Lay vanquished, rolling in the fiery gulf,

Confounded though immortal. But his doom

5 Reserved him to more wrath; for now the thought
Both of lost happiness and lasting pain

Torments him. Round he rolls his baleful eyes,
That witnessed huge affliction and dismay,
Mixed with obdurate pride and steadfast hate.
10 At once, as far as Angel's ken, he views
The dismal situation waste and wild.

A dungeon horrible on all sides round

As one great furnace flamed; yet from those flames
No light, but rather darkness visible

15 Served only to discover sights of woe,

Regions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace
And rest can never dwell, hope never comes
That comes to all; but torture without end
Still urges, and a fiery deluge, fed

20 With ever burning sulphur unconsumed.
Such place eternal Justice had prepared
For those rebellious, here their prison ordained
In utter darkness and their portion set,
As far removed from God and light of Heaven
25 As from the centre thrice to the utmost pole.
Oh how unlike the place from whence they fell!
There the companions of his fall, o'erwhelmed
With floods and whirlwinds of tempestuous fire,

8. Witnessed, bore evidence of, testified to-whereas the modern verb witness is a loose synonym for see. In Richard II. ii. 4, we have

The sun sets weeping in the lowly west,

Witnessing storms to come, woe, and unrest ;"

i.e. clearly showing in his aspect that such results were about to happen.

10. Angel's ken: to ken is to know, and to come within ken, is to come so near as to be clearly recognized. Keats speaks of a

"Watcher of the skies When a new planet swims into his ken."

14. Darkness visible, not darkness as an object of sight, but darkness in which objects may be (supernaturally) seen, as the next line clearly proves. See note in "Manual of English Language," p. 98. 19. Urges, presses, assails, Lat. urget. 20. Unconsumed, inconsumable. note 21, extract 60.

23. Utter, outer.

See

25. Centre often used specially of the point (Gk. Kévтpov) that lies exactly in the Earth's "heart of heart."

He soon discerns, and weltering by his side 30 One next himself in power, and next in crime, Long after known in Palestine and named

He scarce had ceas'd when the superior fiend
Was moving toward the shore: his ponderous shield,
Ethereal temper, massy, large and round,
Behind him cast; the broad circumference
5 Hung on his shoulders like the Moon, whose orb
Through optic glass the Tuscan artist views
At evening from the top of Fesolé,
Or in Valdarno, to descry new lands,
Rivers, or mountains in her spotty globe.
10 His spear, to equal which the tallest pine
Hewn on Norwegian hills, to be the mast
Of some great ammiral, were but a wand,
He walk'd with, to support uneasy steps
Over the burning marle, not like those steps
15 On Heaven's azure; and the torrid clime
Smote on him sore besides, vaulted with fire:
Nathless he so endur'd till on the beach
Of that inflamed sea he stood, and call'd
His legions, angel forms, who lay intranc'd,
20 Thick as autumnal leaves that strew the brooks
In Vallombrosa, where the Etrurian shades,
High over-arch'd, imbower; or scatter'd sedge
Afloat, when with fierce winds Orion arm'd
Hath vex'd the Red-Sea coast.

6. Tuscan artist, Galileo, whose acquaintance the poet made at Florence in 1638. The philosopher was then a prisoner in the Inquisition.

12. Ammiral, the principal vessel in a fleet. Milton here adopts the Italian

spelling, ammiraglia; but the word admiral is from Sp. almiranta, which itself comes from the Arabic amir, a lord.

17. Nathless, na the less, nevertheless.

97. INVOCATION TO LIGHT. (Book III. 1.)
Hail, holy Light, offspring of Heaven first-born!
Or of the Eternal coeternal beam,

May I express thee unblam'd? since God is light,
And never but in unapproached light

5 Dwelt from eternity, dwelt then in thee,
Bright effluence of bright essence increate!
Or hear'st thou rather pure etherial stream,
Whose fountain who shall tell? Before the Sun,
Before the Heavens thou wert, and at the voice
10 Of God, as with a mantle, didst invest
The rising world of waters dark and deep,
Won from the void and formless infinite.
Thee I revisit now with bolder wing,

Escap'd the Stygian pool, though long detain’d
15 In that obscure sojourn, while, in my flight,
Through utter and through middle darkness borne,
With other notes than to the Orphéan lyre,
I sung of Chaos and eternal Night;

Taught by the heavenly Muse to venture down
20 The dark descent, and up to re-ascend,
Though hard and rare: thee I revisit safe,
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;
25 So thick a drop serene hath quench'd their orbs,
Or dim suffusion veil'd. Yet not the more

2, 3. Or may I, without exposing myself to blame, express thee (describe thee as) the co-eternal beam of the Eternal -as eternal as the Eternal Himself.

