Can else inflict, do I repent or change,

Though changed in outward lustre, that fix'd mind
And high disdain from sense of injured merit,
That with the Mightiest raised me to contend,
And to the fierce çontention brought along
Innumerable force of Spirits arm'd,

100

That durst dislike his reign, and me preferring,

His utmost pow'r with adverse pow'r opposed

In dubious battle on the plains of Heav'n,

And shook his throne. What though the field be lost?

105

That glory never shall his wrath or might
Extort from me To bow and sue for grace
With suppliant knee, and deify his pow'r,

Who from the terror of this arm so late

110

Doubted his empire; that were low indeed!

That were an ignominy and shame beneath

115

This downfall: since by fate the strength of Gods
And this empyreal substance cannot fail,

with mysterious pleasure, as on a miraculous manifestation of the power of mind. What chains us, as with a resistless spell, in such a character, is spiritual might (might of soul), made visible by the racking pains which it overpowers. There is something kindling and ennobling in the consciousness, however awakened, of the energy which resides in mind; and many a virtuous man has borrowed new strength from the force, constancy, and dauntless courage of evil agents."

109. Overcome in some editions an interrogation point is placed after this word, but improperly; for, as Pearce remarks, the line means, ‘and if there be anything else (besides the particulars mentioned) which is not to be overcome.' 110. That glory: referring to the possession of an unconquerable will, and the other particulars mentioned 107–9. 114. Doubted his empire : that is, doubted the stability of it.

116. Fate. Satan supposes the angels to subsist by necessity, and reprethem of an empyreal, that is, fiery substance, as the Scripture does, Ps. Heb. i. 7. Satan disdains to submit, since the angels (as he says) are immortal and cannot be destroyed, and since too they are now experience.

Since through experience of this great event
In arms not worse, in foresight much advanced,
We may with more successful hope resolve

To wage by force or guile eternal war,
Irreconcileable to our grand foe,

Who now triumphs, and in th' excess of joy
Sole reigning holds the tyranny of heav'n.

So spake th' apostate Angel, though in pain,
Vaunting aloud, but rack'd with deep despair :
And him thus answer'd soon his bold compeer.

O Prince, O Chief of many throned powers!
That led the embattled Seraphim to war
Under thy conduct, and in dreadful deeds
Fearless, endanger'd heav'n's perpetual King,
And put to proof his high supremacy,

120

125

130

Whether upheld by strength, or chance, or fate;
Too well I see and rue the dire event,

That with sad overthrow and foul defeat

135

Hath lost us heav'n, and all this mighty host

In horrible destruction laid thus low,

As far as Gods and heav'nly essences

Can perish; for the mind and spirit remains
Invincible, and vigor soon returns,

140

Though all our glory extinct, and happy state
Here swallow'd up in endless misery

But what if he our conqu'ror (whom I now

Of force believe almighty, since no less

Than such could have overpower'd such force as ours)

Have left us this our spirit and strength entire

146

Strongly to suffer and support our pains,
That we may so suffice his vengeful ire,
Or do him mightier service as his thralls
By right of war, whate'er his business be
Here in the heart of Hell to work in fire,
Or do his errands in the gloomy deep;
What can it then avail, though yet we feel

129. Seraphim. Compare with Isaiah vi. 2-6. An order of ar the throne of God.

150

Strength undiminish'd, or eternal being

To undergo eternal punishment?

155

Whereto with speedy words th' Arch-Fiend replied:

Fall'n Cherub, to be weak is miserable

Doing or suffering: but of this be sure,
To do aught good nevek will be our task,
But ever to do ill our sole delight,
As being the contrary to his high will
Whom we resist. If then his providence.
Out of our evil seek to bring forth good,
Our labor must be to pervert that end,

And out of good still to find means of evil;
Which oft-times may succeed, so as perhaps
Shall grieve him, if I fail not, and disturb

His inmost counsels from their destined aim.
But see, the angry victor hath recall'd

His ministers of vengeance and pursuit
Back to the gates of Heav'n; the sulph'rous hail
Shot after us in storm, o'erblown hath laid
The fiery surge, that from the precipice
Of Heav'n received us falling; and the thunder,
Wing'd with red lightning and impetuous rage,
Perhaps hath spent his shafts, and ceases now
To bellow through the vast and boundless deep,
Let us not slip th' occasion, whether scorn

