The Complete Poems (Penguin Classics)

  898. Hot, Cold, Moist, and Dry The four contraries. In the universe they combine to form the four elements, while in the human body they form the four humours. The union of hot and dry produces fire and choler; that of hot and moist, air and blood; of cold and moist, water and phlegm; of cold and dry, earth and melancholy. In the universe, we encounter the contraries only in their combined forms. Satan meets them raw.

  900. embryon atoms indivisible units of matter that are the seeds of everything. Cp. pregnant causes (913). Atomist philosophers held that the universe was formed of an infinite number of atoms that had collided with each other while falling through infinite space. Atoms were of various shapes and sizes: hooked (sharp) ones formed solids, while round (smooth) ones formed fluids. There was no Creator, and all was brought together by Chance (Lucretius, De Rerum Nat. ii). Marjara (93) sees M. as confining the atoms to Chaos, since ‘Chaos is the only place where such atomies could exist’.

  903–6. unnumbered… wings The sands correspond to atoms and the winds to the four contraries. Ariosto uses the same simile as an image for Fortune (Orl. Fur. xxxiii 50).

  904. Barca… Cyrene cities in the Libyan desert.

  905. Levied lifted up (on the wind) and enlisted as troops. poise add weight to (OED 4a).

  909. arbiter judge, with an overtone of capricious arbitration.

  910. Chance governs all ‘The only important school of philosophy which attributed chance to nature was atomism’ (Marjara 92).

  910–18. Into… Stood Bentley in 1732 objected to Satan’s standing Into this wild abyss. Strictly, Satan stands and looks. But M.’s syntax, and the absence of the expected verb of motion, mime Satan’s hesitation.

  910. abyss The literal meaning (‘bottomless’) suggests that Satan is looking down even though he means to ascend. Vertigo is to be expected in Chaos (see 893–4).

  911. The womb… grave translating Lucretius, De Rerum Nat. v 259. Lucretius is speaking of the earth, not Chaos.

  916. more worlds other universes. See i 650n;.

  919. frith firth, estuary.

  921. ruinous falling, crashing (as of towers).

  921–2. to compare / Great things with small a Virgilian formula (Ecl. i 24, Georg. iv 176), but Virgil’s ‘small things’ really are small (puppies, bees). M.’s small things (the sacking of a city, the disintegration of the universe) would be great in any other poem. Cp. vi 310, x 306, and PR iv 563–4.

  922. Bellona Roman goddess of war.

  927. vans *wings (OED sb1 3).

  932. vast vacuity Porter (58) compares Hesiod’s ‘great chasm’ in Tartarus, through which a man might fall for a year, buffeted by whirlwinds (Theog. 740–43). Satan might fall for thousands of years (to this hour).

  933. pennons *wings (from Latin pennae or English ‘pinion’).

  936. rebuff *repelling blast (OED 2), with a play on ‘snub’. Even Chaos rejects Satan.

  937. instinct *impelled, inflamed (OED 2). Thunder and lightning were thought to arise when earth’s hot sulphurous vapours mixed with cold nitrous vapours in the atmosphere. Chaos ‘spontaneously forms gunpowder’ (Schwartz 27).

  939. boggy Syrtis The Syrtes were two shifting sandbanks off the north coast of Africa between Cyrene and Carthage. Lucan (Pharsalia ix 303f.) describes Cato of Utica’s heroic journey through the greater Syrtis, which Nature had left ‘ambiguous between sea and land’. Tasso (Gerus. Lib. xv 18) names Syrtis alongside Mount Casius and Damietta (the site of M.’s Serbonian bog, ii 592–3). Apollonius Rhodius describes Syrtis as a misty wasteland (Argonautica iv 1235f.). The Trojan fleet encounters the Syrtes in Virgil, Aen. i 111.

  943–7. gryphon… gold Gryphons (or griffins) were monsters (part lion, part eagle) that guarded the gold of Scythia against the one-eyed Arimaspians (Herodotus iii 116).

  944. moory marshy.

  945. *Arimaspian Earlier authors used the form ‘Arimasp’.

  948–50. O’er bog… flies The monosyllables, which ‘cannot be pronounced but slowly, and with many pauses’ (Newton), mime the difficulty of Satan’s voyage.

  952. *stunning deafening. OED’s earliest participial instance.

  954. vehemence including ‘mindlessness’ (Latin vehe-mens).

