Paradise Lost (Modern Library Classics) (23 page)

From your dominion won, th’ Ethereal King

Possesses lately, thither to arrive

I travel this profound
⁹⁸⁰
, direct my course;

Directed, no mean recompense it brings

To your behoof
⁹⁸²
, if I that region lost,

All usurpation thence expelled, reduce

To her original darkness and your sway

(Which is my present journey) and once more

Erect the standard there of ancient Night;

Yours be th’ advantage all, mine the revenge.”

   Thus Satan; and him thus the Anarch
⁹⁸⁸
old

With falt’ring speech and visage incomposed
⁹⁸⁹

Answered. “I know thee, stranger, who thou art,

That mighty leading angel, who of late

Made head against Heav’n’s King, though overthrown.

I saw
⁹⁹³
and heard, for such a numerous host

Fled not in silence through the frighted deep

With ruin upon ruin, rout on rout,

Confusion worse confounded; and Heav’n gates

Poured out by millions her victorious bands

Pursuing. I upon my frontiers here

Keep residence; if all I can will serve,

That little which is left so to defend,

Encroached on still through our
¹⁰⁰¹
intestine broils

Weak’ning the scepter of old Night: first Hell

Your dungeon stretching far and wide beneath;

Now lately heaven
¹⁰⁰⁴
and Earth, another world

Hung o’er my realm, linked in a golden chain
¹⁰⁰⁵

To that side Heav’n from whence your legions fell:

If that way be your walk
¹⁰⁰⁷
, you have not far;

So much the nearer danger
¹⁰⁰⁸
; go and speed;

Havoc and spoil and ruin are my gain.”

   He ceased; and Satan stayed not to reply,

But glad that now his sea should find a shore,

With fresh alacrity and force renewed

Springs upward
¹⁰¹³
like a pyramid of fire

Into the wild expanse, and through the shock

Of fighting elements, on all sides round

Environed wins his way; harder beset

And more endangered, than when Argo
¹⁰¹⁷
passed

Through Bosporus betwixt the jostling rocks:

Or when Ulysses on the larboard
¹⁰¹⁹
shunned

Charybdis
¹⁰²⁰
, and by th’ other whirlpool steered.

So he with difficulty and labor hard

Moved on, with difficulty and labor he;

But he once passed, soon after when man fell,

Strange alteration! Sin
¹⁰²⁴
and Death amain

Following his track, such was the will of Heav’n,

Paved after him a broad and beaten way

Over the dark abyss, whose boiling gulf

Tamely endured a bridge of wondrous length

From Hell continued reaching th’ utmost orb

Of this frail world; by which the spirits perverse

With easy intercourse pass to and fro

To tempt or punish mortals, except whom

God and good angels guard by special grace
¹⁰³³
.

But now at last the sacred influence
¹⁰³⁴

Of light appears, and from the walls of Heav’n

Shoots far into the bosom of dim Night

A glimmering dawn; here Nature first begins

Her farthest verge, and Chaos to retire

As from her outmost works
¹⁰³⁹
a broken foe

With tumult less and with less hostile din,

That Satan with less toil, and now with ease

Wafts on the calmer wave by dubious light

And like a weather-beaten vessel holds
¹⁰⁴³

Gladly the port, though shrouds and tackle
¹⁰⁴⁴
torn;

Or in the emptier waste, resembling air,

Weighs
¹⁰⁴⁶
his spread wings, at leisure to behold

Far off th’ empyreal Heav’n, extended wide

In circuit, undetermined
¹⁰⁴⁸
square or round,

With opal tow’rs and battlements adorned

Of living
¹⁰⁵⁰
sapphire, once his native seat;

And fast by hanging in a golden chain

This pendant world
¹⁰⁵²
, in bigness as a star

Of smallest magnitude close by the moon.

Thither full fraught with mischievous revenge,

Accursed, and in a cursèd hour he hies
¹⁰⁵⁵
.

2.
Ormus
: Hormuz, famously wealthy island town ideally situated in the Persian Gulf for trade in spices and jewels. Ships of the British East India Company helped the Dutch take it from the Portuguese in 1622. For acquiescing in the unauthorized aggression, King James and the Duke of Buckingham pocketed large bribes.
Ind:
India, celebrated for precious stones; cp.
Masque
606.

4.
barbaric
: Greek for “foreign,” primarily used of Asia or
the gorgeous E
ast. Classical authors depict Asian rulers as profligate despots; hence Vergil describes the doors of Priam’s palace as “proud with the spoils of barbaric gold” (
Aen
. 2.504).

5.
merit
: desert, good or bad.

9.
success
: outcome; like
merit
, ironically complicated by its more usual positive sense.

11.
Powers and Dominions
: two kinds of angels (Col. 1.16).

14.
I … lost
: “I refuse to concede the loss of Heaven.”

15.
Virtues
: efficacious qualities (not moral virtues); also, members of a rank of angels.

18–21.
Me … merit:
The tortuous syntax makes Stoic principles—
just right
and
fixed laws
—agents of Satan’s creation as leader. The direct object (
Me
) begins the clause. His created status, Satan says, has been confirmed by the
free choice
of his followers and by his own deeds.

