Firm concord holds, men only disagree Yet live in hatred, enmity, and strife 500 Among themselves, and levy cruel wars, Wasting the earth, each other to destroy : As if (which might induce us to accord) 505 The Stygian council thus dissolv'd; and forth 510 And God-like imitated state; him round With bright imblazonry, and horrent arms. With trumpets' regal sound the great result: age, in which Milton lived and 512. A globe of fiery seraphim] A globe signifies here a battalion in circle surrounding him, as Virgil says, Æn. x. 373. -quà globus ille viram densissimus urget. 513. horrent arms.] Horrent includes the idea both of terrible and prickly, set up like the bristles of a wild boar. Horrentia Martis arma. Virg. Æn. i. -densos acie atque horrentibus hastis. Æn. x. 178. 515 517. -the sounding alchemy] Dr. Bentley reads orichalc: but since he allows that gold and silver coin, as well as brass and pewter, are alchemy, being mired metals, for that reason alchemy will do here; especially being joined to the epithet sounding, which deterinines it to mean a trumpet, made perhaps of the mixed metals of brass, silver, &c. Pearce. Alchemy, the name of that art which is the sublimer part of chemistry, the transmutation of By heralds' voice explain'd; the hollow' abyss With deaf'ning shout return'd them loud acclaim. Thence more at ease their minds, and somewhat rais'd 520 By false presumptuous hope, the ranged powers Disband, and wand'ring, each his several way Pursues, as inclination or sad choice Leads him perplex'd, where he may likeliest find 525 Truce to his restless thoughts, and entertain Others with vast Typhœan rage more fell &c. metals. Milton names no particular metal, but leaves the imagination at large, any metal possible to be produced by that mysterious art; it is a metonymy, the efficient for the effect; vastly poetical. Richardson. Alchemy is in short what is corruptly pronounced Ockaту, that is, any mixed metal. 527. -till his great chief return.] So it is in the first edition: but in the second and some others it is, till this great chief return; which is manifestly an error of the press. 528. Part on the plain, &c.] The diversions of the fallen angels, with the particular account of their place of habitation, are described with great pregnancy of thought and copiousness of invention. The diversions are every way suitable to beings, who had nothing left them but strength and knowledge misapplied. Such are their contentions at the race and in feats of arms, with their entertainments in the following lines, VOL. I. Their music is employed in celebrating their own criminal exploits, and their discourse in sounding the unfathomable depths of fate, free-will, and fore-knowledge. Addison. Part contend on the plain in running, or in the air in flying, as at the famous Olympian or Pythian games in Greece, while another part contend on horseback or in chariot races, Part curb their fiery steeds, &c. These warlike diversions of the fallen angels during the absence of Satan, seem to be copied from the military exercises of the Myrmidons during the absence of their chief from the war, Homer's Iliad. ii. 774. &c. only the images are raised in proportion to the nature of the beings who are here described. We may suppose too that the author had an eye to the diversions and entertainments of the departed heroes in Virgil's Elysium, Æn. vi. 642. I Upon the wing, or in swift race contend, Prick forth the aery knights, and couch their spears Pars in gramineis exercent membra palæstris, Contendunt ludo, et fulva lactantur arena: Pars pedibus plaudunt choreas, et carmina dicunt, &c. Their airy limbs in sports they ex. ercise, 530 535 540 536. -and couch their spears] Fix them in their rests. Couch from coucher (French) to place. A rest was made in the breast of the armour, and was called a rest from arrester (French) to stay. Richardson. And on the green contend the wrest. ler's prize. Some in heroic verse divinely sing; 539. Others with vast Typhœan rage &c.] Others with rage like that of Typhœus or Typhon, one of the giants who warred against heaven, of whom see before i. 199. The contrast here With rapid wheels,] Plainly taken from Horace, Od. is very remarkable. Some are i. lib. i. ver. 4. Metaque fervidis evitata rotis. But with good judgment he says rapid not fervid: because in these hell-games both the wheels and the burning marle they drove on were fervid even before the race. Bentley. 