355

360

Poured never from her frozen loins to pass
Rhene or the Danaw, when her barbarous sons
Came like a deluge on the south, and spread
Beneath Gibraltar to the Libyan sands.
Forthwith from every squadron and each band
The heads and leaders thither haste where stood
Their great commander; godlike shapes, and forins
Excelling human; princely dignities;
And powers that erst in heaven sat on thrones,
Though of their names in heavenly records now
Be no memorial, blotted out and rased
By their rebellion from the books of life.
Nor had they yet among the sons of Eve
Got them new names ; till, wandering o'er the earth, 365
Through God's high sufferance for the trial of man,
By falsities and lies the greatest part
Of mankind they corrupted to forsake
God their Creator, and the invisible
Glory of him that made them to transform

370
Oft to the image of a brute, adorned
With gay religions full of pomp and gold,

lous North, what Sir William Temple calls the northern hive,' whence Goths, Franks, and Vandals came swarming. – 353. Rhene (Lat. Rhenus, Rhine). So Spenser, Faerie Queene, IV. XI. 21. Danaw (Ger. Donau, Danube). –355. Beneath (like Lat. infra), south of. In 429 A. D. the Vandals pushed their conquests into Africa ? Libyan. African. — 356. Squadron (Lat. quatuor, four; quadra, square ; Fr. escadron. Note that our military terms are almost all from the French). Same as “squared regiment,' l. 758 ?-360. Erst. Etymology ? — 361. Though of their names, etc. In Ps. ix. 5, 6, we read, “Thou hast put out their name forever and ever. . . . Their memorial is perished with them.” In Rev. xx. 12, “ And the books were opened. And another book was opened, which is the book of life.” See Rev. iii. 5. There is a peculiar solemnity in the Miltonic idea that these names shall nevermore be pronounced in heaven! See Par. Lost, V. 659, 660. -- 365. New names. The Christian Fathers believed that the heathen gods were devils in disguise. Milton gives this belief 'an ingenious poetic turn,' says Masson. “In the course of ages . . . they got them new nanies." “It is by these names that they must, though by anticipation, be called in the poem." — 369, 370. Invisible glory. See the eloquent statement in Rom. i. 23; also Ps. cvi. 20;

380

And devils to adore for deities :
Then were they known to men by various names
And various idols through the heathen world.

375
Say, Muse, their names then known, who first, who last,
Roused from the slumber on that fiery couch,
At their great emperor's call, as next in worth
Came singly where he stood on the bare strand,
While the promiscuous crowd stood yet aloof.

The chief were those, who, from the pit of hell
Roaming to seek their prey on earth, durst fix
Their seats, long after, next the seat of God,
Their altars by his altar, gods adored
Among the nations round; and durst abide
Jehovah thundering out of Sion, throned
Between the cherubim ; yea, often placed
Within his sanctuary itself their shrines,
Abominations; and with cursed things
His holy rites and solemn feasts profaned,

And with their darkness durst affront his light.
1. First Moloch, horrid king, besmeared with blood

Exod. xxxii. - 372. Religions (Lat. religiones), religious rites.- 373. Devils. See Levit. xvii. 7; Deut. xxx. 17; Ps. cvi. 37 ; also, especially, 1 Cor. X. 20. See Hymn on the Nativity, st. 19-25. — 375. Idols (Gr. etdwra, idola, images). - 376. Then. When? . Who first, who last. So in the Iliad, V. 703, “Whom first, whom last did Hector lay low?” So Æneid, XI. 664. — 378. Emperor. Other names and titles of Satan in this book?-382. Roaming, etc. • As a roaring lion, walketh about,' etc., 1 Peter v. 8.-384. Their altars. So Manasseh built them, 2 Chron. xxxiii. 3-7. See, too, Ezekiel xliii. 8. — 387. Between the cherubim. “This is incorrect. The throne is . . . borne by the cherubim." So says Keightley, who ailels that Milton was led into error hy the Eng. translation of Ps. Ixxx. 1, etc., " where between is inserted." Keightley confounds that throne, which is calleil the 'mercy-seat,' with the tying throne seen by Ezekiel 'in the land of the Chaldeans by the river Chebar'? See Ezekiel i. 26; Exod. xxv. 22, xxxvii. 7 ; 1 Kings vi. 27, viii. 6; Par. Lost, XII. 253, 254•; also XI. 2, where mercy-seat above' is God's throne in heaven. – 389. Abominations, 'abominations in the house calleil by my name,' Jer. vii. 30; Ezek. vii. 20. -- 391. Affront, confront, face, insult (Lat. frons, forehead; Fr. affronter ; It. affrontare). So repeatedly in Shakes. · as, 'that he may ... affront Ophelia,' Hamlet, 111. 1. 30, 31. - 392. Moloch (Heb. Molech, king).

