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Extort from me. To bow and sue for grace
With suppliant knee, and deify his power
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,
may with more successful hope resolve
To wage, by force or guile, eternal war,
Irreconcilable to our grand foe,

We

Who now triumphs, and in the excess of joy
Sole reigning holds the tyranny of heaven."

So spake the apostate angel, though in pain,
Vaunting aloud, but racked with deep despair:

115

120

125

glory. This may refer to what precedes, and mean that ground for glorying'; or it may refer to what follows, the glory of making one bow and sue for grace,' etc. Which is preferable? Why?-112. Suppliant. Rootmeaning of this word?-114. Empire. The Lat. imperium means often

'supreme authority, governing power.' The meaning here?-115. Ignominy. To scan this line, which offends the ears of some critics, they direct that here and in Shakespeare this word should be pronounced as a trisyllable; but may Milton make this third foot an amphibrach? or the fourth an anapest? -116. Downfall. "Here," says Keightley, "we are to understand, 'We therefore will not do it.'" Fate. What was the classical conception of fate?-117. Empyreal substance. Satan assumes that the angels are indestructible. In the lines Upon the Circumcision, Milton, addressing the flaming Powers, speaks of their 'fiery essence.' In the highest heaven the pure element of fire, the most sublime of substances, was supposed to exist. The Greek ovơía, ousia, essence, is Lat. substantia. Besides Ps. civ. 4, "He maketh his angels spirits, his ministers a flame of fire," what can you quote favoring this notion? So the empyrean = the fiery; Gr. μπуρos, empуros. of fire. 122. Grand. Meaning? How used in a preceding line? - 123. Triumphs. Accent 2d syl. So Shakes. accents the word triumphing in Antony and Cleopatra. Excess. Milton does not forget to make Satan 'the father of lies.' — 124. Tyranny (Gr. Tupavvía, tyrannia, sovereignty usurped). What was a 'tyrant' in Greece? "Satan probably uses 'tyranny' in an invidious sense." Keightley.—125. Apostate (Gr. àñó, apo, from, and στĥvaι, stenai, to stand; àñoσtacía, apostasia, a standing aloof, defection, apostasy.) An apos

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And him thus answered soon his bold compeer :
"O prince, O chief of many throned powers
That led the embattled seraphim to war
Under thy conduct, and, in dreadful deeds

130

Fearless, endangered heaven'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

135

Hath lost us heaven, and all this mighty host
In horrible destruction laid thus low,

As far as gods and heavenly essences

Can perish for the mind and spirit remains

tate is properly what? Is the word correctly used in this passage? The passage slightly resembles Eneid, I. 208.-127. Compeer (Lat. compar; com, together, and par, equal; an associated equal), colleague. See 'peers,' line 39. — 128. Throned powers. Thrones are mentioned as one of the nine angelic orders. St. Paul, in Rom. viii. 38, speaks of 'angels, principalities, powers'; and in Eph. i. 21, he says, 'above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come.' So in Colossians i. 16, he mentions 'thrones, dominions, principalities,' and 'powers,' — apparently mighty beings, who possess in themselves, as it were, the power of a principality or a kingdom, and are called by these suggestive names for want of any others. See 1. 360.129. Embattled, drawn up in battle array. What is the antecedent of 'that'? Seraphim, plural of seraph. The only similar word in Hebrew is saraph, to burn; but Gesenius connects it with an Arabic word signifying high, or eminent, exalted. The name occurs nowhere in the Bible, except in Isaiah vi. 2 and 6. "Foreign words," says Storr, "when first introduced into English, commonly retain the foreign plural; but gradually adopt English plurals; as seraphim, seraphs, banditti, bandits." Give other illustrations. 130. Conduct. Meaning here?-131. Perpetual. Probably used, say the critics, to avoid the word 'eternal,' which Beëlzebub would be unwilling to employ. Is there anything in the remainder of this speech to militate against this construction? Perpetual (Lat. perpetuus) means holding on uninterruptedly, or continuing without intermission. In Milton's Hymn on the Nativity, line 7, 'perpetual' appears to be used for everlasting. Discriminate among the synonymes everlasting, eternal, perpetual, immortal. 132. Put to proof, tested. Does it mean, 'tested his high supremacy'? or 'tested whether his high supremacy was upheld by strength,' etc.? — 134. Event (Lat. eventus, issue, result, upshot). - 136. Hath lost us, hath lost heaven for us, made us lose heaven.—138. Essences, natures, spirits. — 139. Remains.

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Invincible, and vigor soon returns,

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Though all our glory extinct, and happy state
Here swallowed up in endless misery.

But what if he our conqueror (whom I now

Of force believe almighty, since no less

140

Than such could have o'erpowered such force as ours) 145
Have left us this our spirit and strength entire

Strongly to suffer and support our pains,
That we may so suffice his vengeful ire,
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?

150

What can it then avail, though yet we feel
Strength undiminished, or eternal being,

To undergo eternal punishment?"

