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about to begin his dire attempt, horror and doubt distract him. The copulative "and" is suppressed before "begins" by asyndeton.

16. En. xii. 666 :

"Turnus et obtutu tacito stetit: @stuat ingens Imo in corde pudor, mixtoque insania luctu, Et furiis agitatus amor."

24, 25. "Memory" here is recordatio, the thinking or reflecting on any thing, as well present and future, as past. Thus the bees in Virgil (Geor. iv. 156) remember the approaching winter:-

"Venturæque hyemis memores, æstate laborem Experiuntur, et in medium quæsita reponunt."-(N., P.)

27. Hom. Odyss. xiii. 197:

Στη δ' αρ αναίξας, και ρ' εισιδε πατρίδα γαιαν Ωμωξεν τ' αρ' επειτ', ολοφυρόμενος δ' επος ηύδα.-(Stil.)

30. At noon the sun is lifted up as in a tower. The metaphor is used by Virgil,

in his Culex 41 :—

"Igneus @thereas jam sol penetrårat in arces." (R.)

32. When Milton designed to make only a tragedy of Paradise Lost, he intended to commence it with the first ten lines of this speech, which bears a general resemblance to the first speech of Prometheus, in the Prometh. Vinctus of Eschylus, and which is also indebted, as J. Warton remarks, to the opening of the Phonissa of Euripides. The thought of addressing the sun, as being the most conspicuous part of the creation, like the god of this world, is very natural, when so many of the heathen nations worshipped it as such. The opening of it is incomparably bold and noble, as the conflict of passions in the subsequent part, is raised with great art.-(N.,T.,Ad.)

40. "Pride" here means the vice considered in itself, only as the tempter which raised him in his own opinion above what was just; and "ambition,' that vicious excess and final aim of pride which carried him to aim at being equal to God. He lays the blame on his ambition elsewhere. See 61-92.-(H., P.)

44. James i. 5: "God giveth to all liberally, and upbraideth not."-(T.)

50. "'Sdained," disdained. Spenser often uses the word.

55. "Understood." So Cicero: "Gratiam autem et qui retulerit, habere, et qui habeat, retulisse."-(Bent.)

77. Expunge the comma after "me." 79. Newton thinks repent would be better here, as he uses "repentance" and

"repent" afterwards. Todd says, “relent" refers to Satan's fixed mind and unconquerable will (i. 97, 106). I think Todd right: relent, by its strict meaning, (to be less rigorous; to relax from austerity, and doggedness of purpose,) is the proper word. An obdurate being, like Satan, should first relent, before he repented.

81, 82. i. e. Disdain forbids me that word submission. This is a classical idiom, but of an unusual kind; prohibeo sometimes has two accusatives after it, as Plaut. Amp. IV. iii. 17, "Neque me Jupiter, neque Dii omnes id, prohibebunt, quin sic faciam." So Pseud. I. i. 11: "Id te Jupiter prohibessit."

101. The emphatic repetitions in this and the following lines are a high poetic beauty, of which Milton has not been sparing. Todd, by way of parallel, refers to the speech of Medea, in Apoll. Rhodius, Argon. iii. 785, εῤῥετω αιδως, εῤῥετω αγ Auïn, &c.; and Fairy Queen, i. 5. 43: but Shakspeare furnishes, I think, a far nobler parallel in Othello's speech, act iii.—the noblest passage of its kind in any language:"O now for ever Farewell the tranquil mind!-farewell con

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111. In allusion to the well-known lines, "Divisum imperium cum Jove Cæsar habet."—(Gr.)

112. i. e. By gaining the empire of earth through man's fall, while he retains that of hell; the Almighty retaining the empire of heaven only. These emphatic repetitions are very expressive of his rancorous resolution.-(N.)

114. "Each passion," i. e. ire, envy, and despair dimmed his countenance, which was thrice changed with pale through the successive agitations of these passions. Paleness is the proper hue of envy and despair, and is a sign of anger when most deadly and diabolical. It is remarkable that in the argument to this book, Milton wrote "fear," and not "ire." As "fear" there may be justified by line 18, "horror and doubt distract," and

other places; so is "ire" here warranted by line 9, and by his cursing God and himself, and by his menaces against man.— "Pale" for paleness, so x. 1009. See a similar description, Fairy Queen, I. x. 16. -(N., T.) Introduce a comma after pale."

