So stretch'd out huge in length the Arch-Fiend lay How all his malice served but to bring forth Driv'n backward slope their pointing spires, and roll'd Aloft, incumbent on the dusky air, 210 215 220 225 209. There are many examples in Milton of musical expression, or of an adaptation of the sound and movement of the verse to the meaning of the passage. This line is an instance. By its great length, and peculiar structure, being composed of monosyllables, it is admirably adapted to convey the idea of immense size. 210. Chained on the burning lake: There seems to be an allusion here to the legend of Prometheus, one of the Titans, who was exposed to the wrath of Jupiter on account of his having taught mortals the arts, and especially the use of fire, which he was said to have stolen from heaven, concealed in a reed. According to another story he was actually the creator of men, or at least inspired them with thought and sense. His punishment was to be chained to a rock on Caucasus, where a vulture perpetually gnawed his liver; from which he was finally rescued by Hercules. This legend has formed the subject of the grandest of all the poetical illustrations of Greek supernatural belief, the Prometheus Bound of Eschylus. Many have recognized in the indomitable resolution of this suffering Titan, and his stern endurance of the evils inflicted on him by a power with which he had vainly warred for supremacy, the prototype of the arch-fiend of Milton.-BRANDE. 226-7. That felt unusual weight: This conceit (as Thyer remarks) is borrowed from Spenser, who thus describes the old dragon, book i. Then with his waving wings displayed wide Dim. elf up high he lifted from the ground, That felt unusual weight; till on dry land He lights, as if it were land that ever burn'd And with strong flight did forcibly divide The yielding air, which nigh too feeble found Her flitting parts, and element unsound, To bear so great a weight." 229. Liquid fire. Virg. Ec. vi. 33. Et liquidi simul ignis.-N. 230 230. There are several noble similies and allusions in the first book of Paradise Lost. And here it must be observed that when Milton alludes either to things or persons he never quits his simile until it rises to some very great idea, which is often foreign to the occasion that gave birth to it. The simile does not perhaps occupy above a line or two, but the poet runs on with the hint until he has raised out of it some brilliant image or sentiment adapted to inflame the mind of the reader and to give it that sublime kind of entertainment which is suitable to the nature of an heroic poem. In short, if we look into the poems of Homer, Virgil, and Milton, we must observe, that as the great fable is the soul of each poem, so, to give their works the greater variety, the episodes employed by these authors may be regarded as so many short fables, their similies as so many short episodes, and their metaphors as so many short similies. If the comparisons in the first book of Milton, of the sun in an eclipse, of the sleeping leviathan, of the bees swarming about their hive, of the fairy dance, be regarded in this light the great beauties existing in each of these passages will readily be discovered.-A. 231. Wind: this should be altered to winds, to agree with the reading in line 235; or that should be altered to agree with this. 232. Pelorus: the eastern promontory of Sicily. 234. Thence conceiving fire: the combustible and fuelled entrails, or interior contents, of the mountain, are here represented as taking fire, as the result of the action of the subterranean wind, in removing the side of the mountain. The fire thus kindled was sublimed with mineral fury, that is, was heightened by the rapid combustion of mineral substances of a bituminous nature. The poet seems to have in his mind the description of Ætna by Virgil (book iii 572, 578.) Sed horrificis juxta tonat Etna ruinis, Sublimed with min'ral fury, aid the winds, 235 And leave a singed bottom all involved With stench and smoke; such resting found the sole Of unblest fect. Him follow'd his next mate, Both glorying to have 'scap'd the Stygian flood Is this the region, this the soil, the clime, 240 Said then the lost Arch-Angel, this the seat That we must change for heav'n, this mournful gloom For that celestial light? Be it so, since he 245 Who now is Sovran can dispose and bid What shall be right: farthest from him is best, A mind not to be changed by place or time. 255 Interdum scopulos avulsaque viscera montis Erigit eructans, liquefactaque saxa sub auras 239. Stygian flood; an expression here of the same import with infernal flood, alluding to the fabulous river Styx of the lower world, which the poets represented as a broad, dull and sluggish stream. 246. Sovran: from the Italian word sovrano. 250. Dr. Channing, writing upon Satan's character as drawn by the pot observes: "Hell yields to the spirit which it imprisons. The intensity of its fires reveals the intense passion and more vehement will of Satan; and the ruined archangel gathers into himself the sublimity of the scene which 'surrounds him. This forms the tremendous interest of these wonderful books. We see mind triumphant over the most terrible powers of nature We see unutterable agony subdued by energy of soul." Addison remarks that Milton has attributed to Satan those sentiments which are every way answerable to his character, and suited to a created being of the most exalted and most depraved nature; as in this passage. which describes him as taking possession of his place of torments, 250-263. 253-5. These are some of the extravagances of the Stoics, and could not ! What matter where, if I be still the same, In worst extremes, and on the perilous edge New courage and revive, though now they lie 260 265 270 275 280 be better ridiculed than they are here by being put into the mouth of Satan in his present situation.-THYEr. Shakspeare, in Hamlet, says: There is nothing either good or bad, but 254. This sentiment is the great foundation on which the Stoics build, their whole system of ethics.-S. 263. This sentiment is an improvement of that which is put by Æschylus into the mouth of Prometheus, 965; and it was a memorable saying of Julius Cæsar that he would rather be the first man in a village, than the second in Rome. Compare Virg. Georg. i. 36.—N. The lust of power and the hatred of moral excellence are Satan's prominent characteristics. 276. Edge of battle: from the Latin word acies, which signifies both the edge of a weapon and also an army in battle array. See book VI. 108 —Y. As we ere while, astounded and amazed, He scarce had ceased when the superior Fiend Was moving tow'rd the shore; his pond'rous shield 285 Hung on his shoulders like the moon, whose orb Or in Valdarno, to descry new lands, 290 295 300 287. Homer and Ossian describe in a like splendid manner the shields of their heroes. 288. Galileo: He was the first who applied the telescope to celestial observations, and was the discoverer of the satellites of Jupiter in 1610, which, in honor of his patron, Cosmo Medici he called the Mediceun stars. Fren the tower of St. Mark he showed the Venetian senators not only the satellites of Jupiter but the crescent of Venus, the triple appearance of Saturn, and the inequalities on the Moon's surface. At this conference he also endeavored to convince them of the truth of the Copernican system. 289–90. Fesolé: a city of Tuscany. Valdarno, the valley of Arno, in the same district. The very sound of these names is charming. 294. Ammiral: the obsolete form of admiral, the principal ship in a fleet. The idea contained in this passage, may, as Dr. Johnson suggests, be drawn from the following lines of Cowley; but, who does not admire the vast improvements in form? He says of Goliath, "His spear, the trunk was of a lofty tree, Which nature meant some tall ship's mast should be." Compare Hom. Odys. ix. 322. 299. Nathless: nevertheless. Æn. iii. 659. Tasso, canto vi. 40. |