BY

JOHN MILTON.

WITE

EXPLANATORY NOTES

BY THE

REV. HENRY STEBBING, A. N.

NEW-YORK :
D. APPLETON & CO., 200 BROADWAY

PHILADELPHIA :
QEO. S. APPLETON 164 CHESTNUT-ST

MDCCC L

HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY

IN MEMORY OF LIONEL DE JERSEY HARVARD

CLASS OF 1915

Jan 24, 1927

PARADISE LOST.

BOOK I.

THE ARGUMENI. This First Book proposes, first, in brief, the whole subject, Man's disobedience, and the loss thereupon of Paradise, wherein he was placed: then touches the prime cause of his fall, the Serpent, or rather Satan in the serpent; who revolting from God, and draw ing to his side many legions of Angels, was, by the command of God, driven out of Heaven, with all his crew, into the great deep, Which action passed over, the poem hastens into the midst of things, presenting Satan with his Angels now fallen into Hell, described here, not in the centre (for Heaven and Earth may be supposed as yet not made, certainly not yet accursed) but in a place of utter darkness, fitiiest called Chaos: here Sucan with his Angels lying on the burning lake, thunderstruck an astonished, after a certain space recovers, as from confusion, calls up him who next in order and dignity lay by him; they conter of their miserable fall. Satan awakens all his legions, who lay till then in the same manner confounded: they rise, their numbers, array of battle, their chief leaders named, according to the idols known afterward in Canaan and the countries adjoining To these Satar directs his speech, comforts them with hope yet of regaining, Heaven, but tells them lastly of a new world and new kind of creature to be created, according to an ancient prophecy or report in Heaven; for that Angels were long before this vi-ible creation, was the opinion of many ancient fathers. To tind out the truth of this prophecy, and what to determine thereon, he refers to a full council. What his associates thence atteinpt. Pandemonium, the palace of Satan, rises, suddenly built out o? the deep: the infernal peers there sit in council.

OP man's first disobedience, and the ti ant

Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste
Brought death into the world, and all our woe,
With loss of Eden, till one greater man
Restore us, and regain the blissful seat,

1. The fitness and exquisite beauty of this introduction to the poem cannot be too much admired. The classical taste and religious feelings of the author are both evidenced in it; the former by the simplicity with which the subject is stated and the invocation of the muse, and the latter by his addressing the Holy Spirit as the source of inspiration and light. Great admiration has been expressed by the different commentators on the skilful construction of the verse in these introductory lines, the pauses of which are so varied as to give a most musical effect to the whole passage.

4. It has been supposed that Milton intimated in this expression bis idea of writing Paradise Regained, but it appears to have beeu uggested merely by the subject of his present contemp'ation.

Sing Heav'nly Muse, that on the secret top
Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire
That Shepherd, who first taught the chosen seed
In the beginning, how the heav'ns and earth
Kose out of Chaos. Or if Sion hill

10
Delight thee more, and Siloa's brook that flow'd
Fast by the oracle of God; I thence
Invoke thy aid to my advent'rous song,
That with no middle flight intends to soar
Above th' Aonian mount, while it pursues

15
Things unattempted yet, in prose or rhyme.
And chiefly Thou, O Sp’rit, that dost prefer
Before all temples th' upright heart and pure,
Instruct me, for Thou know'st: Thou from the first
Wast present, and with mighty wings outspread 20
Dove-like sat'st brooding on the vast abyss,
And mad'st it pregnant.

What in me is dark
Illumine, what is low raise and support;
That to the height of this great argument
I
may assert eternal Providence,

25 And justify the ways of God to Men.

Say first, for Heav'n hides nothing rom thy view, Nor the deep tract of Hell; say first what cause Moved our grand parents, in that happy state, Favour'd of Heav'n so highly, to fall off

30 From their Creator, and trangress his will For one restraint, lords of the world besides ? Who first seduced them to that foul revolt? Th' infernal Serpent: he it was whose guile, Stirr'd up with envy and revenge, deceived 35 The mother of mankind, what time his pride Had cast him out from Heav'n, with all his host Of rebel Angels; by whose aid aspiring

6. Bentley proposed the changing of this epithet into sacred, laut his opinion has been successfully confuted, it having been shewn that the former word is peculiarly applicable to Oreb or Sinai, which had been so awfully obscured at the giving of the law,

8. Moses; who, we are told, Exod. iii. 1. kept the flock of Jethro his father-in-law.