Mixed with obdurate pride and steadfast hate. The dismal situation waste and wild : A dungeon horrible on all sides round As one great furnace flamed; yet from those flames 60 always used in this sense in Shakespeare and in Milton, and not (as now) as merely equivalent to 'saw.'" Milton, however, appears to use 'witness' once in the sense of 'see' in Par. Lost, III. 700; and he uses 'witnessed' nowhere in his poems except in this passage. — 58. Obdurate. Note the proper original accent of the word, from Lat. dūrus, hard. The preference, or at least the tendency, now seems to be in favor of placing it on the first syllable. 59. As far as angel's ken. In Milton's time it was not common to mark the possessive case by an apostrophe. We are therefore uncertain whether angels is nom. plu., possess. plu., or possess. sing., and whether ken is a verb or a noun. Hunter, Major, Storr, and others make angels plu. and ken a verb. Keightley and Masson print Angel's, and, with Ross, they make ken a noun. Which is best? Ken (A. S. cunnan, can, to know, to be able; Old Eng. kennen, to know, know by sight; ken, the view, the gaze; Scot. ken, know; akin to Gr. root yvo, gno, Lat. (g)nosco), knowledge gained by sight, range of vision. 60. Situation. "This word is used only here in Milton's poems, and but twice by Shakespeare." R. C. Browne. But Shakespeare also used the plu. situations, and both he and Milton use situate as a participle meaning placed. Waste and wild. Keightley thinks that here is a recollection of Gen. i. 2, without form and void.' Note the alliteration. - 61. Dungeon (Lat. dominio, mastership, rule; whence dongeo, as Fr. songer fr. somniare; donjon, the large tower or redoubt of a fortress. The word originally meant the principal building of a district, or the fortress which commanded the rest), 'an underground prison, such as once used to be placed in the strongest part of the fortress.' Wedgwood. Marsh, in his Lectures on the English Language, prefers to derive it from de homagio; 'because, in the principal tower of a feudal fortress, styled in Portuguese torre de homenagen, tower of homage, the ceremony of pledging fealty, or homage, took place.' On all sides round. Modifies what? -62. Great furnace. The language used in Rev. ix. 2. 63. No light. Supply came, or shone, or there was? Zeugma? Darkness visible. This powerful line arrests the attention of many critics. Hunter quotes from Chaucer's Parson's Tale, "In hell... the dark light that shall come out of the fire . . . showeth him the horrible devils," etc. Todd cites from The Wisdom of Solomon, xvii. 5, "No power of the fire might give them light." Keightley suggests, in Walker's History of Independency (1648), I. 14, “Their burning zeal without knowledge is like hell-fire without light"; also, Heywood's description of hell, "Burns, but wastes not, and adds to darkness, night." Newton recalls Served only to discover sights of woe, Regions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace 65 70 For those rebellious; here their prison ordained As far removed from God and light of heaven Seneca's description of the grotto of Pausilippo, "We see not through the darkness, but see the darkness itself." De Quincey explains the passage as meaning 'a sullen light intermingled with darkness.' Bentley thought to improve upon it by substituting for Milton's line the following: No light, but rather a transpicuous gloom'! Voltaire refers to a History of Mexico by Antonio de Solis, published in 1684, speaking of the place where Montezuma used to consult his deities, "It was a large dark subterranean vault, where dismal tapers afforded just light enough to see the obscurity." So in the Baccha of Euripides, 1. 510, “that he may behold dim darkness." In Spenser's Faerie Queene, I. 1. 14, we have "His glistering armor made A little glooming light, much like a shade.” We might add Shakespeare's "Hell is murky," and Milton's "Burning embers through the room teach light to counterfeit a gloom."