Paradise Lost by John Milton
570. gross: dense, closely packed.
575–81. The account of each river is a translation of its Greek name; e.g., Cocytus derives from kokutos, Greek for “wailing” or lamentation loud.
591. pile: vast building.
592–94. A gulf … sunk: Surrounded by hills of sand, Lake Serbonis lay between Mount Casius and Damiata, at the center of a notorious morass on the lower Egyptian coast. Diodorus Siculus (1.30) and Sandys (1637, 137) describe the fatally deceptive locale and report it swallowing whole armies. Apollonius makes it, not Etna, Zeus’s prison for Typhon (2.1210–15). Related similes appear at 939–40 and 9.634–42.
595. frore: frosty. “When the cold north wind bloweth, and the water is congealed into ice, it … clotheth the water as with a breastplate. It … burneth the wilderness and consumeth the grass as fire” (Ec. 43.20–21). That Hell’s torments include ice as well as fire was a commonplace; see Dante, Inf. 3.86–87, and Shakespeare, MM 3.1.121–22.
596. harpy-footed: with hooked claws, like a raptor. In Greek culture, Harpies were wind spirits thought to snatch people from this world and deliver them to the Furies (with whom they were sometimes confounded). They are particularly identified with sweeping storm winds (hence the power to carry away). 1667 and 1674 have “hailed,” not “haled.” The spellings were interchangeable in Milton’s time, and the superimposed senses of wind-driven precipitation, of being summoned, and of being dragged are likely intended.
600. starve: die a lingering death from the cold.
604. Lethean sound: the river of forgetfulness, Lethe (see l. 583).
611. Medusa: “snaky-headed Gorgon” (Masque 447), the most notorious of three terrifying sisters. All who beheld Medusa were literally petrified.
613. wight: creature.
614. Tantalus: Homer depicts him in Tartarus, where he suffers perpetual thirst and appetite while standing chin deep in a lake that flees his lips, under boughs of fugitive fruit (Od. 11.582–92; see also Horace, Satires 1.68). Cp. 4.325–36, 10.556–70.
621. The variation of iambic rhythm in the first six monosyllables is shocking, maybe unique. It describes the unrelenting variety of a uniformly deathly landscape.
628. Hydra: a venomous serpent with multiple, regenerative heads; Chimera: a fire-breathing mix of lion, goat, and serpent (Il. 6.180–82). Prolusion 1 presents these monsters as the horrors of a guilty conscience (MLM 792). On Gorgons, see 611n. Cp. 10.524: “Scorpion and asp, and amphisbaena dire.”
629. Adversary: See 1.82n.
632. Explores: makes trial of, reconnoiters.
633–34. scours … shaves: “moves quickly over … skims the surface of.” As suggested by explores, Satan both makes a test flight and inspects the bounds of his new realm. The contact and coverage implied by scours and shaves is characteristic of the way Satan marks territory; cp. 9.63–66.
636–37. As … clouds: Sailing ships seen from afar (descried) appear suspended in air; Greek authors termed them meteorous, “hanging” or “aloft” (see Thucydides 1.48.3).
637. equinoctial: usually and incorrectly glossed as “at the equator” on the authority of the OED. The rest of the simile indicates that the winds in question are not the light and shifting breezes at the equator but monsoons. They dominate the climate of the Indian Ocean (the wide Ethiopian), reversing direction at the equinoxes (hence equinoctial), thus determining the schedule for shipping spices to Europe along the established commercial course (trading flood). During the southern winter (April to October), the monsoon blows to the northeast, out of Southern Africa. A fleet bent on sailing toward the Cape (of Good Hope) against that prevailing wind would set a course southwest, as close to the eye of the wind as possible, and tack repeatedly (ply).
637–42. by … pole: The comparison is to merchant ships, sailing either from Bengal (Bengala) in northeastern India or from Ternate and Tidore, “spice islands” in the East Indies. For the association of Satan’s regime with the region, see 2n, 4n.
642. stemming … pole: Ships bound for the Cape would alter course nightly, making headway (stemming) directly to the south (toward the pole), to avoid shallow coastal waters. In the southern winter, the higher the latitude, the longer the night.
647. impaled: surrounded, enclosed.