534. Wag'd in the troubled sky,] So Shakespeare in 1 Hen. IV. act i. calls these appearances -the meteors of a troubled heaven, employed in sportive games and exercises, while others rend up both rocks and hills, and make wild uproar. Some again are singing in a valley, while others are discoursing and arguing on a hill; and these are represented as sitting, while others march different ways to discover that infernal world. Every company is drawn in contrast both to that which goes before, and that which follows. As when Alcides, from Œchalia crown'd 542. As when Alcides, &c.] As when Hercules named Alcides from his grandfather Alcæus, from Echalia crowned with conquest, after his return from the conquest of Echalia a city of Bœotia, having brought with him from thence löle the king's daughter, felt th' envenom'd robe, which was sent him by Deianira in jealousy of his new mistress, and stuck so close to his skin that he could not pull off the one without pulling off the other, and tore through pain up by the roots Thessalian pines, and Lichas who had brought him the poisoned robe, from the top of Eta, a mountain in the borders of Thessaly, threw into th Euboic sea, the sea near Euben an island in the Archipelago. The madness of Hercules was a subject for tragedy among the ancients, (Ηρακλης μαινομενος by Euripides, Hercules Furens by Seneca,) but our author has comprised the principal circumstances in this similitude, and seems more par 545 550 ticularly to have copied Ovid, Met. ix. 136. Victor ob Echalia- &c. But as Mr. Thyer rightly observes, Milton in this simile falls vastly short of his usual sublimity and propriety. How much does the image of Alcides tearing up Thessalian 'pines &c. sink below that of the angels rending up both rocks and hills, and riding the air in whirlwind! and how faintly and insignificantly does the allusion end with the low circumstance of Lichas being thrown into the Euboic sea! 550. -and complain that fate Free virtue should inthrall to force or chance] This is taken from the famous distich of Euripides, which Brutus used, when he slew himself; Ω τλημον αρετη, λογος αρ' ησθ, εγω δε σε Ως έργον ησκουν ουδ' αρ' εδουλευσας βια. In some places for Bia force it is quoted τυχῃ fortune. Milton has well comprehended both, inthrall to force or chance. Bentley. (What could it less when spirits immortal sing ?) Suspended hell, and took with ravishment The thronging audience. In discourse more sweet 555 (For eloquence the soul, song charms the sense,) Others apart sat on a hill retir'd, In thoughts more elevate, and reason'd high 554. Suspended hell,] The effect of their singing is somewhat like that of Orpheus in hell, Virg. Georg. iv. 481. Quin ipsæ stupuere domus, atque in- Eumenides, tenuitque inhians tria Atque Ixionii vento rota constitit E'en from the depths of hell the damn'd advance, Th' infernal mansions nodding seem to dance; The gaping three-mouth'd dog forgets to snarl, The Furies hearken, and their snakes uncurl; Ixion seems no more his pain to feel, But leans attentive on his standing wheel. Dryden. The harmony suspended hell; but is it not much better with the parenthesis coming between? which suspends as it were the event, raises the reader's attention, and gives a greater force to the sentence. But the harmony (What could it less when spirits immortal sing?) Suspended hell, &c. Compare Horace concerning the strains of Sappho and AlOdes xi. xiii. v. 20-40. cœus. Utrumque sacro digna silentio Mirantur umbræ dicere: sed magis Pugnas et exactos tyrannos Densum humeris bibit aure vulgus. Quid mirum ubi illis carminibus stupens, &c. E. 554. -took with ravishment, &c.] So in the Ode on the Nativity, 98. As all their souls in blissful rapture took. Ravishment is a favourite word with Milton. See Par. Lost, v. 46. ix. 541. Comus, 245. and Tetrachordon, Pr. W. i. 229. Spenser has the word in Astrophel, st. 7. T. Warton. 555. -In discourse more sweet] Our poet so justly prefers discourse to the highest harmony, that he has seated his reasoning angels on a hill as high and elevated as their thoughts, learing the songsters in their humble valley. Hume. 559. -foreknowledge, will, and fate, Fix'd fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute,] The turn of the words here is admirable, and very well expresses the wanderings and mazes of their discourse. And the turn of the words is greatly improved, and |