In the beginning how the heavens and earth Delight thee more, and Siloa's brook that flowed Invoke thy aid to my adventurous song, That with no middle flight intends to soar Above the Aonian mount, while it pursues Chosen seed. Deut. iv. 37, "He chose their seed." So Deut. x. 15, and 1 Chron. xvi. 13.-9. In the beginning. "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." Gen. i. 1. The phrase modifies what?-10. Rose out of chaos (Gr. xáos, fr. xáσкw, xaívw, to open wide, to yawn; xáos, a vast, yawning abyss, gulf, or chasm). So in Par. Lost, III. 12, 'The rising world of waters' is represented as 'won from the void and formless infinite.' Sion (the Greek form of the Hebrew name Zion), one of the hills on which Jerusalem was built. See Smith's Dictionary of the Bible, Vol. IV. pp. 3632-4, under the word 'Zion.' -- 11. Siloa's brook. (Siloa seems to be here accented on the first syllable; but see note on 'spirit' line 17.) The Clar. Press ed. has this note: "Sion was the hill opposite to Moriah, on which latter the Temple was built. In the valley beside them was the Pool (not brook) of Siloam, an intermittent well, ebbing and flowing at irregular intervals." But in Isaiah viii. 6, we are told of 'the waters of Shiloah that go softly.' "The word 'softly' does not seem to refer to the secret transmission of the waters, but to the quiet gentleness with which the rivulet steals on its mission of beneficence. Thus 'Siloa's brook' of Milton, and 'cool Siloam's shady rill,' are not mere poetical fancies. The 'fountain' and the 'pool' and the 'rill' of Siloam are all visible to this day, each doing its old work beneath the high rock of Moriah, and almost beneath the shadow of the Temple wall." Smith's Dict. of the Bible, p. 3040, sub voce 'Siloam.' See, "Go wash in the pool of Siloam,' John ix. 7.-12. Fast by (A. S. fäst; Ger. fest; firm, closely adhering), close by. So Par. Lost, II. 725; X. 333. Oracle. The Temple, or the Holy of Holies in the Temple? 2 Sam. xvi. 23, 'as if a man had inquired at the oracle of God'; so 1 Kings vi. 16; viii. 6; 2 Chron. iv. 20 ; Ps. xxviii. 2. (Lat. oraculum, oracle, fr. os, oris, mouth.) - 14-16. That with, etc. These three lines are condemned by Landor as useless and inharmonious. Is the criticism just? Was the loftiness of the theme a sufficient reason for specially invoking aid? Middle. Middling, mediocre? Horace, Odes, II. 20, says, "I shall be conveyed through the liquid air with no vulgar or humble wing." But see 'middle' in 1. 516. Intends. Spoken elegantly as well as modestly of his song rather than himself? 15. Aonian. Aon, son of Poseidon (Neptune), was the reputed ancestor of some of the most ancient inhabitants of Boeotia, who were called from him Aŏnes. Hence Aonia, the name of a part, and often of the whole of Boeotia. The Muses, who frequented Mount Helicon in Boeotia, were often called Things unattempted yet in prose or rhime. 17 'Aonian Sisters.' "The Aonian mount is here used for the productions of the Greek poets, which Milton intends to surpass in boldness of conception." R. C. Browne. "In Milton only, first and last, is the power of the sublime revealed. In Milton only does this great agency blaze and glow as a furnace kept up to a white heat- without suspicion of collapse." De Quincey. Pursues, traces in song. Lat. prosequi; e. g. in Virgil, Georgics, III. 340, "Why should I pursue (in song) the shepherds and pastures?" etc. Sequi is thus used in Horace, Art of Poetry, 1. 240. Milton, like Shakespeare, is fond of using words in their Latin sense. - 16. A similar line is pointed out in Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, Canto I. st. 2. So in Comus, 1. 44. Unattempted. Says Masson, "A great deal has been written concerning the 'origin' of Paradise Lost. Some thirty authors have been cited as entitled to the credit of having probably or possibly contributed something to the conception, the plan, or the execution of Milton's great poem. What -- is to be said of all this? For the most part, it is laborious nonsense. That in any of the books, or in all of them together, there is to be found 'the origin of Paradise Lost,' in any intelligible sense of the phrase, is utterly preposterous." Rhime is Milton's spelling here, and as he uses rime in his prefatory remarks on the verse, it is supposed that the two spellings indicate different meanings; rime (rhyme' in modern orthography) meaning 'the jingling sound of like endings'; and rhime (rhythm) meaning verse in general as distinguished from prose. (A. S. riman, to number, seems to be the original of rime; whereas rhythm is the Greek pvēμós). — 17. Spirit. In his Reason of Church Government Urged against Prelaty (1641), Milton gives intimation of his intention to write a great poem, and for the afflatus he relies upon no ordinary means, but upon 'devout prayer to that Eternal Spirit that can enrich with all utterance and all knowledge.' Observe that he invokes the Holy Spirit to instruct; the Muse to sing. Keightley suggests that in this double invocation Milton had in view something similar in Fletcher's Purple Island (VI. 25). In Job xxxii. 