New courage and revive, though now they lie
Groveling and prostrate on yon lake of fire,
As we erewhile,1 astounded and amazed:
No wonder, fallen such a pernicious2 height."

He scarce had ceased when the superior fiend Was moving toward the shore, his ponderous shield, Ethereal temper, massy, large, and round,

5

Behind him cast. The broad circumference 6
Hung on his shoulders like the moon, whose orb
Through optic glass the Tuscan artist views
At evening, from the top of Fesolé,8

Or in Valdarno,9 to descry new lands,10
Rivers, or mountains, in her spotty globe.
His spear, to equal which the tallest pine,
Hewn on Norwegian hills, to be the mast
Of some great ammiral,11 were but a wand,-
He walked with, to support uneasy steps

1 erewhile, before, previously.
2 pernicious, excessive, ruin-

ous.

8 ethereal. What preposition is understood before this word? 4 temper. Meaning here? 5 massy. Poetic form of what word?

6 The broad circumference. What object is meant by this rhetorical expression?

7 the Tuscan artist: meaning Galileo, whom Milton saw in Florence (see p. 75). He constructed (about 1609) an "optic glass," called

by his name the Galilean telescope, which immensely advanced the science of astronomy.

8 Fesolé (Fiesole) is a hill near Florence, on which are the remains of the ancient city of Fæsulæ.

9 Valdarno (Val d'Arno), the valley of the Arno, in which both Florence and Pisa are situated.

10 new lands. Galileo was the first to discover that the surface of the moon is uneven.

11 ammiral = admiral: not the commander, however, but the chief ship of a fleet.

Over the burning marle1 (not like those steps
On heaven's azure), and the torrid clime
Smote on him sore besides, vaulted with fire.
Nathless he so endured, till on the beach

2

Of that inflaméd sea he stood, and called

His legions, angel forms, who lay entranced,
Thick as autumnal leaves that strew the brooks
In Vallombrosa,3 where the Etrurian shades,
High over-arched, imbower; or scattered sedge
Afloat, when with fierce winds Orion 5 armed
Hath vexed the Red-sea coast, whose waves o'erthrew
Busiris and his Memphian chivalry,

While with perfidious hatred they pursued
The sojourners of Goshen, who beheld
From the safe shore their floating carcasses
And broken chariot-wheels: so thick bestrewn,
Abject and lost lay these, covering the flood,
Under amazement of their hideous change.
He called so loud, that all the hollow deep
Of hell resounded: "Princes, potentates,

1 marle=marl; that is, soil generally.

22 nathless = nevertheless.

8 Vallombrosa (Latin, vallis umbrosa, shady valley) is eighteen miles east of Florence. The fall of leaves is hastened, and the accumulation of them enormously increased (as Milton may have seen on his Italian tour), by the peasants beating the woods for chestnuts.

4 scattered sedge, an allusion to the Hebrew name of the Red Sea, — Yâm Sûf, "Sea of Sedge."

5 Orion. The setting of the constellation Orion is accompanied by stormy weather,

6 Busiris... chivalry. As the name Pharaoh was merely a general designation of Egyptian kings, Milton selected one who figures in the myth of Hercules as notorious for his cruelty to strangers. Memphis was one of the oldest cities of ancient Egypt.

7 sojourners of Goshen, etc. See Exod. xiv. 30.

8 of=at.

Warriors! the flower of heaven, once yours, now lost,
If such astonishment1 as this can seize

Eternal spirits! Or have ye chosen this place
After the toil of battle to repose

Your wearied virtue,2 for the ease you find
To slumber here as in the vales of heaven?
Or in this abject posture have ye sworn
To adore the Conqueror - who now beholds
Cherub and seraph rolling in the flood,
With scattered arms and ensigns-till anon
His swift pursuers from heaven-gates discern
The advantage, and, descending, tread us down,
Thus drooping, or, with linkéd thunderbolts,
Transfix us to the bottom of this gulf?
Awake! arise!- or be for ever fallen!"

3.- INVOCATION TO LIGHT.

[The following fifty-five lines form the opening of the Third Book of Paradise Lost: they are of special interest, as containing the touching lament of the poet on his own blindness.]

HAIL, holy Light! offspring of Heaven first-born, Or of the Eternal co-eternal 5 beam,

6

May I express thee unblamed? since God is light,

1 astonishment, thunderstruck dismay.

2 virtue, valor, manhood. See Glossary.

8 Hail, holy Light! Analyze this sentence.

4 offspring. With what in apposition?

5 co-eternal. Meaning?

6 express, name.

7 God is light. See John i. 5;

1 Tim. vi. 16.

And never but in unapproachéd light
Dwelt1 from eternity, dwelt then in thee,
Bright effluence of bright essence increate.3
Or hear'st thou rather pure ethereal stream,
Whose fountain who shall tell? Before the sun,
Before the heavens, thou wert, and at the voice
Of God, as with a mantle, didst invest
The rising world of waters dark and deep,
Won from the void and formless infinite.5
Thee I revisit 6 now with bolder wing,

Escaped the Stygian pool, though long detained
In that obscure sojourn, while, in my flight
Through utter and through middle darkness borne,
With other notes than to the Orphéan lyre,8

I sung of Chaos and eternal Night;

Taught by the heavenly Muse to venture down
The dark descent, and up to re-ascend,
Through hard and rare: thee I revisit safe,

1 dwelt. What is the subject of this verb?

2 effluence. See Glossary.

8 increate. What is the modern form?

4 hear'st thou. A Latin idiom: the meaning is, "art thou called?" "Stream" is the object of "hear'st." 5 Won . . . infinite. To what noun is this adjective phrase an adjunct?

6 Thee I revisit, etc. "Thee;" that is, the light of the natural world, which the poet now reaches, having completed his description of hell.

And feel thy sovran vital lamp; but thou
Revisit'st not these eyes, that roll in vain.
To find thy piercing ray, and find no dawn;
So thick a drop serene hath quenched their orbs,
Or dim suffusion1 veiled. Yet not the more2
Cease I to wander where the Muses haunt
Clear spring, or shady grove, or sunny hill,
Smit with the love of sacred song; but chief
Thee, Sion, and the flowery brooks 3 beneath,
That wash thy hallowed feet, and warbling flow,
Nightly I visit: nor sometimes forget

Those other two equaled with me in fate,
So were I equaled with them in renown,
Blind Thamyris,5 and blind Mæonides,
And Tiresi'as, and Phine'us,8 prophets old:
Then feed on thoughts, that voluntary move

1 drop serene...dim suffusion. | bard. He is mentioned by Homer, An allusion to the two causes of who relates his presumption in blindness, which, according to the challenging the Muses to a contest, medical authorities of Milton's and his punishment in being detime, were the "serene drop" (gut-prived by them of sight and the ta serena), - a sort of transparent power of song. watery humor that destroyed the optic nerve; and "suffusion" (suffusio), a kind of film that gathered over the eye.

2 Yet not the more, etc. = nevertheless I still wander.

6 Mæon'ides; that is, Homer, who is so called because supposed to be a native of Mæonia, the ancient name of Lydia.

7 Tiresi'as, a renowned "prophet (or bard) of the mythological age of Greece. He was blind from

3 the flowery brooks are Kedron and Siloa, the latter of which, how-childhood. ever, is only a pool.

4 equaled with me in fate; that is, blind, like myself, by the decree of fate.

5 Tham'yris

8 Phine'us, a celebrated Thracian seer, whom the gods deprived of sight because, on a false accusation, he had caused his sons to be

was a Thracian blinded.