121. "Artificer of fraud." So in Latin we find "artifex sceleris, doli, morbi," &c. See Facciolati.

123. "Couched," i. e. covered, together with revenge; so that revenge should be hidden as well as malice.-(P.)

125. "Warned" does not refer to any intimation Uriel got before Satan landed on Niphates, but to the suspicion his altered appearance and conduct there excited. See iii. 742.

132. It is unnecessary to call attention to this famous description, which contains more than the condensed beauties of Homer's description of the gardens of Alcinous, and the grotto of Circe; of Virgil's descriptions; of Ariosto's picture of the garden of Paradise; Tasso's garden of Armida; and Marino's garden of Venus; also Spenser's descriptions, Fairy Queen, II. xii. 42; VI. x. 6; Dante, Purg. xxviii. (See N., Th., H., T.) The Mount of Paradise was situated in a chainpaign country on the top of a steep hill, whose sides were overgrown with impassable thickets at the foot, and above them with stately trees, rising row above row, like seats in an amphitheatre, hence forming a kind of natural theatre; and above these was the wall of Paradise, like a bank set with a green hedge, which was low enough for Adam to look over it downwards on Eden; and above this hedge grew a row of the finest fruit trees; and the only entrance was a gate on the eastern side.-(N.)

147, 148. Bentley would read "fruits" in the first verse, because the word "fruits" follows in the next. Pearce would prefer "fruit" in both, because the singular number is in several other passages of the poem applied to what is hanging on the trees. In my opinion there is no occasion for emendation. Milton, by "fruit," intended to express the produce generically, and in the next line the species of the genus, or the kinds of produce, i. e. blossoms and various fruits; and to show the uncommon fecundity of the trees, he says they bore blossoms and fruits at once, i. e. keeping up, as it were, a succession of productions. It is a remarkable fact, that a species of the Arbutus, which abounds near the lakes of Killarney, shooting out

of the bare solid rocks, produces blossom and fruit at once. I have often, when a school-boy, plucked blossom, green fruit, and ripe fruit from the same tree at the same time. Frux in Latin is sometimes used for produce generally, while fructus is sometimes applied to particular kinds of it. This is a sufficient defence of the text.

Now

151. Here again the spirit of emendation is, I think, uselessly at work. There has been a question whether Bentley, Hume, or T. Warton deserves the credit of reading on here for "in;" as the effect of the sun on the evening cloud or rainbow is the thing to be attended to. Milton wrote "in," and in my opinion properly; as he wished to convey the idea of the sun's not only gilding the surface of the cloud, but penetrating it, and impregnating it with the irradiating influence of his beams. So he uses "on" in reference to the blossoms and fruits, which were substances impenetrable by light; and uses "in" with respect to the cloud and rainbow, which are permeable bodies.

158. This fine passage is a copy of a fine one in Shakspeare, Twelfth Night :"like the sweet south,

That breathes upon a bank of violets,
Stealing and giving odour;"—

but much improved, as Dr. Greenwood remarks, by the addition of that beautiful metaphor, included in the word "whisper." See Orl. Fur. xxxiv. 51.-—(N., T.)

161. Diodorus Siculus, iii. 46, describes the aromatic plants of Sabæa, or Arabia Felix, as yielding "inexpressible fragrance to the senses, which is even enjoyed by the navigator, though he sails by at a great distance from the shore. For in spring, when the wind blows off land, the odour from the aromatic trees and plants diffuses itself over the neighbouring sea." Several other writers, including Sir W. Jones, speak of the air as being impregnated with perfume from the spice trees of Arabia. See Orl. Fur. xviii. 138.-(T.) "Mozambic," an island on the eastern coast of Africa.-"Sabean odours," from Saba, a city and district of Arabia Felix. Virg. Georg. i. 57 :"India mittit ebur, molles sua thura Sabæi.” (N.)

