FROM PARADISE LOST.

213

BOOK VI.

THE MESSIAH.

He, o'er his sceptre bowing, rose

From the right hand of glory where he sat ;

And the third sacred morn began to shine,

Dawning through Heaven. Forth rush'd with whirlwind sound

The chariot of Paternal Deity,

Flashing thick flames, wheel within wheel undrawn,'

Itself instinct with spirit, but convoy'd

By four cherubic shapes; four faces each

Had wondrous; as with stars, their bodies all

And wings were set with eyes; with eyes the wheels
Of beryl, and careering fires between;

Over their heads a crystal firmament,

Whereon a sapphire throne, inlaid with pure
Amber, and colours of the showery arch.
He, in celestial panoply all arm'd

Of radiant Urim,2 work divinely wrought,
Ascended; at his right hand Victory
Sat eagle-wing'd,3 beside him hung his bow
And quiver with three bolted thunder stored;
And from about him fierce effusion roll'd

Of smoke, and bickering flame, and sparkles dire:
Attended with ten thousand thousand saints,
He onward came; far off his coming shone;
And twenty thousand3 (I their number heard)
Chariots of God, half on each hand, were seen :
He on the wings of cherub rode sublime
On the crystalline sky, in sapphire throned,
Illustrious far and wide.

OVERTHROW OF THE REBEL ANGELS.

So spake the Son, and into terror changed
His countenance too severe to be beheld,
And full of wrath bent on his enemies.
At once the Four' spread out their starry wings
With dreadful shade contiguous, and the orbs
Of his fierce chariot roll'd, as with the sound

1 Ezek. i. 4-27, and Isaiah lxvi. 15.

2 See Pictorial Bible, Exod. xxviii. 30. Panoply; compare Ephes. vi. 11. The other insignia of the goddess Victory were the Laurel crown and the Palmbranch.

4 Jude 14-"His coming shone;" see 2 Thes. ii. 8.

$ Ps. lxviii. 17.

Ps. xviii. 10-14; Ps. lxviii. 4-33. Compare also Hab. iii. 3-15.
Four, i.e., the cherubic shapes of the preceding extract.

Of torrent floods, or of a numerous host.
He on his impious foes right onward drove,
Gloomy as Night,' under his burning wheels
The stedfast empyréan2 shook throughout,
All but the throne itself of God. Full soon

Among them he arrived; in his right hand
Grasping ten thousand thunders, which he sent
Before him, such as in their souls infix'd
Plagues they, astonish'd, all resistance lost,
All courage; down their idle weapons dropt:
O'er shields, and helms, and helmed heads he rode,
Of thrones and mighty seraphin prostrate,
That wish'd the mountains now might be again3
Thrown on them, as a shelter from his ire
Nor less on either side tempestuous fell
His arrows, from the fourfold-visaged Four
Distinct with eyes, and from the living wheels
Distinct alike with multitude of eyes;

One spirit in them ruled; and every eye
Glared lightning, and shot forth pernicious fire
Among the accursed, that wither'd all their strength,
And of their wonted vigour left them drain'd,
Exhausted, spiritless, afflicted, fallen.

Yet half his strength he put not forth, but check'd
His thunder in mid volley; for he meant
Not to destroy, but root them out of Heaven.
The overthrown he raised, and as a herd
Of goats or timorous flock together throng'd,
Drove them before him thunder-struck, pursued
With terrors, and with furies, to the bounds
And crystal wall of Heaven; which, opening wide,
Roll'd inward, and a spacious gap disclosed
Into the wasteful deep: the monstrous sight

Struck them with horror backward, but far worse
Urged them behind: headlong themselves they threw
Down from the verge of Heaven; eternal wrath
Burnt after them to the bottomless pit.5

1 Hom. Il. i. 47.

2 The highest heaven; the fire-region (Gr. pyr). See Ovid, Met. i. 27. Ether has the same idea, from Gr. aitho, I burn, or shine;-sky, the shadow-region (Gr. skia); -welkin, the cloud-region (Ger. wolke);-firmament, the fixed or solidregion, corresponding to the Greek stereoma;-crystalline, unites the ideas of solidity and clearness (Gr. krustallos, ice, glass);—hyaline, does the same (Gr. hualos, glass);-heaven, has been said to be the past participle of the verb heave; it seems rather to be a change of the German himmel;-lift (Scotch) has a similar origin assigned it; it is the German luft-See Book iii. 715.

