"That solace? All our law and story strewed "With hymns, our psalms with artful terms inscribed,1 335 "Our Hebrew songs and harps, in Babylon "That pleased so well our victors' ear,-declare, "That rather Greece from us these arts derived ; "Ill imitated, while they loudest sing "The vices of their deities, and their own, 340 "In fable, hymn, or song, so personating2 "Their gods ridiculous, and themselves past shame! 345 "Will far be found unworthy to compare "With Sion's songs,3-to all true tastes excelling,— "Where God is praised aright, and godlike men, "The Holiest of Holies, and his saints: "Such are from God inspired,-not such from thee,* 350 "Unless where moral virtue is expressed "By light of Nature, not in all quite lost. "Their orators thou then extollst, as those "The top of eloquence; statists indeed, "And lovers of their country, as may seem; "But herein to our prophets far beneath, 355 1 Our psalms with artful terms inscribed,-alluding to the inscriptions prefixed to the psalms, indicating the instruments to be used in accompanying them, and other directions regarding their performance. That pleased so well our victors' ear.-See Ps. cxxxvii. The idea that Greece had derived the arts of music and poetry from the Hebrews, seems to have been in vogue in Milton's time. 2 Personating,-" celebrating loudly;" in the Latin sense of the word persono. 3 Will far be found unworthy to compare with Zion's songs. These were Milton's own sentiments, though delivered in an assumed character. In his early life, even, he had declared that the "songs throughout the law and the prophets, not in their divine argument alone, but in the very critical art of composition, may be easily made appear over all the kinds of lyric poetry, to be incomparable."-Preface to Reason of Church GovernThe investigations of the ablest critics of modern times fully justify this high praise of the incomparable poetry of the inspired writers. ment. 4 Not such from thee, &c.-Poets inspired from thee are not such as these, unless where moral virtue is expressed, &c. 5 Statists,-statesmen. “As men divinely taught, and better teaching "The solid rules of civil government, "In their majestic unaffected style, "Than all the oratory of Greece and Rome. 360 "In them is plainest taught, and easiest learnt, So spake the Son of God: but Satan, now 365 Quite at a loss, for all his darts were spent, "Since neither wealth nor honour, arms nor arts, ' Kingdom nor empire pleases thee, nor aught 370 "What dost thou in this world? The wilderness "For thee is fittest place; I found thee there, "And thither will return thee: yet remember "What I foretell thee: soon thou shalt have cause 375 "Which would have set thee in short time with ease "On David's throne, or throne of all the world, "Now at full age, fulness of time, thy season, "When prophecies of thee are best fulfilled. "Now contrary, if I read aught in Heaven,3 380 "Or Heaven write aught of Fate, by what the stars "In their conjunction met, give me to spell; "Violence and stripes, and lastly cruel death: "A kingdom they portend thee; but what kingdom, 1 Which makes a nation happy, and keeps it so,-See Prov. xiv. 34. 2 Fulness of time,-See Gal. iv. 4. 385 3 If I read aught in heaven, &c.-Milton thus ridicules judicial astrology, and, in particular, satirizes the impiety of Cardan, who cast the nativity of Jesus Christ, and found, as he pretended, that the concourse of stars at his birth fixed the destiny that befel him. "Real or allegoric, I discern not,— 390 "Nor when ;-eternal sure, as without end, "Without beginning; for no date prefixed "Directs me in the starry rubric set." So saying, he took, (for still he knew his power Not yet expired,) and to the wilderness 395 Brought back the Son of God, and left him there, 400 Whose branching arms, thick intertwined, might shield 405 From dews and damps of night his sheltered head; But, sheltered, slept in vain; for at his head The Tempter watched, and soon with ugly dreams Disturbed his sleep: and either tropic now Gan thunder, and both ends of Heaven; the clouds, 410 Fierce rain with lightning mixed,-water with fire 3 Within their stony caves, but rushed abroad From the four hinges of the world, and fell 415 1 Either tropic now gan thunder,—the words are probably used loosely to denote the north and the south; as both ends of heaven may signify the east and west. 2 In ruin reconciled:-water and fire, by nature opposites, but agreeing now in being poured down from heaven. The word ruin is used in the same way, Paradise Lost, b. i. 1. 46; and b. vi. 1. 868, note. 3 Within their stony caves,-ancient poets spoke of the winds as being confined in the interior of the mountains, from whence they were let loose at the will of their presiding power, and to which they were made to return when their purpose had been served. Four hinges of the world,— the four cardinal points, from the Latin word cardines, which has both meanings. Bowed their stiff necks, loaden with stormy blasts, Or torn up sheer. Ill wast thou shrouded then, O patient Son of God! yet only stoodst 420 Unshaken! Nor yet staid the terror there; Infernal ghosts,1 and hellish furies, round Environed thee; some howled, some yelled, some shrieked, Some bent at thee their fiery darts, while thou Satst unappalled in calm and sinless peace! 425 Thus passed the Night so foul, till Morning fair Cleared up their choicest notes in bush and spray, 430 435 440 The Prince of Darkness; glad would also seem Of this fair change, and to our Saviour came; Yet with no new device,-they all were spent ;- Desperate of better course, to vent his rage 445 And mad despite to be so oft repelled. Him walking on a sunny hill he found, Backed on the north and west by a thick wood. 1 Infernal ghosts, &c.-This is said to be taken from the legend of St. Anthony's temptation, or the prints which represent it. 2 Fiery darts,-See Eph. vi. 16. 3 Amice, clothing. 4 Who with her radiant finger.-Ancient poets spoke of morn as rosy fingered, in allusion to the streaks of rosy light preceding the sunrise. The whole imagery here introduced by our poet, is more sublime than any of the finest passages in the ancients. Out of the wood he starts in wonted shape, And in a careless mood thus to him said: 450 "Fair morning yet betides thee, Son of God! "After a dismal night: I heard the wrack, "As earth and sky would mingle; but myself "Was distant; and these flaws,1 though mortals fear them "As dangerous to the pillared frame of Heaven, 455 "Or to the Earth's dark basis underneath, 66 Are, to the main, as inconsiderable "And harmless, if not wholesome, as a sneeze 2 460 "Over whose heads they roar, and seem to point, "This tempest at this desert most was bent; 465 470 475 1 Flaws,-violent tempests of wind. See Paradise Lost, b. x. 1. 698, note. 2 To man's less universe, -as the human body is termed a "microcosm," or "world in miniature." 3 of men at thee,-the tempest was aimed against the person of the Saviour alone of all men. * Did I not tell thee, &c.-Hawkins suggests that the difficulty which some commentators find in this passage (from 1. 467 to 488), will be removed by comparing it with the conclusion of the previous conversation (1.368-393). Satan now repeats what he had before expressed, his conviction of the pains and dangers which awaited Jesus, if he persisted in rejecting his offered aid. |