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 shafts, and ceases now

To bellow through the vaft 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,

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
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,

Pectora quorum inter fluctus arrecta, jubæque

195

Briareos

Per tota novem cui jugera corpus Porrigitur.

Sanguineæ exuperant undas; pars And alfo that of the old dragon

cætera pontum

Pone legit.

196. Lay floting many a rood,] A rood is the fourth part of an acre, fo that the bulk of Saan is exprefs'd by the fame fort of measure, as that of one of che giants in Virgil, Æn. VI. 596.

in Spenfer. Fairy Queen B. 1. Cant. 11. St. 8.

That with his largenefs measured much land.

Briareos or Typhon, whom the den

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 fmall night-founder'd skiff

199. Briareos] So Milton writes it, that it may be pronounced as 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 mistaken, 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:

Ταρσ αποδοχη πρωτοπόλις which is quoted in Lloyd's Dictionary. Fortin.

200.- that fea-beaft

200

Deeming

beaft, and attributes fcales to it: and yet by fome things one would think that he took it rather for a whale (as was the general opinion) 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 unwieldiness of the creature, and no doubt was defign'd by the author.

204.

night-founder'd fkiff] Some little boat, whofe pilot dares not proceed in his courfe for fear of the dark night; a metaphor taken from a founder'd horse that can go no farther.

Hume. Dr. Bentley reads nigh-founder'd; but the common reading is better, because if (as the Doctor fays}" Leviathan,] The best critics feem foundering is finking by a leaking now to be agreed, that the author in the fhip, it would be of little of the book of Job by the levia- ufe to the pilot to fix his anchor on than meant the crocodile; and Mil- an iland, the fkiff would fink notton describes it in the fame man- withstanding, if leaky. By nightner partly as a fi and partly as a founder'd Milton means overtaken

by

Deeming fome iland, oft, as fea-men tell,

With fixed anchor in his skaly rind

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

So ftretch'd out huge in length the Ar'ch-Fiend lay Chain'd on the burning lake, nor ever thence

Had ris'n or heav'd his head, but that the will
And high permiffion of all-ruling Heaven
Left him at large to his own dark defigns,
That with reiterated crimes he might
Heap on himself damnation, while he fought
Evil to others, and enrag'd might fee
How all his malice ferv'd but to bring forth

215

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