With impetuous recoil and jarring sound Excell'd her pow'r; the gates wide open stood, 880 885 890 Without dimension, where length, breadth, and highth, And time, and place are lost; where eldest Night 881. and on their hinges grate Harsh thunder,] How much stronger and more poetical is this than Virgil's, En. i. 449. -foribus cardo stridebat aënis: or Æn. vi. 573. -horrisono stridentes cardine sacræ Panduntur portæ ? The ingenious author of the Miscellaneous Observations on the Tragedy of Macbeth remarks, that this expression is copied from the History of Don Bellianis, where, when one of the knights approaches the castle of Brandezar, the gates are said to open grating harsh thunder upon their brazen hinges. And it is not improbable that Milton might take it from thence, as he was a reader of all kinds of romances. 882. the lowest bottom shook Of Erebus.] The most profound depth of hell. Erebi de sedibus imis. 894. Virg. Georg. iv. 471. where eldest Night All the ancient naturalists, philosophers, and poets, hold that Chaos was the first principle of all things; and the poets particularly make Night a goddess, and represent Night or darkness and Chaos or confusion as ex- Νυκτα θεων γενετειραν αείσομαι ηδε και And Chaos, ancestors of nature, hold Eternal anarchy, amidst the noise Of endless wars, and by confusion stand. For hot, cold, moist, and dry, four champions fierce, Levied to side with warring winds, and poise So also Spenser in imitation of O thou most ancient grandmother of all, More old than Jove, &c. And our author's system of the universe is in short, that the empyrean Heaven, and Chaos, and Darkness were before the creation, Heaven above and Chaos beneath; and then upon the rebellion of the angels, first Hell was formed out of Chaos stretching far and wide beneath: and afterwards Heaven and Earth, another world, hanging o'er the realm of Chaos, and won from his dominion. See ver. 1002, &c. and 978. 898. For hot, cold, moist, and dry, &c.] Ovid, Met. i. 19. Frigida pugnabant calidis, humentia siccis, Mollia cum duris, sine pondere habentia pondus. The reader may compare this whole description of Chaos with Ovid's, and he will easily see 895 900 905 how the Roman poet has lessened the grandeur of his by puerile conceits and quaint antitheses: every thing in Milton is great and masterly. 902. Light-arm'd or heavy,] He continues the warlike metaphor; levis or gravis armaturæ. Hume. 904. Of Barca or Cyrene's torrid soil,] A city and province of dry sandy Lybia, Virg. Æn. iv. 42. Hinc deserta siti regio, lateque fu rentes Barcæi. or ballast to. Pliny speaks of 905. -and poise] Give weight certain birds, who when a storm stones, 1. xi. c. 10. Virgil has arises poise themselves with little the same thought of his bees, Georg. iv. 194. Richardson. here,] Dr. Bentley reads the 906. To whom these most admost adhere, that is (says he) he of the four rules, while he has the majority. But this is not Milton's sense; for according to He rules a moment; Chaos umpire sits, Stood on the brink of hell and look'd a while, He had to cross. Nor was his ear less peal'd him no atoms adhere to moist, but such as belong to his faction, and the same is to be said of hot, cold, and dry. Therefore the reason why any one of these four champions rules (though but for a moment) is because the atoms of his faction adhere most to him. Firm dependence indeed (says the Doctor) and worthy the superlative most, that lasts but for a moment: but I should think that the less firm the dependence is, the finer image we have of such a state as that of Chaos is. Pearce. 911. The womb of nature and perhaps her grave,] Lucretius, v. 260. Omniparens, eadem rerum commune sepulchrum. Thyer. 917. Into this wild abyss the wary fiend 910 915 920 Stood on the brink of hell and look'd a while,] Thus in ver. 368, he says, -what the garden choicest bears To sit and taste where sit and taste is used for sitting taste; as here stood and looked for standing looked. Pearce. Here is a remarkable transposition of the words, the sense however is very clear; The wary Fiend stood on the brink of hell, and looked a while into this wild abyss, pondering his voyage. It is observable the poet himself seems to be doing what he describes, for the period begins at 910, then he goes not on directly, but lingers, giving an idea of Chaos before he enters into it. If his style is somewhat abrupt, after such pondering, it better paints the image he intended to give. Richardson. With noises loud and ruinous (to compare Great things with small) than when Bellona storms, Some capital city'; or less than if this frame The stedfast earth. At last his sail-broad vans 925 930 before us, wings are likened to sails, Faery Queen, b. i. cant. xi, st. 10. His flaggy wings when forth he did display, Were like two sails. 921. -(to compare Great things with small)] An expression in Virg. Ecl. i. 24. parvis componere magna. And what an idea doth this give us of the noises of Chaos, that even those of a city besieged, and of And afterwards, st. 18. heaven and earth running from each other, are but small in comparison? And though both the similitudes are truly excellent and sublime, yet how surprisingly doth the latter rise above the former ! 927. his sail-broad vans] As the air and water are both fluids, the metaphors taken from the one are often applied to the other, and flying is compared to sailing, and sailing to flying. Velorum pandimus alas, says Virgil, Æn. iii. 520. And En. i. 300, -volat ille per aëra magnum Remigio alarum. The same manner of speaking has prevailed likewise among the modern poets, and in Spenser, as well as in the passage -he cutting way With his broad sails, about him soared round. 927. This idea Milton had used before, of the English dragon Superstition, "this mighty sail-winged monster." Ch. Government, b. ii. Conclus. Proseworks, vol. i. 74. And the monster in Ariosto, which fights with Bayards, has wings, che parean duo vele. Orl. Fur. xxxiii. 84. T. Warton. 927.vans] So in Par. Reg. iv. 583. Who on their plumy vans received him, &c. And Tasso, Gierusal. Liberat. c. ix. st. 6. Indi spiega al gran volo i vanni au rati. Dunster. A vast vacuity: all unawares Fluttering his pennons vain plumb down he drops Down had been falling, had not by ill chance 933. -pennons] This word is vulgarly spelt pinions, and so Dr. Bentley has printed it: but the author spells it pennons after the Latin penna. The reader will observe the beauty of the numbers here without our pointing it out to him. 935. had not by ill chance] An ill chance for mankind, that he was thus speeded on his journey so far. Pearce. 938. that fury stay'd, &c.] That fiery rebuff ceased, quenched and put out by a soft quick sand Syrtis is explained by neither sea nor good dry land, exactly agreeing with Lucan, Phar. ix. 304. Syrtes-in dubio pelagi terræque reliquit. Hume. 941.half on foot, Half flying;] Spenser, Faery Queen, b. i. cant. xi. st. 8. Half flying, and half footing in his haste. 935 940 Our author seems to have borrowed several images from the old dragon described by Spenser. 942. behoves him now both oar and sail.] It behoveth him now to use both his oars and his sails, as galleys do; according to the proverb remis velisque, with might and main. Hume. 943. As when a griffon &c.] Satan half on foot, half flying, in quest of the new world, is here compared to a griffon with winged course both flying and running in pursuit of the Arimaspian who had stolen his gold. Griffons are fabulous creatures, in the upper part like an eagle, in the lower resembling a lion, and are said to guard gold mines. The Arimaspians were a oneeyed people of Scythia who adorned their hair with gold, Lucan, iii. 280. Hinc et Sithoniæ gentes, auroque ligatas Substringens Arimaspe comas. Herodotus and other authors re |