The Complete Poems

by John Milton

  409.. Seon the Amorite King Sihon, conqueror of Moab, conquered in his turn by Moses (Num. 21. 21–30).

  411.. Asphaltic pool the Dead Sea, which has deposits of bitumen.

  416. hill of scandal the Mount of Olives, where Solomon built temples for Chemos and Moloch (I Kings 11. 7).

  417. lust hard by hate The context invites a priapic pun.

  418. Josiah a reforming King of Judah. He destroyed the groves and idols of Moloch and Chemos (II Kings 23. 10–14).

  422.. BaÄlim and Ashtaroth plural forms of ‘Baal’ and ‘Ashtoreth’. ‘Baal’ means ‘lord’ and is prefixed to proper names (e.g. Baal-Peor, Baal-Zebub). Cp. Judges 10. 6: ‘the children of Israel… served Baalim and Ashtaroth’.

  425. uncompounded undifferentiated into members. Cp. vi 350–53.

  429. Dilated enlarged. Cp. iv 986.

  432.. these] MS; those Ed I, Ed II. MS is supported by line 437.

  438–9. Astoreth… Astarte the Phoenician (Sidoniari) original of Aphrodite, called queen of Heav’n at Jer. 44. 19. She had a bull’s head above her own head, from which sprang lunar crescent horns (cp. Nativity 200).

  443. offensive mountain the Mount of Olives, where the uxorious king Solomon built a temple for Astoreth to please his wives (II Kings 23. 13, I Kings 11. 4–5).

  444. heart… large intellect… capacious. Cp. I Kings 4. 29: ‘God gave Solomon… largeness of heart’. The Hebrew word translated as ‘heart’ in A.V. means ‘intellect’ (OED ‘large’ 3c).

  446–52. Thammuz… wounded Thammuz follows Astarte because they were lovers (identified with Venus and Adonis). Here Adonis is a river in Lebanon, discoloured every July with reddish mud (supposedly Thammuz’s blood). This annual wound was the occasion of a religious festival. See Nativity 204.

  452–7. love-tale… Judah Cp. Ezek. 8. 14: ‘Then he brought me to the door of the gate of the Lord’s house which was toward the north; and, behold, there sat women weeping for Thammuz’.

  457–61. Next… fell flat The Philistines placed the ark of the Covenant (which they had captured) in Dagon’s temple. When they entered the temple the next morning, ‘behold, Dagon was fallen upon his face to the ground before the ark of the Lord: and the head of Dagon and both the palms of his hands were cut off upon the threshold; only the stump of Dagon was left to him’ (I Sam. 5. 4).

  460.. grunsel groundsel, threshold.

  462–3. upward… fish John Selden had derived Dagon’s name from Hebrew dag, ‘fish’ (De Dis Syris ii 3).

  464–6. The five main Philistine cities were Azotus (or Asdod), Gath, Ascalon, Accaron (or Ecron), and Gaza (or Azza). M. employs the variant forms in SA.

  467.. Rimmon the chief Syrian god.

  471.. A leper once he lost Elisha told the Syrian general Naaman he would be cured of leprosy if he washed in the Jordan. At first Naaman scoffed (‘Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel?’), but he obeyed, was healed, and renounced Rimmon for God (II Kings 5. 8–19).

  gained a king King Ahaz of Judah defeated Syria, then converted to Rimmon’s cult (II Kings 16. 7–17).

  472.. sottish foolish.

  478.. Osiris, Isis, Orus Egyptian gods represented with the heads of beasts (respectively a bull, a cow, and a falcon).

  479.. abused deceived (OED 4a).

  481.. disguised in brutish forms Ovid tells how the Olympian gods fled from Typhon into Egypt, hiding in bestial forms that the Egyptians later worshipped (Met. v 319–31). See above, 198–9n. Cp. also Virgil, Aen. viii 698, where Egypt’s ‘monstrous gods’ fight for Antony at Actium.

