by John Milton
29. grand pre-eminent (OED 3a) and all-inclusive (OED 6), as in ‘grand total’.
30. fall off of friends: to become estranged. Of subjects: to revolt, withdraw from allegiance (OED ‘fall’ 92e), with overtones of ‘the Fall’.
33. Who first seduced them Cp. Homer’s question as to who sowed discord among the Greeks (II. i 8).
34. infernal Serpent Cp. Rev. 12. 9: ‘that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan’.
35–6. deceived / The mother of mankind There may be a pun on ‘dis-Eved’. See Gen. 3.20: ‘Adam called his wife’s name Eve; because she was the mother of all living’. ‘Eve’ meant ‘life’, and M. relates the name to prelapsarian immortality (xi 161–171). Cp. PR i 51–2.
36.. what time when (OED 10a), not a Latinism.
38–49. aspiring… arms echoing several biblical accounts of Satan’s fall. Cp. Isa. 14. 12–15, Luke 10. 18, II Pet. 2. 4, Jude 6, Rev. 20. 1–2.
43.. impious war Latin bellum impium, ‘civil war’.
46.. ruin falling from a height (OED Ib), Latin ruina.
combustion confusion, tumult (OED 5b) and conflagration.
48.. adamantine chains Satan was bound with ‘chains of darkness’ (Jude 6, II Pet. 2. 4) or ‘a great chain’ (Rev. 20. 1–2). Cp. also Phineas Fletcher, The Purple Island (1633) xii 64: ‘the Dragon… bound in adamantine chain’. Adamant was a mythical substance of impenetrable hardness.
50.. space extent of time (OED 3) and linear distance (OED 5a). The devils Lay for Nine days after their fall, which also lasted nine days (vi 871). Hesiod’s Titans fell for nine days and nights from heaven to earth and nine more from earth to Tartarus (Theog. 720–25).
52.. fiery gulf Satan is chained on a fiery lake. See lines 184 and 210, and cp. Rev. 19. 20: ‘a lake of fire burning with brimstone’.
56. round he throws his baleful eyes Cp. Ariosto’s description of the Saracen Rodomonte: Rivolge gli occhi orribili (Orl. Fur. xviii 18).
57. witnessed bore witness to (his own affliction) and beheld (his followers’).
59.. angels’ ken angels’ range of sight. The early texts do not use apostrophes, so ken might be a verb.
66.. hope never comes recalling the inscription over Dante’s Hell: Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch’ intrate (Inf. iii. 9); ‘Abandon every hope, you who enter’. Cp. also Euripides, Troades 681.
68.. Still always.
71. those] Ed I, Ed II; these MS.
72. utter utter and outer (cp. Matthew 25. 30).
74.. the centre the earth (OED 2b).
pole celestial pole. M. here measures the distance from Heaven to Hell as thrice the radius of the universe. At ii 1051–3 our whole universe is a speck in Chaos. Homer and Hesiod place Hades as far below earth as heaven is above it (II. viii 16, Theog. 722–25). Virgil places Tartarus ‘twice’ as far below (Aen. vi 577).
81.. Beëlzebub Hebrew ‘Lord of the Flies’, one of many forms of the Philistine sun-god Baal (‘prince of the devils’ in Matt. 12. 24). Notice that Beelzebub will not get that name until long after (80). See below, i 361–5n.
82.. Satan Hebrew ‘Enemy’. This is Satan’s name in Heav’n, not Hell. The devils see God, not Satan, as the ‘great Enemy’ (ii 137). Satan lost his ‘former name’ when he rebelled (v 658). He acknowledges his new name only at x 386.
84.. how fall’n! how changed Cp. Isa. 14. 12 (‘How art thou fallen… O Lucifer’) and Virgil, Aen ii. 274–5 (quantum mutatus ab illo / Hectore). Satan is unable to put any name to his companion. Cp. Dryden’s revision in The State of Innocence (1677): ‘Ho, Asmaday, awake, / If thou art he: But, ah! how chang’d from him!’ (20).