650–59. The one … unseen: Milton’s allegory of Sin comes out of the Spenserian tradition: cp. Spenser’s Error (FQ 1.1.14–15), Phineas Fletcher’s Hamartia (Purple Island 12.27–31) and Sin (Apollyonists 1.10–12). Classical sources include Hesiod’s Echidna (half woman, half snake) (Theog. 300–25). See also Vergil’s Scylla (Aen. 3.426–32) and Ovid’s story of her origin (Met. 14.50–67), to which Milton alludes at 659–61 (see note); cp. Masque 257–58.
652. Voluminous: winding or coiling, like a serpent.
653. mortal sting: “The sting of death is sin” (1 Cor. 15.56).
654. cry: pack; group noun for hounds.
655. Cerberean: In Greek myth, Cerberus is a many-headed guard dog at the entrance to Hades.
658. Cp. the complaint of Shakespeare’s Margaret to the Duchess of York: “From forth the kennel of thy womb hath crept / A hell-hound that doth hunt us all to death” (R3 4.4.47–48).
659–61. Circe poisons the sheltered coastal pool in which Scylla bathes. According to Ovid, she wades in up to her waist and “sees her loins disfigured with barking monster shapes … gaping dogs’ heads, such as a Cerberus might have” (Met. 14.60–65). She then preys on sailors from a cave on the Sicilian (Trinacrian) coast near Messina, opposite the southern tip of the Italian mainland (Calabria). Milton may deem the shore along the Strait of Messina hoarse because of nearby Etna’s frequent roaring.
662. night-hag: probably Hecate, the only Titan left at large by Zeus. The Greeks associated her with, among other things, infernal powers, the moon, and witchcraft. Howling dogs signaled her approach. See Masque 535, MAC 3.5.
664–66. Lured … charms: Witches were thought to use infant blood in their rites. Hence seventeenth-century authorities suspected midwives of practicing witchcraft and serving Satan by infanticide (Baillie 63, Ehrenreich and English). Laboring evokes the process of childbirth.
665. Lapland: northernmost portion of the Scandinavian peninsula. Hume records the common reputation of the inhabitants: “their diabolical superstitions, and vindictive natures, added to their gross stupidity, and the malicious imaginations of melancholy, have made them infamous for witchcraft and conjuration.” laboring: That magic could afflict the moon, causing it to labor in its movement, was an old and widespread belief. One meaning of the Latin laborare is “to undergo eclipse.”
673. Milton’s representation of Death with a kingly crown may reflect his antimonarchical views. Cp. Shakespeare’s R2: “Within the hollow crown/That rounds the mortal temples of a king/Keeps Death his court” (3.2.160–62).
677. admired: wondered.
678–79. God … shunned: “When God was except (past participle, OED 3b: ‘excluded’), no basis for value remained” (Fowler). Although this gloss may seem strained, the more common reading—“of all creation Satan values or shuns only God and the Son”—has a nodding Milton imply that God is created.
681. In asking his opponent’s origin, Satan speaks in the manner of Achilles, though to ironically comic effect (cp. Il. 21.150).
683. miscreated front: ugly face.
686. taste: learn by experience or proof; a figurative usage crucial to the epic action.
692. “[The dragon’s] tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth” (Rev. 12.4). Satan tends to overstate his faction as “well nigh half” (9.141). The precise ratio had long been a point of scholastic controversy.
693. Conjured: sworn together (stress on the second syllable).
697. Hell-doomed: retort to Satan’s scornful Hell-born (l. 687). Raphael’s narrative of the rebellion (5.563ff) confirms Death’s summary, which is oddly well informed and free from the infernal bias prevalent for most of the first two books.<
701. Cp. Solomon’s son Rehoboam to the Israelites: “My father hath chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions” (1 Kings 12.11). The allusion suggests that God (Satan’s punisher) is also Death’s father, though we are about to learn otherwise.
705–11. So speaking … war: Cp. Satan’s confrontation with Gabriel (4.985ff).
708–11. Unterrified … war: Vergil and Tasso, among others, precede Milton in comparing warriors to comets (Aen. 10.272–73; GL 7.52). They were since ancient times believed to presage pestilence, war, and change of kingdoms.
709. Ophiucus: serpent bearer; a large constellation that Milton associates with Satan, located in the Northern (hence Arctic) Hemisphere.
710. horrid hair: Another example of Milton’s etymologically instructive wordplay. Comet derives from the Greek kometes, “long-haired.” Horrid means “bristling” and derives from the same root as hirsute (“hairy”).