-66. Hope never comes. So Dante's Inferno, III. 9, “All hope abandon, ye who enter here" (the inscription over the gate of hell). Urges (Lat. urgère, to press, push, drive), harasses, presses. -69. Sulphur. The brimstone of Rev. xx. 10. — 70. Had prepared. 'Everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels,' Matt, xxv. 41.-72. Darkness, as in Jude, 6, 13. Utter (A. S. ut, out, uter, outer), the same as outer in Matt. xxii. 13, is found in Par. Lost, III. 16, V. 614. Spenser (Faerie Queene, IV. x. 11) has utter for outer in the line, "Till to the bridge's utter gate I came," and similarly Ben Jonson speaks of 'the utter shell of knowledge.' Portion, part assigned, as in Matt. xxiv. 51. -73. As far removed. "Not very far," says Landor, "for creatures who could have measured all that, and a much greater distance, by a single act of the will." But could they? It took them nine days to fall thither, pursued all the way by lightnings. Par. Lost, Book VI. 865-875. The archangel Raphael (Par. Lost, VIII. 110-114) seems to have been some hours in coming from Heaven to Eden, though his path was unobstructed (Book V. 256–270): – "Me thou thinkest not slow, Who, since the morning hour, set out from heaven As from the centre thrice to the utmost pole. One next himself in power, and next in crime, In Eden, distance inexpressible By numbers that have name." Evidently it was far enough. ... 75 See in the Introduction the diagrams illustrating Milton's conception of the successive stages of creation in that portion of infinite space with which this poem deals. Our starry universe, which Milton calls 'the world,' is attached to the Empyrean at a single glittering point. Par. Lost, Book II. 1051, 1052. Keightley cites, after Todd, on line 72, a few words from Milton's Doctrine of Divorce, 'a local hell . . . in that uttermost and bottomless gulf of Chaos, deeper from holy bliss than the world's diameter multiplied.' (See the diagrams in the Introduction.) — 74. As from the centre thrice, etc. Nearly all the commentators appear to have mistaken Milton's meaning. Professor Himes (Study of Milton's Paradise Lost, pp. 21, 22) well says: "Homer and Virgil, to whom Milton took pains to conform as nearly as possible, recognized below the Empyrean three regions, one above the other, and of equal height. The first was the Ethereal, extending from Heaven to Earth; the second was Hades, of like depth; the third and lowest was Tartarus, or the place of punishment, an equal distance below Hades. Homer, speaking of the location of Tartarus, teaches that it extends 'as far below Hades as the distance from Heaven to Earth.' (Iliad, VIII. 16.) Τόσσον ἔνερδ ̓ Αΐδεω, ὅσον οὐρανός ἐστ ̓ ἀπὸ γαίης. Virgil, measuring from the surface of the earth, and of course including Hades, says, 'Then Tartarus itself sinks deep down and extends towards the shades twice as far as is the prospect upward to the ethereal throne of Heaven' (Eneid, VI. 577-9): — 'Tum Tartarus ipse Bis patet in præceps tantum, tenditque sub umbras, Milton's phraseology is equivalent to saying that the whole distance from Heaven to Hell is three times as far as from Heaven to Earth. — Utmost pole, the pole of this universe of ours, the end of the axis of our heavens. — 75. Oh, how unlike the place, etc. This momentary glimpse of heaven adds to the horror?-77. Note the energy and the alliteration. Dunster quotes Psalm xi. 6, "Upon the wicked he shall rain snares, fire and brimstone, and an horrible tempest." - 78. Weltering (Lat. volvere, volutare; Ger. wälzen; A. S. waeltan; English, wallow), rolling. So in Lycidas, 1. 