Of that forgetful lake benumb not still,
That in our proper motion we ascend
Up to our native seat: descent and fall
To us is adverse. Who but felt of late,
When the fierce foe hung on our broken rear
Insulting, and pursued us through the deep,
With what compulsion and laborious flight
We sunk thus low? Th' ascent is easy then;
Th' event is feared; should we again provoke

Our stronger, some worse way his wrath may find
To our destruction, if there be in Hell

Fear to be worse destroyed: what can be worse

Than to dwell here, driven out from bliss, condemned
In this abhorréd deep to utter woe;

Where pain of unextinguishable fire
Must exercise us without hope of end
The vassals of his anger, when the scourge
Inexorably, and the torturing hour,

Calls us to penance? More destroyed than thus,
We should be quite abolished, and expire.

What fear we then? what doubt we to incense
His utmost ire? which, to the height enraged,
Will either quite consume us, and reduce
To nothing this essential; happier far
Than, miserable, to have eternal being;

that of the human form invested with wings · pennis non homini datis. The same image has been employed for this purpose in all ages and in all countries, and must, therefore, have been suggested by the common nature and common circumstances of the human race."-STEWART's Philosophical Essays. The word "proper" is used here in its Latin sense of "one's own"what is peculiar to one.

89. Must exercise us.] One of the senses of the Latin exercise is to annoy, to vex or punish;" and Milton employs it here accordingly.

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90-93. Whom the scourge inexorably.] Bentley has proposed vessels instead of vassals, upon the plea, that St. Paul uses the phrase vessels of wrath; but the change does not seem an improvement. Farther on in this book, 1. 252., Moloch speaks of their

66

'state of splendid vassalage," and he is evidently one of those fiery spirits who can brook no idea of submission. "Penance" is no doubt used of purpose here. Milton omits no opportunity of striking a blow at Romish superstitions; and to represent the devils as under the same "discipline," so called, would please him vastly. Compare GRAY'S Ode to Adversity :

"Daughter of Jove, relentless Power!

Thou Tamer of the human breast Whose iron scourge and torturing hour The bad affright, afflict the best." 94. What doubt we to incense.] "What" in the sense of why, and "incense" in the sense of kindling up, so as to irritate or aggravate.

97. This essential.] i. e. this essence, the adjective being, as in many other cases, used as a noun. Observe, "essence" and "substance" are here used as nearly synonymous.

Or, if our substance be indeed divine,
And cannot cease to be, we are at worst
On this side nothing; and by proof we feel
Our power sufficient to disturb his Heaven,
And with perpetual inroads to alarm,
Though inaccessible, his fatal throne
Which, if not victory, is yet revenge."

;

He ended, frowning; and his look denounced
Desperate revenge, and battle dangerous
To less than Gods. On th' other side up rose
Belial, in act more graceful and humane;
A fairer person lost not Heaven; he seemed
For dignity composed and high exploit:

But all was false and hollow; though his tongue
Dropt manna, and could make the worse appear
The better reason, to perplex and dash
Maturest counsels; for his thoughts were low;
To vice industrious, but to nobler deeds
Timorous and slothful; yet he pleased the ear,
And with persuasive accent thus began.

"I should be much for open war, O Peers,
As not behind in hate, if what was urged
Main reason to persuade immediate war
Did not dissuade me most, and seem to cast
Ominous conjecture on the whole success:

104. His fatal throne.] i. e. his throne upheld by fute, for which even we are no match! Fate, literally that which is spoken. According to the ancient mythology, Gods and men were equally subject to it, and our author here speaks after the manner of the ancients. According to our ideas, what God wills is fate, and nothing else is.

105. Which, if not victory, is yet revenge.] "The part of Moloch is, in all its circumstances, full of that fire and fury which distinguish this spirit from the rest of the fallen angels. * * * All his sentiments are rash, audacious, and desperate, particularly from 1. 60. to 1. 70. His preferring annihilation to shame or misery, is also highly suitable to his character; so the comfort he draws from their disturbing the peace of heaven - that if it be not

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105

110

115

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victory, it is revenge.
is a sentiment
truly diabolical, and becoming the
bitterness of this implacable fiend."-
ADDISON.

