The Complete Poems

by John Milton

  753. four faces of man, lion, ox and eagle (Ezek. 1. 10) or cherub, man, lion and eagle (Ezek. 10. 14).

  759. show’ry arch rainbow. See Ezek. 1. 28.

  761. urim Hebrew ‘lights’: gems worn by Aaron in his breastplate (Exod. 28. 30). Cp. iii 598 and PR iii 13–15.

  762. Victory M.’s personification is modelled on Nike, the winged Greek goddess.

  763–4. The eagle was Jupiter’s bird and thunder his weapon.

  765. effusion copious emission of smoke (OED 1c).

  766. bickering *coruscating, quivering (OED 3) and skirmishing with arrows (OED ‘bicker’ 1b). Messiah’s chariot shoots ‘arrows’ of ‘fire’ (see vi 845–50 and Ezek. 1. 13).

  769–70. twenty thousand… Chariots Cp. Ps. 68. 17: ‘The chariots of God are twenty thousand’.

  771. on wings of Cherub Cp. Ps. 18. 10: ‘He rode upon a cherub, and did fly’.

  sublime lifted up.

  773. Illustrious shining.

  776. his sign anticipating the Second Coming: ‘And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven’ (Matt. 24. 30).

  777. reduced led back (OED 2b).

  778. circumfused spread around.

  785. obdured obdurate, hardened in sin. See iii 200n.

  788. In… dwell Cp. Aen. i 11 (Virgil’s wonder at Juno’s malice): ‘Can such anger dwell in heavenly hearts?’ Satan will echo the same line when tempting Eve (ix 729–30).

  789–91. what signs… hardened Cp. God’s hardening of Pharaoh’s heart to all his signs (Exod. 14. 4–8).

  794. *re-embattled drawn up again in battle array.

  801–2. Stand still… this day echoing Moses’ words when God destroyed the Egyptians in the Red Sea: ‘Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord which he will shew to you this day’ (Exod. 14. 13).

  808. Vengeance is his a biblical commonplace. See e.g. Rom. 12. 19: ‘Vengeance is mine; I will repay’.

  809. Number… not ordained Messiah will defeat the rebels unaided. M. may also be alluding to the numerological commonplace that One is not a number (Fowler).

  815. Kingdom… glory Cp. the Lord’s Prayer (Matt. 6. 13).

  827. the Four the ‘four Cherubic shapes’ of line 753.

  832. Gloomy as Night So Hector, shining in bronze, breached the Achaians’ rampart ‘with dark face like sudden night’ (Homer, Il. xii 462). Heaven’s night is not gloomy (v 645, vi 11–12), so the Son must be dark as Chaos – but even Chaos pales before him (vi 862–6).

  833. steadfast Empyrean shook So Olympus shook when Zeus went out to fight Typhoeus (Hesiod, Theog. 842–3). Cp. also Isa. 13. 12: ‘I will shake the heavens’. God’s throne remains unshaken (834), so Satan was lying when he said that he ‘shook his throne’ (i 105).

  838. Plagues blows, wounds (OED 1), divine punishments, often with reference to ‘the ten plagues’ of Egypt (OED 2). Cp. the allusions to Pharaoh in lines 789–91 and 801–2. The Great Plague of 1665 killed 60,000 Londoners.

  840. O’er… rode Cp. M.’s description in An Apology of Zeal ascending ‘his fiery Chariot’ drawn by beasts that resemble ‘those four’ seen by Ezekiel: ‘with these the invincible warriour Zeale shaking loosely the slack reins drives over the heads of Scarlet Prelats… brusing their stiffe necks under his flaming wheels’ (YP 1. 900).

  842–3. mountains… shelter Cp. Rev. 6. 16, where the damned cry ‘to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb’. See also Luke 23. 30, Hos. 10. 8.

  846. Distinct adorned (OED 4).

  849. pernicious destructive and swift.

  853. half his strength Contrast Hesiod’s Zeus, who ‘no longer checked his might’, but ‘put forth all his strength’ to quell the Titans (Theog. 685–7).

  857. goats or timorous flock Cp. Homer’s comparison of fleeing Trojans to ‘fawns’ (Il. xxii 1). Cp. also the parable of the sheep and goats (Matt. 25. 33). The goats were sent ‘into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels’ (25. 41).

  859. furies with overtones of ‘Furies’ – the avenging goddesses of Greek myth (see ii 596n).

  861. Rolled inward Cp. Rev. 6.14 on the Last Judgement: ‘And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together’.

  862. wasteful desolate, uninhabited, void (OED 3) and laying waste (OED I).

  868. ruining falling headlong.

  871. Nine days they fell Hesiod’s Titans fall for nine days from heaven to earth and for a further nine days from earth to Tartarus (Theog. 720–25). The angels’ nine-day fall precedes their nine-day stupor in Hell (i 50).