8, we read, "But there is a spirit in man; and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth them understanding." Did Milton regard himself as inspired? Isaiah lvii. 15; Luke xvii. 21. Scan this line as follows: And chiefly Thou | O Spir | it that dōst | prefer. There is no need of reducing 'spirit' to a monosyllable. Regular pentameters, composed exclusively of iambics, would soon become monotonous. Milton introduces occasionally pyrrhics [], trochees [~~], spondees [-], anapests [~~~], amphibrachs [~~~], and perhaps tribrachs [~~~] and dactyls [—~~]. He always, or nearly always, gives us five accented syllables; but he disposes the accent according to his own sense of fitness. 18. Before all temples. "Know ye not that ye are the Instruct me, for Thou knowest. Thou from the first I may assert eternal providence, And justify the ways of God to men. 20 25 temple of God?" 1 Cor. iii. 16.-19. Instruct me, etc. See note on 1. 17. For thou knowest. So in Theocritus, Idyl, xxii. 116, einè leá, où yàp ołola Wast present. So in Homer's Iliad, II. 484, 485, "Tell me now, ye Muses having Olympian homes; for ye are goddesses, and ye are present [with all things] and know all." Similar is also Virgil's Eneid, VII. 641, 645; so Hesiod's Theogony, 1. 116. - 21. Dovelike. Why 'dovelike '? Masson remarks, "The comparison 'dovelike,' to illustrate the meaning of 'brooding' in the passage, occurs in the Talmudists or Jewish commentators on the Bible. There may be a recollection also of Luke iii. 22." Brooding. The language of the Bible (Gen. i. 2) is, "And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters"; but 'brooded' or 'hovered' is said to be the strict translation of the Hebrew word rendered 'moved.' In Hesiod's Theog., 1. 176, we have, "Then canie vast Heaven and brooded around Earth." Abyss. This word usually means in Par. Lost the gulf of Chaos, in which, and from a part of which, our universe was formed. See II. 910, and the remainder of that book.-24. Highth. So Milton spelled the word, and as the sound is a little different from height, we retain the old. Argument, subject. In Par. Lost, IX. 13-19, Milton compares his 'argument' with those of Homer and Virgil. So Spenser in his prefatory lines speaks of the argument' of his 'afflicted stile.' See Hamlet, III. ii. 149, “Have you heard the argument of the play?" 1 Henry IV., II. iv. 310, "The argument shall be thy running away." — 25, 26. Milton, then, had a great moral purpose in this poem. In all that he wrote in verse, he never forgot, to use his own language, 'what religious, what glorious, what magnificent use may be made of poetry.' 'As to the Paradise Lost," says De Quincey, "it happens that there is - whether there ought to be or not a pure golden moral, distinctly announced, separately contemplated, and the very weightiest ever uttered by man or realized by fable. It is a moral rather for the drama of a world than for a human poem. And this moral is made the more prominent and memorable by the grandeur of its annunciation. The jewel is not more splendid in itself than in its setting. Excepting the well-known passage on Athenian oratory in the Paradise Regained, there is none even in Milton where the metrical pomp is made so effectually to aid the pomp of the sentiment. Hearken to the way in which a roll of dactyls is made to settle, like the swell of the advancing tide, into the long thunder of billows breaking for leagues against the shore! 6 Say first for heaven hides nothing from thy view, That to the height of this great argument I may assert eternal providence.' 30 35 Hear what a motion, what a tumult, is given by the dactylic close to each of the introductory lines! And how massily is the whole locked up into the peace of heaven, as the aerial arch of a viaduct is locked up into tranquil stability by its key-stone, through the deep spondaic [sic] close, 'And justify the ways of God to men.' That is the moral of the Miltonic epos; and as much grander than any other moral formally illustrated by poets as heaven is higher than earth." (De Quincey in Note-book of an English Opium-Eater.) 