The Complete Poetry of John Milton (140 page)
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Authors: John Milton
Tags: #English; Irish; Scottish; Welsh, #Poetry, #European
390
Before mine eyes thou hast set; and in my ear
Vented much policy,
31
and projects deep
Of enemies, of aids, battels and leagues,
Plausible
32
to the world, to me worth naught.
Means I must use thou say’st, prediction else
395
Will unpredict and fail me of the Throne:
My time I told thee (and that time for thee
Were better farthest off) is not yet come;
33
When that comes think not thou to find me slack
On my part aught endeavouring, or to need
400
Thy politic maxims, or that cumbersome
Luggage of war there shewn me, argument
Of human weakness rather then of strength.
My brethren, as thou call’st them, those Ten Tribes
I must deliver, if I mean to raign
405
David
’s true heir, and his full Scepter sway
To just extent over all
Israel
’s Sons;
But whence to thee this zeal, where was it then
For
Israel
, or for
David
, or his Throne,
When thou stood’st up his Tempter
34
to the pride
410
Of numbring
Israel
, which cost the lives
Of threescore and ten thousand
Israelites
By three days Pestilence? such was thy zeal
To
Israel
then, the same that now to me.
As for those captive Tribes, themselves were they
415
Who wrought their own captivity, fell off
From God to worship Calves, the Deities
Of
Egypt, Baal
next and
Ashtaroth
,
35
And all th’ Idolatries of Heathen round,
Besides thir other worse then heathenish crimes;
420
Nor in the land of their captivity
Humbled themselves, or penitent besought
The God of their fore-fathers; but so dy’d
Impenitent, and left a race behind
Like to themselves, distinguishable scarce
425
From Gentils, but by Circumcision vain,
36
And God with Idols in their worship joyn’d.
Should I of these the liberty regard,
Who freed, as to their antient Patrimony,
Unhumbl’d, unrepentant, unreform’d,
430
Headlong would follow; and to thir Gods perhaps
Of
Bethel
and of
Dan?
no, let them serve
Thir enemies, who serve Idols with God.
Yet he at length, time to himself best known,
Remembring
Abraham
by some wond’rous call
435
May bring them back repentant and sincere,
And at their passing cleave th’
Assyrian
flood,
While to their native land with joy they hast,
As the Red Sea and
Jordan
once he cleft,
When to the promis’d land thir Fathers pass’d;
440
To his due time and providence I leave them.
So spake
Israel
’s true King, and to the Fiend
Made answer meet, that made void all his wiles.
So fares it when with truth falshood contends.
1
See Lev. viii. 8, and compare
PL
VI, 762.
2
king of Persia, defeated by Alexander the Great.
3
Mithridates; Pompey was then (66 B.C.) forty years old.
4
Alexander was known as the son of Jove Ammon; Romulus, the son of Mars.
5
Scipio.
6
unfaithful.
7
violation of the Holy of Holies by Pompey.
8
See 1 Macc. i.
9
Judas Maccabeus, born in Modin, won the throne of David after a long struggle with Antiochus.
10
referring to Eccl. iii.
11
Saul; see 1 Sam. ix–x.
12
The rudiments to be discharged through Satan’s help emphasize the word’s connotation of ignorance in contrast to the Son’s true rudiments (I, 157). The same misunderstanding of meaning lies in Satan’s reference to “regal Mysteries” (l. 249).
13
the Tigris and Euphrates.
14
soil.
15
an Armenian river flowing into the Caspian. Satan surveys cities and provinces in the Persian, Mesopotamian, and Armenian complex.
16
desert.
17
Shalmaneser IV of Assyria captured the Israelites in 726 B.C. (see 2 Kings xvii. 3–4).
18
Nebuchadnezzar; see Dan. iv. 30.
19
king of Persia; see 2 Chron. xxxvi. 22–23.
20
referring to Seleucus, general to Alexander the Great.
21
Parthia formed an empire from conquests of Assyria, Persia, and later Seleucia. The Parthian method of fighting (ll. 305 ff.) was to turn one’s horse swiftly upon discharging an arrow.
