To set himself in glory 'bove his peers, He trusted to have equall'd the Most High, If he opposed; and with ambitious aim Against the throne and monarchy of God, Raised impious war in Heav'n, and battle proud With vain attempt. Him the Almighty Power Hurl'd headlong flaming from th' ethereal sky, With hideous ruin and combustion, down To bottomless perdition; there to dwell In adamantine chains and penal fire, Who durst defy th' Omnipotent to arms.
Nine times the space that measures day and night 50 To mortal men, he with his horrid crew Lay vanquish'd, rolling in the fiery gulf, Confounded though immortal: But his doom Reserved him to more wrath; for now' the thought Both of lost happiness and lasting pain Torments him; round he throws his baleful eyes, That witness'd huge affliction and dismay, Mix'd with obdurate pride and steadfast hate : At once, as far as angels' ken, he views
The dismal situation waste and wild:
A dungeon horrible on all sides round,
As one great furnace flamed; yet from those flames No light; but rather darkness visible Served only to discover sights of woe,
Regions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace And rest can never dwell: hope never comes, That comes to all: but torture without end Still urges, and a fiery deluge, fed
With ever-burning sulphur unconsumed: Such place eternal justice had prepared For those rebellious; here their pris'n ordain'd
In utter darkness, and their portion set As far removed from God and light of heaven, As from the centre thrice to th' utmost pole.
44. This whole description of the fall of the angels and of the infernal abyss is conceived in the noblest style of poetry; the flaming, rushing fall of the apostate angels, and the dark but fiery prison which received them, are erhaps the most sublime pictures which the human imagination ever produced.
74. It is a curious observation, that Homer places Hell as far Deneath the earth as Heaven is above it; Virgil makes it twice as distant, and Milton here thrice as far.
O how unlike the place from whence they fell! 75 There the companions of his fall, o'erwhelm'd With floods and whirlwinds of tempestuous fire, He soon discerns, and welt'ring by his side One next himself in power, and next in crime, Long after known in Palestine, and named Beelzebub. To whom th' Arch-Enemy,
And thence in Heav'n call'd Satan, with bold words Breaking the horrid silence thus began:
If thou beest he; but O how fallen! how changed From him who, in the happy realms of light Cloth'd with transcendent brightness didst outshine Myriads though bright! If he whom mutual league, United thoughts and counsels, equal hope And hazard in the giorious enterprise,
Join'd with me once, now misery hath join'd In equal ruin: into what pit thou seest
From what height fall'n, so much the stronger proved He with his thunder: and till then who knew
The force of those dire arms? yet not for those Nor what the potent victor in his rage Can else inflict, do I repent or change,
Though changed in outward lustre, that fix'd mind And high disdain from sense of injured merit, That with the Mightiest raised me to contend, And to the fierce contention brought along Innumerable force of Spirits arm'd,
That durst dislike his reign, and me preferring,
His utmost pow'r with adverse pow'r opposed In dubious battle on the plains of Heav'n,
And shook his throne. What though the field be lost?
81. Beelzebub, or the Lord of Flies, was worshipped at Ekron, 2 Kings, i. 2. see also Matt. xii. 24.
82. Satan in Hebrew means an enemy.
84. The first speech of Satan is very noble, and the abrupt manner of its coinmencement is powerfully striking. Imitations have been pointed out in this passage, of Isaiah xiv. Virgil, Æn. ii. 274. and Homer, Odyss. vi. 110. Others have also been remarked of Eschylus, Tasso, &c. but they seem to me to have been roincidences rather than imitations.
Extort from me. To bow and sue for With suppliant knee, and deify his pow'r, Who from the terror of this arm so late Doubted his empire; that were low indeed! That were an ignominy and shame beneath This downfall; since by fate the strength of Gods And this empyreal substance cannot fail, Since through experience of this great event
In arms not worse, in foresight much advanced, We may with more successful hope resolve To wage by force or guile eternal war, Irreconcileable to our grand foe, Who now triumphs, and in th' excess of joy Sole reigning holds the tyranny of heav'n.
So spake th' apostate Angel, though in pain, Vaunting aloud, but rack'd with deep despair: And him thus answer'd soon his bold compeer.