6. Bright essence, i.e. that of God Himself.

7. Hear'st thou rather: this is one of Milton's pedantic Latinisms, meaning "Art thou rather called "

"Matutine pater, seu Jane libentius audis?"- Horace, Sat. ii., vi.

10. Invest, clothe, cover.

16. By "utter (outer; see note 16, extract 7) darkness" he means Hell; and by "middle" that region which lay between Hell and Heaven.

21. Hard and rare, a task difficult, and but seldom accomplished.

22. Sovran: see note 8, extract 18. ..dim suffusion according to the favourite medical theories of that time Milton's blindness was caused either by the gutta serena, or by a dim suffusion of matter.

25, 26. Drop serene. . . .

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
30 Thee, Sion, and the flowery brooks beneath,
That wash thy hallow'd feet, and warbling flow,
Nightly I visit: nor sometimes forget
Those other two, equall'd with me in fate
So were I equall'd with them in renown,
35 Blind Thamyris, and blind Mæonides,

And Tiresias, and Phineus, prophets old:
Then feed on thoughts, that voluntary move
Harmonious numbers; as the wakeful bird
Sings darkling, and in shadiest covert hid,
40 Tunes her nocturnal note. Thus with the year
Seasons return; but not to me returns
Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn,
Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose,
Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine;
45 But cloud instead, and ever-during dark
Surrounds me, from the cheerful ways of men
Cut off, and for the book of knowledge fair
Presented with a universal blank

Of Nature's works, to me expung’d and ras'd, 50 And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out.

So much the rather thou, celestial Light,

Shine inward, and the mind through all her powers
Irradiate there plant eyes, all mist from thence
Purge and disperse, that I may see and tell

55 Of things invisible to mortal sight.

39. Darkling, adv. in the dark. See note 19, extract 15.

98. ADAM AND EVE. (Book IV. 288.)

Two of far nobler shape, erect and tall,
Godlike erect, with native honour clad,
In naked majesty seem'd lords of all,
And worthy seem'd for in their looks divine

5 The image of their glorious Maker shone,
Truth, wisdom, sanctitude severe and pure
(Severe, but in true filial freedom placed),
Whence true authority in men; though both
Not equal, as their sex not equal seem'd:
10 For contemplation he and valour form'd;
For softness she, and sweet attractive grace;
He for God only, she for God in him :
His fair large front and eye sublime declared
Absolute rule; and hyacinthine locks
15 Round from his parted forelock manly hung
Clustering, but not beneath his shoulders broad:
She, as a veil, down to the slender waist
Her unadorned golden tresses wore

Dishevell❜d, but in wanton ringlets waved,
20 As the vine curls her tendrils, which implied
Subjection, but required with gentle sway,
And by her yielded, by him best received,
Yielded with coy submission, modest pride,
And sweet, reluctant, amorous delay.

16. In this line the poet's rigid puritanism would seem to reveal itself; long hair having been an object of its special abhorrence.

18. A tress was properly a braid or plait, fr. It. treccia, Fr. tresse; and, ac

cording to Diez, comes from Gk. Tρixa, threefold; so that it strictly means a plait made up of three bands of hair.

19. Dishevelled: fr. O. Fr. descheveler, and that fr. cheveux, Lat. capilli, the hair.

To whom thus Eve, with perfect beauty adorned:
"My author and disposer, what thou biddest
Unargued I obey; so God ordains :

God is thy law, thou mine; to know no more
5 Is woman's happiest knowledge, and her praise.
With thee conversing I forget all time;

All seasons and their change, all please alike.
Sweet is the breath of morn, her rising sweet,

6. Conversing, associating generally, fr. Lat. conversari; once the ordinary sense of the word.