This downfall; since by fate1 the strength of gods Since through experience of this great event Who now triumphs, and in the excess of joy So spake the apostate angel, though in pain, That with sad overthrow and foul defeat Though all our glory extinct, and happy state But what if he our Conqueror (whom I now Of force believe almighty, since no less Than such could have o'erpowered such force as ours) Strongly to suffer and support our pains, 1 Satan supposes the angels to subsist by fate and necessity, and he represents them of an empyreal, that is a fiery substance, as the Scripture itself doth: "He maketh his angels spirits, and his ministers a flame of fire," Psalm civ. 4, Heb. i. 7. Satan disdains to submit, since the angels (as he says) are necessarily immortal, and cannot be destroyed, and since, too, they are now improved in experience, and may hope to carry on the war more successfully, notwithstanding the present triumph of their adversary in Heaven.-Newton. Or do his errands in the gloomy deep; Whereto with speedy words the arch fiend replied. Back to the gates of heaven: the sulphurous hail 1 Dr. Bentley has really made a very material objection to this and some other passages of the poem, wherein the good angels are represented as pursuing the rebel host with fire and thunderbolts down through Chaos even to the gates of Hell; as being contrary to the account which the angel Raphael gives to Adam in the Sixth Book. And it is certain that there the good angels are ordered to "stand still only and behold," and the Messiah alone expels them out of Heaven; and after he has expelled them, and Hell has closed upon them, vi. 880 "Sole victor from the expulsion of his foes, With jubilee advanced." These accounts are plainly contrary the one to the other; but the author does not therefore contradict himself, nor is one part of his scheme inconsistent with another. For it should be considered, who are the persons that give these different accounts. In Book vi., the angel Raphael is the speaker, and therefore his account may be depended upon as the genuine and exact truth of the matter. But in the other passages Satan himself or some of his angels are the speakers; and they were too proud and obstinate ever to acknowledge the Messiah for their conqueror; as their rebellion was raised on his account, they would never own his superiority; they would rather ascribe their defeat to the whole host of Heaven than to him alone; or if they did indeed imagine their pursuers to be so many Shot after us in storm, o'erblown hath laid Seest thou yon dreary plain, forlorn and wild, Save what the glimmering of these livid flames Thus Satan, talking to his nearest mate, in number, their fears multiplied them, and it serves admirably to express how much they were terrified and confounded. In Book vi., 830, the noise of his chariot is compared to the "sound of a numerous host;" and perhaps they might think that a numerous host were really pursuing. In one place, indeed, we have Chaos speaking thus, ii. 996 "and Heaven gates Poured out by millions her victorious bands Pursuing." But what a condition was Chaos in during the fall of the rebel angels? See vi. 871 "Nine days they fell; confounded Chaos roared, And felt tenfold confusion in their fall Through his wild anarchy, so huge a rout Incumbered him with ruin.' We must suppose him therefore to speak according to his own frighted and disturbed imagination.-Newton. By ancient Tarsus held,1 or that sea-beast Moors by his side under the lee, while night So stretched out huge in length the arch-fiend lay, Then with expanded wings he steers his flight 1 Typhon is the same with Typhoeus. That the den of Typhoëus was in Cilicia, of which Tarsus was a celebrated city, we are told by Pindar and Pomponius Mela. 2 Milton seems to regard the leviathan as identical with the whale. The various and conflicting opinions on the subject are well detailed by Barnes on Job, xli. 1. General conclusion seems in favour of the crocodile. As far as Milton is concerned, I think he had in mind the stories of the kraken, or some other gigantic species of cuttle-fish, which have been said to appear in the Norwegian seas. The reader will call to mind the similar story in "Sinbad the Sailor." • See Lane's Arabian Nights. 3 i. e. overtaken by night, and thereby hindered from proceeding. 4 This conceit of the "air's feeling unusual weight" is borrowed from Spenser, who, speaking of the old dragon, says, b. i. cant. ii. st. 1866 Then with his waving wings displayed wide, Himself up high he lifted from the ground, And with strong flight did forcibly divide The yielding air, which nigh too feeble found Her flitting parts, and element unsound, To bear so great a weight." Thyer. That felt unusual weight, till on dry land With stench and smoke: such resting found the sole "Is this the region, this the soil, the clime," Said then the lost archangel, "this the seat That we must change for Heaven, this mournful gloom For that celestial light? Be it so, since he Who now is Sovran3 can dispose and bid What shall be right: farthest from him is best, Whom reason hath equalled, force hath made supreme Where joy for ever dwells! Hail horrors, hail 4 Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven. And what I should be, all but less than he 1 Rather read "winds," with Pearce. 2 The Cape di Faro, a promontory of Sicily, about a mile and a half from Italy.-See Virg. Æn. iii. 6 and 7. 3 So Milton rightly spells it, according to its derivation from the Italian sovrano. 4 These are some of the Stoical extravagances, placed by Milton in the mouth of Satan, by way of ridicule. 5 Some read "albeit." |