In knowledge, as the Gods who all things know; 805. Though others envy what 811. And I perhaps am secret ;] She questions even God's omniscience, and flatters herself that she is still in secret, like other sinners, who say, The Lord shall not see, neither shall the God 805 810 815 of Jacob regard it, Psal. xciv. 7. 815. Our great forbidder, safe with all his spies About him.] Dr. Bentley declares safe to be pure nonsense here, and therefore alters the verse thus, Our great forbidder's eye, with all his spies &c. But safe signifies here as in the vulgar phrases, I have him safe, or he is safe asleep where not the safety of the person secured or asleep is meant, but the safety of others with respect to any danger from him. This is indeed a sense of the word not usual in poetry; but common speech will justify it so far, as to make the Doctor's emendation unnecessary. Pearce. 818. and give him to partake Full happiness with me, or rather not, In female sex, the more to draw his love, This may be well but what if God have seen, 820 825 his favourite Milton, in this place and in i. 736. -and gave to rule, Each in his hierarchy, the orders 823. -and perhaps, time Superior; for inferior who is free?] There is a very humourous tale in Chaucer, which is also versified by Dryden, wherein the question is proposed, what it is that women most affect and desire? Some say wealth, some beauty, some flattery, some in short one thing, and some another; but the true answer is sovereignty. And the thought of attaining the superiority over her husband is very artfully made one of the first that Eve entertains after her eating of the forbidden fruit: but still her love of Adam and jealousy of another Eve prevail even over that; so just is the observation of Solomon, Cant. viii. 6. Love is strong as death, jealousy is cruel as the grave. Shall live with her enjoying, I extinct; A death to think. Confirm'd then I resolve, So saying, from the tree her step she turn'd, As reapers oft are wont their harvest queen. 832. So dear I love him, that with him all deaths I could endure, without him live no life.] How much stronger and more pathetic is this than that of Horace, Od. iii. ix. 24. Tecum vivere amem, tecum obeam libens ! 835. But first low reverence done, as to the Power That dwelt within,] Eve falling into idolatry upon the taste of the forbidden tree, as the first fruit of disobedience, is finely imagined. Richardson. -Adam the while &c.] Andromache is thus described as amusing herself, and prepar 838. 830 835 840 845 ing for the return of Hector, not knowing that he was already slain by Achilles. Hom. Iliad. xxii. 440. Aλx' ny' 150v ¿Quive. &c. 845. -divine of something ill,] Foreboding something ill; a Latin phrase, as in Hor. od. iii. xxvii. 10. Imbrium divina avis imminentum : and again, De Arte Poet. 218. 846. —he the faltʼring measure felt ;] He found his heart kept not true time, he felt the false and intermitting measure; the natural description of our minds And forth to meet her went, the way she took Came prologue, and apology too prompt, 850 Which with bland words at will she thus address'd. 855 Thy presence, agony of love till now Not felt, nor shall be twice, for never more Mean I to try, what rash untried I sought, The pain of absence from thy sight. But strange To open eyes, and make them Gods who taste; foreboding ill, by the unequal 851. A bough of fairest fruit, smell diffus'd.] Ipse ego cana legam tenerâ lanu gine mala. Virg. Ecl. ii. 51. and ambrosial smell diffused, Virgil's very words, 860 865 Hath eaten of the fruit, and is become, Not dead, as we are threaten'd, but thenceforth 870 875 880 885 Thus Eve with count'nance blithe her story told; But in her cheek distemper flushing glow'd. 875. -opener mine eyes, And growing up to Godhead ;] Milton in the manner of expression here seems pretty plainly to allude to what Thyrsis in Tasso's Aminta says of himself upon his seeing Phoebus and the Muses. Act i. sc. 2. Sentii mè far di mé stesso maggiore, 890 890. Astonied stood and blank, while horror chill Ran through his veins, and all his joints relax'd;] Obstupuere animi, gelidusque per Ossa tremor. Virg. Æn. ii. 120. En. xii. 951. 890.] See note on Psalm vi. 21. E. Thyer. |