112. Though his tongue dropt manna.] Compare HOMER, Iliad,

book i. 329.

"To calm their passion with the words of age,
Slow from his seat arose the Pylian sage,
Experienced Nestor, in persuasion skilled;
Words sweet as honey from his lips distilled."

123. Ominous conjecture.] It was commonly believed in ancient times that coming events were preceded by signs showing their nature. These signs were called omens. They seldom commenced a journey, or a battle, or any other important step in life, without first inquiring whether the omens were good or bad. Conjecture means a casting of the mind to something future-a guess formed on the probability of the fact. By "ominous con

When he, who most excels in fact of arms,
In what he counsels and in what excels,
Mistrustful, grounds his courage on despair
And utter dissolution, as the scope

Of all his aim, after some dire revenge.

First, what revenge? The towers of Heaven are filled
With arméd watch, that render all access
Impregnable; oft on the bordering deep
Encamp their legions, or, with obscure wing,
Scout far and wide into the realm of night,
Scorning surprise. Or, could we break our way
By force, and at our heels all Hell should rise
With blackest insurrection, to confound
Heaven's purest light, yet our great enemy,
All incorruptible, would on his throne
Sit unpolluted; and th' ethereal mould,
Incapable of stain, would soon expel

Her mischief, and purge off the baser fire,
Victorious. Thus repulsed, our final hope
Is flat despair; we must exasperate
Th' Almighty Victor to spend all his rage,
And that must end us; that must be our cure,
To be no more sad cure! for who would lose,
Though full of pain, this intellectual being,
Those thoughts that wander through eternity,
To perish rather, swallowed up and lost

jecture," then, Belial means to say,-to make use of another superstitious word to explain this one," that he has a sort of presentiment that the scheme proposed would not succeed."

124. Who most excels in fact of arms.] Fact of arms, we are told, is an Italian idiom for a battle.

130. With armed watch.] "Watch" is here used as a collective noun, signifying watchmen, or, as in this case, watching angels.

143. Our final hope is flat despair.] i. e. the end of our hope is despair complete and overpowering, so crushed to the ground that it can never rise again. Observe, he speaks in the present tense, as if the thing were passing before his eyes.

146-151. For who would lose, fc.] Gray evidently had these lines

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130

135

140

145

"For who, to dumb Forgetfulness a prey,
This pleasing, anxious being ere resigned-
Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day,
Nor cast one longing, lingering look behind?"

Addison, too, has appealed to the same principle of our nature, when he puts these words into the mouth of Cato:

"It must be so! Plato, thou reasonest well; Else whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire,

This longing after immortality ?"

Nor have philosophers neglected to notice the same thing. "After all the complaints that have been made of the peculiar distresses which are incident to cultivated minds, who would exchange the sensibilities of his intellectual and moral being for the apathy of those, whose only avenues of plea

In the wide womb of uncreated night,

Devoid of sense and motion? And who knows,

Let this be good, whether our angry foe
Can give it, or will ever? how he can,
Is doubtful; that he never will, is sure.
Will he, so wise, let loose at once his ire,
Belike through impotence, or unaware,
To give his enemies their wish, and end
Them in his anger, whom his anger saves
To punish endless? Wherefore cease we then?
Say they who counsel war; We are decreed,
Reserved, and destined, to eternal woe;
Whatever doing, what can we suffer more,
What can we suffer worse? Is this then worst,
Thus sitting, thus consulting, thus in arms?
What! when we fled amain, pursued and struck
With Heaven's afflicting thunder, and besought
The deep to shelter us? This Hell then seemed
A refuge from those wounds: or when we lay
Chained on the burning lake? That sure was worse.
What, if the breath, that kindled those grim fires,
Awaked, should blow them into sevenfold rage,
And plunge us in the flames? or, from above,
Should intermitted vengeance arm again
His red right-hand to plague us? what if all

sure and pain are to be found in their
animal nature; 'who move thought-
lessly in the narrow circle of their ex-
istence, and to whom the falling leaves
present no idea but that of approaching
winter?'" (GOETHE.) · STEWART'S
Elements of the Philosophy of the
Human Mind.