168.

:

"Asmodeüs." The name of

an evil spirit, mentioned in Tobit, who being enamoured of Sarah, the daughter of Raguel, constantly beset her, and killed all her husbands before Tobias:

but was expelled by the fume arising from the gall of a fish burned by Tobias, and was bound by the angel Raphael in the deserts of Upper Egypt. See Calmet.

177. "That passed that way," i. e. that would have passed that way. So ii. 642: "So seemed far off the fiend," i. e. would have seemed, if any one had been there to have seen him. Thus Euripides, Ion. 1326: Ηκουσας ως μ' εκτεινεν ήδε μηχαναις ; “ Did you hear how she killed me" i. e. would have killed me "by her stratagems?"-(N.) Milton often uses verbs, like the Greeks, in the aorist, or indefinite sense, as to mood, as well as tense.

181. Shakspeare has a similar play on the same word, Romeo and Juliet, i. 4 :— "I am too sore enpierced with his shaft

To soar with his light feathers; and so bound, I cannot bound a pitch above dull woe."—(T.) 183. A "wolf" is often the subject of a simile in Homer and Virgil; but is here considered in a new light, and perhaps never furnished out a stronger resemblance.-(N.)

193. "Lewd" here is taken in its original sense, to signify gross, ignorant, corrupt. So i. 490; vi. 182.-(N.)

195. So Gen. ii. 9.

196. A "cormorant " being a very voracious sea fowl, is a proper emblem of the destroyer of mankind. Homer represents Sleep in the likeness of a bird sitting on a tall fir tree on Mount Ida. Il. xiv.(-N.)

201. Compare the beginning of the Tenth Satire of Juvenal.

210. Milton, agreeably to the accounts of Scripture, places Eden in Mesopotamia. Auran or Charræ was a city on the Euphrates, as Seleucia was on the Tigris. He gives another description of its locality, by saying it was the original site of Telassar, or Talatha, (a city and province on the common streams, according to Ptolemy, of the Euphrates and Tigris,) in which the children of Eden dwelt, as Isaiah says, xxxvii. 12.-(N., C.) Mesopotamia means the land between the rivers, (εν μέσσω ποταμων) Euphrates and Tigris.

215. Addison has observed, that Milton has, by his gorgeous and elaborate description of Paradise, observed Aristotle's rule of lavishing all the ornaments of diction on the inactive parts of a fable, which are not supported by the beauty of sentiments and character.

218. "All amid," omnino medius, quite in the middle.

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"And trees weep amber on the banks of Po." (T.)

250. "Fables," in the original sense of fabula, a circumstance generally talked of, whether true or false; so that the proposed substitution of apples for fables is unnecessary.—(P.)

255. "Irriguous," watered. In Latin, irriguus is sometimes passive.

256. As it was a part of the curse denounced on the earth, that it should bring forth thorns and thistles, Milton here properly represents the rose as having no thorns.-(N.)

263. Milton here personifies the lake, as the old poets personified ruins. So, iii. 359, he personifies the river of bliss.

266, 267. "Pan" is universal nature; the "Graces," the beautiful seasons; and the " Hours," the time requisite for the production and perfection of things: these danced a perpetual round, and throughout the earth, yet unpolluted, led eternal spring. That the Graces were taken for the beautiful seasons, in which all things seem to dance in universal joy, is plain from Horace iv. Od. vii. 5:"Gratia cum nymphis geminisque sororibus audet

Ducere nuda choros."

Homer, in his hymn to Apollo, joins the Graces and Hours hand in hand with Harmony, Youth, and Venus. The ancient poets favoured the idea of the world's creation in spring. Virg. Georg. ii. 338; Ovid. Met. i. 107.-( H., R.)

269, &c. "Enna" in Sicily, celebrated by Ovid and Claudian for its beauty, from whence Proserpine was carried off by Pluto.-The "Castalian spring" mentioned here, was that in the grove of Daphne, famous for its oracles, on the banks of the Orontes, near Antioch in Syria. The Isle of Nysa was encompassed by the river Triton in Africa. Milton, following the authority of Diodorus Siculus, calls Bacchus the son of Amalthæa, not of Symele.-"Mount Amara," where the sons of the kings of Abyssinia were kept for protection, was under the equinoctial line, and celebrated for its beauty.