  964. Orcus and Ades variant names for Pluto (Hades).

  965. Demogorgon Lucan (Pharsalia vi 744–9) and Statius (Thebaid iv 516) depict the gods of the underworld as dreading a mysterious being whose name causes the earth to shake. A medieval scribe supplied the name ‘Demogorgon’, perhaps in error for Demiourgos (the Creator in Platonic philosophy). Demogorgon passed into literature through Boccaccio’s De Genealogiis Deorum. See e.g. Spenser, FQ Ii 37 and IV ii 47. In Prolusion i M. identifies Demogorgon ‘with the Chaos of the ancients’ (YP 1. 222). 971–2. disturb / The secrets Bentley wanted to emend disturb to ‘disclose’, but secrets means ‘secret places’ (OED 5) and Satan is hinting at his own disruptive powers, which even Chaos might notice.

  977. Confine with border on.

  980. I travel this profound, direct my course The comma (common to all seventeenth-century editions) allows direct to act as both adjective and verb and so permits Satan to be evasive as to whether he is asking for directions. Satan is reluctant to admit that he is more than half lost (975).

  982. behoof advantage.

  988. * Anarch Chaos, ruler of anarchy (and so no ruler).

  989. incomposed agitated and disarranged.

  990. I know thee, stranger, who thou art Cp. Mark 1. 24 and Luke 4. 34, where a devil addresses Christ: ‘I know thee who thou art, the Holy One of God’.

  999. serve suffice.

  1000. so in this way (by residing on the frontiers).

  1001. [yjour] our Ed I, Ed II. Zachary Pearce proposed the emendation in 1733. Chaos does have intestine broils (civil wars), but these cannot weaken him, for they are the means ‘By which he reigns’ (908–9). Heaven’s civil war has encroached on Chaos by bringing Hell and our universe into being (1002–5). Intestine broils echoes Marlowe, Hero and Leander (1598) i 252: ‘And with intestine broils the world destroy’.

  1004. heaven the universe surrounding our earth, as distinct from Heaven (1006), the abode of God.

  1005. golden chain see below, 1051n.

  1007. walk Satan ‘swims or sinks, or wades, or creeps, or flies’ through Chaos, but he never takes a walk. Empson (118) hears Chaos as jeering, but the understatement also implies a haughty compliment.

  1008. speed both ‘meet with success’ and ‘make haste’; perhaps also ‘destroy, kill’ (OED 9c).

  1013. pyramid spire, flame-shape (supposedly derived from Greek pyr, ‘fire’).

  1018. justling rocks the Symplegades (‘clashing ones’) – rocks through which the Argonauts passed in search of the golden fleece (Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica ii 552–611).

  1019–20. Ulysses… steered The monsters Scylla and Charybdis threatened any sailor passing through the Straits of Messina between Italy and Sicily. On Circe’s advice, Odysseus chose the lesser evil of Scylla in preference to the whirlpool of Charybdis. Scylla devoured six of his men as he passed under her rock (Od. xii 234–59). Homer does not place Scylla in a whirlpool.

  1019. larboard port (opposite of starboard).

  1024–8. Sin and Death… a bridge See x 293–305.

  1024. amain with main force and at full speed.

  1034. influence astral influence (see Nativity 71n), here applied metaphorically to Heaven’s influence on Chaos.

  1039. works fortifications (her refers to Nature).

  1043. holds holds a course for.

  1044. shrouds the standing rigging of a ship (OED sb21), tackle torn Cp. Shakespeare, Coriolanus IV v 67–8 (Aufidius addressing the disguised Coriolanus): ‘Though thy tackle’s torn, / Thou show’st a noble vessel.’ ‘Tackle’ is the running rigging used to work a ship’s sails (OED 2a).

  1046. Weighs keeps steady.

  1048. undetermined… round Heaven is so wide, that Satan can only guess at its shape.

&nb
sp; 1050. living native, unhewn.

  1051. golden chain The golden chain with which Zeus threatens to pull gods, earth and sea (Homer, II. viii 18–27) was from ancient times interpreted as an allegory of universal concord. See e.g. Plato (Theaetetus 153D), Chaucer (The Knight’s Tale I (A) 2987–93), Spenser (FQ II vii 46), and M.’s Prolusion ii (YP 1. 236). From this tradition Fowler concludes that M.’s image has the effect of‘binding and ordering’ the turmoil of Chaos. Ricks, noting the proximity of chain to pendent, draws the opposite inference that ‘the universe is like a beautiful jewel or “pendent”, liable to be stolen’.

  1052. pendent world The whole universe, hanging in space. Cp. Shakespeare, Measure for Measure III i 124 – 5: ‘blown with restless violence round about / The pendent world’.

  1053. magnitude one of the classes into which astronomers ranked the fixed stars according to brilliancy. The simile makes the universe appear much smaller than it had seemed at i 74 or ii 999 – 1006.