O Prince, O Chief of many throned powers! That led th' embattled Seraphim to war Under thy conduct, and in dreadful deeds Fearless, endanger'd heav'n's perpetual King, And put to proof his high supremacy,
Whether upheld by strength, or chance, or fate; Too well I see and rue the dire event, That with sad overthrow and foul defeat
Hath lost us heav'n, and all this mighty host
In horrible destruction laid thus low,
As far as Gods and heav'nly essences Can perish for the mind and spirit remains Invincible, and vigour soon returns, Though all our glory extinct, and happy state Here swallow'd up in endless misery. But what if he our conqu'ror (whom I now Of force believe almighty, since no less
Than such could have o'erpower'd such force as ours) Have left us this our spirit and strength entire 146 Strongly to suffer and support our pains,
That we may so suffice his vengeful ire,
116. Satan expresses by the word fate, his high and proud belief in the original and underived existence as well as immortality of the angels. Here is an admirable attention to the minutest circumstances which might develope the character of the fallen spirit evident throughout the speech, and the reader's attention cannot be too strongly directed to its examination.
Or do him mightier service as his thralls By right of war, whate'er his business be Here in the heart of Hell to work in fire, Or do his errands in the gloomy deep; What can it then avail, though yet we feel Strength undiminish'd, or eternal being To undergo eternal punishment?
Whereto with speedy words th' Arch-Fiend reply'd: Fall'n Cherub, to be weak is miserable
Doing or suffering: but of this be sure, To do aught good never will be our task, But ever to do ill our sole delight, As being the contrary to his high will Whom we resist. If then his providence Out of our evil seek to bring forth good, Our labour must be to pervert that end, And out of good still to find means of evil; Which oft-times may succeed, so as perhaps Shall grieve him, if I fail not, and disturb His inmost counsels from their destined aim. But see, the angry victor hath recall'd His ministers of vengeance and pursuit
Back to the gates of Heav'n; the sulph'rous hail Shot after us in storm, o'erblown hath laid The fiery surge, that from the precipice
Of Heav'n received us falling; and the thunder, Wing'd with red lightning and impetuous rage, 175 Perhaps hath spent his shafts, and ceases now To bellow through the vast and boundless deep, Let us not slip th' occasion, whether scorn Or satiate fury yield it from our foe.
Seest thou yon dreary plain, forlorn and wild, The seat of desolation, void of light,
Save what the glimm'ring of these livid flames Casts pale and dreadful? Thither let us tend From off the tossing of these fiery waves, There rest, if any rest can harbour there,
170. Dr. Bentley has pointed out a contradiction between this passage and one in the sixth book. It is here said that the good angels pursued the fallen ones down to hell; in the other place, It is asserted, that the Messiah alone expelled them from heaven. The variation has been accounted for by the account being given by different relators-The one by the discomfited Satan, the other by the angel Raphael.
And reassembling our afflicted powers, Consult how we may henceforth most offend Our enemy, our own loss how repair, How overcome this dire calamity,
What reinforcement we may gain from hope If not what resolution from despair.
Thus Satan talking to his nearest mate With head uplift above the wave, and eyes That sparkling blazed, his other parts besides Prone on the flood, extended long and large, Lay floating many a rood, in bulk as huge As whom the fables name of monstrous size; Titanian, or Earth-born, that warr'd on Jove, Briareos, or Typhon, whom the den
By ancient Tarsus held, or that sea-beast Leviathan, which God of all his works Created Lugest that swim the ocean stream; Him haply slumb'ring on the Norway foam The pilot of some small night-founder'd skiff Deeming some island, oft, as seamen tell, With fixed anchor in his scaly rind
Moors by his side under the lee, while night Invests the sea, and wished morn delays:
So stretch'd out huge in length the Arch-Fiend lay Chain'd on the burning lake, nor ever thence Had ris'n or heaved his head, but that the will
And high permission of all-ruling Heav'n Left him at large to his own dark designs, That with reiterated crimes he might
Heap on himself damnation, while he sought Evil to others, and enraged might see How all his malice served but to bring forth
196. Virgil describes the bulk of one of the giants in the same
199. Typhon or Typhoeus was one of the rebel giants, and Imprisoned by Jupuer under Mount Etna, or, as others say, in a cave near Tarsus, a city in Cilicia.
201. It has been questioned whether Milton supposed the Leviathan to be a whale or a crocodile.-It is most probable his ima gination made him content with the description of this animal given in Job, and that his critical industry was not at all engaged in settling the question.
204. Bentley has given a curious instance of his utter want of poetical feeling in proposing to change this epithet nightfoundered into nigh-foundered.
209. This verse, by its laboured length, well expresses the idea of Satans inmense bulk.
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