"Will be aveng'd; and the other's faith, approv'd, To which our sire: To whom thus Michael: "Death thou hast seen "Before thee shall appear, that thou mayst know "Shall bring on men." Immediately a place Before his eyes appear'd, sad, noisome, dark: 2 Dropsies, and asthmas, and joint-racking rheums. Dire was the tossing, deep the groans! Despair 4so Tended the sick, busiest from couch to couch;' •aid before, and as the best Hebrew and Christian commentators understand the passage.-UV.) i Febrium cohors.—(Hor., T.) These lines (485—487) were introduced in the second edition, and Benlley would reject them. He objects to "phrensy, melancholy, and lunacy" being made thapet of death, as they are often attended with long life; but Pearce replies, that they are attended with misery, and so explains line 476. "Marasinus," μxpoμos, consumption accompanied by fever gradually wasting the body. "Atrophy," popix, a disease in which food has no power to sustain the body. > This is entirely in the picturesque manner of Spenser, and seems particularly to allude to that beautiful passage, (Fairy Queen, II. vii. 21—24), when describing the passage to "Pluto's grisly reign," he represents Pain, Strife, Revenge, etc. as so many 519 And over them triumphant Death his dart 66 Degraded—to what wretched state reserv'd! 66 66 Under inhuman pains? Why should not man, "In part, from such deformities be free, "And, for his Maker's image' sake, exempt?" 5 persons assembled; and over Ihem sat Horrour soaring with grim hue, and beating bis iron wings, etc.—(Th.) i See Tibull. Elcg. I. i. 63, where there is the combination of "heart or rock" and "dry eyed."—(D.) » Whalley and Dunslor have remarked that Milton's mind must have been impressed with the following passages from Shakspeare's Macbeth, Hen. V. "And thou oppos'd be not of woman born-- But all my mother came unto my eyes 3 "And" couples "renewed" here to "wept" before.—(P,) See Edip. Colon. 1288: Μη φύναι του απαντα για και λόγον, το δ' επει φατη Βήναι κείθεν όθεν περ ήκει Πολυ δεύτερον, ως τάχιστα. — (Stll.) The image of Appetite, the brutish vice, which is here personified as a carnal demon.—(N.) Leading to, from induco. 554 66 Therefore so abject is their punishment, "While they pervert pure nature's healthful rules "Till many years over thy head return: "So mayst thou live; till, like ripe fruit, thou drop "Gather'd, not harshly pluck'd, for death mature. 3 "This is Old Age; but then, thou must outlive 4 "To weigh thy spirits down, and last consume To whom our ancestor: "My dissolution." Michael replied: 6 "Nor love thy life, nor hate; but, what thou liv'st, i See Rom. i. SI, 24.—(Gil.) » Ne quid nimis; an old maxim of philosophy. » How much more dignified and poetic is Ihis summary than the shocking details of the miseries of old age which Juvenal gives, Sat. x. "Damp" here means depression of spirits, dejection 8 Job xlv. !4.-(GiZ.) e A Latinism, quod vivii, whatever life you live. "Nor love thy life, nor hale." Martia , %. "Snmmum ncc metuas diem, Hoc orles."—(N.) ^ Perniill Phis. Hor. i. Od. ix.-.N.) 582 "And now prepare thee for another sight." He look'd, and saw a spacious plain, whereon First his own tools; then, what might else be wrought But on the hither side, a different sort From the high neighbouring hills, which was their scat, Just men they secm'd, and all their study bent Not hid; nor those things last, which might preserve i A "fugue" is in music Ihc correspondency of parls, answering one another in the same notes either above or below, therefore elegantly styled resonant, as sounding the tame notes over again.—(H.) From Lucretius, v. 1240:— "Quod superest, æs atqne aurum, ferrumque rcpcrlum est, Poteslat ignis expresses the consuming power of fire. So "potenlia solis." Virg.— (Jortin.) Gliding hot to some cave's mouth." Boiling up from the recesses of the earth to the mouth of some cave, where the smith first found it; the heat of the burned wood above working into the earth, and there melting the ore which boiled up. > The descendants of Cain are first mentioned; after these, the descendants of the younger brother Selh, who were righteous meh, and therefore of a different sort; these came from the hills adjacent to Paradise, where their residence was, to the plain where the descendants of Cain dwelt, (Cain having been banished far off into the low country,) and there became corrupted by their intercourse with the female descendants of Cain. See Gen. iv. 20, etc. Though these accounts of the Sethites be in general conformable to Scripture, yet these particulars Milton seems to have taken from the oriental writers, particularly the annals of Eutychius. Josephus, Antiq. b. i. c. 2, says they were addicted to the study of natural philosophy, especially of astronomy.—(N.) A company; a word often used by the old English poets. 592 In gems and wanton dress; to the harp they sung The men, though grave, eyed them ; and let their eyes Fast caught, they lik'd; and each his liking chose. < The description of the shield of Achilles is one of the finest and most admired pieces of poetry in the whole Iliad; and Milton has plainly shown his admiration and affection for it by introducing in this visionary part of his work so many analogous scenes and images; but they exceed the originals, and receive this additional beauty, that they are most of them made representations of real history and matters of fact. Thus, this passage, and ver. 583 and 584— To the harp they sung is a beautiful copy of Homer, II. xviii. 491 : (See also Hesiod, Scut. Hercul. 272.—Stil.) So ver. 429—431 and 556—558, before, are taken from Homer, ver. 550, etc.:— Εν δ' ετίθει τεμενος βαθυληΐον ενθα ε εριθει Ημων, οξείας δρέπανας εν χερσιν έχοντες" Δραγματα για αλλα μετ' αγμον επήτριμα πιπτον έραζε Αλλα ο αμαλλοθετηρες εν ελλεδανοισι δεοντο. And ver. 587, etc.: Εν δε νόμον ποιησε περικλυτος Αμφιγυήεις Εν καλη βηστη μεγαν οιων αργεννάων, Σταθμούς τε, κλισιας τε, κατηρεφέας ιδε σήκους. In like manner, the driving away of the sheep and oxen from pasture, and the battle that ensues thereupon (ver. 646, etc.), may be compared with the following passage in Homer, ver. 526, etc.:— Οι μεν τα προϊδοντες επέδραμον, ωχα δ' έπειτα ως ουν επύθοντο πολυν κελαδον αμφι βουσιν, Στησαμενοι δ' εμάχοντο μαχην ποταμοιο παρ' όχθας, The representation of the city besieged, in Milton, ver. 655, etc. is a great improvement on that in Homer, ver. 509, etc.: Την وال ετέρην πολιν αμφι δυο στρατοι ειατο λαών Τεύχεσι λαμπομενει. So the council, in Milton, ver. 660, etc. is much more elaborately described, and appears more important than that in Homer, ver. 503, etc. : |