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BOOK III.

THE ARGUMENT.

GOD sitting on his throne sees Satan flying towards this wo newly created; shows him to the Son who sat at his righ foretells the success of Satan in perverting mankind; c own justice and wisdom from all imputation, having crea free, and able enough to have withstood his tempter; yet his purpose of grace towards him, in regard he fell not of malice, as did Satan, but by him seduced. The Son of ders praises to his Father for the manifestation of his purpose towards Man; but God again declares, that grac be extended towards Man without the satisfaction of divine Man hath offended the majesty of God by aspiring to Godh therefore with all his progeny devoted to death must di some one can be found sufficient to answer for his offe undergo his punishment. The Son of God freely offers h ransom for Man; the Father accepts him, ordains his inca pronounces his exaltation above all names in Heaven and commands all the angels to adore him; they obey, and 1 to their harps in full choir, celebrate the Father and Meanwhile Satan alights upon the bare convex of this wor ermost orb; where wandering he first finds a place, sind the Limbo of Vanity; what persons and things fly up thence comes to the gate of Heaven, described ascending b and the waters above the firmament that flow about it; sage thence to the orb of the sun; he finds there Uriel, th of that orb; but first changes himself into the shape of a angel, and pretending a zealous desire to behold the new and Man whom God had placed there inquires of him the his habitation, and is directed; alights first on Mount Nip

HAIL, holy Light, offspring of Heaven first-bor Or of the eternal coeternal beam

May I

express thee unblamed? since God is li

1. first-born. See Genesis i. 3. 3. express thee unblamed, with

out blame call thee. See 1 John i. 5.

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nd never but in unapproachèd light

velt from eternity; dwelt then in thee,
ight effluence of bright essence increate!
- hearest thou rather pure ethereal stream,
hose fountain who shall tell? before the sun,
efore the heavens thou wert, and at the voice
God, as with a mantle, didst invest

he rising world of waters dark and deep,
on from the void and formless infinite.

nee I revisit now with bolder wing,

scaped the Stygian pool, though long detained that obscure sojourn, while in my flight

hrough utter and through middle darkness borne, With other notes than to the Orphéan lyre, sung of Chaos and eternal Night; aught by the heavenly Muse to venture down he dark descent, and up to reascend, hough hard and rare; thee I revisit safe, and feel thy sovran vital lamp; but thou Revisit'st not these eyes, that roll in vain

4. unapproached. "Dwelling in
e light which no man can ap-
roach unto." 1 Timothy vi. 16.
6. increate seems to refer to
fluence.

7. hearest thou rather. This is
Latinism, meaning dost thou
refer to be called.
10. as with a mantle. See
salm civ. 2.-invest. See I.
08.

14. Escaped, escaped from.-
tygian pool. See I. 239.

16. utter. See I. 72.

17. With other notes, "with otes different from those which ere sung to the Orphean lyre; or Milton drew from the Sacred criptures, and probably believed imself to be in some sort inpired; while the song of Orheus and the Orphic hymn to Night were only the products of uman imagination." Orpheus vas a Thracian bard, who charmed

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with his music not men only, but also beasts, and even rocks and trees, which moved from their places to follow the sound of his golden harp. His lyre was placed among the constellations, perhaps because he was the first who introduced music into the worship of the gods.

19. the heavenly Muse. See I. 6. 21. rare, seldom tried.

22. sovran (sovereign) lamp, the sun, whose warmth Milton could feel, though he could not see its light.

22-26. His eyesight had been long decaying, and at the time this poem was written was entirely gone. He seems uncertain whether the disease by which his blindness was occasioned was caused by "gutta serena," drop serene, or by dim suffusion, probably cataract. veiled, veiled them.