13, the corpse Long after known in Palestine and named Beelzebub. To whom the arch-enemy, And thence in heaven called Satan, with bold words "If thou beest he but oh, how fallen! how changed 80 85 'welters' as it floats in the sea. -80. Palestine (Hebrew, Pelesheth). Here, as in Exodus xv. 14, Philistia, the narrow sea-coast southwest from the Holy Land seems to be included. -81. Beëlzebub. He is styled 'the prince of the devils' in Matt. xii. 24. The word is said to mean 'god of flies'! (though others interpret it 'lord of the dunghill,') and to be more correctly spelled Beelzebul. Professor Himes is inclined to identify, to some extent, 'Beëlzebub with Artemis, the lunar divinity, as Satan has been identified with Apollo, the solar divinity,' and we are reminded of 'the crescent-crowned œstrus-driven Io, one of the many forms under which the moon-goddess appears.' Says another critic: "Some authors suppose that he [Beëlzebub] was so called [god of flies], because the inhabitants of Ekron worshipped the beetle ; which worship they perhaps borrowed from their superstitious neighbors, the Egyptians." See 2 Kings i. 2, where he is called 'the god of Ekron.' See Isaiah vii. 18, for a possible allusion to this worship. Flies in some of the eastern countries are an inexpressible torment, and 'god of flies' seems to a European there no inappropriate appellation for him whom our Saviour called 'prince of devils'! -82. Thence, from that fact, i. e. because he is an enemy, the chief enemy. Satan in Hebrew signifies adversary. -84. Beest. Keightley pronounces ‘beest' here ‘a grammatical error'; but Shakes. uses the word similarly in Julius Cæsar, IV. 3, "If that thou beest a Roman." Beest is lineally descended from A. S. byst, like Ger. bist. Oh, how fallen! how changed! In Isaiah xiv. 12, we have, "How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, Son of the Morning"! and in Virgil, Æneid, II. 274, we read "Hei mihi, qualis erat! quantum mutatus, etc., Ah me, how he looked! how changed," etc. Note the abrupt transitions in this speech, indicating the tumultuous agitation of Satan's soul! Any art in this? 86. Brightness. In Par. Lost, V. 708, his countenance is compared to the morning star. In line 599, Book I., he still shines, though 'darkened.' Everywhere, Milton seems to proceed on the theory that the bodies of spirits are luminous like fire. -87. Myriads. A myriad, μupiás in Greek, was originally ten thousand. Here it is put for vast multitude? Mutual (Lat. muto, mutare, to change), exchangeable, or exchanged, or the result of exchange or stipulation. Macaulay stigmatizes "the low barbarism of 'mutual friend"!-88. United. Epithet describing 'thoughts' and 'counsels'? And hazard in the glorious enterprise, Joined with me once, now misery hath joined In equal ruin into what pit thou seest, From what highth fall'n, so much the stronger proved The force of those dire arms? Yet not for those, Can else inflict, do I repent, or change, Though changed in outward lustre, that fixed mind, That durst dislike his reign, and, me preferring, In dubious battle on the plains of heaven, 90 95 100 And shook his throne. What though the field be lost? 105 And study of revenge, immortal hate, That glory never shall his wrath or might ΠΙΟ Thoughts, one of the subjects of 'joined'?-89. Glorious. This word vividly suggests the aspiring ambition of Satan. -90. Now misery hath joined. Supply whom? or thee? What is the conclusion of the sentence beginning with if, lines 84 and 87? Bentley points out the similarity of the passage to Ovid, Met. i. 351.-91-93. This passage is wonderfully condensed, “Thou, being fallen from such height into such depth, art shown how much stronger he was." Thunder. The thunder made a deep impression on Satan and his followers. How often they allude to it! Is there any trace here of the notion in Shakespeare (in Julius Cæsar, for instance) of the thunder as a weapon separate from the lightning?-94. Force. Meaning of this word in line 101? The language of Prometheus in defying Jove and in asserting unconquerable will (Esch. Prom. Vinct. 992-7, 1002-6) is quite similar. What evidence that Milton had Prometheus in mind in other passages of Par. Lost? — 107. Study. The critics will have it that Milton here uses this word (like studies in Shakes., 1 Henry IV., I. 3?) to signify endeavor or desire. But is this necessary?-109. Some few interpret this line as if it read, Not to be overcome what is it but this? But the majority explain it as meaning, If anything else is incapable of being overcome, that is not lost. · 110. That - |