Page images
PDF
EPUB

Spangling the hemisphere: then first adorn'd

385

With their bright luminaries that set and rose,
Glad evening and glad morn crown'd the fourth day.
And God said, Let the waters generate
Reptile with spawn abundant, living soul:
And let fowl fly above the earth, with wings
Display'd on the' open firmament of heaven.
And God created the great whales, and each
Soul living, each that crept, which plenteously
The waters generated by their kinds,

And every bird of wing after his kind;

390

And saw that it was good, and bless'd them, saying, 395

387. And God said, &c.] This and eleven verses following are almost word for word from Genesis i. 20, 21, 22. And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and .God saw that it was good. And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth. This is the general account of the fifth day's creation, and the poet afterwards branches it out into the several particulars.

388. Reptile with spawn abundant, living soul:] By reptile is meant creeping thing; and according to the marginal reading of our English version, Gen. i.

20. (which follows the LXX version here,) creeping things are said to have been created on the fifth day. Le Clerc too with the generality of interpreters renders the Hebrew word by reptile. To this Dr. Bentley ob jects that creeping things were created on the sixth day, according to the account given us by Moses and by Milton himself. But by reptile or creeping thing here Milton means all such creatures as move in the waters, (see Le Clerc's note on Gen. i. 20.) and by creeping thing mentioned in the sixth day's creation he means creeping things of the earth; for so both in Milton's account, ver. 452. and in Gen. i. 24. the words of the earth are to be joined in construction to creeping thing. Hence the objection is answered by saying that they were not the same creeping things which Milton mentions in the two places. Pearce.

Be fruitful, multiply, and in the seas

And lakes and running streams the waters fill;
And let the fowl be multiplied on th' earth.
Forthwith the sounds and seas, each creek and bay
With fry innumerable swarm, and shoals

400

Of fish that with their fins and shining scales
Glide under the green wave, in sculls that oft
Bank the mid sea: part single or with mate
Graze the sea weed their pasture, and through groves

400. With fry innumerable swarm, &c.] One would wonder how the poet could be so concise in his description of the six days' works, as to comprehend them within the bounds of an episode, and at the same time so particular, as to give us a lively idea of them. This is still more remarkable in his account of the fifth and sixth days, in which he has drawn out to our view the whole animal creation from the reptile to the behemoth. As the lion and the leviathan are two of the noblest productions in the world of living creatures, the reader will find a most exquisite spirit of poetry in the account which our author gives us of them. The sixth day concludes with the formation of man, upon which the angel takes occasion, as he did after the battle in heaven, to remind Adam of his obedience, which was the principal design of this his visit. Addison.

402. -in sculls that oft Bank the mid sea:] Shoals of fish so vast, that they appear like mighty banks in the midst of the sea. Sculls and shoals are vast multitudes of

fish, of the Saxon sceole, an assembly. Hume.

Shoals in sculls seems an odd expression; would not shoals and sculls be better?

404. and through groves Of coral stray,]

Coral is a production of the sea. The learned Kircher supposes entire forests of it to grow at the bottom of the sea, which may justify our author's expression of groves of coral. The ancients believed that it was soft under the water and hardened in the air. Ovid has expressed this notion very prettily in Met. iv. 750.

Nunc quoque curaliis eadem natura

remansit,

Duritiem tacto capiant ut ab aëre; quodque

Vimen in æquore erat, fiat super æquora saxum.

The pliant sprays of coral yet de

clare

Their stiffning nature, when expos'd to air.

Those sprays, which did like bending osiers move,

Snatch'd from their element, ob

durate prove,

And shrubs beneath the waves,

grow stones above.

Eusden.

404. Coral is in reality pro

Of coral stray, or sporting with quick glance
Show to the sun their wav'd coats dropt with gold,
Or in their pearly shells at ease, attend
Moist nutriment, or under rocks their food
In jointed armour watch: on smooth the seal,
And bended dolphins play: part huge of bulk
Wallowing unwieldy', enormous in their gait
Tempest the ocean: there leviathan,
Hugest of living creatures, on the deep

duced by marine insects, and is equally hard, in the water, and when taken out of it. See particularly the curious account of coral-reefs, in Captain Flinders's Voyage to Terra Australis, or the Quarterly Review, vol. xii. art. 1. E.

409. In jointed armour] The reader cannot but be pleased with the beauty of this metaphor. The shells of lobsters, &c. and armour very much resemble one another; and in the civil wars there was a regiment of horse so completely armed, that they were called Sir Arthur Haslerig's lobsters. Possibly Milton might be thinking of them at this very time.

