1. 38. aspiring. So in vi. 89 Satan is called 'the proud aspirer. For the extra metrical syllable, cf. II. 98, 102, 157, 165, 174, 606, 753. 1. 39. in glory, that is, in divine glory.'-PEARCE. For Satan was already above his peers, as Bentley pointed out from v. 812, where Abdiel addresses him as 'In place thyself so high above thy peers.' his peers, i. e. the other archangels. 1. 40. 'In Elizabethan, as in Early English authors, after verbs of hoping, intending, the complete present infinitive is used. We still retain this idiom in the expression 'I would (i.e. wished to) have done it.' Abbott, Shakesp. Gram. 360. 1. 41. he, Satan. By the aid of his angels, he trusted to equal, if he opposed, the Most High; aspiring to set himself in Glory he raised impious war in heaven. 1. 43. battle proud. 'See Aen. viii. 118, “bello profugos egere superbo." .”—DUNSTER. 1. 45. flaming. Cf. 'I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven' (S. Luke x. 18.) Todd compares Dante, Purgatorio xii : Folgoreggiando.' "Giù dal cielo th' ethereal sky. Aether in Homer and Hesiod was the higher air, the abode of the gods. Cf. Iliad, ii. 412, Zeùs αιθέρι ναίων ; and xiv. 288, of a tall pine, μακροτάτη περ φυνία δι' μέρος αιθέρ ̓ ἵκανεν. Milton uses it for the higher regions of this world, applying the epithet 'empyreal' to Heaven. See the account of the Creation in iii. 714: Swift to their several quarters hasted then That rolled orbicular, and turned to stars.' Also the descent of Raphael in Book v. First he passes 'through all the empyreal road' (1. 253), and only after leaving Heaven behind, 'through the vast ethereal sky Sails between worlds and worlds' (1. 266). Here therefore, and in 1. 285, the word is not strictly used, but in many places Milton follows the classical sense, and uses it as a synonym of 'heavenly.' 1. 46. ruin and combustion. Dyce found the phrase 'to bring the whole kingdom into utter ruin and combustion’› in an order of the two Houses, 1642; whence Keightley conjectured that the phrase might have been one in common use. ruin, with the force of the Latin ruina, a rushing down; cf. vi. 868, 'Heav'n ruining from Heav'n.' 1. 47. bottomless perdition. The phrase 'bottomless pit,' which occurs in vi. 866, is from the Apocalypse; but in a poem which makes Hell a world, with both land and sea, though of fire, the epithet is not very apposite. In the present place it is better used, since it expresses the hopelessness of the loss. Unbottomed' is used (ii. 405) of the abyss of Chaos (described in ii. 891), out of which both Hell and the world were framed: 'The dark unbottomed infinite abyss.' 1. 48. adamantine. Either in its etymological sense of 'unbreakable,' or 'made of adamant' (ii. 646; vi. 542). adamantine chains, 'a common phrase in English. Cf. Spenser's Hymn in honour of love, P. Fletcher's Purple Island, xii. 64, Drayton's Polyolbion, Song 1.-TODD. But the expression comes originally from Aeschylus, Prometheus 6, ἀδαμαντίνων δεσμῶν ἐν ἀρρήκτοις πέδαις, where it means made of 'adamant,' probably steel. chains. See 1. 210 and note. 1. 49. who, since he, being such a one as, referring to Him in 1. 44. In Latin a causal sentence is regularly introduced by the simple relative. And Milton's Latin scholarship had great influence on his syntax. But the use is frequent in Shakespeare; cf. Julius Cæsar, ii. 1. 216:— 'Caius Ligarius doth bear Cæsar hard, Who rated him for speaking well of Pompey.' durst. This form of the past tense of dare is restricted to the auxiliary use; see ll. 102, 385, 391. 1. 50. The fallen angels lie nine days in stupor; they had been nine days in falling from heaven (vi. 871). During the second period the world was created (vii. 131). The number nine is borrowed from the fall of the giants in Hesiod (Theog. 722), who says a brazen anvil would take nine days to fall from heaven to earth, and another nine from earth to hell. Also the children of Niobe lie nine days in their blood (Iliad, xxiv. 610). Nine was a sacred number as being thrice three. 