93.. He with his thunder The devils repeatedly avoid naming ‘God’. See e.g. i 122, 161–2, ii 59, etc. Contrast iii 695, where Uriel at once names God.
102.. me preferring liking me better and putting me forward.
105–6. What… lost Cp. Satan’s boast in Fairfax’s translation (1600) of Tasso, Gerus. Lib. iv 15: ‘We lost the field, yet lost we not our heart’.
107.. study of effort to achieve.
109.. And… overcome ‘What else does ”not being overcome” mean?’
114.. Doubted feared for.
116.. Fate imagined by Satan to be an independent force, but cp.CD i 2: ‘fate or fatum is only what is fatum, spoken, by some almighty power’ (trans. Carey, YP 6. 131).
gods angels. Even God calls angels ‘gods’ (iii 341).
117.. empyreal of the highest Heaven.
123.. triúmphs prevails, exults, rides in pomp (as in a Roman triumph).
126.. racked] Ed I, Ed II; wracked MS. Satan is wrecked, ruined (OED ‘wrack’ 2, 3), but In pain gives priority to racked.
128.. Powers] MS; Powers, Ed I, Ed II. Richardson (who was unaware of MS) noted in 1734: ‘the Comma after Powers, as in all Editions we have Noted, perplexes the Sense, ‘twas not Satan, but Those Powers that led the Seraphim to War under His Conduct. One of these Powers is This Bold Companion who Here under a Compliment he makes to Satan Proudly Insinuates his Own Merit.’ Powers and Seraphim (129) are two of nine angelic orders, the others being Cherubim, Thrones, Dominations, Virtues, Principalities, Archangels, Angels.
134.. event outcome.
139.. perish including ‘incur spiritual death’ (OED ib).
141.. glory effulgence, bliss of heaven, halo (OED 6, 7a, 9). extinct extinguished.
144.. Of force perforce and due to the force.
146. entire unimpaired, undiminished (OED 4c).
147. support endure, undergo, esp. with fortitude or without giving way (OED ib).
148. suffice satisfy.
152.. deep Chaos (the usual meaning in PL).
153–5 What… punishment? ‘What can it avail us that our strength is undiminished, and that our being is eternal, if our punishment is also eternal?’
156.. *Arch-Fiend coined on the analogy of ‘Archangel’.
158.. Doing or suffering acting or enduring. Satan anticipates the famous words of Mutius Scaevola as he thrust his hand into a flaming brazier as a demonstration of Roman courage. See ii 199n and cp. PR iii 194–5.
159–68. To do aught good… aim contrast God’s power to bring good out of evil (xii 470–8).
166. succeed ensue (with evil as subject).
167. if I fail not unless I am mistaken. Fail means ‘err’ (OED 11), but the sequence succeed… fail also hints at Satan’s ultimate failure.
disturb forcibly divert.
168.. destined intended (OED 2) – but the sense of ‘destiny’ tells against Satan’s boast.
173.. The fiery] Ed I, Ed II; This fiery MS.
178.. slip let slip.
180.. dreary *dismal, gloomy (OED 4), dire, horrid, (OED 2).
182.. livid of a bluish leaden colour (OED 1). Virgil (Aen. vi 320) and Statius (Thebaid i 54) describe the rivers of Hades as livida.
183–91. The rhymes signal a change of scene (as in a blank verse drama) and create an impression of order emerging from destruction.
185.. There rest, if any rest Cp. Shakespeare, Richard IIV i 5–6: ‘Here let us rest, if this rebellious earth / Hath any resting for her true king’s queen’.
186. afflicted powers routed armies.
187. offend strike so as to hurt (OED 6).
196.. rood either a linear measure (6–8 yards) or a measure of land (about a quarter of an acre).
