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What shall be right; farthest from him is best,

Whom reason hath equall'd, force hath made supreme
Above his equals. Farewell, happy fields,

Where joy for ever dwells! Hail horrors, hail
Infernal world, and thou profoundest hell,
Receive thy new possessor; one who brings
A mind not to be changed by place or time.
The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.
What matter where, if I be still the same,
And what I should be, all but less than he
Whom thunder hath made greater? Here at least
We shall be free; the Almighty hath not built
Here for his envy, will not drive us hence :
Here we may reign secure, and, in my choice,
To reign is worth ambition, though in hell;

250

255

260

250. This passage seems to be an improvement upon Soph. Aj. 395. where Ajax, before he kills himself, cries out much in the same manner: ἰὼ σκότος, ἐμὸν φάος, Ερεβος ὦ φαεννότατον, ὡς ἐμοὶ, Ελεσθέ μ', ἕλεσθ' οἰκήτορα, Ελεσθέ μ'. Ν.

254. Compare Horace Ep. i, 11, 28.

·

Cœlum non animum mutant, qui trans mare currunt ;

Strenua nos exercet inertia : navibus atque

Quadrigis petimus bene vivere; quod petis, hic est;
Est Ulubris, animus si te non deficit æquus.'

Milton, P. L. iv. 20.

'for within him Hell

He brings, and round about him, nor from Hell
One step no more than from himself can fly

By change of place.'

257. all but less: 'in every respect, this one particular excepted, that I am less, &c.' CowPER. See v. 92. Newton notices albeit, although, as a proposed reading.

260. This is not a place that God should envy us, or think too good for us. In this sense the word envy is used in iv. 517. viii. 494. ix. 770.' PEARCE.

262. Thus Eteocles in Eur. Phon. 534. einep yàp ảdikeîv Xpǹ, τυραννίδος πέρι Κάλλιστον ἀδικεῖν.

Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven.
But wherefore let we then our faithful friends,
The associates and copartners of our loss,
Lie thus astonish'd on the oblivious pool,
And call them not to share with us their part
In this unhappy mansion; or once more
With rallied arms to try what may be yet
Regain'd in heaven, or what more lost in hell?'
So Satan spake, and him Beëlzebub
Thus answer'd: Leader of those armies bright,
Which but the Omnipotent none could have foil'd,
If once they hear that voice, their liveliest pledge
Of hope in fears and dangers, heard so oft
In worst extremes, and on the perilous edge
Of battle when it raged, in all assaults
Their surest signal, they will soon resume
New courage and revive; though now they lie
Grovelling and prostrate on yon lake of fire,

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263. Compare Esch. Prom. V. 1002.

τῆς σῆς λατρείας τὴν ἐμὴν δυσπραξίαν,
σαφῶς ἐπίστασ', οὐκ ἂν ἀλλάξαιμ ̓ ἐγώ·
κρεῖσσον γὰρ οἶμαι τῇδε λατρεύειν πέτρα,
ἢ πατρὶ φῦναι Ζηνὶ πιστὸν ἄγγελον. Ν.

265

270

275

280

266. oblivious pool: not strictly so, as Lethe in ii. 582., but an epithet applied from the circumstance of their lying thus oblivious, stunned, and insensible: so in line 310. safe shore.

276. edge of battle: 'Perhaps he had in mind Virg. Æn. ix.

528.

'Et mecum ingentes oras evolvite belli:'

or after all may not the edge of battle be expressed by the Latin acies, which signifies both the edge of a weapon, and also an army in battle array? The author himself would incline one to think so by his use of this metaphor in another place, vi. 108. On the rough edge of battle ere it joined.'' N.-'The edge of war, like an ill-sheathed knife, No more shall cut its master.' Shaksp.

As we erewhile, astounded and amazed;
No wonder, fall'n such a pernicious highth.'

285

He scarce had ceased when the superior fiend Was moving toward the shore; his ponderous shield, Ethereal temper, massy, large, and round, Behind him cast; the broad circumference Hung on his shoulders like the moon, whose orb Through optic glass the Tuscan artist views At evening from the top of Fesolé, Or in Valdarno, to descry new lands, Rivers or mountains, in her spotty globe. His spear, to equal which the tallest pine Hewn on Norwegian hills, to be the mast

290

285. [Of] ethereal temper, hardness: P. L. iv. 812.
Him thus intent Ithuriel with his spear

Touch'd lightly; for no falsehood can endure
Touch of celestial temper.'

