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Back to the gates of Heav'n: the fulphurous

hail

Shot after us in ftorm, o'erblown hath laid
The fiery furge, that from the precipice

Of Heav'n receiv'd us falling; and the thunder,
Wing'd with red lightning and impetuous rage, 175
Perhaps hath spent his fhafts, and ceafes now
To bellow through the vast and boundless deep.
Let us not flip th' occafion, whether scorn,
Or fatiate fury yield it from our foe.

Seeft thou yon dreary plain, forlorn and wild, 180
The feat of defolation, void of light,

Save what the glimmering of these livid flames
Cafts pale and dreadful? Thither let us tend
From off the toffing of these fiery waves,

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There reft, if any reft can harbour there,

And re-affembling our afflicted Powers,

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

185

What reinforcement we may gain from hope, 190 If not what refolution from despair.

Thus Satan talking to his nearest mate With head up-lift above the wave, and eyes That sparkling blaz'd, his other parts befides Prone on the flood, extended long and large 195 Lay floting many a rood, in bulk as huge As whom the fables name of monftrous fize, Titanian, or Earth-born, that warr'd on Jove, Briareos or Typhon, whom the den

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By ancient Tarfus held, or that fea-beast Leviathan, which God of all his works Created hugest that swim th' ocean stream: Him haply flumb'ring on the Norway foam The pilot of fome small night-founder'd skiff Deeming fome iland, oft, as fea-men tell,

four fyllables; and not Briareus, which is pronounced as three. Et centumgeminus Briareus.

Virg. Æn. VI. 287. And Briareus with all his hundred hands. Dryden.

199.- -or Typhon, whom the den by ancient Tarfus held,] Typhon is the fame with Typhoeus. That the den of Typhoeus was in Cilicia, of which Tarfus was a celebrated city, we are told by Pindar and Pomponius Mela. I am much miftaken, if Milton did not make

ufe of Farnaby's note on Ovid Met. V. 347. to which I refer the reader. He took ancient Tarfus perhaps from Nonnus,

Ταρσος αειδομένη πρωτοπΊολις, which is quoted in Lloyd's Dictionary. Fortin.

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200

205 With

there being no crocodiles upon the coafts of Norway, and what follows being related of the whale, but never, as I have heard, of the crocodile.

202. Created bugeft, &c.] This verfe is found fault with as being too rough and abfonous, but that is not a fault but a beauty here, as it better expreffes the hugeness and unwieldinefs of the creature, and no doubt was defign'd by the author.

202. th' ocean ftream:] The Greek and Latin poets frequently turn substantives into adjectives. So Juvenal XI. 94. according to the best copies,

Qualis in oceano fluctu testudo nataret: ver. 113. Littore ab oceano Gallis venientibus Fortin. night-founder'd Skiff]

204.

Hume.

Some little boat, whofe pilot dares not proceed in his courfe for fear of the dark night; a metaphor taken from a founder'd horfe that can go no further. Dr. Bentley reads nigh-founder'd; but the common reading is better, because if (as the Doctor fays) foundering is finking by a leaking in the fhip, it would be of little

ufe

With fixed anchor in his fkaly rind

Moors by his fide under the lee, while night
Invests the fea, and wished morn delays:

So ftretch'd out huge in length the Arch-Fiend lay
Chain'd on the burning lake, nor ever thence 210
Had ris'n or heav'd his head, but that the will

ufe to the pilot to fix his anchor on an iland, the skiff would fink notwithstanding, if leaky. By nightfounder'd Milton means overtaken by the night, and thence at a lofs which way to fail. That the poet fpeaks of what befel the pilot by night, appears from ver. 207. while night invefts the fea. Milton, in his poem call'd the Mask, uses the fame phrafe: the two brothers having loft their way in the wood, one of them fays,

-

for certain Either fome one, like us, nightfounder'd here, &c. Pearce. 205.—as fea-men tell,] Words 205.— as fea-men tell,] Words well added to obviate the incredibility of cafting anchor in this manner. Hume.

That fome fifhes on the coast of Norway have been taken for ilands, I fuppofe Milton had learned from Olaus Magnus and other writers; and it is amply confirm'd by Pontoppidan's defcription of the Kraken in his account of Norway, which are authorities fufficient to justify a poet, though perhaps not a natural hiftorian.

207. Moors by his fide under the

lee,] Anchors by his fide under wind. Mooring at fea is the

And

laying out of anchors in a proper place for the fecure riding of a hip. The lee or lee-shore is that on which the wind blows, so that to be under the lee of the fhore is to be close under the weather shore or under wind. See Chambers's Dict. An inftance this among others of our author's affectation in the ufe of technical terms.

207. --while night

Invefts the fea,] A much finer expreffion than umbris nox operit terras of Virgil, Æn. IV. 352. But our author in this (as Mr. Thyer remarks) alludes to the figurative defcription of night ufed by the poets, particularly Spenfer. Faery Queen. B. 1. Cant. 11. St. 49.

By this the drooping day-light 'gan to fade,

And yield his room to fad fucceeding night,

Who with her fable mantle 'gan to fbade

The face of earth. Milton alfo in the fame taste speaking of the moon, IV. 609. And o'er the dark her filver mantle threw.

209. So ftretch'd out buge in length the Arch-Fiend lay] The length of this verfe, confifting of

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And high permiffion of all-ruling Heaven

Left him at large to his own dark designs,
That with reiterated crimes he might

Heap on himself damnation, while he fought 215
Evil to others, and enrag'd might fee

How all his malice ferv'd but to bring forth
Infinite goodness, grace and mercy shown

On Man by him feduc'd, but on himself
Treble confufion, wrath and vengeance pour'd. 220
Forthwith upright he rears from off the pool
His mighty ftature; on each hand the flames
Driv'n backward flope their pointing fpires, and

roll'd

fo many monofyllables, and pronounc'd fo flowly, is excellently adapted to the fubject that it would defcribe. The tone is upon the first fyllable in this line, the Ar'chFiend lay; whereas it was upon the laft fyllable of the word in ver. 156. th' Arch-Fiend reply'd; a liberty that Milton fometimes takes to pronounce the fame word with a different accent in different places. We fhall mark fuch words as are to be pronounced with an accent different from the common use.

221. Forthwith upright he rears &c.] The whole part of this great enemy of mankind is filled with fuch incidents as are very apt to

In

raife and terrify the reader's imagination. Of this nature is his being the firft that awakens out of the general trance, with his pofture on the burning lake, his rifing from it, and the defcription of his shield and fpear. To which we may add his call to the fallen angels, that lay plunged and ftupified in the fea of fire.

He call'd fo loud that all the hollow deep

Of Hell refounded.

But there is no fingle paffage in the whole poem worked up to a greater fublimity, than that wherein his perfon is defcribed in those celebrated lines,

He

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