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To find thy piercing ray, and find no dawn;
So thick a drop serene hath quenched their or
Or dim suffusion veiled. Yet not the more
Cease I to wander where the Muses haunt
Clear spring, or shady grove, or sunny hill,
Smit with the love of sacred song; but chief
Thee, Sion, and the flowery brooks beneath
That wash thy hallowed feet and warbling flo
Nightly I visit; nor sometimes forget
Those other two equalled with me in fate,
So were I equalled with them in renown,
Blind Thamyris and blind Mæonides,
And Tiresias and Phineus, prophets old.
Then feed on thoughts that voluntary move
Harmonious numbers; as the wakeful bird
Sings darkling, and in shadiest covert hid
Tunes her nocturnal note. Thus with the yea
Seasons return; but not to me returns
Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn,
Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose,
Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine;
But cloud instead, and ever-during dark
Surrounds me, from the cheerful ways of men
Cut off, and for the book of knowledge fair

26. Yet not the more cease I, nevertheless I do not on this account cease.

27. to wander, that is, in imagination, recalling poetic scenes. -the Muses, nine in number, were the goddesses of song, by whom poets were inspired. Many a clear spring in Greece was sacred to the Muses, especially the fountain of Castalia on Mount Parnassus, and that of Hippocrene on Mount Helicon, near which was a shady grove, their peculiar seat. See I. 15.

30. brooks, Kedron and Siloa. See I. 10-12.

35. Thamyris was a Thracian bard who challenged the Muses

to a trial of skill, and for sumption was by them o of sight. His story was Homer, who is also called ides.

36. Tiresias was a blind soothsayer of Thebes.was also blind, and gif Apollo with prophetic po This line begins, like son lines in Milton, with a three syllables.

37. voluntary, of the
will; without effort.
38. the wakeful bird, the
ingale.

45. dark, darkness.
47. for, instead of.

sented with a universal blank

Nature's works to me expunged and rased, d wisdom at one entrance quite shut out. much the rather thou, celestial light! ne inward, and the mind through all her adiate; there plant eyes, all mist from thence rge and disperse, that I may see and tell things invisible to mortal sight.

Now had the Almighty Father from above, om the pure empyréan where he sits

powers

gh throned above all height, bent down his eye,
s own works and their works at once to view.
bout him all the Sanctities of Heaven

ood thick as stars, and from his sight received
atitude past utterance; on his right
e radiant image of his glory sat,
s only Son: on Earth he first beheld
ur two first parents, yet the only two
E mankind, in the happy garden placed,
eaping immortal fruits of joy and love,
ninterrupted joy, unrivalled love,

blissful solitude. He then surveyed
ell and the gulf between, and Satan there
pasting the wall of Heaven on this side Night,
the dun air sublime, and ready now

o stoop with wearied wings and willing feet

n the bare outside of this World, that seemed irm land imbosomed without firmament,

49. rased, erased; effaced.
57. empyrean. See II. 771.
59. their. The antecedent is
orks, just before.

60. Sanctities, holy beings.
62. Beatitude, blessedness.
63. image. ? The brightness
7 his glory, and the express im-

ge of his person." Hebrews i. 3.
65. yet, as yet.

50

55

60

69

70

75

71. on this side Night, on this side of Night, the utter darkness. See line 16.

72. the dun air, the middle darkness, where was a glimmering dawn. Sec II. 1034-1042.sublime. See II. 528.

74. World, universe; whole system of created things. See II. 1051-1055.

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"Only-begotten Son, seest thou what rage
Transports our Adversary, whom no bounds
Prescribed, no bars of Hell, nor all the chains
Heaped on him there, nor yet the main abyss
Wide interrupt, can hold; so bent he seems
On desperate revenge, that shall redound
Upon his own rebellious head?
And now,

Through all restraint broke loose, he wings his
Not far off Heaven, in the precincts of light,
Directly towards the new-created world,
And Man there placed, with purpose to assay
If him by force he can destroy, or worse,
By some false guile pervert; and shall pervert
For man will hearken to his glozing lies,
And easily transgress the sole command,
Sole pledge of his obedience: so will fall
He and his faithless progeny. Whose fault?
Whose but his own? Ingrate, he had of me
All he could have: I made him just and right,
Sufficient to have stood, though free to fall.
Such I created all the ethereal Powers

And Spirits, both them who stood, and ther

Freely they stood who stood, and fell who fell. Not free, what proof could they have given sin Of true allegiance, constant faith, or love, Where only what they needs must do appeared

76. in ocean or in air, uncertain which.

98. I made him just a See Ecclesiastes vii. 29. 103. Not free, if they been free.

105. appeared, would peared.

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