395

Of human sacrifice, and parents' tears,
Though, for the noise of drums and timbrels loud,
Their children's cries unheard, that passed through fire
To his grim idol. Him the Ammonite
Worshipped in Rabba and her watery plain,
In Argob and in Basan, to the stream
Of utmost Arnon. Nor content with such
Audacious neighborhood, the wisest heart
Of Solomon he led by fraud to build
His temple right against the temple of God
On that opprobrious hill, and made his grove
The pleasant valley of Hinnom, Tophet thence
And black Gehenna called, the type of hell.

400

405

He personifies destructive fire? See the allusions to the horrible sacrifices to him in Lev. xviii. 21; Jer. xxxii. 35; Ps. cvi. 37, 38. —- 395. Passed through fire. “They kindled it (the hollow brass image of Moloch) with fire, and the priest took the babe and put it into the hands of Molech, and the babe gave up the ghost. And why was it called Tophet and Hinnom? Because they used to make a noise with drums (tophim), that the father might not hear the cry of his child and have pity on him. [Tophet is otherwise rendered, 'place to be spit on,' or 'place of burning.') Hinnom, because the babe wailed (menahem).” Kimchi. Gehenna, valley of Hinnon, the deep narrow glen south of Jerusalem. – 397. Rabba, on the river Jabbok, was the capital city of the Ammonites, called 'city of waters' in 2 Sam. xii. 27. Moab was the settled and civilized half of the nation of Lot, and Animon formed its predatory and Berlouin section. Smith's Bib. Dict. Down to about the middle of the second century B. C., the Ammonites are in close alliance with the Moabites. This alliance, and their nomadic character, abundantly acquit the poet of any slip of memory'in confusing the territory of the Ammonites with that of the Moabites or Amorites. (Ben-Animi was son of Lot by his younger daughter, as Moab was by the eliler.) — 398. Argob and Basan, districts lying easterly from the Sea of Galilee and the Jordan. -- 399. Arnon, a small stream running west into the Dead Sea. See map of Palestine. — 400. Neighborhood. Nearness to what? Wisest heart. Hypallage ? — 401. Led by fraud. Explained, 1 Kings xi. 3, 4, 7, etc. — 403. Opprobrious hill. In 2 Kings xxiii. 13 it is called Mount of Corruption, or Mount of Destruction, or of a Snare. Keightley says, “We know not what led Milton to use the term 'opprobrious.?” Dr. Smith (Bib. Dict.) says, “The most southern portion of the Mt. of Olives is that usually known as the Mount of Offence. ... The title was bestowed on the supposition that it is the Mt. of Corruption on which Solomon erected the high places for the gods of his foreign

410

Next, Chemos, the obscene dread of Moab's sons,
From Aroer to Nebo and the wild
Of southmost Abarim ; in Hesebon
And Horonaim, Seon's realm, beyond
The flowery dale of Sibma clad with vines,
And Elealè to the Asphaltic pool;
Peor his other name, when he enticed
Israel in Sittim, on their march from Nile,
To do him wanton rites, which cost them woe.
Yet thence his lustful orgies he enlarged
Even to that hill of scandal, by the grove
Of Moloch homicide, lust hard by hate,
Till good Josiah drove them thence to hell.
With these came they, who, from the bordering flood
Of old Euphrates to the brook that parts

