885-886. Bannered. . . ensigns. given of this apparent redundancy? 889. Redounding. Define. 891. Hoary Deep. See Job 41: 32. Can any explanation be 894. Night. According to Hesiod (Theog. 123), 'black Night was born of Chaos and Erebus.' According to the Orphic Hymn to Night, she was mother of gods and men, and the original of all things (γένεσις πάντων). 895. Chaos. Cf. F. Q. III. vi. 36. 896. Anarchy. Ovid (Met. 1: 7-9): 'Chaos, a rude and undigested mass, the discordant atoms of things not harmonizing.' So Lucretius (5: 439-445): A strange, stormy crisis and medley, gathered together out of first-beginnings of every kind, whose state of discord, joining battle, disordered their interspaces, because ... by reason of their unlike forms and varied shapes, they could not all remain thus joined together, nor fall into mutually harmonious motions.' Cf. P. L. 10: 293. 898. Hot, Cold, Moist, and Dry. Ovid (Met. 1: 18-19): 'And one was ever obstructing the other; because in the same body the cold was striving with the hot, the moist with the dry.' 900. Embryon. Immature, undeveloped. Cf. P. L. 7 : 277. 903. Sands. Cf. note on 1: 302. 904. Barca and Cyrene were in Northern Africa. 905. Warring winds. Horace's 'ventos depræliantes' (Od. I. ix. 10-11). So Ovid (Met. 11: 491) says, 'The fierce winds wage war on every side;' and Virgil (En. 2: 416), 'Opposing winds meet in conflict.' 907. He. Who? 908. Like some modern umpires? 910. Chance. Cf. v. 233. 911. The thought is an old one. and Euripides, among the Greeks. (5: 260): It is ascribed to Xenophanes Besides Ennius, Lucretius has it Omniparens, eadem rerum commune sepulchrum. So Shakespeare, Rom. II. iii. 9–10 (cf. Per. II. iii. 45): — The earth, that's nature's mother, is her tomb; 917. Into this wild Abyss. Observe that we have already had these words, v. 910. The poet has lingered and 'looked a while,' like his Satan. 920. Pealed. Is this verb usually transitive ? 922. Great things with small. From Virgil (Ecl. 1: 24): 'Parvis componere magna.' Bellona. Goddess of war. 927. Sail-broad. Lucretius, speaking of birds, says (6: 743), 'They forget to row with their wings, they drop their sails.' Cf. F. Q. I. xi. 10. The attribution of sail-broad wings to Satan is from the Italian of Marino. Vans. Cf. P. R. 4: 583. The word is from the Italian, where it is in poetical use. 930. Cloudy chair. Cf. Comus 134. Chair. Chariot. 932. Note the alliteration. 934. Fathom. What other words of this kind may lack the plural sign? 937. Nitre.. Cf. P. L. 4: 815. 939. Syrtis. The ancients so called two different gulfs off the north coast of Africa. Milton's characterization seems to be from Lucan, Phars. 9: 304. Cf. Virgil's description (En. 1: 110-112): 'Three ships the East wind forces into the shallows and quicksands [Syrtis], and shuts them in with a bank of sand.' 941. Half. Cf. F. Q. I. xi. 8. 942. Both oar and sail. Might and main. A Latin proverbial expression; so in Cic., Tusc. III. xi. 25. 943. Griffin. Conceived of as a lion, with the head and wings of an eagle. 945. Arimaspian. Cf. Herodotus 3: 116: "Toward the north of Europe there is evidently a very great quantity of gold, but how procured I am unable to say with certainty, though it is said that the Arimaspians, a one-eyed people, steal it from the griffins." 948-950. Note the confused and disorderly manner in which these disconnected particulars are set forth. For the name of this rhetorical figure see De Mille's Elements of Rhetoric, § 151, and cf. § 221. 953. Hollow dark. Cf. En. 2: 760, cava umbra. 954. Plies. Cf. v. 642. 960. Pavilion. Cf. 2 Sam. 22: 12; Ps. 18: 11. 962. Sable-vested Night. From Euripides, Ion 1150, peλáμnenλos No. Eldest. Because Chaos, of which she was born, could hardly be described as a (definite) thing? 964. Orcus. From Virgil, Georg. 1 277, pallidus Orcus.' Ades. Hades. Hesiod, Theog. 455: Mighty Hades, who inhabits the abode beneath the earth.' Name. By a usage chiefly Hebraistic, the name is used for everything which the name covers.' 965. Demogorgon. Cf. F. Q. IV. ii. 47. 6-9: Downe in the bottome of the deepe Abysse, Farre from the view of Gods and heavens bliss, The hideous Chaos keepes, their dreadful dwelling is. Shelley thus describes Demogorgon (Prom. Unbound 2 : 4): · I see a mighty darkness Filling the seat of power, and rays of gloom : Ben Jonson speaks of 'Boccace his Demogorgon' (Alchemist 2 : 1), but the name is much earlier. 