Milton in the preceding battles has, in imitation of Hesiod and Ovid, in describing the Giant war, made mountains the weapons of the angels against each other. Compare Rev. iv.

Used in the literal Latin sense, punctured or spotted. The same remark applies to pernicious, a few lines below.

The critics strain panegyric in their admiration of this, and similar passages in the fifth and sixth books.

FROM PARADISE LOST.

215

BOOK XI.

MICHAEL SHEWS TO ADAM THE FUTURE KINGDOMS OF THE EARTH.

It was a hill,

Of Paradise the highest; from whose top
The hemisphere of Earth, in clearest ken,1
Stretch'd out to the amplest reach of prospect lay.

Not higher that hill, nor wider looking round,
Whereon, for different cause, the Tempter set

Our second Adam, in the wilderness;

To show him all Earth's kingdoms, and their glory.
His eye might there command wherever stood

City of old or modern fame, the seat

Of mightiest empire, from the destined walls
Of Cambalu, seat of Cathaian Can,3

6

And Samarchand by Oxus, Temir's throne,
To Paquin of Sinæan kings; and thence
To Agra and Lahor of great Mogul,
Down to the golden Chersonese; or where
The Persian in Ecbatan sat, or since
In Hispahan; or where the Russian ksar
In Mosco; or the sultan in Bizance,"
Turchestan-born; nor could his eye not ken
The empire of Negus" to his utmost port
Ercoco, and the less maritim kings
Mombaza, and Quiloa, and Melind,

1 View; reach of sight. Germ. kennen, to know.

10

? Luke iv.

Cambalu, Pekin: Cathay, China: Cathaian Can; at the period of the travels of Marco Polo, from whom these names are taken, China was subject to the successors of Genghis Khan.-See Robertson's America, Book i.

Tamerlane, or Timour Beg. Samarcand was his capital. He died on the road to China, A.D. 1405.

5 Paquin, Pekin, the same with Cambalu: "in Milton's time the geography of the far East was vague; and, having heard both names, he does not seem to have known that they referred to the same city." The Seres and the Sina, the remotest people of the East, are of doubtful locality.

The Moguls were the Mahomedan Tartar dynasty of Hindostan. Their capital was Agra, ultimately Delhi.

Malacca, and perhaps the Peguan coast, formed the Chersonnesus Aurea. Ecbatana (modern Hamadan) was the Median or north capital of the Persian empire; Susa was the southern: the former was the summer, the latter the winter residence.

• Erroneously identified with Cæsar (Kaiser, Ger.): Tzar (the correct form) is, in Slavonic, sovereign.

10 Byzantium, Constantinople. For the origin of the Turkish sultans, see Gibbon, ch. 57

11 The emperor of Abyssinia (Negus, in Ethiopic, is king): his style is "Negusa Nagaste," King of the kings, viz. of Ethiopia.-Ercoco, Arkeeko, a port on the Red Sea, on the northern frontier of Abyssinia--Less_maritime kings, inferior coast sovereigns: Mombaza, etc. are on the east shore of Africa-Bruce identifies Ophir with Sofala: from the resemblance of the syllables, it has also been conjectured to be the same with Africa generally.-Almanzor, the second of the Abassid caliphs: see Gibbon, ch. 52: after the division of the caliphate, more than one monarch of northwestern Africa bore this name.