160

165

170

175

157. Cherub. One of an order of angels next in rank to a seraph. Compare with Gen. iii. 24. Ezek. ch. x.

169. The account here given by Satan differs materially from that which Raphael gives, book vi. 880, but this is satisfactorily explained by referring to the circumstances of the two relators. Raphael's account may be considered as the true one; but, as Newton remarks, in the other passages Sɛtan himself is the speaker, or some of his angels; and they were too proud and obstinate 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. In book vi. 830 the noise of his chariot is compared to the sound of a numerous host; and perhaps their fears led them to think that they were really pursued by a numerous army. And what a sublime idea does it give us of the terrors of the Messiah, that he alone should be a formidable, as if the whole host of Heaven were in pursuit of them.

Or satiate fury yield it from our foe.

Seest thou yon dreary plain, forlorn and wild,
The seat of desolation, void of light,
Save what the glimm'ring of these livid flames
Casts pale and dreadful? Thither let us tend
From off the tossing of these fiery waves,
There rest, if any rest can harbor there,
And reassembling our afflicted powers,

180

185

Consult how we may henceforth most offend
Our enemy, our own loss how repair,
How overcome this dire calamity,

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

190

Thus Satan talking to his nearest mate
With head uplift above the wave, and eyes
That sparkling blazed, his other parts besides
Prone on the flood, extended long and large,
Lay floating many a rood, in bulk as huge
As whom the fables name of monstrous size ;
Titanian, or Earth-born, that warr'd on Jove,

195

192. The incidents, in the passage that follows, to which Addison calls attention, are, Satan's being the first that wakens out of the general trance, hist posture on the burning lake, his rising from it, and the description of his shield and spear; also his call to the fallen angels that lay plunged and stupified in the sea of fire. (314-5.)

193. Prone on the flood, somewhat like those two monstrous serpents described by Virgil ii. 206:

Pectora quorum inter fluctus arrecta, jubæque

Sanguineæ exsuperant undas; pars cœtera pontum

Pone legit.

196. Rood, &c.: a rood is the fourth part of an acre, so that the bulk of Satan is expressed by the same sort of measure, as that of one of the giants A Virgil, Æn. vi. 596:

Per tota novem cui jugera corpus
Porrigitur.

And also that of the old dragon in Spenser's Fairy Queen, book i.

That with his largeness measured much land."

N.

198. Titanian, or Earth-born:

Genus antiquum terræ, Titania pubes

Æn. vi. 580

Briareos, or Typhon, whom the den
By ancient Tarsus held, or that sea-beast
Leviathan, which God of all his works
Created hugest that swim the ocean stream;
Him haply slumb'ring on the Norway foam
The pilot of some small night-founder'd skiff
Deeming some island, oft, as seamen tell,
With fixed anchor in his scaly rind
Moors by his side under the lea, while night
Invests the sea, and wished morn delays:

200

205

Here Milton commences that train of learned allusions which was among his peculiarities, and which he always makes poetical by some picturesque epithet, or simile.-E. B.

199. Briareos, a fabled giant (one of the Titans) possessed of a hundred hands. "Et centumgeminus Briareus." Virg. Æn. vi. 287.

201. Leviathan, a marine animal finely described in the book of Job, ch. xli. It is supposed by some to be the whale; by others, the crocodile, with less probability. See Brande's Cyc.

202. Swim the ocean-stream: What a force of imagination is there in this last expression! What an idea it conveys of the size of that largest of created beings, as if it shrunk up the ocean to a stream, and took up the sea in its nostrils as a very little thing! Force of style is one of Milton's great excellencies. Hence, perhaps, he stimulates us more in the reading, and less afterwards. The way to defend Milton against all impugners is to take down the book and read it.-HAZLITT.

This line is by some found fault with as inharmonious; but good taste approves its structure, as being on this account better suited to convey a just idea of the size of this monster.

204. Night-foundered: overtaken by the night, and thus arrested in its The metaphor, as Hume observes, is taken from a foundered horse that can go no further.

course.

207. Under the lee: in a place defended from the wind.

208. Invests the sea: an allusion to the figurative description of Night given by Spenser:

"By this the drooping daylight 'gan to fale,

And yield his room to sad succeeding night,
Who with her sable mantle 'gan to shade
The face of Earth."

Milton also, in the same taste, speaking of the moon, IV. 609:

'And o'er the dark her silver mantle threw.

N