294. Newton says this verse should be used parenthetically; else "whence" may refer to "freedom," whereas it refers to 293.

299. The commentators think that "for God and him" would be a better reading; as in iv. 440, and x. 150, Milton mentions Eve as made for Adam. But I think Milton designedly wrote in, having the following passage in view: "The head of the woman is the man, the head of the man is Christ, and the head of Christ is God." 1 Cor. xi.; thus creating an ascending scale, the woman being created for God through man, man for God through Christ, and Christ for God through God.

301. Hyacinthine." Minerva, in Homer (Od. vi. 232), gives Ulysses hyacinthine locks-resembling the hyacinth flower, (ουλας ηκε κομας υακινθινω ανθεί opolas,) to make him look more beautiful. The hyacinth was of a dark brown colour. By this word Milton distinguishes Adam's hair from Eve's, in the colour, as well as in other particulars.—(N.) Milton may mean that Adam's locks were curled, like the blossoms of the hyacinth, without any reference to the colour.-(T.) It really means both.

303. Broad shoulders are always assigned to the ancient heroes by the poets. Newton thinks that Milton, who frequently fetches his ideas from the works of the greatest masters in painting, omitted any mention of Adam's beard, because Raphael and the principal painters, represent him without one. But why did they? I think, because Adam, before

the Fall, and before he became subject to death, was supposed to be in a state of perpetual youth. Besides, Milton had scriptural authority (see 361 and note,) for considering him as a being barely inferior to angels, and these were never represented by good poet or painter as having beard.

304. So Marino paints his Venus, (Adon. viii. 46.) Milton has with great taste and judgment avoided entering into a particular description of Eve's beauty, (though most great poets, especially the moderns, have given elaborate delineations of the beauties of their heroines, as in Ariosto's Alcina, Tasso's Armida, and Spencer's Belphoebe,) and directs the reader's attention especially to the beauties of her mind.—(Th.)

305. The Greek poets represent yellow hair as a great accompaniment to female beauty. Venus, Helen, and others are described as having golden or auburn locks; probably because, as the Greeks were a swarthy people with black hair and eyes, it was novel, and indicated a fair skin. Newton further remarks, that he here refers to his wife, who had yellowish hair, as his description of Adam was a picture of his own person. Todd thinks that he had in view Spenser's description of Britomartis, Fairy Queen, IV. i. 3 :—

-"her golden locks that were upbound Still in a knot, unto her heeles down traced And like a silken veile incompasse round About her back and all her bodie wound."

308-310. Newton thinks that Milton had St. Paul's first Epistle to the Corinthians, xi. 14, 15, in view, and also Horace ii. Od. xii. 26:

"facili sævitiâ negat

Quæ poscente magis gaudeat eripi,
Interdum rapere occupat."

310. i. e. Best received by him when yielded by her with coy submission.

314. He alludes to 1 Cor. xii. 23: "And those members of the body which we think to be less honourable, upon these we bestow more abundant honour." But that honour is really a dishonour; a token of our fall, and guilt. Innocent nature made no such distinction.-(N.)

315. Should we not read, "Sin bred how have you troubled," &c. for what is he speaking to besides shame ? — (N.) I see no occasion for correction here. "Ye" can refer to "shame" twice designated; or to "shame" and "honour dishonourable;" or a semicolon being put dishonourable," may not "sin

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bred" be taken as the vocative, to mean, Ye sin-bred notions, how have ye, &c. ? 323, 324. These two lines are censured by some critics, as implying that Adam was one of his sons, and Eve one of her daughters: but Newton shows that it is a manner of expression borrowed from the Greeks and adopted by the Latins, in which the superlative is sometimes used for the comparative degree. So a freed woman is called in Horace i. Sat. i. 100, fortissima Tyndaridarum, the bravest of the Tyndarida, i. e. braver than any of the daughters of Tyndarus, for she was not in reality one of them; and Pearce observes, that Diana is said by one of the poets to have been comitum pulcherrima, the most beautiful of her attendants, i. e. more beautiful than any of them, as she was not one of her own attendants.