1. 51. crew, a company, cf. Fairfax's Tasso : 'The king's own troop came next, a chosen crue.' Skeat accounts for the contemptuous sense it usually bears by reference to its original use of insects. He connects it with the word 'crawl.' It occurs below 11. 477, 688, 751. 1. 53. confounded. Cf. 1. 266, astonish'd'; and vi. 852'Of their vigour drain'd Exhausted, spiritless, afflicted, fall'n.' his doom, etc. His judgment was not simply this 'confounding'; he was reserved for greater punishment hereafter, and so allowed to revive. 1. 55. lost . . . lasting. For the assonance cf. 1. 642. Keightley thinks Milton was imitating similar assonances in the Hebrew Scriptures. 11. 55-57, with such others as 266, 523 and foll., 592 and foll., 621, give the situation of Keats' Hyperion. 1. 56. baleful, woeful. Bale is an O.E. word for evil, used by Shakespeare in Coriolanus, i. 1. 166, 'The one side must have bale. 1. 57. witness'd, bore witness to; and so usually in Milton. In iii. 700 it has the sense of 'see': 'To witness with thine eyes what some perhaps 1. 58. obdurate is always accented on the penultimate in Shakespeare and Milton. See vi. 790; xii. 205. Cf. Merchant of Venice, iv. 1. 8 : 'But since he stands obdúrate, And that no lawful means,' etc. Cf. triúmph, in l. 123. 1. 59. as far as angels ken, as far as angels can see. Cf. iii. 622, 'saw within ken.' The M.E. kennen means 'to know.' 1. 60. situation. See note on 1. 734. waste and wild. So iii. 424, 'Dark, waste, and wild.' Cf. vii. 212, of chaos, outrageous as a sea, dark, wasteful, wild'; P. R. iv. 523, this waste wild? 1. 63. (there was) no light. For the omission of the substantive verb cf. ll. 141, 395, 509. The flames being but dimly seen (cf. 1. 181, 'the glimmering of these livid flames'), served only to make the darkness around noticeable as darkness. The flame of a spirit-lamp in a dark room will suggest what is meant. For the oxymoron darkness visible cf. Job x. 22, a land of darkness, as darkness itself; and of the shadow of death, and where the light is as darkness.' Keightley quotes from Walker's History of Independency, i. 14, 'Their burning zeal without knowledge is like Hell-fire without light.' 1. 67. that comes to all. 'Euripides, Troades, 676, οὐδ ̓ ὁ πᾶσι λείπεται βροτοῖς ξύνεστιν ἐλπίς.-HURD. (Even hope, that is left to all mortals, is not here). 1. 68. urges, a splendid use of the word; cf. Virgil, Aeneia vi. 661, 'urgentur poenis.' 1. 71. those (if any, who should be) rebellious. 1. 72. utter, i. e. 'outer.' Cf. iii. 16 : "Through utter and through middle darkness borne.' vi. 715: 'Drive them out From all Heav'n's bounds into the utter deep.' A good example will be found in 2 Kings vii. 5, where the four lepers go to the uttermost part of the camp of Syria,' which means the part nearest them, the outermost part. Milton sometimes uses utter in the sense of 'total,' and in the Argument to this book he speaks of Chaos as a place of ' utter darkness,' so that although that sense is not possible here (see ll. 63, 182) a suggestion of it may be intended. 1. 74. the center is the Earth (cf. 1. 686, ix. 108), or the earth's centre (vii. 242, 'Earth self-balanced on her center hung'); the utmost pole, that of the outermost sphere in the Ptolemaic system. See vii. 22: 'Within the visible diurnal sphere Standing on earth, not rapt above the pole.' According to this system, the sun, moon, and the other five (x. 657) planets revolved round the earth in seven separate spheres, and the fixed stars in an eighth, a ninth was subsequently added to account for the precession of the equinoxes, and later still a tenth; the outermost, called Primum Mobile, gave the impulse to all. Cf. iii. 481 (of the journey from earth to heaven) : They pass the planets sev'n, and pass the fix'd And that crystalline sphere whose balance weighs Copernicus, who first put forward the theory of the sun as centre of the universe, died in 1543. Shakespeare, however, |