243, 244. Light, ethereal, first of things," &c. 716, with note; also the first lines of Book III. See III. not so much created in this passage as invoked into the portion of Chaos which was to contain the creation. 261-275. "Let there be firmament," &c. Gen. i. 6. The word "firmament" has been variously interpreted. Milton understands by it the whole expanse of ether or transparent space between the Earth and the Tenth Sphere or Primum Mobile; and he supposes the creative work of the second day to have been the establishing of this firmament so as to separate the previously diffused waters or watery particles of the chaotic stuff into two aggregations—those clinging to the Earth and flowing round it, and those removed to near the circumference of the Universe and forming there the Ninth or Crystalline Sphere. 66 325. 'gemmed": i.e. "put forth," from the Latin gemmare, to bud or put forth blossoms. 373. "his longitude": i.e. path from east to west. 374, 375. "the Pleiades," &c. Job xxxviii. 31. 66 382. 'dividual": i.e. divided or shared (Lat. dividuus). See note, IV. 486. 402. "sculls" a provincial word yet with fishermen for "shoals"; which word had been already used in line 400. 420. "callow" i.e. featherless; "fledge," feathered. It was an old adjective: see it before, III. 627. 66 421. 'summed their pens": completed their plumage. 440. "Her state": perhaps merely her stately shape, but perhaps with the image of a state-barge" and its white canopy. 66 471. "Behemoth": here used for Elephant, as "Leviathan" has just been (412) for the Whale. In Job (xl. 15, and xli. 1) the names are rather for the hippopotamus and the crocodile. 590. "the female bee," &c. The notion was common in Milton's time that the working bees were females. 66 565-567. Open, ye everlasting gates," &c. Ps. xxiv. 7. 596, 597. "organs of sweet stop," wind instruments; "all sounds on fret," all sounds produced from strings by "frets" or divisions. 619. "On the clear hyaline, the glassy sea. The Angels are supposed to be looking down through Heaven's opening and beholding the new Universe as a miniature Heaven 66 suspended from the main one. They see it founded on the "clear hyaline," i.e. on the Crystalline or Ninth Sphere, which encloses it. 'Hyaline" is the Greek word for "glassy" or "crystalline," and is used in the original of Rev. iv. 6, where our version has "of glass." &c. BOOK VIII. 15-178. "When I behold this goodly frame, this World," The discussion between Adam and Raphael in these 164 lines is of singular interest in connexion with Milton's astronomical creed. See Introd. pp. 36—41: and also IV. 592-597, and note there. 40-57. "which Eve perceiving rose," &c. In this passage one may discern something characteristic of Milton's ideal of woman. 81, 82. " build, unbuild, contrive to save appearances." A very true description of the ingenious shifts to which the Ptolemaists had been put in order to reconcile their system, time after time, with a new set of phenomena. 82-84. "gird the Sphere with Centric and Eccentric scribbled o'er, Cycle and Epicycle, Orb in Orb." The fundamental notion of the Ptolemaists being that the motions of all the heavenly bodies were in perfect circles, they had been obliged, in order to account for many phenomena inexplicable on the first and simplest form of that supposition, to bring in two devices--the Eccentric and the Epicycle. The first consisted in the idea that, while the Earth is the centre of the Primum Mobile, and consequently of the whole mundane system, the spheres of the planets, and especially of the Sun, need not be strictly concentric (i.e. need not have the Earth strictly for their centre), but may be eccentric (i.e. may revolve round a point somewhat to the side of the Earth). The other device consisted in the idea that the body of a planet need not be strictly fixed in its Cycle, or the circumference of its wheeling sphere, but may move fly-like in an Epicycle, i.e. a small subsidiary circle revolving round a fixed point in that wheeling circumference. By a complicated use of these two devices, in aid of the more simple and early device of merely multiplying the mundane orbs, the Ptolemaic astronomers had contrived to save appearances," but only by such a 66 dizzy intricacy of wheels within wheels and wheels on wheels as Milton describes. His language hits off very exactly the three combined devices for meeting the difficulties: (1) Eccentric as well as Centric, (2) Epicycle as well as Cycle, (3) multiplication of general Orbs. 128. In six thou seest," i.e. in the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. 130. "three different motions." These are (1) the diurnal rotation of the Earth on her axis, (2) her annual orbit round the Sun, (3) the libration or oscillation of the axis itself. The three are exemplified in a top spinning. The spinning of the top is the first motion; the circle it describes while spinning shows the second; the varied balancing of the top all the while from a more upright to a more slant position represents the third. 133-136. "that swift nocturnal and diurnal rhomb supposed," &c. i.e. the revolution of the Tenth Sphere or Primum Mobile. Rhombus is " wheel." 149. "With their attendant Moons." A reference to Galileo's discovery that Jupiter and Saturn have satellites. 150. "male and female light," i.e. direct and reflected. 209. "Fond": in its old sense of "foolish." 