"Powers and dominions, deities of heaven!
For, since no deep within her gulf can hold
Immortal vigor, though oppressed and fallen,
I give not heaven for lost: from this descent
Celestial virtues rising will appear

More glorious and more dread than from no fall,
And trust themselves to fear no second fate!

Me, though just right, and the fixed laws of heaven,
Did first create your leader; next, free choice,

With what besides in council or in fight
Hath been achieved of merit; yet this loss,
Thus far at least recovered, hath much more
Established in a safe unenvied throne,

Yielded with full consent. The happier state
In heaven, which follows dignity, might draw
Envy from each inferior; but who here
Will envy whom the highest place exposes
Foremost to stand against the thunderer's aim
Your bulwark, and condemns to greatest share
Of endless pain? Where there is, then, no good
For which to strive, no strife can grow up there
From faction; for none sure will claim in hell
Precedence; none, whose portion is so small
Of present pain that with ambitious mind
Will covet more! With this advantage, then,
To union and firm faith and firm accord,
More than can be in heaven, we now return

15

20

25

30

35

So used repeatedly in Shakes.-11. Powers. See note, Book I. 128.-12. For; i. e., I say 'deities of heaven,' because, etc. Lines 12-17 inclusive are parenthetic ? - 15. Virtues (Lat. vir, man; virtus, manhood). Powers? powerful beings? Or heroic qualities? See I. 320.-18. Me. A classical order of words, adopted for emphasis? Syntax? Note the grounds of his leadership; 'just right,' 'fixed laws,' 'free choice,' and meritorious achievements. Any others? 24. Happier, etc. The argument is ingenious. Express it in your own words. Meaning of 'state' ?-28. Thunderer. Repeatedly (as in Book I. 92, 93, 258) he ascribes the victory to the thunder, as of a Jupiter Tonans. -33. Precedence. Observe the acccent. None; i. e. there

To claim our just inheritance of old,

Surer to prosper than prosperity

Could have assured us; and by what best way,
Whether of open war or covert guile,

We now debate.

Who can advise, may speak."

He ceased; and next him Moloch, sceptred king,
Stood up, the strongest and the fiercest spirit
That fought in heaven, now fiercer by despair:
His trust was with the Eternal to be deemed
Equal in strength, and rather than be less
Cared not to be at all: with that care lost

:

Went all his fear of God, or hell, or worse,
He recked not, and these words thereafter spake :
My sentence is for open war. Of wiles,
More unexpert, I boast not them let those

66

Contrive who need, or when they need; not now.
For, while they sit contriving, shall the rest,
Millions that stand in arms and longing wait
The signal to ascend, sit lingering here,
Heaven's fugitives, and for their dwelling-place
Accept this dark opprobrious den of shame,
The prison of his tyranny who reigns
By our delay? No! let us rather choose,
Armed with hell-flames and fury - all:

at once

is none. 41. Open . . . . covert. See note, Book I. 662.

....

40

45

50

55

60

Spenser (F. Q. What of the rhe

"There is a decided manly tone

II. XI. 7) has 'T' assail with open force or hidden guile.' torical fitness of Satan's utterances ? - 42. in the argument and sentiments, an eloquent dogmatism, as if each person - 43. Next. Beside? or next spoke from thorough conviction." Hazlitt. after? Moloch. See note, I. 392. Why should he speak next? Sceptred. 'Sceptre-bearing,' Gr. σênπтoûxos, is the Homeric epithet with king. — 46. Trust. Stronger than hope'? Was. When? 48. Cared. Subject nom. ? 50. Recked, cared. So found repeatedly in Shakes. Thereafter, therefore, accordingly? "Moloch's speech is a masterpiece of furious eloquence." Ross. Analyze it to ascertain its rhetorical and poetic merit. -51. Sentence (Lat.' sententia), opinion, decision, vote. -52. Unexpert than in open war? or than` others? Irony here? -55. Stand. They were not disbanded yet. See II. 522, 523.61. All, instead of dividing forces, or leaving any inactive. At once,

O'er heaven's high towers to force resistless way,
Turning our tortures into horrid arms

Against the torturer; when, to meet the noise
Of his almighty engine, he shall hear
Infernal thunder, and, for lightning, see
Black fire and horror shot with equal rage
Among his angels, and his throne itself

Mixed with Tartarean sulphur and strange fire,
His own invented torments. But perhaps
The way seems difficult, and steep to scale
With upright wing against a higher foe!
Let such bethink them, if the sleepy drench
Of that forgetful lake benumb not still,
That in our proper motion we ascend
Up to our native seat: descent and fall
To us is adverse. Who but felt of late,