  873. rout uproar, disreputable crowd, defeated army.

  874. Encumbered blocked up (OED 6), harassed, pressed hardly upon (OED 3b), burdened.

  874–5. Hell… Yawning… closed Cp. Isa. 5. 14: ‘hell hath enlarged herself, and opened her mouth without measure: and their glory, and their multitude, and their pomp, and he that rejoiceth, shall descend into it’.

  884. jubilee joyful shouting (OED 5b).

  885. palm an emblem of victory presaging apocalyptic triumphs (Rev. 7. 9).

  892. right hand ‘[The Son] sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high’ (Heb. 1. 3).

  898. powers armies (OED 9) or ‘Powers’, standing for all angelic orders. Cp. v 743.

  909. Thy weaker Eve (the ‘weaker vessel’ of I Pet. 3. 7). It is odd that Raphael should speak about her as if she were absent. M. will soon tell us that she has been ‘attentive’ to the whole story (vii 50–51). Raphael might be ignoring Eve in compliance with God’s instruction that he ‘Converse with Adam’ (v 230), or (as Jean Gagen suggests) M. might be inconsistent as to how much Eve hears. See ix 275–6n.

  BOOK VII

  1–50. M.’s third invocation in PL. The first two were at i 1–49 and iii 1–55. Most critics see ix 1–47 as a fourth invocation, but M. does not address his Muse after book vii. See ix 1–47n.

  1. Descend from Heav’n echoing Horace’s invocation of the Muse Calliope: Descende caelo (Odes III iv 1).

  Urania one of the nine Muses (the Muse of astronomy in late Roman times). The name means ‘heavenly’. Du Bartas in L’Uranie had made Urania the Muse of Christian poetry. M. invokes the meaning, not the name (5) because he invokes a truly heavenly source of inspiration.

  2. If rightly thou art called Cp. the cautious addressing of divine beings in iii 7 and Ep. Dam. 208.

  3. Olympian hill M. diminishes pagan epic by calling Mount Olympus ‘a mere hill’ (Fowler). The distinction between hill and mountain was well established (see OED ‘hill’ 1a).

  4. Pegasean The winged horse Pegasus was a symbol for inspired poetry. He had created the Muses’ spring, Hippocrene (‘horse spring’), with a stamp of his hoof. He was also associated with Bellerophon (see below, 18–20n).

  8–12. Before… song Cp. Prov. 8. 24–31, where Wisdom tells of her origins before Creation: ‘When there were no depths, I was brought forth; when there were no fountains abounding with water. Before the mountains were settled, before the hills was I brought forth… Then I was by him, as one brought up with him; was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him’. Wisdom was often identified as the Son, but M. in CD i 7 takes her to be a personification of the Father’s wisdom.

  9. converse keep company (OED 2).

  10. play M. follows the Vulgate (ludens) rather than A.V. (‘rejoicing’) or Junius-Tremellius (laetificans). There may be a musical pun on play, suggesting that Wisdom and Urania play instruments to accompany their song (12).

  15. Thy temp’ring ‘the air tempered (made suitable) by you’; also implying that the Muse has ‘guided’ and ‘attuned’ M. himself (OED ‘temper’ 7, 15).

  18–20. Bellerophon… forlorn Bellerophon killed the Chimera (see ii 628) and defeated the Solymi and Amazons, but he incurred the gods’ anger when he tried to fly to heaven upon Pegasus. Zeus sent an insect to sting the horse, and Bellerophon fell down to the Aleian field (‘plain of wand
ering’). Cp. Homer, Il. vi 200–202. Natale Conti, in Mythologiae (1567) IX iv, says that Bellerophon was blinded in his fall.

  18. clime region, atmosphere; with a pun on ‘climb’.

  20. Erroneous straying (physical and moral).

  22. diurnal sphere the visible universe, which appears to rotate daily.

  23. rapt transported, enraptured.

  pole celestial pole.

  24–5. unchanged / To hoarse or mute M. would be hoarse if he were to become a turncoat, and mute if he were censored.

  25–7. evil days… dangers M. probably wrote these lines shortly after the Restoration, when he was in danger of being dismembered like Orpheus (32–8). Several of his old republican colleagues, including Sir Henry Vane, were hanged, drawn and quartered. M. was spared that fate by the Act of Oblivion (August 1660). See Lieb2 70–80.

  27. darkness M. had been totally blind since 1652.

  29. Visit’st… nightly Cp. Ps. 17. 3: ‘thou hast visited me in the night’. M.’s early biographers report that he composed at night or in the early hours of the morning. See Darbishire (33) and cp. iii 32 and ix 22.