287. Homer compares the splendor of Achilles' shield to the moon, Il. xix. 373.

αὐτὰρ ἔπειτα σάκος μέγα τε, στιβαρόν τε,

Εἵλετο, τοῦ δ ̓ ἀπάνευθε σέλας γένετ', ήϋτε μήνης. But the shield of Satan was large as the moon seen through a telescope, an instrument first applied to observations by Galileo, a native of Tuscany, whom he means here by the Tuscan artist, and afterwards mentions by name in v. 262.; a testimony of his honor for so great a man, whom he had known and visited in Italy, as he himself informs us in his Areopagitica.' N.

289. Fesolé, (anciently Fasula,) a city in Tuscany; Valdarno, or the valley of Arno, both near Florence, the birth-place of Galileo:

292. to equal which: in comparison of which. 'Homer Od. ix. 322. makes the club of Polyphemus as big as the mast of a ship, "Oσσov e' iσròv vnós: and Virgil gives him a pine to walk with, En. iii. 659.

'Trunca manu pinus regit et vestigia firmat.” N.

293. The hills of Norway, barren and rocky, but abounding in vast woods, from whence are brought masts of the largest size.' HUME.

Of some great ammiral, were but a wand,
He walk'd with, to support uneasy steps
Over the burning marle, not like those steps
On heaven's azure; and the torrid clime
Smote on him sore besides, vaulted with fire:
Nathless he so endured, till on the beach
Of that inflamed sea he stood, and call'd
His legions, angel forms, who lay intranced
Thick as autumnal leaves that strow the brooks
In Vallombrosa, where the Etrurian shades,
High over-arch'd, imbower; or scatter'd sedge
Afloat, when with fierce winds Orion arm'd

295

300

305

294. ammiral Germ. ammiraglio Ital. any great or capital ship.' JOHNSON.

299. nathless: for nevertheless: Sax. na, not: not the less.

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302. Virg. Æn. vi. 309. Quam multa in sylvis autumni frigore primo Lapsa cadunt folia.'' N.

303. Vallombrosa. A famous valley in Etruria or Tuscany, from vallis and umbra, remarkable for the continual cool shades, which the vast number of trees that overspread it afford.' HUME.

305. 'Orion is a constellation represented in the figure of an armed man, and supposed to be attended with stormy weather; assurgens fluctu nimbosus Orion,' Virg. Æn. i, 539. [Hor. Od. iii. 27.] And the Red Sea abounds so much with sedge, that in the Hebrew Scripture it is called the Sedgy Sea, (or Sea of reeds.)' N. See WELLS's Geogr. of the O. and N. T. vol. 1. p. 253. But, in contradiction to this, says Bruce p. 247., I must confess, that I never in my life, and I have seen the whole extent of it, saw a weed of any sort in it. And indeed upon the slightest consideration, it will appear to any one, that a narrow gulf, under the immediate influence of monsoons blowing from contrary points six months each year, would have too much agitation to produce such vegetables, seldom found but in stagnant water, and seldomer, if ever, found in salt ones. My opinion then is, that it is from large trees, or plants, of white coral, perfectly in imitation of plants on land, that the sea has taken its name. I saw one of these, which, from a root nearly central, threw out ramifications in a nearly central form, measuring 26 feet in diameter every way.' HORNE'S Introd. App. p. 48.

Hath vex'd the Red-Sea coast, whose waves o'erthrew

Busiris and his Memphian chivalry,

While with perfidious hatred they pursued
The sojourners of Goshen, who beheld
From the safe shore their floating carcases

310

And broken chariot-wheels: so thick bestrown,
Abject and lost, lay these, covering the flood,
Under amazement of their hideous change.
He call'd so loud, that all the hollow deep
Of hell resounded. Princes, potentates,

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315

Warriors, the flower of heaven, once yours, now lost,

If such astonishment as this can seize

Eternal spirits; or have ye chosen this place
After the toil of battle to repose

Your wearied virtue, for the ease you find
To slumber here, as in the vales of heaven?
Or in this abject posture have ye sworn
To adore the Conqueror? who now beholds
Cherub and seraph rolling in the flood
With scatter'd arms and ensigns, till anon
His swift pursuers from heaven-gates discern
The advantage, and descending, tread us down
Thus drooping, or with linked thunderbolts

320

325

307.As to Milton's making Pharaoh to be Busiris, to which Bentley objects, there is authority enough to justify a poet in doing so, though not an historian. It has been supposed by some, and therefore Milton might follow that opinion.' PEARCE. Memphian, from Memphis, a city on the left side of the Nile, famous for the pyramids.

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308. perfidious: because Pharaoh, after leave given to the Israelites to depart, followed after them like fugitives.' HUME. 320. virtue: as the Lat. virtus, courage, strength.

328. This alludes to the fate of Ajax Oileus, Virg. Æn. i. 44.

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