332. The following passage of Theocritus (Idyll. vii.) is somewhat analogous : Οχναι μεν παρ ποσσι, παρα πλευρησι δε μαλα Δαφιλέως αμμιν εκυλίνδετο τοι δ' εκέχυντο Ορπακες βραβυλοισι καταβρίθοντες ερασθε. 333. "Recline," reclining, adjectivean unusual word, from the Latin reclinis. 337. Fairy Queen, III. viii. 14 :"He 'gan make gentle purpose to his dame." (Th.)

348. " Insinuating." Coiling himself

as it were into his own bosom; from sinus, bosom. Sinuare and sinuosus are used by Virgil and the Latin poets to express the rolling and twisting of the snake. See En. xi. 753.-" Gordian twine," in allusion to the famous Gordian knot which could not be untied."Braided train," twisted tail. These motions of the serpent were a type of his fraud, but they were not then regarded.(H., R.)

352. "Bedward ruminating." Chewing the cud before going to rest; ruminating, from the Latin ruminare. Compare Orl. Fur. vi. 22.—(T.)

353. "Declined," fallen low; from the Latin declinare, which is rarely taken passively.

354. Newton thinks the metaphor of the scales of heaven weighing day and night, the one descending as the other ascends, is taken from the sign Libra or the balance, when the sun is in that sign, at the autumnal equinox, and day and night are in even balance, or of equal length.

358. This protracted emotion of Satan, which deprived him at first of the power of utterance, is nobly conceived.—(Ad.)

361

So Psalm viii. 5: "Thou hast

made him (man) a little lower than the angels," &c. So also Heb. ii. 7.—(N.) 381. See Isaiah xiv. 9.-(Gil.)

390. This line is to be taken in apposition with "public reason just," before, which means, state policy, and constituted the tyrant's plea, "necessity." It is a curious historical fact, that when the corpse of Charles I. lay in one of the rooms at Whitehall, Cromwell walked up and down the room where it lay, wrapped in a long black cloak, muttering to himself, "Terrible necessity!"-(T.)

402. The transformation of Bacchus (Eurip. Bacchæ. 1014) somewhat resembles this:

Φανηθι ταύρος, η πολυκρανος γ' ιδειν
Δράκων, η πυριφλέγων

Ορασθαι λεων.-(Τ.)

408, 410. "When Adam.... turned him." Dunster says (and his explanation has been copied by Todd and other commentators) that the words "Adam moving," &c. are to be taken as the case absolute, parenthetically; and that "turned him," being the same as turned himself, is elliptical, he (i. e. Satan) being understood as the subject to the verb. This, in my opinion, is throwing ingenuity away. The explanation of the passage is simply this: "When Adam, moving speech (a Greek phrase, κινησας μυθον οι λογον, or making the first motion of an address), turned him (directed Satan) all ear (all attention, as if all his faculties were for the time absorbed in the sense of hearing) to hear new utterance flow," or the language of earthly beings, which was strange to him.

411. "Sole part," i. e. of all these earthly joys-thou the only part coming from myself; alluding to her creation from his rib." Of," i. e. among.-(P.) 421. Gen. ii. 16, 17; i. 28.

449. It appears from this and other passages, (iv. 680, 712; v. 31, and other passages,) that Milton supposed Adam and Eve existed in Paradise a long time before this event.-(N.)

460. Milton has here embodied whatever is beautiful and appropriate in the story of Narcissus, Ovid. Met. iii. 457:"Spem mihi, nescio quam, vultu promittis amico;

Cumque ego porrexi tibi brachia, porrigis ultro ;

Cum risi, arrides; lachrymas quoque sæpe notavi

Me lachrymante, tuas....

"Ista repercussæ, quam cernis, imaginis umbra est;

Nil habet ista sui; tecum venitque, manetque;

Tecum discedet, si tu discedere possis."-(N.)

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