  484.. calf in Oreb Aaron made the ‘calf in Horeb’ (Ps. 106. 19) while Moses was receiving the Law (Exod. 32). The gold had been borrowed from Egypt (Exod. 12. 35), and the calf was traditionally identified with the Egyptian Apis.

  rebel king Jeroboam, who led ten tribes of Israel in revolt against Solomon’s son Rehoboam (I Kings 12. 12–23). The oxymoron implies that kingship is a kind of rebellion. Cp. vi 199, xii 36. In Defensio (1651) M. denies that Jeroboam was a rebel (YP 4. 406).

  485.. Doubled repeated (OED 3) and made twice as many (OED 1). Jeroboam set up two calves, ‘the one in Bethel, and the other… in Dan’ (I Kings 12. 29).

  486.. Lik’ning… ox Cp. Ps. 106. 20: ‘they changed their glory into the similitude of an ox that eateth grass’.

  487–9. Jehovah… gods God smote the Egyptian firstborn, ‘both man and beast’, at the passover (Exod. 12. 12).

  490.. Belial Hebrew ‘worthlessness’. The word is not a name, and ‘Belial’ was never worshipped as a god. But the biblical phrase ‘sons of Belial’, common in the O.T., encouraged personification, as in II Cor. 6. 15. M.’s Belial is a coward. He comes last, in contrast to soldier Moloch, who came ‘First’ (392).

  495.. Eli’s sons Cp. I. Sam. 2. 12: ‘the sons of Eli were sons of Belial’. Although priests, they ‘lay with the women that assembled at the door of the tabernacle’ (I Sam. 2. 22).

  498.. luxurious given to luxury, and lascivious, unchaste (OED 1).

  499.. riot wanton revel (OED 2), debauchery (OED 1).

  500.. injury including ‘offensive speech, reviling’ (OED 2).

  outrage including ‘violent clamour, outcry’ (OED 2b).

  502.. flown swollen, in flood (OED ‘flow’ 11b), often used figuratively of persons, as in Spenser, FQ II ii 36: ‘In wine and meats she flowd above the bancke’.

  504–5. when… rape following Ed II. MS and Ed I read ‘when hospitable doors / Yielded their matrons to prevent [MS avoid] worse rape’. Both versions allude to Gen. 19 and Judges 19, but Ed II gives priority to Judges. At Gen. 19. 8 Lot begs the Sodomites to rape his daughters rather than his angel guests. No rape took place and the angels destroyed Sodom. At Gibeah a Levite escaped worse (homosexual) rape by surrendering his concubine to ‘certain sons of Belial’. The woman’s fate could not have been worse. She was abused ‘all the night’ and died the next morning – possibly at the Levite’s hands (Judges 19. 28–9). The change from ‘Yielded’ to Exposed might imply a moral judgement. Cp. Adam’s ‘To me committed and by me exposed’ (x 957).

  508.. Javan Noah’s grandson, ancestor of the Ionian Greeks (Gen. 10. 1–5).

  509.. Heav’n and Earth Uranus and Gaea, progenitors of the gods.

  510.. *boasted OED’s earliest participial instance.

  510–13. Titan… found The Christian Lactantius (Divine Institutes I xiv) tells how Titan, the eldest son of Uranus and Gaea (Heav’n and Earth), was deposed by his brother Saturn, who was in turn deposed by his son Jove.

  513.. measure retribution (OED 15).

  514–15. Crete… Ida Jove (Zeus) was born and secretly raised in a cave on Mount Ida in Crete.

  516.. middle air the second of three supposed layers of the atmosphere, extending only to the mountain-tops. Satan was associated with this region, on account of his title ‘prince of the power of the air’ (Eph. 2. 2). See PR i 39–47.

  517.. Delphian cliff the site of Apollo’s oracle.

  518.. Dodona the site of Zeus’s oracle, in northern Greece.

