In prospect from his throne, how good, how fair, Resounded, (thou remember'st, for thou heard'st) Delighted, and with frequent intercourse The glorious train ascending: He through heaven, To God's eternal house direct the way, 563. The planets in their station list'ning stood,] The word station is used in a more peculiar sense than usual. The station of a planet is a term of art, when the planet appears neither to go backwards nor forwards, but to stand still and keep the same place in its orbit. And what is said here of the stars and planets is somewhat in the same noble strain, as the song of Deborah, Judges v. 20. the stars in their courses fought against Sisera. 560 565 570 575 565. Open, ye everlasting gates, &c.] Ps. xxiv. 7. Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in. This hymn was sung when the ark of God was carried up into the sanctuary on mount Sion, and is understood as a prophecy of our Saviour's ascension into heaven; and therefore is fitly applied by our author to the same divine Person's ascending thither after he had created the world. A broad and ample road, whose dust is gold Which nightly as a circling zone thou seest 580 Powder'd with stars. And now on earth the seventh Was set, and twilight from the east came on, 578. —as stars to thee appear, &c.] The pavement of heaven was as thick set with stars, as stars appear in the galaxy or milky way, which is an assemblage of an infinite number of little stars, seen distinctly with a telescope, but too faint and remote to affect the eye singly. 581. Powder'd with stars,] A like expression in Chaucer. Of the cuckoo and the nightingale, ver. 63. The grounde was grene, ypoudrid with daisye. 581.] It was a common expression formerly for robes spotted with any figure; so the 585 590 595 royal robes of France were said to be anciently powdered with bees, and afterwards with fleurde-lys. E. 591. and from work Now resting, bless'd and hallow'd the sev'nth day, As resting on that day from all his work,] The reason assigned by Moses, and almost in the very words, Gen. ii. 2, 3. God rested on the seventh day from all his work which he created and made: and God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because that in it he had rested from all his work. And dulcimer, all organs of sweet stop, Fuming from golden censers hid the mount. 600 Thy pow'r; what thought can measure thee or tongue Relate thee? greater now in thy return Than from the giant angels; thee that day The incense fuming from golden censers seems to be founded on Rev. viii. 3, 4. And an angel came and stood at the altar, having a golden censer; and the smoke of the incense ascended up before God out of the angel's hand. Milton had seen too their manner of incensing in the churches abroad, and he seems to have approved something of it by transferring it to heaven. And I have known some very good protestants wish that we had retained the moderate but not the superstitious use of incense in our churches, as thinking it might contribute to the sweetness and salubrity of those places. 605 602. Great are thy works, Jehoah, &c.] Milton is generally truly orthodox. In this hymn the angels intimate the unity of the Son with the Father, singing to both as one God, Jehovah. 605. Than from the giant angels;] The word giant is used not to express the stature and size of the angels, but that disposition of mind, which is always ascribed to giants, viz. a proud, fierce, and aspiring temper. And this the Hebrew word Gibbor signifies, which is rendered a giant in Scripture. Pearce. Dr. Pearce's construction of the word giant, as if it meant only fierce, proud, and aspiring. is in my opinion a little forced; nor yet do I think that there is any reason to change it into rebel, as Dr. Bentley would have it. Milton, I doubt not, intended to allude to Hesiod's giant war, but I do not see with Dr. Bentley, that therefore he must insinuate that this relation is as fabulous as that. He probably designed by this expression to hint his opinion, that the Thy thunders magnified; but to create Is greater than created to destroy. Who can impair thee, mighty King, or bound Of spi'rits apostate and their counsels vain 610 Thou hast repell'd, while impiously they thought The number of thy worshippers. Who seeks fictions of the Greek poets owed their rise to some uncertain clouded tradition of this real event, and their giants were, if they had understood the story right, his fallen angels. Thyer. 619. On the clear hyaline,] This word is expressed from the Greek van, and is immediately translated the glassy sea. For Milton, when he uses Greek words, sometimes gives the English with them, as in speaking of the rivers of hell, ii. 577. &c. and so the galaxy he immediately translates that milky way. The glassy sea is the same as the crystalline ocean, ver. 271. Kαι svNTLOV 615 620 του θρόνου θαλασσα θαλίνη, όμοιος agurraλλ. Rev. iv. 6. And before the throne was a sea of glass, like unto crystal. 621.perhaps a world Of destin'd habitation;] Milton was not willing to make the angel assert positively that every star was a world designed to be inhabited, and therefore adds perhaps, this notion of the plurality of worlds being not so well established in those days as in these. 624. Earth with her nether ocean] To distinguish it from the crystalline ocean, the waters above the firmament. E S Their pleasant dwelling place. Thrice happy men, 625 And sons of men, whom God hath thus advanc'd, Created in his image, there to dwell And worship him, and in reward to rule So sung they, and the empyréan rung Inform'd by thee might know; if else thou seek'st 631. thrice happy if they Virg. Georg. ii. 458. know Their happiness,] 630 635 640 O fortunatos nimium, sua si bona norint. |