When the fierce foe hung on our broken rear

65

70

75

now, instead of further delay. Burke suggested that 'all at once' ought to be
omitted. - 62. Force. He represents brute force, most like the war-god Mars?
-63. Tortures, the flames and fire of 11. 61, 67, 69-64, 65. Quite similar to
Prometheus' threat against Jove. Esch. Prom. Vinct. 920, 921. Engine. The
conimentators generally seem to have misunderstood this word. It means the
Messiah's war-chariot, the most tremendous engine that the imagination ever
conceived; the chariot which rushed with whirlwind sound (VI. 749), ' with
the sound of torrent floods or of a numerous host' (VI. 829, 830); the chariot
under whose crushing weight 'the steadfast empyrean shook throughout' (VI.
832, 833), and whose living wheels were studded with eyes, every one of which
'glared lightnings and shot forth pernicious fire' (VI. 849). See III. 394, 395,
396. 67. Black fire and horror. Hendiadys? Black, as emitting little or
no light? I. 62, 63, 181-183. 69. Tartarean. From Tartarus, the name
by which the ancients called the place of punishment in the lower world.
Strange fire. See this phrase in Levit. x. 1.; also, we that are of purer
fire,' Comus, 111.—72. Upright wing, wing flying towards the zenith?
73. Such as suggest this objection to my plan? Drench, copious draught?
or soaking? (A. S. drincan, to drink, drencan, to give to drink, ply with drink,
drench; Old Norse, dreckia, to sink in water). -74. Forgetful, like
'oblivious,' I. 266.-77. Adverse, unnatural. Because our bodies are
celestial and buoyant?-78. Hung on, etc. So it seemed; but in fact no
angel pursued. 'Sulphurous hail,' 'lightnings,' thunders' (I. 171, 174,
175) pursued them; perhaps 'terrors and furies' (VI. 859); and “eternal

Insulting, and pursued us through the deep,
With what compulsion and laborious flight
We sunk thus low? The ascent is easy, then.
The event is feared! Should we again provoke

Our stronger, some worse way his wrath may find
To our destruction; if there be in hell

80

Fear to be worse destroyed! What can be worse

85

Than to dwell here, driven out from bliss, condemned
In this abhorrèd deep to utter woe;

Where pain of unextinguishable fire

Must exercise us without hope of end,

The vassals of his anger, when the scourge

90

Inexorably, and the torturing hour

Calls us to penance? More destroyed than thus,
We should be quite abolished, and expire.

What fear we then? what doubt we to incense

95

His utmost ire? which, to the highth enraged,
Will either quite consume us, and reduce
To nothing this essential — happier far
Than, miserable, to have eternal being-
Or, if our substance be indeed divine,

And cannot cease to be, we are at worst

100

wrath burnt after them to the bottomless pit." VI. 864, 865, 866. — 82–84. Should we... destruction. Moloch puts this into the mouth of a second objector, and then answers it? Supply the implied words. — 85. Worse destroyed than now? -87. Utter. Extreme? or outer, i. e. outside of heaven? I. 72.89. Exercise (Lat. exercere, drive, plague), harass. 90. Vassals. Bentley would read vessels, quoting Rom. ix. 22; but 'vassals' is better. See 252. (Welsh gwas, a youth, a page, a servant.) Milton uses the words, 'vassals of perdition,' in one of his earliest prose works. 91. Torturing hour is Shakespearian. Hamlet, I. 5; Mid. N. Dream, V. 1. Milton believed the punishment of the devils, like the remorse of bad men, to be more intense at some times than at others. We should look beneath the surface for these analogies. -92. More; i. e. if more. Thus. As we now are?-93. Abolished, annihilated. 94. What doubt we. On account of what? why? (Lat. quid dubitamus, what, i. e., why, hesitate we?) So repeatedly in Shakes., as Jul. Cæs. II. 1. 123, "What need we any spur?" -97. Essential, essence. Adjective for subst., as often in Shakes. ; e. g. caviare to the general.' Ham. II. 11. 458.-98. Miserable, etc. In misery

On this side nothing; and by proof we feel
Our power sufficient to disturb his heaven,
And with perpetual inroads to alarm,
Though inaccessible, his fatal throne:
Which, if not victory, is yet revenge!"
He ended frowning, and his look denounced
Desperate revenge, and battle dangerous
On the other side

To less than gods.
up rose
Belial, in act more graceful and humane.
A fairer person lost not heaven; he seemed
For dignity composed and high exploit.
But all was false and hollow; though his tongue
Dropt manna, and could make the worse appear
The better reason, to perplex and dash
Maturest counsels; for his thoughts were low,
To vice industrious, but to nobler deeds
Timorous and slothful. Yet he pleased the ear,
And with persuasive accent thus began:-

peers,

"I should be much for open war,
As not behind in hate, if what was urged,

105

110

115

I 20

to have eternal being?-100. At worst, in the worst possible condition?-104. Fatal, sustained by fate? Does Milton seemingly attribute to the devils the origin of the idea of fate as a power separate from Deity? Fate (Lat. fatum, spoken, fr. furi, to speak) is that which is spoken or decreed by Deity? Classical idea of fate?-105. Revenge. How much is compressed into this one ringing word! What passions and sentiments are uppermost in him? See the description of him in Book I. -106. Denounced (Lat. denuntiāre, to announce threateningly), threatened. 109. Belial, etc. The stormy Moloch is followed by Belial, as the wrathful Achilles (Iliad, I. 247, etc.) was followed by the 'mild-voiced Nestor,' from whose lips flowed words sweeter than honey.' Act. Behavior? or deeds? or gesture? Humane (Lat. humanus), polished, cultured. 113. Dropt manna. 'Drop manna in the way of starved people.' Shakes. Mer. Venice, V. 1. (Heb. manna, a gift. The taste was 'like wafers made with honey.' (Exod. xvi. 31.) Make the worse, etc. This was the business of the sophists, according to Plato, who uses the exact original of these words. 114. Reason. Meaning? To, so as to? Dash, confound, strike down. - 117. Pleased, etc. Contrast his speech with Moloch's. See description of Belial in Book I. Does he comply with the rhetoricians' rule that the exordium should conciliate the audience?- 120. Hate. The key-note? Which