  519.. Doric land Greece.

  519–21. Saturn… isles Following his defeat by Jove, Saturn fled over Adria (the Adriatic) to th’ Hesperian fields (Italy), and thence to the Celtic fields (France) and the utmost isles (Britain).

  523.. damp dazed, stupefied (OED 2).

  525.. found themselves not lost Cp. Matt. 10. 39: ‘He that findeth his life shall lose it’. The angels’ newly-found selves are not the ones they have lost (see i 361–5n).

  527.. doubtful both ‘full of apprehension’ (OED 5) and ‘giving cause for apprehensions’ (OED 4).

  528.. recollecting remembering and pulling (himself) together.

  530.. fainting] Ed II; fainted MS, Ed I.

  532.. clarions shrill trumpets used in war.

  534.. Azazel Hebrew ‘God strengthens’. Cabbalistic lore made him one of four standard-bearers in Satan’s army. ‘Azazel’ was sometimes thought
to be his original name (see Bernard Bamberger, Fallen Angels, 1952, 278), but M.’s rebels have lost their angelic names. See i 80–81, 361–3, v 658 and cp. vi 371–85. In the Hebrew version of Lev. 16. 8, the word translated as ‘scapegoat’ means ‘goat for Azazel’, a wicked spirit.

  536.. advanced raised, elevated (OED 4).

  541.. *upsent Cp. the neologisms ‘upwhirled’ (iii 493) and ‘upgrown’ (ix 677).

  542.. concave vault.

  543.. reign realm (OED 2).

  546.. orient lustrous and rising.

  548.. *serried pressed close together, shoulder to shoulder.

  550.. phalanx Greek and Macedonian battle formation consisting of heavy infantry presenting an impenetrable thicket of spears. Greek phalanxes were usually eight ranks deep; Satan’s is Of depth immeasurable (549).

  550–59. Dorian… minds Cp. Plutarch’s description of Spartans marching to flutes: ‘it was a sight at once solemn and terrifying to see them marching in step to the pipes, creating no gap in the phalanx nor suffering any disturbance of spirit, but approaching the confrontation calmly and happily in time to the music’ (Lycurgus 22). Plato describes the Dorian mood (mode) as ‘the note or accent which a brave man utters in the hour of danger and stern resolve, or when his cause is falling, and he is going to wounds or death’ (Republic iii 399, trans. Jowett).

  556.. swage assuage, relieve.

  560–61. Breathing… silence Cp. Homer’s Achaians marching ‘silently, breathing valour, / stubbornly minded each in his heart to stand by the others’ (Il. iii 8). Breathing also suggests wind instruments such as flutes. Cp. vi 63–8.

  563.. horrid bristling (Latin horridus) with spears.

  568.. traverse across the ranks (having looked down the files).

  573.. since created man since man was created (Latin idiom).

  575.. small infantry Pygmies. On the war of Pygmies and cranes see Homer, Il. iii 3–6. Notice the pun on infantry.

  577.. Phlegra The war between the gods and the Giants began at Phlegra in Macedonia and ended at Phlegra in Italy.

  579.. auxiliar assisting, with a mocking pun on auxilia (foreign, low-paid troops in the Roman army).

  580.. Uther’s son King Arthur, some of whose knights were Breton (Armoric).

  583.. Aspramont ‘the dark mountain’: a mountain in Calabria. Romantic epics tell how Charlemagne defeated a Saracen army there. See Andrea da Barbarino’s Aspromonte and Ariosto, Orl. Fur. i 30, xvii 14, xxvii 54. Montalban ‘the white mountain’: the home of the paladin Rinaldo.

  584.. Damasco Damascus. Christians and Saracens joust there in Ariosto, Orl. Fur. xvii.

  Trebizond a Byzantine city on the Black Sea, famous for tournaments.

  585.. Biserta Bizerte, a port in Tunisia, from which Boiardo’s Troiano leads a Muslim invasion of Spain (Orl. Inn. ii).

