THE ARGUMENT. Raphael continues to relate how Michael and Gabriel were fent forth to battle against Satan and his Angels. The first fight defcribed: Satan and his Powers retire under night: He calls a council; invents devilish engines, which, in the fecond day's fight, put Michael and his Angels to fome diforder; but they at length, pulling up mountains, overwhelmed both the force and machines of Satan: Yet, the tumult not fo ending, God, on the third day, fends MESSIAH his fon, for whom he had referved the glory of that victory: He, in the power of his Father, coming to the place, and caufing all his legions to ftand still on either fide, with his chariot and thunder driving into the midst of his enemies, purfues them unable to refift towards the wall of Heaven; which opening, they leap down with horrour and confufion into the place of punishment prepared for them in the deep: MESSIAH returns with triumph to his Father. PARADISE LOST. BOOK VI. ALL night the dreadless Angel, unpursued, Through Heaven's wide champain held his way; till Morn, Wak'd by the circling Hours, with rofy hand Ver. 4. Unbarr'd the gates of light.] The Hours are feigned, as doctor Newton has obferved, in like manner to guard the gates of Heaven, Homer, Il. v.749. But fee alfo Ariadne's Complaint, at the end of Tafso's Aminta Englisht, 4to. 1628. "And now the rofie meffenger of Day, "Her purple doores unbarring, restores fight And Fairfax's Taffo, B. i. ft. 71. "Aurora bright her cristall gates unbar'd.” Mr. Bowle cites the following paffage from Efpinofa, C. ii, ût. 25. "El 'ftrellado cielo abrio la puerta "De muy poquita luz.” In P. Fletcher's Purp. Island, 1633, the fixth canto begins, "The houres had now unlockt the gate of day:" The editor of the poem in 1783 has thus altered it, “The hours had now unbarr'd the gates of day." TODD. Within the mount of God, faft by his throne, 5 Grateful viciffitude, like day and night; 10 To veil the Heaven, though darkness there might well Seem twilight here: And now went forth the Morn Such as in highest Heaven array'd in gold Empyreal; from before her vanish'd Night, Shot through with orient beams; when all the plain 15 Ver. 7. Lodge and dislodge by turns,] The thought of light and darkness lodging and diflodging by turns, the one iffuing forth, and the other entering, is plainly borrowed from a fine paffage in Hefiod, Theog. 748. όθι Νύξ τε καὶ Ἡμέρα ἀμφὶς ἴὅσαι ̓Αλλήλας προσέειπον, αμειβόμεναι μέγαν εδόν Χάλκεον· ἡ μὲν ἔσω καταβήσεται, ἡ δὲ θύραζεν Ερχεται, ἐδὲ ποτ' ἀμφοτέρας δόμος ἐντὸς ἐέργει. ΝενΤΟΝ. Ver. 14. vanish'd Night,] In fome editions it is very abfurdly printed, "vanquish'd Night." NEWTON. Ver. 15. Shot through &c.] The quaint conceit of Night's being shot through, is much below the ufual dignity of Milton's defcriptions. The Italian poets, even the very best of them, are fond of fuch boyish fancies, and there is no doubt but we are obliged to them for this. So Marino, speaking of Night, Aden. C. v. f. 120. "E di tenebre armata uccife il giorno." |