  1054. fraught with big with the menace of (OED ppl. a 3b). Cp.the nautical imagery in 1043 – 4).

  1055. he hies he makes haste. M. opens book iii with the same alliteration.

  BOOK III

  1. Light physical light alone (Kelley 91–4, Bauman 214–32) or a metaphor for the Son of God (Hunter2 149–56). Either light could be first-born (see Gen. 1. 3 and Col. 1. 15).

  2–3. Or… unblamed ‘Or may I, without committing blasphemy, describe you as being co-eternal with God?’ M. in CD i 5 denies that the Son is co-eternal with the Father.

  3. God is light I John 1. 5.

  4. *unapproachÈd inaccessible (see ix 5n), God dwells ‘in the light which no man can approach unto’ (I Tim. 6. 16).

  6. effluence emanation.

  7. hear’st thou rather ‘Would you rather be called’. Cp. the cautious addressing of divine beings in vii 1–2 and Ep. Dam. 208. ethereal consisting of ether, the subtlest element. See vii 244n.

  7–8. stream… fountain Cp. Lactantius, Divine Institutes IV xxix: ‘the [Father] is as it were an overflowing fountain, the [Son] as a stream flowing forth from it: the former as the sun, the latter as it were a ray extended from the sun’(cit. Hunter2 150). See also iii 375.

  10. invest cover.

  11. world of waters dark and deep Cp. Spenser, FQ I i 39: ‘the world of waters wide and deepe’.

  12—16. The void and formless infinite and middle darkness are Chaos; the Stygian pool and utter darkness are Hell.

  17. Orphéan lyre Orpheus descended to Hades in search of his wife Eurydice (see L’Allegro 145–50n;). M. sings with other notes because his song was never intended to charm the ears of Hell. Orpheus was also the supposed author of the Orphic Hymn to Night, which sees Night as a beneficent deity. M.’s Night is malevolent. See A. B. Chambers, ‘Chaos in Paradise Lost’ jhi 24 (1963), 55–84 (p. 75).

  19. Taught by the Heav’nly Muse M. ‘speaks to the light about the Muse’, so the Light is not the Muse (Bauman 230).

  20—21. The dark descent… hard and rare another echo of the Sibyl’s warning to Aeneas. See ii 432–3n.

  25. quenched *destroyed the sight of the eye (OED ic). Eyes were thought to emit beams and M. imagines these as having been extinguished.

  25—6. drop serene… suffusion translating gutta serena and suffusio nigra, medical terms for ocular diseases.

  29. Smit with the love of sacred song Cp. Lucretius, De Rerum Nat., i 922– 5: ‘high hope of renown has… struck into my heart sweet love of the Muses… I love to approach virgin springs’. Cp. also Virgil, Georg. ii 475 – 7

  30. Sion the sacred mountain (as opposed to Helicon or Parnassus). Cp. i 10 – 12.

  32. nor sometimes forget often remember.

  34. So mere I Would that I were.

  35. Thamyris a legendary Thracian poet, punished with blindness for boasting that he could outsing the Muses (Homer, II. ii 594–600). Maeonides Homer.

  36. Tiresias the blind Theban prophet. Cp. Marvell’s ‘On Mr Milton’s Paradise Lost: ‘Just heaven thee, like Tiresias, to requite, / Rewards with prophecy thy loss of sight’ (43–4).

  Phineus a Thracian prophet, blinded by the gods.

  37. voluntary freely (as in a musical ‘voluntary’, chosen by the performer). move put forth, utter (OED 4).

  38. numbers verses. wakeful bird nightingale.

  39. darkling in the dark.

  47. Book of Knowledge the Book of Nature, God’s revelation in his creatures.

  48. blank void (OED 7), but expunged and razed also suggest a blank page in Nature’s book. The Romans expunged writing on waxed tablets by covering it with little pricks, or razed it by shaving the tablets clean.

  60. sanctities angels.

  61. his sight seeing him, and being seen by him.

  62. his right Heb. 1. 2 – 3: ‘His Son… sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high’.

  67. fruits playing on Latin fruitio, ‘enjoyment’.

  71. this side Night that part of Chaos between Heaven and the universe.

  72. dun dusky. sublime aloft.

  73. stoop descend from a height (OED 5a) and descend swiftly on prey (OED 6, hawking term).

  74. world universe. The bare outside is a hard outer shell.

  75. without both ‘on the outside of and ‘not having’. The land on the outside of our firmament is unsheltered by any firmament. The oxymoron imbosomed without implies the vulnerability of a universe imbosomed in nothing but itself.