  586–7. Charlemagne… Fontarabbia There is no known source for Charlemagne’s fall at Fontarabbia (Fuenterrabia, on the Spanish coast), though Charlemagne’s paladin Roland made a famous last stand at Ronces-valles, some forty miles away. M. may be alluding to the events of August 1659, when Charles II visited Fuenterrabia in an attempt to muster French and Spanish support (Fowler).

  588.. observed including ‘reverenced, honoured’ (OED 4b). The syntax allows either Satan or his troops to be the observer.

  594.. glory see above, i 141n.

  594–9. sun… monarchs Charles II’s censor objected to these lines - and with reason. An eclipse had provoked year of change on the day of Charles’s birth, 29 May 1630. Royalists officially claimed the event as a good omen (see e.g. Dryden, Astraea Redux, 288–91), but M.’s nephew, Edward Phillips, remembered it as a portent of the Interregnum. See Chronicle of the Kings of England (1665), 498. See also Edward Chamberlayne, Anglia Notitiae (1669), 127: ‘the Sun suffered an Eclipse, a sad presage as some then divined, that this Prince’s Power should for some time be eclipsed, as it hath been’. Cp. Tasso’s comparison of Argantes to a comet that ‘tidings sad of death and mischief brings / To mighty lords, to monarchs, and to kings’ (Gerus. Lib. vii 52).

  595.. horizontal on the horizon.

  597.. disastrous ill-starred (Latin dis + astrum), with a hint that ‘Lucifer’ has been ‘dis-starred’. See v 708, vii 131, x 425.

  599.. Perplexes puzzles and torments.

  601.. intrenched wounded (OED ‘entrench’ 3), *furrowed (OED ‘intrench’ 1, earliest instance 1754).

  603.. courage] Ed I, Ed II; valour MS.

  considerate prudent, deliberate (OED 2), as in ‘the willing and considerate murderer’ (1597); from Latin considerare, ‘to watch the stars’.

  609.. amerced / Of *deprived of (OED 2d). ‘Amerce’ meant ‘fine’ and one was amerced ‘in’ or ‘with’ (not ‘of’) a sum. M.’s usage puns on the root amercié, ‘at the mercy of’.

  615.. blasted heath echoing Shakespeare, Macbeth I iii 77.

  620.. Tears such as angels weep Angels were usually thought to be incapable of weeping, but cp. Shakespeare, Measure for Measure II ii 121–2, where ‘proud man’ is said to play ‘such fantastic tricks before high heaven / As makes the angels weep’. M.’s good angels eat (v 434–5), make love (viii 620–29), and maybe weep (xi 23–5), so Satan’s tears need not reveal a coarsened nature, though they might express a tyrant’s sentimentality. Newton in 1749 saw an allusion to the Persian King Xerxes, who wept while reviewing his ‘vast army, and reflecting that they were mortal, at the time that he was hast’ning them to their fate, and to the intended destruction of the greatest people in the world, to gratify his own vain glory’. Cp. x 307–11n.

  624.. event outcome.

  632.. puissant powerful.

  636.. different perhaps ‘deferent’, in the sense ‘protracted, lingering’ (OED ‘defer’ 4b).

  646.. work plan (OED 11).

  close design secret scheming.

  650.. Space *stellar depths (OED 8), but even this sense is too small. Satan is referring to Chaos (not just our universe), and worlds here means ’universes’. Cp. ii 916, 1004, 1052, iii 74, vii 191, 209, etc. Nicholas of Cusa and Giordano Bruno had argued for an infinite universe with many habitable worlds. The theory had neo-Platonic and Epicurean sources, but it was still a ‘a fringe belief in M.’s time (Marjara 77). Cp. Lucretius, De Rerum Nat. ii 1048–89.