And Sofala, thought Ophir, to the realm
Of Congo, and Angola farthest south;
Or thence from Niger flood to Atlas mount
The kingdoms of Almansor, Fez, and Sus,
Morocco, and Algiers, and Tremisen ;

On Europe thence, and where Rome was to sway
The world in spirit perhaps he also saw
Rich Mexico, the seat of Montezume,1
And Cusco in Peru, the richer seat
Of Atabalipa; and yet unspoil'd

Guiana, whose great city Geryon's sons
Call El Dorado.

HUMAN ILLS.

Immediately a place

Before his eyes appear'd, sad, noisome, dark;
A lazar-house it seem'd; wherein were laid
Numbers of all diseased: all maladies
Of ghastly spasm, or racking torture, qualms
Of heart-sick agony, all feverous kinds,
Convulsions, epilepsies, fierce catarrhs,
Intestine stone and ulcer, colic-pangs,
Demoniac phrensy, moping melancholy,
And moon-struck madness, pining atrophy,
Marasmus, and wide-wasting pestilence,
Dropsies, and asthmas, and joint-racking rheums.
Dire was the tossing, deep the groans; Despair
Tended the sick, busiest from couch to couch;
And over them, triumphant, Death his dart
Shook, but delay'd to strike.

TEMPERANCE.

Well observe

The rule of Not too much; by temperance taught,

In what thou eat'st and drink'st; seeking from thence
Due nourishment, not gluttonous delight;

Till many years over thy head return,

So may'st thou live; till, like ripe fruit, thou drop

Into thy mother's lap, or be with ease

Gather'd, not harshly pluck'd; for death mature.

This is Old Age; but then, thou must outlive

Thy youth, thy strength, thy beauty, which will change
To wither'd, weak, and gray; thy senses then,

Obtuse, all taste of pleasure must forego,

1 See Robertson's America for Montezuma, Cusco, and Atabalipa. Unbounded riches were supposed to exist in Guiana; it was in this country that Sir Walter Raleigh placed his imaginary gold mine. El-dorado (Span. the golden) has become proverbial. Geryon's sons, the Spaniards; from the ancient king of Gades (Cadiz), slain by Hercules.

2 Emaciation (Gr. maraino, I wither).

FROM PARADISE REGAINED.

To what thou hast ; and, for the air of youth,
"Hopeful and cheerful, in thy blood will reign
A melancholy damp of cold and dry

To weigh thy spirits down, and last consume
The balm of life.

EXPULSION OF ADAM AND EVE.

From the other hill

To their fix'd station, all in bright array,
The cherubim descended; on the ground
Gliding meteorous, as evening-mist

Risen from a river o'er the marish1 glides,
And gathers ground fast at the labourer's heel
Homeward returning. High in front advanced,
The brandish'd sword of God before them blazed,'
Fierce as a comet; which with torrid heat,
And vapour as the Lybian air adust,3
Began to parch that temperate clime; whereat
In either hand the hastening angel caught
Our lingering parents, and to the eastern gate
Led them direct, and down the cliff as fast
To the subjected plain; then disappear'd.
They, looking back, all the eastern side beheld
Of Paradise, so late their happy seat,
Waved over by that flaming brand; the gate
With dreadful faces throng'd, and fiery arms:
Some natural tears they dropt, but wiped them soon ;
The world was all before them, where to choose
Their place of rest, and Providence their guide:
They, hand in hand, with wandering steps and slow,
Through Eden took their solitary way.

FROM PARADISE REGAINED.

BOOK IV.

ATHENS.

Look once more, ere we leave this specular mount,
Westward, much nearer by south-west, behold
Where on the Ægean shore a city stands,
Built nobly, pure the air, and light the soil,-

1 Marsh.

2 Heber borrows this line in the "Passage of the Red Sea "-
"Blazed broad and fierce the brandished torch of God."

3 Parched (Lat. adustus).

217

"The poetical imagery of this passage is splendid, sublime, and at the same time pathetic, and of a majestic conciseness."-Brydges.

Il. ii. 546. Ancient writers celebrate the clearness and purity of the Athenian air. Eye of Greece; Sparta and Athens were termed the eyes of Greece. Athens might be peculiarly so called from her eminence in intellect. Athens was celebrated for