714–18. Boiardo’s Orlando and Agricane are similarly opposed like two black clouds (Orlando Innamorato 1.16.10). Satan, whose realm will be “mid air” (PR 1.44–46), is persistently linked to meteorological phenomena.
716. Caspian: region commonly associated with storms (see, e.g., Horace, Odes 2.9.2–3).
722. foe: the Son of God. See 1 Cor. 15.25–26 and Heb. 2.14.
746. portress: “The Porter to th’ infernal gate is Sin” (P. Fletcher, Apollyonists 1.10.1).
748. “This is a very just and instructive part of the allegory.… Sin, pleasant in contemplation and enjoyment, is foul in retrospect” (Cowper).
752–53. All … thee: Sin’s narrative and Raphael’s later narrative offer distinct explanations of Satan’s first experience of pain; cp. 6.327ff, 432ff.
754–58. while … sprung: The general amazement at the cephalic delivery of Sin full-blown, as a goddess armed, recalls the account of Athena’s birth in Homeric Hymn 28.
760. Critics preoccupied with postmodern semiotics belabor the proximity of Sin and sign, near homophones.
768. fields: battles; cp. 1.105.
771. empyrean: highest part of Heaven, where pure fire or light subsists.
772. pitch: pinnacle, height.
774–77. at which time … op’ning: Citing these lines, Fowler (746n) dismisses Empson’s concern over God’s choice of Sin and Death as guards. An allegory in which a personification of sin is expected to obey God’s command is nonetheless perplexing.
778–87. till … destroy: “Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death” (James 1.15). Cp. Shakespeare, Sonnet 129. As with the birth of Sin (754–58n), the delivery of Death echoes the discharge of Satan’s artillery (6.586–90).
789. Vergil similarly describes the sound produced by a spear thrown into the side of the Trojan horse: “With the womb’s reverberation the vaults rang hollow, sending forth a moan” (Aen. 2.52–53).
795–802. The description of this hourly cycle suggests a nightmarish clock mechanism. Postlapsarian time consciousness is also consciousness of death; cp. 4.266–68; On Time.
809. so fate pronounced: Leonard cites Milton’s theological treatise: “fate or fatum is only what is fatum, spoken, by some almighty power” (MLM 1146).
813. dint: blow, stroke.
825. pretenses: claims; the meaning “false claims” was equally current in Milton’s time.
827. uncouth errand sole: unknown mission alone; cp. line 407.
829. unfounded: bottomless, unestablished.
833. purlieus: outskirts. “A French word (as most of our law terms are) of pur pure and lieu a place, and denotes the ground adjoining to, and being accounted part of any forest, by Henry II and other Kings, was … separated again from the same and adjudged Purlieu, that is pure and free from the Laws of the Forest” (Hume).
836. surcharged: overburdened.
837. broils: tumults, riots. Without once mentioning God, Satan insinuates that humanity’s location outside Heaven is a security measure aimed at crowd control.
842. buxom: pliant, yielding (cp. 5.270); embalmed: balmy, aromatic; also, “preserved with balm and precious spices, as princes and great persons are at their death, a word well applied to caress the ugly phantom” (Hume).
861–62. Sin’s plight is echoed in Milton’s account of his situation at the Restoration (7.25–28).
868. gods who live at ease: translates Homer’s epithet for the Olympian gods (Il. 6.138).
869–70. Milton has Sin prophesy in phrases burlesquing the Nicene Creed (“Christ … sits on the right hand of the father … [his] kingdom shall have no end”). Milton scorned prescribed statements of faith and thought the doctrine of the Trinity articulated in the Nicene Creed especially contemptible. In his epic, the closest thing to the orthodox Trinity is the incestuous unity and variety of Satan, Sin, and Death.
872. all our woe: repeats 1.3. Sin provides the instrument that permits Satan to seduce humanity to the first disobedience (1.1).
876–79. then … Unfastens: Cp. Homer’s description of Penelope opening the door to the storeroom where Odysseus’s bow is kept: “Straightaway she quickly loosed the thong from the handle and thrust in the key, and with sure aim shot back the bolts … quickly they flew open before her” (Od. 21.46–50).
877. wards: corresponding ridges or grooves in a lock and key.
880–82. With … thunder: “Grating on harsh, jarring hinges, the infernal gates open” (Aen. 6.873–74).
883. Erebus: darkness, the underworld.
889. redounding: surging, rolling upward in superabundance.