  651.. fame rumour. See ii 346–52, 830, x 481–2 for the rumour of man’s creation, and see vii 150–56n for God’s motives in creating us.

  654.. favour equal Raphael later speaks of God’s ‘equal love’ for men and angels (viii 228). Beëlzebub will soon claim that man is ‘favoured more’ (ii 350).

  656.. eruption breaking out (suggesting Hell’s volcanoes).

  662.. Open or understood overt or covert. Cp. Belial’s ‘open or concealed’ (ii 187). Belial wants to escape God’s notice; Satan wants God to know his enemy.

  666–7. highly haughtily (OED 5) and loudly (OED 3c). The paronomasia (highly… Highest) is typical of M. Cp. i 642, iv 181, v 869, ix 11, etc.

  672.. scurf sulphurous deposit (suggesting also a diseased body).

  673.. his womb ‘the perverted body-landscape of Hell’ (Ricks) – but this nuance might have been weaker in M.’s time, when his served for its. M. uses ‘its’ only three times in his poetry.

  676.. pioneers military engineers.

  678.. Mammon an Aramaic word for ‘riches’, personified at Matt. 6. 24 and Luke 16. 13. Medieval tradition identified Mammon with Plutus, the god of wealth, and so with Pluto, god of the underworld. Burton made him prince of the lowest order of devils (Anatomy of Melancholy I ii I 2).

  679.. erected high-souled (OED 2) and upright (in posture).

  684.. vision beatific mystical experience of seeing God.

  685.. suggestion devilish temptation (OED 1).

  686.. centre (centre of) the earth.

  686–8. impious… hid Cp. Ovid’s description of men rifling earth’s bowels (viscera terrae) in search of riches (Met. i 137–40); also Spenser, FQ II vii 17,
where ‘a cursed hand’ seeking ‘hid treasures’ wounds the ‘wombe / Of his great Grandmother’; also Phineas Fletcher, The Apollyonists (1627) v 4: ‘The earth (their Grandame Earth) they fierce invade, / And all her bowels search, and rent, and tear’. The oxymoron precious bane (692) recalls Giles Fletcher, CV (1610) ii 54, where men wound ‘their mothers side’ while searching for ‘pretious perills’.

  690.. ribs veins of ore (technical term). Pearce in 1733 compared viii 465–9 where God opens Adam’s side and extracts ‘a rib… wide was the wound’. admire marvel.

  694.. Babel the Tower of Babel (xii 38–62).

  works of Memphian kings the Egyptian pyramids.

  703.. founded] MS, Ed I; found out Ed II. The devils had found the ore in lines 688–90. Now they melt it.

  704.. bullion dross boiling dregs.

  711.. Rose like an exhalation Exhalations were thought to cause comets, meteors (both bad omens), and pestilence. See ix 180n, x 692–4.

  712.. dulcet symphonies and voices sweet Pandaemonium, like Troy and Thebes, arises to the sound of music.

  713.. pilasters square columns or pillars.

  714.. overlaid surmounted.

  715.. architrave the lowest member of the entablature in a classical temple: the main beam that rests on the columns.

  716.. Cornice the uppermost member of the entablature, surmounting the frieze.

  bossy carved in relief.

  717.. fretted adorned with carved or wrought patterns.

  718.. Alcairo Cairo (ancient Memphis).

  720.. Belus a Babylonian god. Herodotus describes his temple as a series of eight towers placed one on top of another (i 181).

  Serapis a god of Ptolemaic Egypt (composite of Osiris and Apis).

  728.. cressets iron baskets hung from the ceiling.

  729.. naphtha and asphaltus oil and pitch, to be placed in lamps and cressets respectively.

  731.. Admiring marvelling.

  732–5. architect… residence Cp. the gods’ palaces built by Hephaestos (Homer, Il. i 605–8) and Mulciber (Ovid, Met. ii 1–4).

  738.. his name Hephaestos (in Greece), or Mulciber (or Vulcan) in Italy