27. Say first. See quotation from the Iliad in note to line 19, and the other passages there referred to. Heaven hides, etc. Ps. cxxxix. 8, "If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there; if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there!" See in Prov. xv. 11, "Hell and destruction are before the Lord."-28. What cause. So in Virgil (Æneid, I. 8), Musa, mihi causas memora, O Muse, relate to me the causes. 29. Grand (Lat. grandis, large), great. So we have 'grand thief,' Par. Lost, IV. 192; 'grand foe, Satan,' X. 1033. Compare 'grandfather,' 'great uncle,' etc. -30. Note the alliteration and repetition of the sound of f.-32. For one restraint. Keightley puts an interrogation mark after will, and makes 'for' = but for, as if modifying 'lords.' Others interpret 'for' as equivalent to on account of, modifying 'transgress.' Which is preferable? What is the 'restraint'? Force of 'besides'?-33, 34. Who first seduced them, etc. So Iliad, I. 8, Τίς τ' ἄρ σφωε θεῶν ἔριδι ξυνέηκε μάχεσθαι ; and which, then, of the gods committed the twain to contend in angry strife? The son of Latona and of Jove. Serpent. Gen. iii.; Rev. xii. 9; xx. 2. Professor Himes (Study of Paradise Lost) points out the striking resemblance between the son of Latona, Apollo, when malignant, and Milton's Satan. 35. Envy. Satan at his first view of Adam and Eve (Par. Lost, IV. 358) exclaims, "O hell! what do mine eyes with grief behold!" In IV. 502, 503, "Aside the devil turned for envy" of the happy pair. Revenge. In The mother of mankind, what time his pride Had cast him out from heaven, with all his host To set himself in glory above his peers, He trusted to have equalled the Most High, If he opposed; and, with ambitious aim, 40 Par. Lost, IV. 389, 390, Satan assigns his grounds for destroying our first parents, 'public reason just, Honor and empire, with revenge enlarged.' Mother of mankind. 'Revenge' for what? -36. Eve means life, or living; as is implied in Gen. iii. 20, "And Adam called his wife's name Eve, because she was the mother of all living." What time. Lat. quo tempore, at the time in which. So in Lycidas, What time the gray-fly winds her sultry horn.'-37. Cast out. Rev. xii. 9, "And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil and Satan. . . . and his angels were cast out with him." -38. Aspiring. Landor makes this line the first 'hendecasyllabic' line in the poem. It is indeed the first line with a redundant syllable at the end; but lines 1, 11, 13, 17, and 34 are intended to have eleven syllables? Lines with one extra syllable at the end are very frequent in Shakespeare. Masson reckons 'nine lines with a supernumerary final syllable' in the first book of Par. Lost. Which are they? The Clar. Press ed. remarks upon such lines that they are very efficient in dramatic poetry, but hardly ever in Milton.' -39. To set himself in glory above his peers. In Par. Lost, V. 812, we read the language of Abdiel to Satan, 'In place thyself so high above thy peers.' Bentley therefore objects to this verse, because Satan's crime arose from ambition to be above the Messiah. But Bishop Pearce well insists that the words 'in glory' are all-important. The next line shows the kind of glory. Peers (Lat. pares, equals; fit companions for a sovereign ?).—40. He trusted to have equalled the Most High. In Isa. xiv. 14, the wicked King of Babylon, styled Lucifer, says, "I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the Most High." See its context. To have equalled. Abbott, Shakespearian Gram., sec. 360, citing this line, explains this use of the perfect instead of the present infinitive thus: "The same idiom is found in Latin poetry (Madvig, 407, Obs. 2) after verbs of wishing and intending. The reason of the idiom seems to be a desire to express that the object wished or intended is a completed fact that has happened contrary to the wish, and cannot now be altered." Storr says, "The past infinitive" is so used "to express that the thing wished is now passed and impossible." - 41. If he opposed. If who opposed? It appears that the fallen angels were ignorant and doubtful in regard to the strength of the Almighty and the likelihood of his actively exerting that strength? In lines 93, 94, of this book, Satan asks, "And, till then, who knew the force of |