965 ff. Thus in En. 6: 274-280 we have Grief, Cares, Diseases, Age, Fear, Hunger, Want, Death, Toil, Sleep, Evil Delights, War, and Discord. Lowell says of Wordsworth (Essay on Dryden): 'He indulged in that alphabetical personification which enlivens all such words as Hunger, Solitude, Freedom, by the easy magic of an initial capital.' But it is not easy to distinguish between such personifications and those of Orcus and Hades, Night and Chaos. Anything capable of being generalized, and which has a constant and profound influence on human life and destiny, is susceptible of personification; and the personification is most conveniently denoted by the use of a capital. On the other hand, there is no doubt that this liberty has often been abused by poets. 973. Wandering. Transitive, as in P. L. 4 : 234; 11: 779; P. R. 1 354; 2: 246; 4: 600. So err, P. L. 10: 266. 345. 977. Confine with. Border upon. Some other place. Cf. v. 979. Thither. This adverb is strictly used only with verbs of motion. By using it with arrive the latter word is made to express both motion and the following state of rest. This is an imitation of a Latinism: huc ades, Virg. Ecl. 2: 45; Cf. Hor. Sat. II. iii. 80. 980. Profound. A noun, like Lat. profundum. 982. Behoof. Define. Lost. Adjective. 985. Journey. Almost in the sense of 'mission,' 'undertaking.' 987. Yours . . . mine. A similar antithesis in En. 1: 76-77. 988. Anarch. Who? The word was first used in English by Milton. 989. Incomposed. Discomposed; Lat. incompositus. 990. I know thee ... who thou art. Mk. 1: 24; Lk. 4: 34. 994. Frighted Deep. Virgil (En. 6: 800) speaks of the ‘affrighted mouths (trepida ostia) of Nile.' 997. Millions. What reason is there for thinking this hyperbolical? 999. Can. What verb is to be supplied? 1001. Intestine broils. Cf. P. L. 6: 259. 1005. Golden chain. The ultimate source of the phrase is Il. 8: 19-22, where Zeus exclaims, 'Fasten ye a rope of gold from heaven, and all ye gods lay hold thereof and all goddesses; yet could ye not drag from heaven to earth Zeus.' Of the Homeric figure various allegorical interpretations have been made. Thus Plato, Theætetus 153 D:'. . . The golden chain in Homer, by which he meant the sun, thus indicating that while the sun and the heavens go round, all things human and divine are and are preserved, but if the sun were to be arrested in his course, then all things would be destroyed, and, as the saying is, Chaos would come again.' Macrobius (on the Somnium Scipionis 1: 14) has another interpretation, which Ben Jonson follows in his Hymenæi, and again in his Epode (Forest 11). I quote from the latter: Now, true Love No such effects doth prove; That is an essence far more gentle, fine; It is a golden chain let down from heaven That falls like sleep on lovers, and combines In equal knots. See also Tennyson, Morte d'Arthur 255. 1008-1009. What is the mistake made by Landor in the following?[These verses] could be spared. Satan but little encouraged his followers by reminding them that, if they took the course he pointed out, they were So much the nearer danger, nor was it necessary to remind them of the obvious fact by saying, Havoc, and spoil, and ruin are my gain.' 1011. Sea. Cf. vv. 939, 961. 1015. Fighting elements. Cf. v. 896 ff. 1018. Justling rocks. Apollonius Rhodius tells the story of the Argonauts, or voyagers in the ship Argo. The prophet Phineus, foretelling what should befall them, remarks (Arg. 2 : 286 ff.): 'First of all ye shall see the two Cyanean rocks [known as the Symplegades] at the place where two seas meet. Through these, I trow, none can win a passage. For they are not fixed on foundations below, but oft they clash together upon each other.' He instructs them how to escape the danger, and they follow his directions: 'On they went in grievous fear, and already on their ears the thud of clashing rocks smote unceasingly, and the dripping cliffs roared. The eddying current stayed the ship in the midst of "the Clashers," and they quaked on either side, and thundered, and the ship-timbers throbbed. Then did Athene with her left hand hold the stubborn rock apart, while with her right she thrust them through upon their course; and the ship shot through the air like a winged arrow. Yet the rocks, ceaselessly dashing together, crushed off, in passing, the tip of the carved stern.' 1019. Ulysses. As described in the Odyssey, Bk. 12. 1020. Whirlpool. Scylla is usually described as a rock, but in Ovid, Met. 14: 51, Scylla, before her transformation into a rock, was wont to retreat to a 'small whirlpool' (parvus gurges), in which she was afterward fixed. 1021-1022. Purpose of the repetition? 1024. Amain. Cf. v. 165. 1028. Bridge. Cf. P. L. 10: 282-305, especially 293-305. 1029. Orb. Cf. the wall immovable' of P. L. 10: 302-303, which may perhaps mean the Empyrean Heaven, motionless while all its |