Whereto with speedy words the arch-fiend replied :—

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155

Why the singular? See in Matt. xvi. 17, "Flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee." 140. Returns, and therefore will return to us. Keightley. · 141. Extinct. Supply 'be.' Glory is brightness, and it is extinguished as a flame is put out. (Lat. ex, out, and sti[n]guère, to prick, scratch; quench.) - 144. Of force (like Gr. Big, of necessity), perforce, necessarily. A few explain it as depending upon almighty,' i. e. ' almighty in respect to force,' and the next line somewhat favors this interpretation. (Shakes. uses 'of force' as equivalent to perforce, 1 Henry IV., II. 3, last line.)-148. Suffice, be sufficient for, satiate, satisfy, glut. Ire. Difference between the language of prose and that of poetry? So 'thralls' in the next line. - 149. Thralls (A. S. thrall, slave). Trench (Study of Words, p. 93) derives it from A. S. thrilian, thyrlian, to bore, pierce; whence comes drill; and he cites the custom of piercing the slave's ear, Deut. xv. 17, " Then thou shalt take an awl, and thrust it through his ear unto the door, and he shall be thy servant forever"), slaves, bondmen. -150. Business, the work he wishes to have performed! Shakespeare's line (Tempest, I. 2),

"To do me business in the veins o' th' earth,'

may have been in Milton's mind. - 152. The gloomy deep, the same as described in Book II. 890 to 910, the abyss of Chaos, 'a dark illimitable ocean.' Is it that state of things referred to in Gen. i. 2, "And the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep"?. 155. To undergo. On what does this grammatically depend? on 'avail'? or 'strength' ?-156. Speedy words. Not the 'winged words,' πeα πTEPÓEVTα,

"Fallen 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 labor 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 recalled

His ministers of vengeance and pursuit

160

165

170

epea pteroenta, of Homer; but speedy in the sense of immediate. Beelzebub seemed sinking into despair, and Satan hastened to change the current of his thoughts?-157. Cherub. Properly a being of composite form? combining what qualities of man, lion, ox, and eagle? The student will do well to examine what is said of Cherubim in Gen. iii. 24; Exod. xxv. 18-22; 1 Kings vi. 23–35; 2 Sam. xxii. 11; Ps. xviii. 10; Ezekiel i. and x. The seraphs, according to the schoolmen, were pre-eminent in the ardor of their love; the cherubs, in knowledge. 157. To be weak is miserable, doing or suffering. This reminds of Milton's sentiment in his Second Defence of Eng. People, "It is not so sad to be blind as not to be able to endure blindness." "Satan in Milton's poem," says Hazlitt, "is not the principle of malignity or of the abstract love of evil, but of the abstract love of power, of pride, of selfwill personified." -158. Doing or suffering. In II. 199, 200, Belial remarks, "To suffer, as to do, our strength is equal." - 161. Being the contrary. Scan the line. 167. If I fail not. The critics make this equivalent to the Lat. ni fallor, if I am not mistaken, if I deceive not myself. Keightley quotes from Spenser (Faerie Queene, III. II. 46) the line,

'So lively and so like that living sense it failed,'

where the word has an active sense. Milton uses the word ten times in Paradise Lost, and always in its ordinary sense, unless this be an exception. See 117, 633, etc.-169. But see, etc. "This he probably infers from the calm and stillness that now reigned around." Keightley.-170. His ministers. (See Ps. civ. 4, 'his ministers a flaming fire.') Here Bentley points out a contradiction between Satan's apparent assumption on the one hand, that the good angels pursued the bad to the verge of hell (confirmed by Moloch, Book II. 78, 79), and the statement of Raphael on the other hand, that all the holy angels stood

Back to the gates of heaven; the sulphurous hail,
Shot after us in storm, o'erblown, hath laid
The fiery surge that from the precipice
Of heaven received us falling; and the thunder,
Winged with red lightning and impetuous rage,
Perhaps hath spent his shafts, and ceases now
To bellow through the vast and boundless deep.
Let us not slip the occasion, whether scorn
Or satiate fury yield it from our foe.

175

silent witnesses of the almighty acts of the Messiah in vanquishing, singlehanded, his foes (Book VI. 882-3). Bentley cites the testimony of Chaos, that heaven 'poured forth by millions her victorious bands pursuing' (Book II. 997-8). But Milton is consistent with himself; for, 1st, Satan may have thought the pursuing terrors and furies, mentioned in Book VI. 859, to have been recalled, when, on the contrary, they were inside hell, as appears in Book II. II. 596, 611, 628, etc.; or, 2dly, dazed and thunder-stricken, falling 'headlong, flaming from the ethereal sky,' he might have believed his army to have been actually pursued by the angels of light; or, 3dly, as Newton says, Satan may have been 'too proud and obstinate ever to acknowledge the Messiah for conqueror.' The testimony of Chaos is worthless; for he, in his utter confusion (Book VI. 871-2), might well imagine the terrible din to be that of 'a numerous host' (Book VI. 830). “The seeming contradiction," says Newton, "upon examination, proves rather a beauty than a blemish to the poem." 172. O'erblown, blown over, having ceased to be blown. Hath laid, hath stilled. So the Greek σropéw, storeo, and Lat. sterno, are used. What is the effect of heavy rain or thick hail on waves? In Par. Regained, IV. 428-9, Morning' with her radiant finger . laid the winds.' So in Horace, Odes, I. IX. 10, the gods 'lay' the winds. -174. The thunder. Thunder is here a monster, with lightning wings impelled by rage, a monster that hurls fiery shafts, and bellows through the infernal world. "In the extra syllable of this line," says Storr, we seem to hear the rolling thunder."-176. His. The form 'its' does not occur in the authorized Bible, 'his' or 'her' or 'whereof' being used instead. 'It' was also used as a possessive, where we now use its. Craik asserts that Milton never uses his in a neuter sense. Milton uses its in 1. 254; also IV. 813, 'returns, of force, to its own likeness.' - 177. Note the Miltonic sonorousness of this remarkable line. Vast is perhaps here waste, desolate. 178. Slip. "The usual and more correct expression," says Keightley, "is 'let slip."" But we still say 'slip a cable.' Dryden uses the expression 'slip hounds,' and Ben Jonson says, 'slip no advantage.' Shakespeare puts into Macduff's mouth the words, "I have almost slipped the hour." These authorities, with that of Milton, settle the matter. - 179. Satiate, glutted. This omission of final d is common in Shakes. and in Early English.

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