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Whom reason hath equalled, force hath made supreme
Above his equals. Farewell, happy fields,

Where joy forever dwells! Hail, horrors! hail,
Infernal world! and thou, profoundest Hell,
Receive thy new possessor! one who brings
A mind not to be changed by place or time.
The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.
What matter where, if I be still the same,
And what I should be, all but less than he
Whom thunder hath made greater? Here at least
We shall be free: the Almighty hath not built
Here for his envy; will not drive us hence:
Here we may reign secure, and, in my choice
To reign is worth ambition, though in hell:
Better to reign in hell, than serve in heaven!
But wherefore let we then our faithful friends,
The associates and copartners of our loss,
Lie thus astonished on the oblivious pool,

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and from his thunder, too.” — 248. Reason. Intellect? or the reason of . things, the constitution or fitness of things? Force hath. Keightley suggests that Milton perhaps dictated had. Which is preferable? - 249, 250. What considerations or ingredients intensify the pathos here?-253, 254, etc. So Horace's "Coelum non animum mutant, qui trans mare currunt," They change sky, not mind, who run across the sea; and Shakes. says, "There's nothing,

either good or bad, but thinking makes it so." Faustus, in Marlowe's powerful tragedy, on being asked how he escaped from hell, exclaims, "Why, this is hell, nor am I out of it"; and still more terribly Satan exclaims (Par. Lost, IV. 75), "Which way I fly is hell, myself am hell!" See IV. 20-23. Its own place. Milton uses its but three times; the word was just coming into use, but was wholly avoided in King James's Bible, and occurs very rarely in Shakespeare. 257. All but less. Supreme, except that I am less? Newton proposed to read albeit. - 258. Whom thunder, etc. "There is a fine scorn in this phrase." Ross.- 260. For his envy. grim mirth! 263. The energy of these lines is superhuman. They voice the inmost soul of Satan, and strikingly contrast it with the spirit of Achilles (in Odys. XI. 489, etc.), who would rather be a slave to the poorest hind on earth than reign monarch of the dead! Similar is the sentiment of Prometheus in Eschy. Prom. V. 1002.- 265. Soco-mates and brothers in exile' in Shakes. As You 266. Astonished (Lat. attonāre, to thunderstrike; tonitru, thun

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And call them not to share with us their part
In this unhappy mansion, or once more
With rallied arms to try what may be yet
Regained in heaven, or what more lost in hell?”
So Satan spake, and him Beelzebub
Thus answered: "Leader of those armies bright
Which, but the Omnipotent, none could have foiled,
If once they hear that voice - their liveliest pledge
Of hope in fears and dangers, heard so oft
In worst extremes, and on the perilous edge
Of battle when it raged, in all assaults
Their surest signal - they will soon resume
New courage and revive, though now they lie
Grovelling and prostrate on yon lake of fire,
As we erewhile, astounded and amazed;
No wonder, fallen such a pernicious highth!
He scarce had ceased, when the superior fiend
Was moving toward the shore; his ponderous shield
Ethereal temper, massy, large, and round,

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Behind him cast. The broad circumference

Hung on his shoulders like the moon, whose orb
Through optic glass the Tuscan artist views

At evening from the top of Fesolè

Or in Valdarno, to descry new lands,

290

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der; Fr. étonner, akin to A. S. dyne, Icel. dyn, thunder, and to stunian, to stun?), thunderstruck, bewildered, confounded. Oblivious, causing oblivion, stupefying. 267. Share. As colonists shared lands? - 268. Mansion (manere, to remain), abiding-place. — 276. And on = and especially on. A classic usage. Edge (A. S. ecge; Gr. aký; Lat. acies, edge, line of battle), the fore-front. Others define it crisis. Your preference? 281. Erewhile (ere, afore; while, time), aforetime. Astounded, same force as astonished, 1. 266. 282. Fallen, i. e. fallen from. Pernicious (Lat. per, thoroughly; necāre, to kill; nes, violent death), destructive. 285. Temper. Syntax-286. Circumference. Metonymy? or synecdoche? - 287. Moon, i. e. as it appears magnified?-288. Artist, one skilled in an art in which science and taste are preeminent? Tuscan. Story of Galileo and his telescope? Milton's visit to him? 289. Fesolè (Lat. Faesulae; It. Fiesole, the hill above Florence). 290. Valdarno (It. val, valley; d'Arno, of the river Arno). Location?

Rivers, or mountains, in her spotty globe.
His spear to equal which the tallest pine,
Hewn on Norwegian hills, to be the mast
Of some great ammiral, were but a wand
He walked with, to support uneasy steps
Over the burning marle, not like those steps
On heaven's azure; and the torrid clime
Smote on him sore besides, vaulted with fire.
Nathless he so endured, till on the beach
Of that inflamèd sea he stood, and called
His legions, angel forms, who lay entranced
Thick as autumnal leaves that strow the brooks

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In Vallombrosa, where the Etrurian shades
High over-arched imbower; or scattered sedge

Afloat, when with fierce winds Orion armed

305

Hath vexed the Red Sea coast, whose waves o'erthrew
Busiris and his Memphian chivalry,