  32. barbarous dissonance The same phrase occurs in A Masque (550), again in the context of Bacchic revelry. Here Bacchus and his revellers are probably the Royalists, whom M. in REW calls ‘these tigers of Bacchus’ (YP 7.452).

  34. Thracian bard Orpheus. See Lycidas 58–63n for the story of his dismemberment by the Bacchantes.

  35. Rhodope a mountain range in Thrace.

  36. rapture ecstasy (a sense coined by M. in Nativity 98), with overtones of ‘seizing and carrying off as prey’ (OED 1).

  37. the Muse Calliope, the Muse of epic poetry.

  46. touch Cp. Gen. 3. 3: ‘neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die’.

  50. wand’ring innocent meandering – but the hint of moral aberration is strong after Erroneous there to wander (20). Cp. vii 302.

  consorted both ‘accompanied’ and ‘wedded’.

  50–51. Eve… heard M. here insists that Eve heard the whole story of Satan’s rebellion, but Eve later speaks as if she had been absent. See ix 275–8 and note.

  52. admiration astonishment.

  muse meditation (OED sb2).

  57. redounded flowed back (OED 4), from Latin unda, ‘a wave’. Cp. the allusion to the whelming of Pharaoh in vi 800.

  59. repealed abandoned (OED 2). For Adam’s doubts see v 554.

  63. conspicuous visible (in contrast to the invisible Heaven).

  66. drouth thirst. Cp. Dante, Purg. xviii 4, where Dante thirsts for more of Virgil’s discourse.

  67. current running.

  72. Divine interpreter echoing Mercury’s title as messenger of the gods, interpres divum (Virgil, Aen. iv 378).

  79. end final purpose.

  83. seemed seemed good (OED 7e).

  88. yields or fills / All space ‘The air yields to solid bodies or fills the space they leave vacant’ (Fowler). Space might also refer to ‘outer space’, before which the ambient air (earth’s atmosphere) yields or gives way.

  90. florid flowery, resplendent, flourishing (OED 1, 4, 6).

  90–91. what cause / Moved Cp. i 28–30: ‘what cause / Moved our grand parents… to fall off?’

  92. late recently (OED 4); perhaps also ‘at a late date’ – but Milton in CD i 7 says only a fool would ask ‘what God did before the creation of the world’ (trans. Carey, YP 6. 299).

  94. Absolved completed (OED 2).

  *unforbid unforbidden.

  97. magnify glorify. Cp. Job 36. 24: ‘magnify his work’.

  98–100. And… hears Appeals to continue a narrative are common in epic. See esp. Homer, Od. xi 372–6, where Alcinous asks Odysseus to go on speaking until the dawn.

  99. suspense attentive (OED 1), hanging (OED 4), *held back (OED 5).

  102. His generation ‘how he was created’.

  103. unapparent deep invisible Chaos.

  106. match stay awake (OED 1).

  109. illustrious including ‘bright, shining’ (OED 1).

  116. infer *make, render (OED 1c, sole instance).

  121. inventions speculations.

  hope hope for, aspire to.

  126–30. knowledge… wind Cp. Davenant, Gondibert (1651) II viii 22: ‘If knowledg, early got, self vallew breeds, / By false digestion it is turn’d to winde’.

  131. Lucifer the morning star, substituting for Satan’s ‘former name’, which is now ‘heard no more’ (v 659). Notice that Satan was brighter among the angels than Lucifer among the stars (not merely ‘as bright as Lucifer’ or even ‘as bright relative to the angels as Lucifer is to the stars’). Cp. v 760, x 425.

  142. us dispossessed ‘once he had dispossessed us’.

  143. fraud *the state of being defrauded (OED 5) – a passive usage unique to M., from Latin fraus. Cp. ix 643, PR i 372.

  144. place… more Cp. Job 7. 10: ‘He [that dies] shall return no more to his house, neither shall his place know him any more’.

  150–56. But… innumerable Empson (56) infers that God ‘creates us to spite the devils’ – a view Satan shares (ix 147–9). Whatever God’s motive for creating us, he does not make the number of men tally with that of the rebel angels. Notice men innumerable (156) and cp. Augustine, City of God, xxii 1 : ‘God is gathering a people so numerous that from them he may fill the places of the fallen angels and repair their number. Thus that beloved Heavenly City will not be deprived of its full number of citizens, and might even rejoice in a still more numerous population’. Cp. iii 289.

  152. fondly foolishly.

  154. in a moment See below, 176n.

  159. long obedience God did not intend the prohibition to last for ever. Adam and Eve and their descendants might have worked their way up to Heaven. See v 493–500.

  162. inhabit lax spread out, occupy the now vacant territories.

  165. overshadowing Cp. Gabriel’s words to Mary: ‘the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee’ (Luke 1. 35).

