Mean while the winged haralds by command Of sov❜reign power, with awful ceremony And trumpets' sound, throughout the host proclaim A solemn council forthwith to be held At Pandæmonium, the high capital 755 Of Satan and his peers: their summons call'd 765 To mortal combat or career with lance, 752 Haralds] Par. Lost, 1st ed. Steevens' Shakesp. (Pericles) ed. 1793, vol. xiii. p. 489. 769 Taurus] v. Virg. Georg. i. 217. 'Candidus auratis aperit cum cornibus annum Taurus.' Hume. 774 expatiate] i. e. walk abroad. v. Virg. Æn. iv. 62, Cic. Orat. iii. 'Ut palæstrice spatiari.' Todd. 775 780 Their state affairs: So thick the aery crowd 785 Wheels her pale course; they, on their mirth and dance Intent, with jocund music charm his ear; 795 784 dreams] See Ap. Rhod. Arg. iv. 1479. Virg. Æn. vi. Todd. 453. 785 arbitress] v. Hor. Ep. v. 49. 'Non infideles arbitræ Nox et Diana.' Heylin. 36 PARADISE LOST. BOOK II. THE ARGUMENT. THE Consultation begun, Satan debates whether another battle be to be hazarded for the recovery of heaven: some advise it, others dissuade. A third proposal is preferred, mentioned before by Satan, to search the truth of that prophecy or tradition in heaven concerning another world, and another kind of creature, equal, or not much inferior, to themselves, about this time to be created: their doubt who shall be sent on this difficult search: Satan their chief undertakes alone the voyage, is honoured and applauded. The council thus ended, the rest betake them several ways, and to several employments, as their inclinations lead them, to entertain the time till Satan return. He passes on his journey to hell gates, finds them shut, and who sat there to guard them, by whom at length they are opened, and discover to him the great gulf between hell and heaven: with what difficulty he passes through, directed by Chaos, the Power of that place, to the sight of this new world which he sought. HIGH on a throne of royal state, which far 1 High] Compare with this the opening of the second book of Ovid's Metam. Regia solis erat,' &c. 2 Ormus] See View of Ormus, in Buckingham's Travels in Assyria, p. 428, 4to. Showers on her kings Barbaric pearl and gold, To that bad eminence; and, from despair Vain war with heaven, and by success untaught Powers and Dominions, Deities of heaven, For since no deep within her gulf can hold Immortal vigor, though oppress'd and fall'n, I give not heaven for lost: from this descent Celestial virtues rising will appear 5 10 15 20 More glorious and more dread, than from no fall, 6 25 4 Barbaric] Lucret. lib. ii. 500. Barbaricæ vestes.' Euripid. Iph. Aul. 73. de Paride: χρυσῷ τε λάμπρος, βαρβάρῳ χλιδήματι. and Virg. Æn. ii. 504. Of endless pain? Where there is then no good 30 35 Could have assur'd us; and by what best way, 40 He ceas'd; and next him Moloch, scepter'd king, 38 our just inheritance] See Crashaw's Steps to the Temple, p. 64. (1646.) 'And for the never fading fields of light, My fair inheritance, he confines me here: ' and Beaumont's Psyche, c. i. st. 24. Was't not enough against the righteous law Of primogeniture to throw us down, From that bright home which all the world does know Was by confest inheritance our own.' 40 best way] Compare Spenser's F. Queen, vii. vi. 21. and ii. xi. 7. Todd. |