' mean taste by a mortal?) — 3. Death. See Rom. v. 12; 1 Cor. xv. 21, 22; Gen. ii. 17. Woe. Note the order. Death precedes, it being the threatened penalty (moral death). — 4. Eden (a Hebrew word signifying pleasantness), paradise. Gen. ii. 8, "And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden." See Gen. iii. 23, 24. Where was Eden supposed to be? Par. Lost, IV. 210-215. Till one greater man. Rom. v. 15, 19, 20; 1 Cor. xv. 45, 47. 5. Restore us. Shall, or may, restore? Seat. In Shakespeare (Richard II., Act II. Sc. 1) old Gaunt calls England, = 'This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, The student should notice how the place of the cæsura varies, the sense being ' variously drawn out from one verse into another.' Of lines four and five, Landor remarks that they are incumbrances and deadeners of the harmony.' 'Incumbrances'?-to let the dark shadow give way to a moment's flash of restoration, a moment's glimpse of the great triumph of the Messiah portrayed in the twelfth book?-Deadeners of the harmony'? De Quincey says, "Be assured it is yourself that do not read with understanding; not Milton that by possibility can be found deaf to the demands of perfect harmony." Blissful seat Sedes beatas, blest seats, in Virgil's Æneid, VI. 639.-6. Sing, heavenly Muse. The proper muse of epic poetry among the ancients was Calliope. Lucretius, however, begins his De Rerum Natura with, "O bountiful Venus." Dante in his Paradiso invokes Apollo; in his Purgatorio, the holy Muses'; in his Inferno, the Muses,' the high Genius,' and 'Memory.' Milton's muse is none of these, but the one that inspired Moses, David, and Isaiah. In this, Milton resembles Tasso. From Horeb or Sinai, from Sion hill and Siloa's brook, Milton calls upon a far loftier muse than "Dame Memory and her siren daughters." In the beginning of the seventh book he names her Urania (i. e. the heavenly one), but he is careful to prevent her from being identified with the Urania of classic mythology; thus: - Of Oreb or of Sinai, didst inspire That shepherd, who first taught the chosen seed "Descend from heaven, Urania, by that name If rightly thou art called, whose voice divine The meaning, not the name, I call." 7 "By this Muse," says Keightley, "he probably means the genius and character, the divinely animated power, of the Hebrew poetry, as displayed in the Pentateuch by Moses, in the Psalms, etc., by David and others." Professor Himes (Study of Par. Lost) remarks: "The Genius of sacred song is the sister and companion of eternal Wisdom, and gives to the language of the blessed that prompt eloquence and musical sweetness by which it is characterized. She appears as the inspirer of the poetical language in versified portions of the Sacred Scripture, while the Holy Spirit is the Revealer of the truth." Secret top. We may, with Cowper, Storr, and others, interpret secret in its ordinary sense, referring to the 'thick cloud' and 'smoke' (Exod. xix. 12, 13, 16, 18, etc., xxiv. 15, etc.; Heb. xii. 18-21); or with Landor, R. C. Browne, and the majority of critics, we may take secret in its original Latin sense of apart, retired, separate; as secreta in Eneid, II. 299, secretos, Eneid, VIII. 670; and as Milton perhaps uses the word in his verses Upon the Circumcision, 1. 19, 'he that dwelt above, high-throned in secret bliss.' See Par. Lost, V. 597-599. The two meanings are closely connected. Is it a plausible conjecture, that by the word 'secret' Milton may have alluded to the impossibility of identifying the mountain?-7. Oreb. So the mountain is called in 2 Esdras ii. 33. Milton takes a poet's liberty in softening 'Horeb' into 'Oreb.' It is the mountain upon which God spake to Moses from the burning bush, and must not be confounded with the 'rock Oreb' in Judges vii. 25; Isaiah x. 26. The word Horeb means dry. Sinai (usually a dissyl.) is interpreted to mean 'jagged,' 'full of clefts.' See Dr. William Smith's Anc. Atlas, Map 39; and his Dict. of the Bible, under the word Sinai. The Sinaitic peninsula is triangular, about one hundred and forty miles from north to south, and nearly as broad. Here Moses had been a shepherd for forty years. The mountain-peaks are very numerous, and the whole group is sometimes called Sinai. Horeb was one of the most northerly of the cluster; Sinai, in a restricted sense, one of the most southerly. In Deuteronomy, the 'mount of promulgation' is called Horeb; elsewhere, Sinai. The Greek form is Sina. That shepherd. So Moses is metaphorically called in Isaiah lxiii. 11. In Exod. iii. 1, he 'kept the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law.' See Hesiod's Theog. 1. 21, etc. Inspire. What poetry did Moses write? See Exod. xv.; Ps. xc.; Deut. xxxii. 1-43, xxxiii. "This was the bravest warrior That ever buckled sword; This the most gifted poet That ever breathed a word." MRS. ALEXANDER's Burial of Moses. |