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292. To equal which in comparison with which. Write out the proportion: As a wand to the tallest pine, so -? Pine. 'The dark Norway pine' is famous in poetry.—294. Ammiral (Ar. amir, or emir, lord; al, the; Ital. ammiraglio, flag-ship), principal vessel, any large ship. See Odys. IX. 322; so Eneid, III. 659, where the trunk of a pine steadies the steps of the Cyclops.- 296. Marle, soft clayey soil. Conceive this gigantic being sinking at every step in the fiery mire! 297. Azure. "Having the visible heaven in his mind, he forgets that he had quite a different idea of the ground of heaven." Keightley. Not so; there is such a thing as poetry. Besides, the angelic step was light: High above the ground their march was, and the passive air upbore their nimble tread"! VI. 71-73. - 299. Nathless (A. S. natheles, na, not), none the less. Frequent in early English.-302. Strow (Lat. sterno, stravi), strew. 303. Vallombrosa (Lat. vallis; Ital. valle, vale; Lat. umbra, shade; Ital. ombroso, shady), the shady valley. Vallombrosa, in sight of Florence, though eighteen miles distant, visited by Milton in September, 1838. "The natural woods," says Wordsworth, "are deciduous, and spread to a great extent." See Eneid, VI. 309— souls 'as numerous as the leaves that fall in the first chill of autumn.'-304. Sedge, sea-weed. The Hebrew name of the Red Sea means sea of sedge.' — 305. Orion, a mighty Boeotian hunter, who at death became a constellation. Storms attended its rising and setting. Armed, with sword and club. Euripides calls him iphpns, xiphērēs, armed with sword; Virgil speaks of him as armatum auro, armed with gold, and nimbosus, stormy. --307. Busiris. Pharaoh being a mere title like Czar, Mil

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While with perfidious hatred they pursued
The sojourners of Goshen, who beheld.
From the safe shore their floating carcasses
And broken chariot-wheels. So thick bestrown,
Abject and lost lay these, covering the flood,
Under amazement of their hideous change.
He called so loud that all the hollow deep

Princes, Potentates,

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Of hell resounded: 66

315

Warriors, the flower of heaven, once yours, now lost,

If such astonishment as this can seize

Eternal spirits! Or have ye chosen this place

320

After the toil of battle to repose

Your wearied virtue, for the ease you find
To slumber here, as in the vales of heaven?
Or in this abject posture have ye sworn
To adore the conqueror, who now beholds
Cherub and seraph rolling in the flood
With scattered arms and ensigns, till anon
His swift pursuers from heaven-gates discern
The advantage, and, descending, tread us down
Thus drooping, or with linked thunderbolts
Transfix us to the bottom of this gulf?
Awake, arise, or be forever fallen!"

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ton follows Raleigh in singling out Busiris as the oppressor of the Israelites, a cruel Egyptian king slain by Hercules. See Exod. xiv. Memphian. Memphis, out of whose ruins Cairo was built, was one of the oldest and largest cities. Chivalry, cavalry. Ital. cavalleria; Fr. chevalerie; fr. Fr. cheval, horse; Lat. caballus, nag.—308. Perfidious. How so?-309. Sojourners. Why so called? Goshen. Which part of Egypt? Gen. xlvii. 1. Beheld. Exod. xiv. 30, 31.312. Abject (Lat. abjecti, cast down, prostrated). -313. Amazement, utter bewilderment, stupor. Of. Meaning? 315. Princes, etc. In this wonderfully sublime speech, three degrees of rank are recognized, princes, potentates, and warriors. 317. Astonishment, the utter confusion or insensibility of one thunderstruck. - 320. Virtue (Lat. virtus, manliness), valor, strength. For, on account of. - 325. Anon (A. S. on, in; an, one), in one moment, soon.-328. Linked. 'Like chain shot'? Linked thunderbolts 'chain lightning'?-330. The intensity and sublimity of this appeal are hardly equalled in literature. Point out its constituent quali

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They heard, and were abashed, and up they sprung
Upon the wing; as when men, wont to watch,
On duty sleeping found by whom they dread,
Rouse and bestir themselves ere well awake.
Nor did they not perceive the evil plight

In which they were, or the fierce pains not feel;
Yet to their general's voice they soon obeyed,
Innumerable. As when the potent rod

Of Amram's son, in Egypt's evil day,

Waved round the coast, up called a pitchy cloud
Of locusts, warping on the eastern wind,
That o'er the realm of impious Pharaoh hung
Like night, and darkened all the land of Nile;
So numberless were those bad angels seen
Hovering on wing under the cope of hell,
'Twixt upper, nether, and surrounding fires;
Till, as a signal given, the uplifted spear
Of their great sultan waving to direct
Their course, in even balance down they light
On the firm brimstone, and fill all the plain;
A multitude like which the populous North

...

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- 339.

ties. - 335. Nor . . . not. As often in Latin two negatives make an emphatic positive.-337. To . . . obeyed. To is thus used with obey in Rom. vi. 16. — 338. Potent rod. Exod. iv. 2, 17; viii. 5; x. 12-15, etc. Amram's son. Exod. vi. 20.-340. Pitchy. Sense? Dark as pitch or tar? -341. Warping (A. S. wearpian, to cast, turn, twist, wind). Working themselves forward like successive waves? Webster, quoting this passage, defines the word warp, 'To fly with a bending or waving motion; to turn and wave like a flock of birds or insects.' The word usually means to turn or be turned out of a straight line. Says Keightley, "Milton here uses this term of art improperly." Keightley's mistake is in supposing that Milton uses 'warping' in the rare technical sense which the word bears in navigation, a "The land was sense never found in Shakes. nor Milton. - 343. Darkened. darkened." Exod. x. 15. — 345. Cope. Same root as cap? - 347. Till, as a signal, etc. "A falconer recalling his hawk by waving the lure seems to have been in the poet's mind," remarks Keightley. More likely he thought of Joshua's outstretched spear near Ai? Josh. viii. 18, 19, 26.-350. Brimstone. Color and nature of this soil?-351. Note the threefold imagery used to picture these angels on the lake, in the air, and on the plain! Popu

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