198–9. Titanian… Typhon Titans and Giants were Earth-born monsters who rebelled against Jove and were confined in Tartarus, the classical hell. In Homer and Hesiod, the hundred-armed Briareos is Zeus’s ally, but Virgil makes him a Titan (Aen. vi 287, x 565). Typhon (Typhoeus) was a Giant with a hundred serpent-heads. At first the gods fled his attack (see i 481n), but Jove crushed him under Mount Etna (Ovid, Met. v 346–53). M. often compares these rebellions to Satan’s (see i 50, 480–81, 510, 576, 778, ii 539, vii 605).
201. Leviathan a whale, but the name was also associated with Satan. Cp. Isa. 27. 1: ‘the Lord… shall punish leviathan the pi
ercing serpent, even leviathan the crooked serpent; and he shall slay the dragon that is in the sea’. The story of the illusory island was a commonplace often applied to Satan. See J. H. Pitman, ‘Milton and the Physiologus’, MLN 40 (1925) 439. Contrast the undeceptive Leviathan at vii 412–16. Boiardo and Ariosto tell how the paladin Astolfo mistook a whale for an island and was carried off (Orl. Inn. II xiv 3, Orl. Fur. VI 37–43).
202. Océan stream the river Ocean, described by Homer as encircling the world. Homer locates such strange and wonderful creatures as the Pygmies and the Cimmerians ‘by the stream of Ocean’. See e.g. Il. i 423, Od. iv 567.
204.. night-foundered engulfed in night. (The vessel is also about to founder.)
207. lee shelter (from wind) given by neighbouring object.
208. Invests wraps, covers.
224.. horrid dreadful and bristling (with spires).
226. incumbent pressing with his weight upon (OED ia).
227. unusual weight Cp. Spenser’s dragon, whose flight ‘did forcibly divide / The yielding aire, which nigh too feeble found / Her flitting partes, and element unsound, / To beare so great a weight’ (FQ I xi 18).
228. lights alights, with overtones of ‘lessens the weight’ (OED v1 1).
229–30. MS pointing. Ed I and Ed II (semicolon after fire, comma after hue) focus the simile exclusively on hue. MS likens the flying Satan to a flying hill.
230–37. force… smoke Cp. the descriptions of Etna in Virgil, (Aen. iii 570–82), Ovid (Met. v. 346–58), and Tasso (Gerus. Lib. iv 8). The Giant Encaladus was buried under Etna after the Giants’ revolt. See above, 198–9n. M. combines imagery of birth (conceiving) and excretion (wind, entrails, bottom, stench).
231.. subterranean wind the cause of earthquakes in classical and Renaissance seismology. Cp. Ovid, Met. xv 296–305.
232.. Pelorus Cape Faro, near Mount Etna in Sicily.
235. Sublimed converted directly from solid to vapour by volcanic heat.
236. involved enveloped, wreathed.
239.. Stygian black as the river Styx.
244.. change for take in exchange for.
254–6. The mind… the same Amalric of Bena’s heresy that Heaven and Hell are states of mind had been condemned in 1204, but continued to attract seventeenth-century sects. Satan’s boast takes an ironic twist at iv 75.
257.. all but less than eliding the idioms ‘all but equal to’ and ‘only less than’.
263.. Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heav’n The thought was proverbial (as was its opposite). See e.g. Ps. 84. 10, Homer, Od. xi 488, Aeschylus, Promethus Bound 965. M.’s version is close to Phineas Fletcher, The Apollyonists (1627) i 20: ‘To be in heaven the second he disdaines: / So now the first in hell, and flames he raignes’. Cp. The Purple Island (1633) vii 10.
265. associates companions in arms (OED B 2). Copartners, loss and share also evoke the image of a failed business venture.
266. astonished including ‘thunderstruck’ (Latin extonare).oblivious causing oblivion.
276.. edge critical moment (OED 6b), line of battle (OED 5a). Cp. Latin acies and ‘rough edge of battle’ (vi 108).