  76. Uncertain… air Satan cannot tell whether the universe is surrounded by ocean or air.

  81. Transports both ‘conveys’ and ‘carries away’ (with hate). Adversary the literal meaning of Satan (see i 82n).

  83. main vast, uninterrupted. Cp. ‘Main ocean’ (vii 279).

  84. Wide interrupt forming a wide breach.

  93. glozing flattering.

  119. *unforeknown M. in CD i 3 argues that future events are certain for no other reason than that God foreknows them (YP 6. 164–5). In this anxiety to acquit his foreknowledge, God now says that the Fall would have been certain even if he had not foreknown it. This statement can only damage God’s (and M.’s) theodicy, for it inadvertently concedes that the certainty (not just the possibility) of the Fall is grounded in something other than divine foreknowledge.

  120. impúlse instigation, esp. a strong suggestion supposed to come from a good or evil spirit(OED 3).

  129. first sort fallen angels. suggestion prompting from within (OED ib), devilish temptation (OED ia). See v 702n.

  136. Spirits elect unfallen angels. Cp. I Tim. 5. 21: ‘the elect angels’.

  140. Substantially M. in CD i 5 argues that God imparted to the Son his ‘divine substance’, but not his ‘total essence’ (trans. Carey, YP 6. 211–12).

  153–4. That be… from thee Cp. Abraham’s plea for the Sodomites: ‘That be far from thee to do after this manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked: and that the righteous should be as the wicked, that be far from thee’ (Gen. 18. 25).

  158. naught nothing, nought (OED 1) and wickedness (OED 2).

  166. blasphemed reviled, defamed.

  169. Son of my bosom Cp. John 1. 18: ‘the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father’.

  170. my… effectual might Cp. I Cor. 1. 24: ‘Christ the power of God’. Cp. also Venus’s words to Cupid at Aen. i 664: ‘Son, who art alone my strength, my mighty power’. Patristic tradition had applied Virgil’s line to Christ.

  177. exorbitant forsaking the right path (OED 3), immoderate (OED 4a), abnormal (OED 2c).

  178. yet once more See Lycidas in.

  180. know how frail Cp. Ps. 39. 4: ‘That I may know how frail I am’.

  183. peculiar grace M. rejects Calvinist predestination in CD i 4 (YP 6. 181), but here God implies that some are predestined to be saved. Danielson (82–3) compares Richard Baxter’s Catholick Theologie (1675), which distinguishes between ‘sufficient Grace’ (offered to everyone) and ‘efficient Grace’ (given to a few). Thus no one is pred
estined to damnation but some are predestined to salvation.

  186. betimes in time.

  189. stony hearts ‘I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them an heart of flesh’ (Ezek. 11. 19).

  200. hard be hardened M. in CD i 8 says that ‘hardening of the heart… is usually the last punishment’ inflicted on sinners ‘in this life’ (trans. Carey, YP 6. 336–7).

  206. Affecting aspiring to.

  208. sacred *set apart (OED 2b), accursed (OED 6). devote consigned to destruction (OED ‘devoted’ 3).

  211. Some other able Immortal angels are presumably able to redeem man by choosing to be mortal (214). But see below, 281n.

  212. rigid strict (also suggesting rigor mortis).satisfaction the theological term for Christ’s sacrifice.

  215. just th’ unjust to save Cp. I Pet. 3. 18: ‘the just for the unjust’.

  217. stood mute Cp. ii 418 29, where the devils ‘sat mute’ until Satan volunteered to undertake the voyage to earth.

  219. Patron advocate.

  224. doom Judgement.

  225. fulness dwells Cp. Col. 2. 9: ‘For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily’.

  231. unprevented before being prayed for. Cp. ‘Prevenient grace’ (xi 3).

  233. dead in sins Cp. Eph. 2. 4: ‘when we were dead in sins’.

  234. meet fitting, adequate.

  241. wreck wreak, give vent to (OED 2 2), but suggesting too that the Son is a rock on which Death’s rage will wreck itself. Cp. iv 11 (‘wreck on innocent frail man’).

  244. Life in myself forever Cp. John 5. 26: ‘For as the Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself’.

  247–9. Thou wilt not… corruption Cp. Ps. 16. 10: ‘Thou will not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption’.

  250. I shall rise The Son’s confidence might not emerge from easy foreknowledge. In CD i 5 M. denies omniscience to the Son (YP 6. 265–6).

  251–4. spoiled… triumph Cp. Col. 2.15: ‘And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them’.

  251. spoil prey (OED 4), with overtones of‘spoils of war’. Human nature, exalted by the Resurrection, ‘was very often referred to as “spoil” ’ (Fowler, ix 147–51n).