Puslapio vaizdai
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Fall'n Cherub, to be weak is miserable

Doing or fuffering: but of this be fure,

To do ought good never will be our task,
But ever to do ill our fole delight,

As being the contrary to his high will
Whom we refift. If then his providence

Out of our evil feek to bring forth good,

157.to be weak is miferable Doing or fuffering:] Satan having in his fpeech boafted that the ftrength of Gods could not fail, ver. 116. and Beelzebub having faid, ver. 146. if God has left us this our Strength entire, to fuffer pain ftrongly, er to do him mightier fervice as bis thralls, what then can our ftrength avail us? Satan here replies very properly, whether we are to fuffer or to work, yet ftill it is fome comfort to have our strength undiminifh'd; for it is a miferable thing, (fays he) to be weak and without ftrength, whether we are doing or fuffering. This is the fenfe of the place; and this is farther confirm'd by what Belial fays in II. 199. To fuffer as to do Our firength is equal- Pearce. 159. To do ought good never will be our task,] Dr. Bentley

would read it thus,

To do ought good will never be our task,

as of a smoother and stronger accent: but I conceive that Milton

160

Our

intended to vary
and ever in the next verse.
169. But fee the angry victor hatb

the accent of never

hath really made a very material recall'd &c.] Dr. Bentley objection to this and fome other paffages of the poem, wherein the good Angels are reprefented, as and thunderbolts down through purfuing the rebel hoft with fire Chaos even to the gates of Hell; which the Angel Raphael gives to as being contrary to the account, Adam in the 6th book. is certain that there the good Angels are order'd to fland fill only and behold, and the Meffiah alone expels them out of Heaven, and after he has expelled them, and Hell has clos'd upon them, VI. 880. Sole victor from th' expulfion of

his foes

And it

Meffiah his triumphal chariot
turn'd:

To meet him all his Saints, who
filent flood
Eye-witneffes of his almighty acts,
With jubilee advanc'd.

Thefe

Our labor must be to pervert that end,

And out of good ftill to find means of evil;
Which oft-times may fucceed, so as perhaps
Shall grieve him, if I fail not, and difturb
His inmoft counfels from their deftin'd aim.
But fee the angry victor hath recall'd
His minifters of vengeance and pursuit

Thefe accounts are plainly contrary the one to the other: but the author doth not therefore contradict himself, nor is one part of his fcheme inconfiftent with another. For it fhould be confidered, who are the persons that give thefe different accounts. In book the 6th the Angel Raphael is the fpeaker, and therefore his account may be depended upon as the genuin and exact truth of the matter. But in the other paffages Satan himfelf or fome of his Angels are the fpeakers; and they were too proud and obftinate ever to acknowledge the Meffiah for their conqueror; as their rebellion was rais'd on his account, they would never own his fuperiority; they would rather afcribe their defeat to the whole hoft of Heaven than to him alone;

or if they did indeed imagin their purfuers to be fo many in number, their fears multiplied them, and it ferves admirably to exprefs how much they were terrified and confounded. In book the 6th, 830. the noise of his chariot is compar'd to the found of a numerous VOL. I.

165

170 Back

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But what a condition was Chaos in
during the fall of the rebel Angels?
See VI. 871.

Nine days they fell; confounded
Chaos roar'd,

And felt tenfold confufion in their
fall

Through his wild anarchy, fo
huge a rout
Incumber'd him with ruin.

We muft fuppofe him therefore to
fpeak according to his own frighted
and disturb'd imagination; he might
conceive that fo much

Ruin upon ruin, rout on rout,
Confufion worse confounded

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Back to the gates of Heav'n: the fulphurous hail
Shot after us in ftorm, o'erblown hath laid
The fiery furge, that from the precipice

Of Heav'n receiv'd us falling; and the thunder,
Wing'd with red lightning and impetuous rage, 175
Perhaps hath spent his fhafts, and ceases now

To bellow through the vaft and boundless deep.
Let us not flip th' occafion, whether scorn,
Or fatiate fury yield it from our foe.

Seeft thou yon dreary plain, forlorn and wild, 180
The feat of defolation, void of light,

Save what the glimmering of these livid flames
Cafts pale and dreadful? Thither let us tend
From off the toffing of these fiery waves,

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There reft, if any reft can harbour there,
And re-affembling our afflicted Powers,
Confult how we may henceforth most offend
Our enemy, our own lofs how repair,
How overcome this dire calamity,

What reinforcement we may gain from hope,
If not what refolution from despair.

Thus Satan talking to his nearest mate
With head up-lift above the wave, and eyes
That sparkling blaz'd, his other parts befides
Prone on the flood, extended long and large
Lay floting many a rood, in bulk as huge
As whom the fables name of monftrous fize,
Titanian, or Earth-born, that warr'd on Jove,

Pectora quorum inter fluctus arrecta, jubæque

185

190

195

Briareos

Per tota novem cui jugera eorpus Porrigitur.

2

Sanguineæ exuperant undas; pars And alfo that of the old dragon

cætera pontum

Pone legit.

196. Lay floting many a rood,} A rood is the fourth part of an acre, so that the bulk of Satan is express'd by the fame fort of measure, as that of one of the giants in Virgil, En. VI. 596.

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in Spenfer. Fairy Queen B. 1. Cant. 11. St. 8.

That with his largenefs measured much land.

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Briareos or Typhon, whom the den

By ancient Tarfus held, or that fea-beast
Leviathan, which God of all his werks
Created hugeft that swim th' ocean stream:
Him haply flumb'ring on the Norway foam
The pilot of fome fmall night-founder'd skiff

199. Briareos] So Milton writes it, that it may be pronounced as four fyllables; and not Briareus, which is pronounced as three. Et centumgeminus Briareus. Virg. Æn. VI. 287. And Briareus with all his hundred hands. Dryden.

199.

— or Typhon, whom the den By ancient Tarfus held,] Typhon is the fame with Typhoeus. That the den of Typhoeus was in Cilicia, of which Tarfus was a celebrated city, we are told by Pindar and Pomponius Mela. I am much miftaken, if Milton did not make ufe of Farnaby's note on Ovid Met. V. 347. to which I refer the reader. He took ancient Tarfus perhaps from Nonnus:

Ταρσ θ αειδομένη πρωτοπζολες which is quoted in Lloyd's Dictionary. Fortin.

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Deeming

beaft, and attributes fcales to it: and yet by fome things one would think that he took it rather for a whale (as was the general opinion) there being no crocodiles upon the coafts of Norway, and what follows being related of the whale, but never, as I have heard, of the crocodile.

202. Created bugeft &c.] This verfe is found fault with as being too rough and absonous, but that is not a fault but a beauty here, as it better expreffes the hugeness and unwieldinefs of the creature, and no doubt was defign'd by the author.

204. night-founder'd skiff] Some little boat, whofe pilot dares not proceed in his course for fear of the dark night; a metaphor taken from a founder'd horfe that can go no farther. Hume. Dr. Bentley reads nigh-founder'd; but the common reading is better, becaufe if (as the Doctor fays) Leviathan,] The belt critics feem foundering is finking by a leaking now to be agreed, that the author in the fhip, it would be of little of the book of Job by the levia- ufe to the pilot to fix his anchor onthan meant the crocodile; and Mil- an iland, the fkiff would fink notton defcribes it in the fame man- withstanding, if leaky. By nightner partly as a fi and partly as a founder'd Milton means overtaken

200. that fea-beaft

by

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