  Spirit Editors cite CD i 7 as proof that M. must mean ‘God’s power’ not ‘the Holy Spirit’. But even CD allows the Spirit of Gen. 1. 2 to be a ‘person’ – provided it remain ‘subordinate’ to the Father (YP 6. 304). Cp. i 17n.

  169. nor vacuous M.’s God creates out of Chaos, not out of nothing (see ii 890–1039n and v 472n). Chaos is infinite because God fills it, but God withholds his goodness (171) from Chaos until he uses it for Creation.

  170. uncircumscribed Dante celebrates God as non circunscritto in Purg. xi 2. Nicholas of Cusa had described God as a circle whose centre is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere. Cp. ix 107–8.

  172. Necessity and Chance ‘Necessity’ was especially associated with Aristotle’s notion of creation, which M. saw as a limit on God’s omnipotence (see CD i 2). The atomist philosophers Democritus and Empedocles made ‘Chance’ the cause of all things. M. limits Chance to the uncreated atoms of Chaos. See ii 895–910 and Marjara (93).

  173. what I will is Fate In CD i 2 M. points out that ‘Fate’ means ‘that which is spoken’ (from Latin fari, ‘to speak’). See i 116n and cp. PR iv 316–17.

  176. Immediate are the acts of God Augustine had argued for an immediate Creation (De Genesi i 1–3). The literal-minded Satan sneers at God for requiring six days (ix 136–9).

  179. earthly notion human understanding.

  182–3. Glory… men Luke 2. 14.

  191. worlds ages (OED 5) or universes (OED 9), of which God might create an infinite number. Cp. i 650, ii 916, vii 209, x 362.

  199–201. chariots… brazen mountains Cp. Zech. 6. 1: ‘there came four chariots out from between two… mountains of brass’.

  200. armoury of God Cp. Jer. 50. 25: ‘The Lord hath opened his armoury’.

  204. within… lived Cp. the animated chariot of vi 845–50.

  205–6. Heav’n opened… gates Cp. the self-opening gates of Ps. 24. 7 (cit. below, 565–7n).

  212. Outrageous enormous (OED 1) and violent (OED 2).


  wasteful desolate (OED 3) and devastating (OED 1).

  217. *omnific all-creating.

  221. him the Son.

  224. fervid burning.

  225. compasses Cp. Prov. 8. 27: ‘he set a compass upon the face of the depth’. See also Dante, Par. xix 40: ‘He that turned His compass round the limit of the world’.

  230. Thus… bounds Cp. Job 38. 11: ‘Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further: and here shall thy proud waves be stayed’.

  231. just exact (OED 9), suitable (OED 7).

  world universe.

  233. Matter unformed and void Cp. Gen. 1. 2: ‘the earth was without form, and void’. Cp. also Plato’s account of Creation from formless matter (Timaeus 50).

  235. brooding See i 21–2n.

  236. vital virtue life-giving power.

  237–42. downward… hung Cp. the differentiation of the four elements in Ovid, Met. i 21–31, Lucretius, De Rerum Nat. v 432ff., and Claudian, De Rapt. Pros, i 248–53. According to these poets, heavy elements sank to the centre to form the earth. M.’s cold infernal dregs sink beneath the universe rather than to its heart. Thus M.’s universe is wholly good (no part is Adverse to life), but Chaos still threatens it from outside. See ii 890–1039n.

  238. tartareous crusty, gritty (OED a2 2), with a play on Tartarus, hell.

  239. founded attached (OED v2 5).

  conglobed gathered into (concentric) spherical regions.

  242. earth… hung Cp. Ovid, Met. i 12–13: pendebat in aere tellus / ponderibus librata suis (‘the earth hangs poised by her own weight in the air’). Cp. also Job 26. 7: ‘He… hangeth the earth upon nothing’.

  244. Ethereal Ancient cosmologists thought of ether as a fifth element (quintessence). It filled all space beyond the sphere of the moon, and stars and planets were composed of it. See iii 7 (‘pure ethereal stream’) and iii 716.

  248. she light (see line 360).

  tabernacle Cp. Ps. 19. 4: ‘he set a tabernacle for the sun’.

  254. orient eastern, shining, rising like the dawn.

  255. Exhaling rising as vapour (OED 2).

  256. joy and shout Cp. Job 38. 7, where the angels ‘shouted for joy’ as they witnessed Creation.

  261–3. firmament… Waters Cp. Gen. 1. 6: ‘And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters’. M. identifies the ‘firmament’ with the space between the earth and the universe’s outer shell. Others identified it with the shell itself. The waters below the firmament are earth’s seas. The waters above the firmament form an ocean (271) on the universe’s shell. See below, 271n.