89.
exercise
: a range of meanings applies, from “agitate” or “vex” to the more common “train” or “cause to undergo a physical regimen or ascetic discipline.”

90.
vassals
: slaves (see
PR
4.133).

91.
torturing hour
: Shakespeare’s Theseus seeks entertainment “to ease the anguish of a torturing hour”—the time between the marriage rite and its consummation (
MND
5.1.37). The fallen angels will also pursue diversions from pain (ll. 458–62, 523–27), not least that of endlessly frustrated desire (4.508–11).

24–25.
happier … dignity:
Satan claims that in Heaven, the higher one’s rank, the happier one’s existence, and that in Hell the reverse holds true, which should deter envy and promote unity.

28.
Thunderer
: classical epithet for Jove.

43.
Moloch
: Hebrew for “king”; see 1.392n;
sceptered king:
translates Homer’s formulaic epithet for kings (e.g.,
Il
. 1.279).

50.
reck’d
: heeded; cared.

51.
sentence
: judgment. Cp. line 291.

52.
More unexpert
: less knowledgeable or experienced.

243.
hallelujahs
: songs of praise; in Hebrew,
hallelujah
means “praise God.”

244.
breathes
: exhales or emanates, as a fragrance; cp. 5.482.

63.
horrid
: bristling (
with Hell flames
).

65.
engine
: instrument of war (cp. 4.17); here, God’s lightning and thunder.

69.
Tartarean
: infernal; horrible. Tartarus confines the rebellious Titans, according to Homer and Hesiod (
Il
. 14.278; 8.478–91;
Theog
. 713–45).
strange fire:
“Nadab and Abihu died because they offered strange fire before the Lord” (Num. 26.61; cp. Lev. 10.1). The Geneva Bible glosses
strange fire
as fire “not taken of the altar”—that is, unholy or illicit fire.

73.
drench
: dose; douse. Cp.
Animad
(Yale 1:685).

74.
forgetful
: causing a state of oblivion; cp. “oblivious pool” (1.266).

79.
Insulting
: springing upon scornfully; trampling in triumph. Cp. 1.327.

81.
For Fowler, Moloch’s claim is “belied by the allusion to
Aen
. 6.126–29”: “easy is the descent to Avernus … but to recall thy steps and pass out to the upper air, this is the task, this the toil!” Cp.
PL
2.432–33, 3.20–21. Unlike Aeneas, however, the rebels are spiritual beings: “bodies compounded and elemented of Earth do naturally descend; but to spirits, those divine, airy, agile beings, as our poet well observes, … all motion downward seems forced and contrary” (Hume).

82.
event
: outcome.

94.
doubt we
: makes us hesitate.

97.
essential
: essence or being (adj. for noun). On the active disposition to suicide represented by Moloch, see 1.158n.

100–101.
we … nothing:
“we could not be in a worse state than we are now.” Cp.
PR
3.204–11.

101.
proof
: experience, trial; also, testing artillery by firing a heavy charge (see 6.584–99).

104.
fatal
: allotted by fate; cp. 1.133.

106.
denounced
: threatened.

412.
senteries
: sentries. The meter requires the three-syllable form, a variation common in the seventeenth century.

109.
Belial
: “Belial … taketh the form of a beautiful angel; he speaketh fair” (Scot 15.2). See 1.158n and 1.490n.

113.
manna
: divinely provided food, sweet like honey (Exod. 16.31). So Homer describes the oratory of Nestor: “from whose tongue flowed speech sweeter than honey” (1.249). The ability to
make the worse appear / The better reason
defines sophistry and is a charge brought against Socrates (
Apology
19b), as Milton observes: “that he ever made the worse cause seem the better” (
Tetrachordon
in
MLM
989).

123.
conjecture
: doubt;
success:
outcome.

124.
fact
: deed, feat.
Fact of arms
translates an idiom common in French and Italian.

127.
scope
: object, end.

139.
mold
: material substance; for celestial beings, light or pure fire (see Ps. 104.4). Cp. Comus’s claim that he and his band are of “purer fire” than agents of morality (111).

141.
Her mischief
: the harm intended her (i.e., the
ethereal mold
of l. 139).

149–50.
swallowed … Night:
Satan will reiterate this fear (ll. 438–41, 10.476–77).

152.
Let this be good
: “were we to concede that nonexistence is desirable.”

156.
As if through lack of self-control, or unwittingly. The astute Belial ironically registers God’s omnipotence and omniscience.

160.
they who
: “Belial avoids naming Moloch, who is in any case nameless” (Leonard). Naming a previous speaker is prohibited by Parliamentary rules of debate.

165.
amain
: at full speed.

170.
“The breath of the Lord, like a stream of brimstone, doth kindle [hellfire]” (Isa. 30.33). Cp. the story of King Nebuchadnezzar, who fires his furnace “seven times more than it was wont” to incinerate his prisoners (Dan. 3.19). According to the
Geneva
gloss, angry tyrants exercise their wits by “inventing strange and cruel punishments.”

173.
intermitted
: discontinued temporarily.

