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BOOK XII.

The angel Michael continues, from the flood, to relate what shall succeed : then, in mention of Abraham, comes by degrees to explain, who that seed of the woman shall be, which was promised Adam and Eve in the tall: his incarnation, death, resurrection, and ascension: the state of the church till his second coming. Adam, greatly satisfied and recomforted by these relations and promises, descends the hill with Michael; wakens Eve, who all this while had slept, but with gentle dreams composed to quietness of mind and submission. Michael in either hand leads them out of Paradise, the fiery sword waving behind them, and the Cherubim taking their stations to guard the place.

As one who in his journey bates at noon,
Though bent on speed; so here the archangel paus'd,
Betwixt the world destroy'd and world restor'd,
If Adam aught perhaps might interpose:
Then, with transition sweet, new speech resumes:

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"Thus thou hast seen one world begin and end;
"And man, as from a second stock, proceed.
"Much thou hast yet to see; but I perceive

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Thy mortal sight to fail: objects divine

"Must needs impair and weary human sense:
"Henceforth what is to come I will relate;
"Though therefore give due audience, and attend.
"This second source of men, while yet but few,
"And while the dread of judgment past remains
"Fresh in their minds, fearing the Deity,
"With some regard to what is just and right
"Shall lead their lives, and multiply apace,
"Lab'ring the soil, and reaping plenteous crop,

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Corn, wine, and oil; and, from the herd or flock "Oft sacrificing bullock, lamb, or kid,

"With large wine offerings pour'd, and sacred feast, s» "Shall spend their days in joy unblam'd; and dwell

» These five lines were inserted in the second edition.—"Transition." Dunsler remarks, that this word is here used in the classical sense oi iransilus, or (ranrilio orationis, which was a high rhetorical beauty. In the Rhelorica ad Herennium, iv. 35, il is thus defined: "Transition showelh briefly what hath been said, ami proposelh litewise in brief what followclh. This embellishment contributes to two things, it reminds •he reader of what hath been spoken, and prepares him for what is to come." Quintilian often speaks of Irantilivn as a graceful decoration to a speech.

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"Long time in peace, by families and tribes,
"Under paternal rule; till one shall rise
"Of proud ambitious heart, who, not content
"With fair equality, fraternal state,

"Will arrogate dominion undeserv'd
"Over his brethren, and quite dispossess
"Concord and law of nature from the earth;
"Hunting (and men, not beasts, shall be his game)
"With war, and hostile snare, such as refuse

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Subjection to his empire tyrannous:

"A mighty hunter thence he shall be styl'd
"Before the Lord; as in despite of heaven,
"Or from heaven, claiming second sov'reignty;
"And from rebellion shall derive his name,

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Though of rebellion others he accuse.

"He with a crew (whom like ambition joins
"With him or under him to tyrannize,)
"Marching from Eden tow'rds the west, shall find
"The plain, wherein a black bituminous gurge
"Boils out from underground—the mouth of hell.
"Of brick, and of that stuff, they cast to build
"A city, and tower whose top may reach to heaven'
"And get themselves a name; lest, far dispers'd
"In foreign lands, their memory be lost;
"Regardless whether good or evil fame.
"But God, who oft descends to visit men

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Unseen, and through their habitations walks "To mark their doings, them beholding soon, "Comes down to see their city,' ere the tower "Obstruct heaven-towers; and in derision sets

i It is generally believed that Nimrod was the first who laid the foundation of kingly government among mankind; the primitive government being by families and tribes. In Gen. x. 9 it is said, that "he was a mighty hunter before the Lord." Milton, on the authority of several learned commentators, understands this in the worst sense, of hunting men, not beasts, (ver. 30.) The words "before the Lord," openly in the face of God, St. Augustine translates "against the Lord," and Valablus and others interpret them as meaning "under the Lord," usurping all authority to himself next under God, and claiming it jure divino, as was done in Milton's own time. Milton takes in both interpretations (ver. 34, 35), as he often does when quoting a scriptural passage of various meaning. So he adopts the most unfavourable derivation of "Nimrod," which some give, from the Hebrew marad, to rebel, ver. 36.-N.)

» This narration of the erection of Babel is closely borrowed from Gen. xi. What our translation calls slime is in the Latin bitumen, in the Greek, atphaltos. It boiled up in fountains out of the ground in large quantities in the plain of Babylon, and was the cement used for the brickwork. Newton says, the poet calls this pool "the mouth of hell," by the same poetic figure by which the ancient poets called Tænarus or Avernus, the jaws and gales of hell.—(N.)