229-244. "For I that day was absent," &c. An extremely ingenious idea, permitting the introduction of Adam's own story of what he recollects of his creation. Raphael would gladly hear it, he says; for he had not been present on the Earth, or in the Mundane Universe at all, on that Sixth day on which Adam had been created. He, with the legion under his command, had been despatched down through the belt of Chaos underneath the Mundane Universe, with an order to guard the gates of Hell, lest any of the Rebel Spirits should emerge to interrupt the creative work. The gates were fast; but he had heard within the noise of tumult, showing that the Fiends had recovered from their stupor and were again in commotion. See note, IV. 449, 450. 246. "Ere Sabbath evening," i.e. not the evening of Sabbath or the Seventh day itself, but the evening of the Sixth day, before the Sabbath began. 66 571-573. Oft-times nothing profits more than self-esteem," &c. A very Miltonic sentiment, exhibited and asserted in Milton's own life. 576. "adorn," adorned, from the Italian adorno. 631, 632. "the Earth's green Cape and verdant Isles Hesperean": i.e. Cape Verd and the Cape Verd Islands, west of Africa. BOOK IX. 13-19. "argument not less but more heroic than," &c. Milton here claims superiority for his theme over the themes of the three greatest Epics of the world till then-the Iliad, which sings of the "wrath of Achilles," and one of the incidents of which is the pursuit of Hector by Achilles round the walls of Troy; the Æneid, in which is related the anger of Turnus on account of the promise of Lavinia to Æneas, and much of the plot of which turns on the hostility of Juno to Æneas, as the son of Venus (Cytherea); the Odyssey, the hero of which, Ulysses, is persecuted by Neptune. 21. my celestial Patroness"; i.e. Urania. See VII. 1, 2, and note. 66 66 26. "long choosing, and beginning late." The subject of Paradise Lost had first occurred to him about 1640; but 'long choosing" among other subjects had followed; and not till 1658, when he was fifty years of age, had he seriously begun. See Memoir, p. xviii. and p. Ixi., and Introd. pp. 15-21. 35. "Impresses" (Italian impresa), devices or emblems used on shields or otherwise. 66 36. Bases," kilts or lower garments. 38. "sewers," those who ushered in the meals and arranged them on the table; 'seneshals," house-stewards. 66 60-61. "Since Uriel," &c. Book IV. 555-575. 64-66. "thrice the equinoctial line he circled," &c. Of the seven days during which Satan had gone round and round the Earth, always keeping on its dark side, three had been spent in moving from east to west along the equator, and four in moving from pole to pole, or from north to south and back; and in this second way he would "traverse" (go along) the two great circles from the poles called specially "the colures": viz. the Equinoctial colure and the Solstitial colure. 69-73. "There was a place. where Tigris," &c. See IV. 223-246, and note there. 76-82. "Sea he had searched and land," &c. The Fiend, on leaving Eden (IV. 1015), had gone northward over the Pontus Euxinus or Black Sea, and the Palus Mæotis or Sea of Azof, and still northward as far as the Siberian river Ob, which flows into the Arctic Sea; whence, continuing round the pole and descending on the other side of the globe, he had gone southwards as far as the Antarctic pole. So much for his travels north and south. In "length," i.e. in longitude, his journeys had extended from the Syrian river Orontes, west of Eden, to the Isthmus of Darien, and so still west, completing the round of the globe equatorially to India on the east of Eden. Observe Milton's accuracy in putting the Ganges before the Indus. In the circuit described Satan would come on the Ganges first. 66 387. Oread," mountain nymph; "Dryad," nymph of the oak-groves; "Delia's," Diana's. 66 66 393-396. Pales," the goddess of pastures; Pomona," the goddess of orchards; "Vertumnus," the god of the changing seasons; Ceres," the goddess of husbandry, and mother of "" Proserpina." The splendid boldness of the expression yet virgin of Proserpina from Jove" for "not yet mother of Proserpina" has irritated some critics. "What a monster of a phrase!" said Bentley, attributing it to the careless amanuensis. 66 439-443. "those gardens feigned," &c. The commentator Pearce cites a passage from Pliny's Natural History in which he speaks of the gardens of the Hesperides and those of Adonis and Alcinous as among the wonders of the world. The "gardens of Adonis," however, are said to have been originally but the pots of herbs and flowers which were carried by the women in the yearly festivals in honour of the restoration of Adonis by Proserpina after he had been killed by the wild boar. But they are real gardens in the allusions and descriptions of poets (e.g. Spenser, F. Q. III. vi., and Comus 998). The gardens of Alcinous, the King of the Phæacians, who entertained Ulysses, are described in the seventh book of the Odyssey. ແ Not mystic," says Milton, i.e. "not mythical," were the gardens of Solomon (Song of S. vi. 2), where he dallied with his Egyptian wife, Pharaoh's daughter. 66 504-510. never since of serpent kind lovelier," &c. First among celebrated serpents Milton mentions "those that in Illyria changed," (i.e. became the substitutes for) "Hermione and Cadmus": the story being that Cadmus and his wife |