282.. pernicious destructive, ruinous.
284–7. shield… moon Cp. Achilles’ shield, from which ‘the light glimmered far, as from the moon’ (Homer, Il. xix 574).
285.. Ethereal temper tempered in Heaven and tempered in celestial fire (Greek aithein, ‘to burn’).
288.. Tuscan artist Galileo. He studied the moon with a telescope (optic glass). M. had visited him in Florence in 1638 or 1639. He is the only one of M.’s contemporaries to be named in PL. Cp. iii 588–90, v 261–3. Fesole (Fiesole) overlooks Valdarno (the valley of the Arno).
292–4. spear… wand Cp. Homer’s simile likening Polyphemus’s club to the mast of a ‘black ship of twenty oars’ (Od. ix 322). M. implies relative magnitudes (‘spear is to pine as pine is to wand’), but also evokes an image of Satan hobbling on a light walking-stick or twig (OED ‘wand’ ic, 2a). See Fish (159).
294.. ammiral flagship. M.’s spelling ‘gives the true etymology, from emir… not from admire’’ (Ricks). Cp. Satan as ‘Sultan’ (i 348).
296. marl soil.
299. Nathless nevertheless.
302.. autumnal leaves Similes comparing the passing generations (or numberless dead) to falling leaves are frequent in epic. Cp. Homer, Il. vi 146, Virgil, Aen. vi 309–10, Dante, Inf. iii 112–15, Ariosto, Orl. Fur. xvi 75.
The image is especially apt to fallen angels. Cp. Isa. 34. 4: ‘all the host of heaven… shall fall down, as the leaf falleth off from the vine’.
303. Vallombrosa a wooded valley in Tuscany (Etruria), which M. may have visited. The name (‘valley of shadows’) evokes ‘valley of the shadow of death’ (Ps. 23).
304. *overarched M. repeats the neologism at ix 1107.
sedge seaweed. Cp. Isa. 57. 20: ‘The wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt’. Homer likens the routed Achaians to seaweed cast up by a storm (Il. ix 5–9).
305. Orion The constellation (representing an armed giant) was associated with stormy weather (see Amos 5.8, Virgil, Aen. i 535 and vii 719, Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica i 1202).
306. vexed disturbed.
307. Busiris a mythical Pharaoh who sacrificed strangers. He was commonly identified with the Pharaoh of Exod. 1. M. identifies him with the Pharaoh of Exod. 14 who pursued the Israelites (sojourners of Goshen) through the Red Sea.
312.. Abject cast down (literal and metaphorical).
314. deep] Ed I, Ed II; deeps MS.
315. Princes, Potentates suggesting ‘Principalities’ and ‘Powers’ (see above, 128n).
320.. virtue strength. M. pointedly withholds the title of the angelic order of ‘Virtues’. See ii 310–13, v 772–4, x 460–62 for further examples of such taunting with titles.
324.. * Seraph M. coined the singular on the analogy oÍ Cherub and Cherubim (OED).
328–9. thunderbolts I Transfix us Cp. Virgil, Aen. i 44, where Oilean Ajax is pierced through the chest (transfixo pectore) by a thunderbolt which impales him to a rock.
339.. Amram’s son Moses, who summoned a plague of locusts with his rod (Exod. 10. 12–15).
340–41. pitchy cloud I Of locusts echoing Sylvester, DWW ( 1592–1608), The Lame (1606): ‘a sable Clowde / Of horned Locusts’ (533–4).
341.. warping rising, swarming, whirling through the air (OED).
345.. cope vault or canopy like that of the sky (OED 7d).
348.. Sultan the title of the Ottoman emperors. The word carried a smear of despotism in M.’s time.
351–5. the populous North… sands refers to the Goths, Huns, and Vandals who inundated the Roman Empire and plunged Europe into the Dark Ages. For Satan’s association with the North, see v 689n.