So Gen. xi. 5. Scripture speaks here after the manner of men; thus the heathen gods are often represented as coming down to observe the actions of men, as in the stories of Lycaon, Baucis and Philemon, etc.-(N.)

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'Upon their tongues a various spirit,1 to rase
"Quite out their native language; and, instead,
"To sow a jangling noise of words unknown.
"Forthwith a hideous gabble rises loud,

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Among the builders; each to other calls

"Not understood; till hoarse, and all in rage,

"As mock'd they storm: great laughter was in heaven,1
"And looking down, to see the hubbub strange,
"And hear the din: thus was the building left
"Ridiculous, and the work ‘Confusion' nam'd.”
Whereto thus Adam, fatherly displeas'd:

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0 execrable son! so to aspire

"Above his brethren; to himself assuming
"Authority usurp'd, from God not given:
"He gave us only over beast, fish, fowl,
"Dominion absolute; that right we hold
"By his donation: but man over men
"He made not lord; such title to himself
"Reserving, human left from human free."

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66 Stays not on man; to God his tower intends
"Siege and defiance. Wretched man! what food
"Will he convey up thither, to sustain

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Himself, and his rash army; where thin air
Above the clouds will pine his entrails gross,
"And famish him of breath, if not of bread?"
To whom thus Michael:

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Justly thou abhorr'st

"That son, who on the quiet state of men

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"Such trouble brought, affecting to subduo
"Rational liberty; yet know withal,

83 "Since thy original lapse,' true liberty

i /. e. A spirit producing variety of language, and consequently confusion, and tat eventual failure of the work.—(R.)

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• Some critics rail at this and the next line, as being beneath the dignity of the epic : then passages somewhat analogous in the Iliad and the Psalms are liable to a similar objection. Homer, II. i. 599, etc. says, laughter inextinguishable rose among the happy gods," when they saw Vulcan's hobbling gait; and as Newton quotes in Psalm il. 4, it is said, "He that sitleth in the heavens shall laugh, the Lord shall have them in derision." See also Psalm xxxvii. 13; it. 8.

'"Babel," in Hebrew, means confusion. Hence, to give effect to his description, he uses such words as "jangling noise "—hideous gabble"—" strange hubbub."—(N.)

I. e. Left mankind in full possession of their liberty, free from human usurpation See August, de Civil. Dei, xv. us.— //.)

I This not being asserted in scripture, but only supposed by some writers, is belter put into the mouth of Adam, than of the angel.—(N.)

The past tense is here used because Michael is only making a reflection on what ha

had told Adam, ver. 57, and thus speaks of it as a thing pasl.—(P.)

"By original lapse," which is another reading, makes hardly sense or syntax.

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"Is lost, which always with right reason dwells
"Twinn'd, and from her hath no dividual being: '
"Reason in man obscur'd,* or not obey'd,
"Immediately inordinate desires,

"And upstart passions, catch the government
"From reason; and to servitude reduce

"Man, till then free. Therefore, since he permits
"Within himself unworthy powers to reign
"Over free reason, God, in judgment just,
"Subjects him from without to violent lords;
"Who oft as undeservedly enthral

"His outward freedom: tyranny must be;
Though to the tyrant thereby no excuse.

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"Yet sometimes nations will decline so low

"From virtue, which is reason, that no wrong,
"But justice and some fatal curse annex'd,

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Deprives them of their outward liberty;

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"Their inward lost: witness the irreverent son
"Of him who built the ark; who, for the shams
"Done to his father, heard this heavy curse,
"'Servant of servants,' on his vicious race.

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"Thus will this latter, as the former world,
"Still tend from bad to worse; till God at last,
"Wearied with their iniquities,8 withdraw
"His presence from among them, and avert
"His holy eyes; resolving from thenceforth
"To leave them to their own polluted ways;
"And one peculiar nation to select

"From all the rest, of whom to be invok'd—
"A nation from one faithful man to spring.
"Him, on this side Euphrates yet residing,

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1 "Twinned." As if Iwin-sislers—"Dividual," divided, separated, dividual. "Reason obscured." The absolute case.