891. secrets: places, parts, or causes unknown, perhaps intentionally concealed; cp. 3.707. The realm of Chaos and Night is described as a womb (see l. 911, 10.476–77), impregnated by the Spirit during creation (1.21–22). Satan’s trespass could thus be construed as sexual prying or a violation of the maternal (cp. 1.684–88, 2.785ff). hoary: white-haired and thus old or ancient.
894–910. where … all: Milton describes eldest Night as eternal, like the anarchy over which she and Chaos preside (e.g., l. 150, 3.18, 10.477). His presentation of Chaos is indebted to Ovid and Lucretius (Met. 1.5–20; On the Nature of Things 2). Commenting on Ovid, Sandys objects that “by not expressing the original, he seems to intimate the eternity of his Chaos” (1632, 49). Only God is eternal. The attribution of eternal being to Chaos and Night thus renders Milton’s account of primordial matter heretical in one of two ways: either Chaos represents a realm distinct from God and, like him, eternal and existentially independent, or Chaos represents an aspect of eternal God himself. The discussion of matter in Christian Doctrine indicates that Milton endorsed the latter heresy (1.7). Cp. 915–16n.
898. Hot, Cold, Moist, and Dry: These had long been considered the four fundamental qualities that combine to constitute all created phenomena: humors, elements, planets, or bodies in general. Thus, earth was dry and cold, water moist and cold, air moist and hot, fire dry and hot, et cetera.
900–903. embryon atoms … unnumbered: indivisible units of primal matter, undeveloped and unformed; cp. line 913. The relative weights, shapes, motions, and textures of these countless (unnumbered) “seeds of things,” the semina rerum of Lucretian atomist philosophy, account for the phenomenal variety of the world (On the Nature of Things 2.62–833).
904. Barca or Cyrene’s: desert region of Northern Africa notorious for sandstorms.
906. To whom these: The referents of whom are the four champions fierce of line 898; these refers to the atoms.
907–10. Chaos … all: On the rule of Chaos and Chance in relation to fate and God’s will, cp. lines 232–33, 915–16, and 7.172–73.
911. Except for the insertion of perhaps, the line loosely translates Lucretius’s portrayal of the Earth (On the Nature of Things 5.259).
915–16. Milton allows that God could use the dark materials of chaos to create more worlds (universes, not simply planets), provoking the complaint that Milton heretically “supposes
919. frith: firth, channel.
920. pealed: assailed, rung. 921–22. to compare … small: Cp. 6.310–11, 10.306; PR 4.563–64, where Milton uses the same formula, borrowed from Vergil (Ec. 1.24, Georg. 4.176).
922. Bellona: Roman goddess of war, sister to Mars.
924. frame: that which supports the sky. Cp. Horace’s admiration of “the man tenacious of his purpose in a righteous cause”: “Were the vault of heaven to break and fall upon him, its ruins would smite him undismayed” (Odes 3.3.1, 7–8).
927. vans: wings. Milton persists in linking Satan to a sailing ship.
930. cloudy chair: car formed of clouds.
933. pennons: pinions, wings.
935–38. Down … aloft: Satan’s escape from oblivion owes to the rebuff (counterblast) of a cloud instinct with (moved or impelled by) fire and niter, ingredients of gunpowder, Satan’s signature invention from chaotic materials (see 6.478–83, 511–15). Phenomena like shooting stars, comets, and lightning were attributed to the atmospheric ignition of such vapors. Cp. other instances of Satan’s luck (4.530; 9.85, 421–23).
939. Syrtis: The Syrtes are two shallow gulfs (Sidra and Cabes) off the north coast of Libya, a region dreaded for its quicksands (e.g., Acts 27.17). Milton echoes Lucan’s Pharsalia (9.364ff) in describing it as neither sea nor land.
942. both oar and sail: all possible force, might and main. Galley ships when pressed used both oars and sails; cp. Aen. 3.563.
943–45. gryphon … Arimaspian: The gryphon (or griffin) is a mythical guardian of gold, with the upper half of an eagle and lower of a lion. It can thus speed over varied terrain with wingèd course (with wings and feet) in pursuit of the Arimaspian, legendary one-eyed people who steal the guarded gold. See Herodotus 3.116; 4.13, 27.
948–49. The extended series of disjointed monosyllables and breakdowns in iambic meter express the difficulty of negotiating the helter-skelter of chaos.