"Strong and permanent as our wishes of delight may be, it is not happiness only which we desire, not misery only which we dread; we have a wish to exist, even without regard, at the moment of the wish, to the happiness which might seem all that could render existence valuable; and annihilation itself, which implies the impossibility of uneasiness of any kind, is to our conception almost like a species of misery. Nor is it only when life presents to us the appearance of pleasure, wherever we look, and when our heart has an

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165

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alacrity of enjoying it, wherever it is to be found, that the desire of a continuation of this earthly existence remains. It remains, and, in many instances, is perhaps still stronger in those years when death might seem to afford only the prospect of a ready passage to a better world."-BROWN'S Philosophy of the Human Mind.

156. Belike through impotence.] Spoken in irony. "Perhaps through want of power to restrain himself," or "unaware," in some moment of surprise, when caught off his guard.

165. When we fled amain.] i. e. with all our might-as fast as we could.

166. And besought the deep to shelter us.] Apparently imitated from Luke xxiii. 30.: "Then shall they begin to say to the mountains, Fall on us; and to the hills, Cover us." "Red

174. His red right-hand.]

Her stores were opened, and this firmament
Of Hell should spout her cataracts of fire,
Impendent horrors, threatening hideous fall
One day upon our heads; while we perhaps,
Designing or exhorting glorious war,
Caught in a fiery tempest, shall be hurled,
Each on his rock transfixed, the sport and prey

Of racking whirlwinds, or for ever sunk

Under yon boiling ocean, wrapt in chains;
There to converse with everlasting groans,
Unrespited, unpitied, unreprieved,

Ages of hopeless end! This would be worse.
Var, therefore, open or concealed, alike

Wa

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185

My voice dissuades; for what can force or guile

With him, or who deceive his mind, whose eye

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Views all things at one view? He from Heaven's height

All these our motions vain sees and derides;

Not more almighty to resist our might

Than wise to frustrate all our plots and wiles.

Shall we then live thus vile, the race of Heaven

Thus trampled, thus expelled to suffer here

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Chains and these torments? better these than worse,
By my advice; since fate inevitable

Subdues us, and omnipotent decree,
The victor's will. To suffer, as to do,
Our strength is equal, nor the law unjust
That so ordains: this was at first resolved,

right-hand" is borrowed from Horace, and Anthon thus explains the epithet. "Red with the reflected glare of the thunderbolt; an idea very probably borrowed from some ancient painting."

176. Should spout her cataracts of fire.] Cataract, from Greek κaтa and parow, I dash against, means a waterfall; here, applied to fire.

184. There to converse with everlasting groans.] "To converse" means now, to hold familiar discourse with a person; but originally it had a much wider signification,-"to be employed with" in any way. "To converse with everlasting groans," then, is to be obliged to utter them, and so be in eternal torment.

185. Unrespited, unpitied, unreprieved.] i. e. allowed no time to breathe, altogether without sympathy,

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and no intermission in their punishment. "A reprieve, from reprendre, to take back, is the withdrawing of a sentence for an interval of time, whereby the execution is suspended."-BLACKSTONE.

186. Ages of hopeless end.] i. e. for ages hopeless of an end.

191. Motions.] Used here either in the Parliamentary sense of proposals, i. e. schemes offered for consideration and discussion; or in the sense of movements, as if every step they took were watched and known, and "held in derision."

201. This was at first resolved.] There is an apparent confusion of tense here. Surely it ought to be, 66 This were, or would be, at first, i. e. at once resolved," &c.