22
seat of the Seleucid empire in Syria.
23
an ancient people situated around the Black Sea, famed for savagery in battle; Sogdiana was a province of Persia.
24
an area in the Caucasus, not Spain.
25
punning on the Latin word for “back” and referring to howdahs.
26
king of Tartary and lover of Angelica, for whom he besieged Albracca, fortress of her father Gallophrone, king of Cathay. At the court of Charlemagne, she had won the hearts of Orlando, Rinaldo, and others, both Christians and pagans (“paynim”). (See Boiardo,
Orlando Innamorato
, I, x.)
27
gallantest.
28
who were generally opposed to each other.
29
The Parthians helped Antigonus gain Judaea from Hyrcanus II, who had Roman aid, in 40 B.C. But note that Satan’s advice for the Son to align himself with Parthia is specious since Parthia had already begun to decline after its defeat by Ventidius in 39–38 B.C.
30
See 2 Kings xvii. 6; the “two of Joseph” (l. 377) were the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh.
31
governmental shrewdness.
32
worthy of applause.
33
John vii. 6: “Then Jesus said unto them, My time is not yet come.”
34
See 1 Chron. xxi.
35
deities of the Phoenicians.
36
worthless and futile because the meaning of this great covenant has been lost; see
Circumcision
, n. 6. Compare also ll. 433–35 below.
Perplex’d and troubl’d at his bad success
The Tempter stood, nor had what to reply,
Discover’d in his fraud, thrown from his hope,
So oft, and the perswasive Rhetoric
5
That sleek’t his tongue, and won so much on
Eve
,
So little here, nay lost; but
Eve
was
Eve
,
This far his over-match, who self deceiv’d
And rash, before-hand had no better weigh’d
The strength he was to cope with, or his own:
10
But as a man who had been matchless held
In cunning, over-reach’t where least he thought,
To salve his credit, and for very spight
Still will be tempting him who foyls him still,
And never cease, though to his shame the more;
15
Or as a swarm of flies in vintage time,
About the wine-press where sweet moust is powr’d,
Beat off, returns as oft with humming sound;
Or surging waves against a solid rock,
Though all to shivers dash’t, th’ assault renew,
20
Vain battry, and in froth or bubbles end;
So Satan, whom repulse upon repulse
Met ever; and to shameful silence brought,
Yet gives not o’re though desperate of success,
And his vain importunity pursues.
25
He brought our Saviour to the western side
Of that high mountain, whence he might behold
Another plain,
1
long but in bredth not wide;
Wash’d by the Southern Sea, and on the North
To equal length back’d with a ridge of hills
30
That screen’d the fruits of th’ earth and seats of men
From cold
Septentrion
2
blasts, thence in the midst
Divided by a river, of whose banks
On each side an Imperial City stood,
With Towers and Temples proudly elevate
35
On seven small Hills, with Palaces adorn’d,
Porches and Theatres, Baths, Aqueducts,
Statues and Trophees, and Triumphal Arcs,
Gardens and Groves presented to his eyes,
Above the highth of Mountains interpos’d.
40
By what strange Parallax
3
or Optic skill
Of vision multiply’d through air, or glass
Of Telescope, were curious to enquire:
And now the Tempter thus his silence broke.
The City which thou seest no other deem
45
Then great and glorious
Rome
, Queen of the Earth
So far renown’d, and with the spoils enricht
Of Nations; there the Capitol thou seest
Above the rest lifting his stately head
On the
Tarpeian
rock,
4
her Cittadel
50
Impregnable, and there Mount
Palatine
Th’ Imperial Palace, compass huge, and high
The Structure, skill of noblest Architects,
With gilded battlements, conspicuous far,
Turrets and Terrases, and glittering Spires.
55
Many a fair Edifice besides, more like
Houses of Gods (so well I have dispos’d
My Aerie Microscope) thou may’st behold
Outside and inside both, pillars and roofs
Carv’d work, the hand of fam’d Artificers