415

420

wives." Grove. In the old heathen religions groves play a prominent part. Pliny tells us that the first temples were trees. But the word rendered 'grove' may have designated the emblematic carved pillar' in the worship of some of these gods. — 406. Chemos, deity of the Moabites, often identified with the obscene Greek god Priapus, but sometimes with Adonis, Pluto, Mars, Saturn, Bacchus, etc. See Num. xxi. 29 ; Jer. xlviii. 13; 1 Kings xi. 7; 2 Kings xxiii. 13. He is called god of the Ammonites in Judges xi. 24. — 407-11. Aroer, on the river Arnon. Nebo (or Pisgah ?), part of the mountain range called Abarim (opposite Jericho). Hesebon (Heshbon), Sibma, Elealè, easterly from Abarim. Horonaim, site unknown, but near by. Seon (Sihon), king of the Amorites, had driven the Moabites south of the Arnon before the Israelites reached the promised land. See a map showing Abarim, Nebo, Heshbon, etc., mentioned in Num. xxi. Isa. xv., Jer. xlviii., etc. Asphaltic pool (Lacus Asphaltites), the Dead Sea, abounding with asphaltus or bitumen. — 413. Sittim (Heb. Abel-Hasshittim, meadow of acacias), in the land of Moab.–414. Do . . . rites (Gr. sepà pé(elv, hiera rezein ; Lat. facere sacra). Woe. Twenty-four thousand deaths. Num. xxv. 9. — 415. Orgies (Gr. čpyov, ergon, work; or, better, ópyń, orge, violent passion), bacchanalian rites, licentious or drunken transports. -- 416–17. Hill, the opprobrious hill,' l. 403. Lust hard by hate. Never was weightier moral condensed into four words. — 418. Josiah drove, etc. How he did it, is shown in 2 Kings xxiii. ; 2 Chron. xxxiv. Reigned B. C. 641–672? — 419-20. Bordering flood, the eastern boundary of the Promised Land. “To thy seed have I given this land from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates.” Gen. xv. 18. old. Mentioned as early as Gen. ii. 14. Brook. Besor, perhaps, 1 Sam. xxx. 9; or the Wady-El-Arish, the ancient

430

Egypt from Syrian ground, had general names
! Of Baälim and Ashtaroth, those male,

These feminine: for spirits, when they please,
Can either sex assume, or both; so soft
And uncompounded is their essence pure,

425
Not tied or manacled with joint or limb,
Nor founded on the brittle strength of bones,
Like cumbrous flesh; but, in what shape they choose,
Dilated or condensed, bright or obscure,
Can execute their aery purposes,
And works of love or enmity fulfil.
For those the race of Israel oft forsook
Their Living Strength, and unfrequented left
His righteous altar, bowing lowly down
To bestial gods; for which their heads, as low

435
Bowed down in battle, sunk before the spear,
Of despicable foes. With these in troop
Came Astoreth, whom the Phænicians called
Astarte, queen of heaven, with crescent horns ;
To whose bright image nightly by the moon

440
Sidonian virgins paid their vows and songs;
In Sion also not unsung, where stood

Rhinocolura ? — 422. Baälim (Heb. Baal, master, the supreme male deity
of the Canaanites and Phænicians, often supposed to be the sun-god.
Plu. Baalim). Judges ii. 11, 13. Ashtaroth. The chief female divinity
of the same nations, was often regarded as the moon-goddess. (Smith's
Bib. Dict.; Max Müller's Science of Religion; Keightley's Pneumatol-
ogy.) — 423. Spirits, etc. See Psellus, On the Operations of Spirits (1615);
Burton's Anat. of Melancholy (1621); Wier's De Pracstigiis Daemonum
(1563). Pope follows Milton, Rape of the Lock, 70. “There is a natural
proper shape for each spirit, but at its own will, or at the will of the Almighty
who controls its substance, this may be entirely changed." Himes. This
power of transformation becomes important in the poem, and, as Addison re-
marks, is introduced with great judgment and forethought. — 431. Living
Strength. “The strength of Israel will not lie.” 1 Sam. xv. 29. — 435.
Bestial, brutish in form or spirit. — 436. Bowed down, etc. As stated in
Judges ii. 12, 14 ; 2 Chron. xxx. 7; Ps. cvi. 19-42. — 437. In troop, in
company. The moon-goddess, Ashtoreth, Astarte of the Phænicians, came
with Ashtaroth, the starry host of heaven. — 438. Astoreth. “Solomon