409. -on smooth the seal, And bended dolphins play :] The seal or sea-calf and the dolphin are observed to sport on smooth seas in calm weather. The dolphin is called bended, not that he really is so more than any other fish, but only appears crooked, as he forms an arch by leaping out of the water and instantly dropping into it again with his head foremost. Ovid therefore describes him

4.05

410

tergo delphina recurvo. Fast. ii. 113. and his sportive nature is alluded to by Virgil, Æn. v. 594.

Delphinum similes; qui per maria
humida nando
Carpathium Libycumque secant, lu-
duntque per undas.

And how smooth is the verse that describes the seal and dolphin sporting upon the smooth water!

-on smooth the seal And bended dolphins play:

as in the rough measures following one almost sees porpoises and other unwieldy creatures tumbling about in the ocean.

412. Tempest the ocean:] Milton has here with very great art and propriety adopted the Italian verb tempestare. Thyer.

412. there leviathan,] The best critics and commentators upon Job by the leviathan understand the crocodile, and Milton in several particulars describes the leviathan like the author of the book of Job, and yet by others it seems as if he meant the whale. See the note upon book i. 200.

Stretch'd like a promontory sleeps or swims
And seems a moving land, and at his gills
Draws in, and at his trunk spouts out a sea.

415

Mean while the tepid caves, and fens and shores
Their brood as numerous hatch, from th' egg that soon
Bursting with kindly rupture forth disclos'd

Their callow young, but feather'd soon and fledge 420
They summ'd their pens, and soaring th' air sublime
With clang despis'd the ground, under a cloud
In prospect; there the eagle and the stork
On cliffs and cedar tops their eyries build :
Part loosely wing the region, part more wise
In common, rang'd in figure wedge their way,

[blocks in formation]

425

of birds seemed as when a cloud passes over it. Richardson.

423. there the eagle and the stork

On cliffs and cedar tops their

eyries build :] These birds build their eyries, that is, their nests, in such high places. In Job xxxix. 27, 28. it is said particularly of the eagle, Doth the eagle mount up at thy command, and make her nest on high? She dwelleth and abideth on the rock, upon the crag of the rock, and the strong place. And Pliny says of them, Nidificant in petris et arboribus. L. x.

sect. 4.

426. rang'd in figure wedge their way,] Pliny has described certain birds of passage, flying in the form of a wedge, and spreading wider and wider. Those behind rest upon those before, till the leaders being tired are in their turn received into the rear. A tergo sensim

Intelligent of seasons, and set forth

Their airy caravan high over seas

Flying, and over lands with mutual wing

430

Easing their flight; so steers the prudent crane
Her annual voyage, borne on winds; the air
Floats, as they pass, fann'd with unnumber'd plumes:
From branch to branch the smaller birds with song
Solac'd the woods, and spread their painted wings
Till ev'n, nor then the solemn nightingale

dilatante se cuneo porrigitur
agmen, largèque impellenti præ-
betur auræ. Colla imponunt
præcedentibus: fessos duces ad
terga recipiunt. Nat. Hist. 1. x.
sect. 32. But as this migration
of birds is one of the most won-
derful instincts of nature, it may
be proper to add some better
authorities to explain and jus-
tify our author than Pliny. Jer.
viii. 7. takes notice of this re-
markable instinct; Yea the stork
in the heaven knoweth her ap-
pointed times, and the turtle, and
the crane, and the swallow, ob-
serve the time of their coming,
&c. So very intelligent are they
of seasons. And as Milton in-
stances in the crane particularly,
we will quote what the inge-
nious author of Spectacle de la
Nature says upon this occasion.
Dial. xi." As to wild ducks
"and cranes, both the one and
"the other at the approach of
"winter fly in quest of more
"favourable climates. They all
"assemble at a certain day like
"swallows and quails. They
" decamp at the same time, and
"it is very agreeable to observe
"their flight. They generally
themselves in a long
range

435

"column like an I, or in two
"lines united in a
"lines united in a point like a
"V reversed." And so as Mil-
"ton says,

"-rang'd in figure wedge their way.

"The duck or quail, who forms "the point, cuts the air, and "facilitates a passage to those "who follow; but he is charged "with this commission only for "a certain time, at the conclu"sion of which he wheels into "the rear, and another takes

"his post." And thus as Milton says,

--with mutual wing Easing their flights.

435. nor then the solemn

nightingale &c.] If the reader has not taken particular notice of it, he will be surprised as well as pleased to see in how many passages and with what admiration Milton speaks of this charming songster. He compares his own making verses in his blindness to the nightingale's singing in the dark. iii. 87.

Then feed on thoughts, that voluntary move

Harmonious numbers; as the wakeful bird

« PreviousContinue »