353.. Rhene, Danaw Rhine, Danube.
361–5. their names… new names Contrast Rev. 3. 12, where it is the righteous who get a ‘new name’. Here the new names are those of future devils. The blotted angelic names never appear in PL. Cp. i 80–81, v 658, vi 373–85. For God’s blotting of names, see Exod. 32. 33 and Rev. 3. 5: ‘He that overcometh… I will not blot out his name out of the book of life’. M. has Books (not ‘Book’) to suggest the great number of angels. ‘Blot out’ implies ‘annihilate, destroy’ (OED 5), as in xi 891 : ‘to blot out mankind’.
366.. sufferance divine permission (OED 6c).
372.. gay showy, specious, immoral (OED 3, 5, 2).
religions rites (OED 3a).
373.. devils to adore for deities Cp. Deut. 32.17: ‘They sacrificed unto devils, not to God’. Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Origen, Lactantius, and Augustine had argued that pagan gods were fallen angels, and the belief continued uninterrupted until the Renaissance. Cp. Nativity 173ff. and see C. A. Patrides, ‘The Cessation of the Oracles: The History of a Legend’ (MLR 60, 1965, 500–507).
376.. mho first, who last Cp. Homer, Il. v 703 (‘who then was the first and who the last th
at they slaughtered?’) and Virgil, Aen. xi 664 (‘whom first, whom last, fierce maid, did you strike down with your dart?’). Catalogues of warriors are frequent in epic. Cp. Homer, Il. ii 484–877, Virgil, Aen. vii 641–817, Ariosto, Orl. Fur. xiv.
380.. promiscuous indiscriminate.
386. Thund’ring out of Sion Joel 3. 16 and Amos 1. 2 prophesy how God ‘shall roar out of Zion’.
387. Between the Cherubim a common phrase in the O.T. (see e.g. M.’s translation of Psalm 80. 1). There were images of Cherubim on the ark of the Covenant and more Cherubim flanked the ark in the Holy of Holies (Exod. 25. 18–21,1 Kings 6. 23, 8. 6–7).
391. affront insult and face in defiance.
392. Moloch Hebrew ‘king’. A god of the Ammonites, whose capital was Rabba, ‘city of waters’ (II Samuel 12. 27). Hollow brass idols depicted Moloch enthroned, with arms outstretched, wearing a crown on his calf’s head. Children were sacrificed by being placed in his red-hot arms.
395.. passed through fire Cp. II Kings 23. 10: ‘that no man might make his son or daughter to pass through the fire to Molech’. A marginal comment in the Geneva Bible explains that Moloch’s worshippers ‘smote on the tabret [timbrel] while their children were burning, that their crye shulde not be heard’. See also Lev. 18. 21.
403.. opprobrious hill the Mount of Olives. See below, 416n.
grove Groves are associated with idolatry throughout the O.T. See Deut. 16. 21: ‘Thou shalt not plant thee a grove of any trees near unto the altar of the Lord thy God’. Cp. I Kings 14. 23,1 Kings 16. 33,1 Kings 18. 19, II Kings 21. 7, II Kings 23. 4, and see PR ii 289 and note.
404.. Hinnom a valley adjacent to Jerusalem. Patrick Hume, the earliest editor of PL (1695), derived the name from a Hebrew verb meaning ‘cry out through excessive torment’.
Tophet from Hebrew toph, ‘a timbrel’. See lines 394–5.
405. Gehenna Greek, ‘valley of Hinnom’, translated in the A.V. (e.g. at Matt. 5. 29) as ‘Hell’.
Type symbol (OED 1).
406. Chemos Moabite fertility-god, identified by Jerome with the phallic god Priapus. See Num. 25 for Israel’s wanton rites (414) and the plague (woe) that followed.
407–11. Aroer, Hesebon, Sibma and ElealÈ were northern Moabite towns. Nebo was in the Abarim mountains in the south.