Thycr here remarks, that Milton seems to have forgotten that there is no previous mention of Adam's having seen or heard of Cham having discovered to his brothers the nakedness of their father as he slept, Gen. ii. 22, etc. and says, "the urging it by way of example seems to infer its being known to Adam, which yet it could not be." It is true the circumstance is not previously mentioned; but then, be it recollected, Adam saw Noah's worship after quitting the ark. The fact is briefly and only in general terms staled. After this there was a pause, ver. 2, Adam, in the mean time, observing (as it is just te presume) various circumstances which arc not narrated, and this among (bo rest. It was not till after that vision that the angel perceived kii mortal tight tv fait. • A.mosl a literal translation from Euripides, Hippol. 951 :

Ει γαρ κατ' ανδρος βιοτον εξαγνώσεται

ύστερος του προσθεν εις υπερβολην

Πανούργος εσται -(Τ.)

See Isaiah xliii. 2<; Hosea v. 6; Habak. i. 13; Psalm v. 5.—(D.)

• "Him" is governed by "call," ver. 121. This history of Abraham and description

"Bred up in idol-worship—(O, that men—
"Canst thou believe?—should be so stupid grown,
"While yet the patriarch lived who 'scap'd the flood,
"As to forsake the living God, and fall

"To worship their own work in wood and stone
"For gods!)—yet him God the Most High vouchsafes
"To call by vision, from his father's house,

"His kindred, and false gods, into a land
"Which He will show him, and from him will raise
"A mighty nation; and upon him shower
"His benediction so, that in his seed

"All nations shall be blest: he straight obeys—
"Not knowing to what land, yet firm believes.1
"I see him,1 (but thou canst not,) with what faith
"He leaves his gods, his friends, and native soil,
nt "Ur of Chaldæa, passing now the ford

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of the Holy Land, is copied from Gen. xi. and xii. See also Joshua xxiv. 2; Numbers xxxiv.; Deut. iii. It appears that Terah, Abraham's father, was born 222 years after the flood, and that Noah did not die till 350 years after the flood, so that he witnessed idolatry for at least 128 years.-(N., H.)

i So Heb. xi. 8.—(N.t

The poet, sensible that this long historical description might grow irksome, has varied the manner of representing it as much as possible, beginning with supposing Adam to have a prospect of it; next by making the angel the relater of it; and, lastly, by uniting the two former methods, and making Michael see it as in a vision, and give a rapturous enlivened account of it to Adam. This gives great ease to the languishing attention of the reader.-(Th.)

» Chaldea lay west of the Tigris and east of the Euphrates. He crossed the Euphrates where it was fordable. It appears that Milton conceived Haran to lie west of the Euphrates and Basnage, in his Antiquities of the Jews, says it was in Syria of Sbobah, outside Mesopotamia, in the way towards Canaan.—fJVO Dunster, on the contrary, says that it is clear, from ver. 153, where, describing the progressive journey of Abrahain, he supposes him to have advanced considerably from Haran, when be says, "Canaan he now attains," that Milton never meant to suppose Haran or Charan to hava been in Canaan. Milton seems to follow Bocharl in his Geographia Sacra, published iu 1851, in which it is laid down that Haran was in the direct way from Ur of Ihe Chaldecj, and on the western side of the river Chebar, which he forded; whereas Basnage, be says, was not born till 1653. Mow, I think, as Basnage must have consulted his predecessor, Bochart, and gives a different account of the position of Haran, there must have been established authority for this opinion, and that this authority could not have escaped Milton's almost universal scholarship; 1 am therefore rather disposed to believe, that Milton imagined Haran to have been outside of Mesopotamia, or to the west of the Euphrates, as Newton thinks: besides, the passage, "Canaan he now attains," does not necessarily imply a progressive journey, neither has his train of servants and flocks any thing to do with it; it rather appears to mean, that when in Haran he was in Canaan. As usual, he steers clear of conflicting opinions, and puts the statement in general terms. Sechcm was in Samaria. Uamalh, as Newton says, is set down as the northern boundary of the promised land, and "/ne entering into Uamalh," so often mentioned in Scripture, is the narrow path leading from the land of Canaan to Syria, through the valley which lies between Libanus and Antilibanus.—" The desert south" is the desert of Arabia, or the wilderness of Zin, or Sin.—"Hermon ;" a mountain beyond Jordan, on the north-east; "the great sea," the Mediterranean, on the coast of which stands the famous Mount Carmcl. Though, strictly speaking, Canaan was no more than the country west of the Jordan, yet it is sometimes mentioned as including tbe whole country occupied by the twelve tribes, and extending east of it.—“Seuir" is the same as Mount Hermon.

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