174.
red right hand
: translates Horace’s account of Jove’s
rubente dextera
(
Odes
1.2.3–4.). Horace evokes Rome’s panic at a catastrophic flood threatened by Jove’s thunder. Belial conjures up a vision of Hell similarly inundated, but with fire.

175.
Her
: Hell’s.

176.
cataracts
: heavy downpours.

180–82.
Caught … whirlwinds:
Cp. Pallas’ vengeance on Ajax: “him, as with pierced breast he breathed forth flame, she caught in a whirlwind and impaled on a spiky crag” (Vergil,
Aen
. 1.44–45).

187–93.
Belial offers impeccable theological rationale against either alternative on Satan’s agenda (l. 41; cp. 1.661–62).

188.
what can force or guile
: “what can force or guile accomplish.”

197–99.
since … will:
Belial’s theological clarity persists as he accurately links
fate, omnipotent decree
, and
the victor’s will
(cp. 5.602, 7.173).

199.
To suffer, as to do
: Editors since Newton cite Livy’s quotation of the legendary Mutius Scaevola (“left-handed”), who earned his name by burning off his own right hand in response to captors’ threats: “The strength of Rome is to do and also to suffer” (2.12). Cp. 1.158n and
PR
3.195. Belial, by contrast—nameless on account of his crimes and already engulfed in flames—recommends passivity to reduce suffering (ll. 208–14). In the narrator’s terms, he seeks
ignoble ease
through
peaceful sloth
(l. 227).

200–208.
Our strength … conqueror:
The
law
to which Belial refers is the law of conquest or right of war, which Milton in
CD
cites to justify the death sentence imposed on all of Adam and Eve’s descendants (1.11 in
MLM
1238). Cp. 1.149–50n.

213.
what is punished
: the punishment already inflicted.

213–19.
whence … pain:
“If God were to stop stoking the fire, the purity of our native substance might overcome it. Or, we might grow accustomed to a less intense fire and not notice it. Or perhaps our physiology and substance will adapt, so that hellfire will feel natural to us.” Belial’s first alternative fits with his rejection of Moloch’s plan; cp. lines 139–42. The last alternative anticipates Mammon’s proposal—that they adapt themselves to Hell (ll. 274–78). On God as the bellows infuriating hellfire, see 170n.

220.
light
: Possible meanings include the overtly paradoxical “illumination,” as well as less obviously contradictory adjectival senses, such as “luminous” and “less harsh.” “The rhyme at 220–21 offers a suitably jingling accompaniment to the cheerful fantasy” (Fowler).

223–24.
since … worst:
“Insofar as happiness is concerned, our current situation is certainly a bad one, but for a bad situation, it is not the worst.”

228.
Mammon
: See 1.678n.

245.
Ambrosial
: divinely fragrant; classically, ambrosia is divine nourishment.

256.
easy yoke
: “who best / Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best” (
Sonnet 19
10–11).

263–68.
How oft … Hell?:
“The Lord hath said that he would dwell in the thick darkness” (2 Chron. 6.1; see also Ps. 1811–13).

271.
Wants not
: does not lack.

275.
elements
: components, habitats (cp.
Il Pens
93–94); Belial makes a similar conjecture at lines 217–18.

278.
sensible
: what is felt; sensation (adj. for noun).

281.
Compose
: adjust to (by becoming part of); calm.

282.
where
: 1667; “were” in 1674.

288.
o’erwatched
: sleep deprived.

288–89.
bark, pinnace:
small sailing ships.

292.
such another field
: another battle such as they fought in Heaven.

297.
policy
: statecraft; in Milton’s era,
policy
often implies Machiavellian cunning.
process of time:
Cp. Adam and Eve’s prospects for improvement, “by tract of time” (5.498).

302.
front
: brow, face.

306.
Atlantean
: Atlas-like; Zeus doomed Atlas, a rebel Titan, to uphold the sky (cp. 4.987n). Statesmen were often compared to Atlas or to Hercules relieving Atlas of his burden. See Cowley’s praise of King Charles: “On whom (like Atlas shoulders) the propped state/(As he were the
Primum Mobile
of fate)/Solely, relies” (
On his Majesty’s Return out of Scotland
).

312.
style
: official name or title. The fallen angels’ original titles indicated their authority, the defense of which Satan cited as cause for their initial rebellion (see, e.g., 5.772–802). Beëlzebub invokes these titles to ask if they are indeed willing to forsake their Heavenly identities, as Mammon has suggested. Cp. 10.460–62,
PR
2.121–25.

315.
We retain from 1674 the semicolons bracing
doubtless
, which seem intended to indicate deliberate pauses for rhetorical effect.

321.
In reply to Belial’s conjecture at lines 209–13.

324.
first and last
: Cp. the persistent account of God in Isaiah (41.4, 27; 43.10; 44.6; 48.12) and of the Son in Revelation (1.11, 17; 2.8; 21.6; 22.13).

327–28.
iron, golden:
The association of iron with severity and gold with mercy distinguishes between the regime of God in Hell and in Heaven. Cp. Ps. 2.9 and Esther 4.11. See also the iron and golden keys of St. Peter in
Lyc
110–11.