PARADISE LOST.

BOOK IV.

THE ARGUMENT.

Satan, now in prospect of Eden, and nigh the place where he must now attempt the bold enterprise which he undertook alone against God and man, falls into many doubts with himself, and many passions, fear, envy, and despair; but at length confirms himself in evil, journeys on to Paradise, whose outward prospect and situation is described; overleaps the bounds; sits in the shape of a cormorant on the tree of life, as highest in the garden, to look about him. The garden described; Satan's first sight of Adam and Eve; his wonder at their excellent form and happy state, but with resolution to work their fall; overhears their discourse, thence gathers that the tree of knowledge was forbidden them to eat of, under penalty of death; and thereon tends to found his temptation, by seducing them to transgress; then leaves them a while, to know further of their state by some other means. Meanwhile Uriel descending on a sunbeam warns Gabriel, who had in charge the gate of Paradise, that some evil spirit had escaped the deep, and passed at noon by his sphere in the shape of a good angel down to Paradise, discovered after by his furious gestures in the mount. Gabriel promises to find him ere morning. Night coming on, Adam and Eve discourse of going to their rest: their bower described; their evening worship. Gabriel, drawing forth his bands of night-watch to walk the round of Paradise, appoints two strong angels to Adam's bower, lest the evil spirit should be there doing harm to Adam or Eve sleeping; there they find him at the ear of Eve tempting her in a dream, and bring him, though unwilling, to Gabriel; by whom questioned, he scornfully answers; prepares resistance: but hindered by a sign from heaven, flies out of Paradise.

PARADISE LOST.

BOOK IV.

O, for that warning voice, which he, who saw
The Apocalypse, heard cry in heaven aloud,
Then when the Dragon, put to second rout,
Came furious down to be revenged on men,
Woe to the inhabitants on earth!' that now,
While time was, our first parents had been warn'd
The coming of their secret foe, and 'scaped,
Haply so 'scaped his mortal snare: for now
Satan, now first inflamed with rage, came down,
The tempter ere the accuser of mankind,
To wreck on innocent frail man his loss
Of that first battle, and his flight to hell:
Yet, not rejoicing in his speed, though bold
Far off and fearless, nor with cause to boast,
Begins his dire attempt; which nigh the birth

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1. He, who saw &c. St. John, who in a vision saw the Apocalypse or Revelation of the most remarkable events which were to befall the Christian Church.

3. Rev. xii. 9. 'And the great Dragon was cast out, that old Serpent, called the Devil and Satan.'

5. Rev. xii. 12.

"Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea, for the Devil is come down unto you, having great wrath.' 10. Rev. xii. 10. The accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before God day and night.'

11. wreck, for wreak: revenge: see iii. 241.

Now rolling boils in his tumultuous breast,
And like a devilish engine back recoils
Upon himself; horror and doubt distract

His troubled thoughts, and from the bottom stir
The hell within him; for within him hell
He brings, and round about him, nor from hell
One step, no more than from himself, can fly,
By change of place: now conscience wakes despair,
That slumber'd ; wakes the bitter memory

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25

Of what he was, what is, and what must be
Worse; of worse deeds worse sufferings must ensue.
Sometimes towards Eden, which now in his view
Lay pleasant, his grieved look he fixes sad;
Sometimes towards heaven, and the full blazing sun,
Which now sat high in his meridian tower :
Then much revolving, thus in sighs began:

O thou that with surpassing glory crown'd,
Look'st from thy sole dominion like the god
Of this new world; at whose sight all the stars

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16. boils: as the Lat. astuo: Virg. Æn. xii. 666. 'æstuat ingens Imo in corde pudor, mixtoque insania luctu.'

22. Hør. Od. ii. 16. patriæ quis exul Se quoque fugit?'

24. memory is recordatio, or the thinking and reflecting upon any thing, as well present and future as past.' PEARCE. Thus

Virgil says of his bees, G. iv. 156. Venturæque hyemis memores æstate laborem Experiuntur." N.

30. At noon the sun is lifted up as in a tower.

The metaphor is used by Virgil in his Culex v. 41. Igneus æthereas jam sol penetrârat in arces." RICHARDSON.

32. The opening of this speech to the Sun is very bold and noble. It is, I think, the finest ascribed to Satan in the whole poem.' ADDISON. Compare the opening speech in the Phonissæ of Euripides; upon which Porson has remarked, that Milton had once intended to have written a tragedy, not an epic, and to have commenced it with this address to the Sun.

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Hide their diminish'd heads; to thee I call,
But with no friendly voice, and add thy name,
O sun! to tell thee how I hate thy beams,
That bring to my remembrance from what state
I fell, how glorious once above thy sphere;
Till pride and worse ambition threw me down,
Warring in heaven against heaven's matchless King.
Ah, wherefore! he deserved no such return
From me, whom he created what I was
In that bright eminence, and with his good
Upbraided none; nor was his service hard.
What could be less than to afford him praise,
The easiest recompense, and pay him thanks,
How due! yet all his good proved ill in me,
And wrought but malice; lifted up so high

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45

I 'sdain'd subjection, and thought one step higher 50
Would set me highest, and in a moment quit
The debt immense of endless gratitude,
So burdensome still paying, still to owe:
Forgetful what from him I still received,
And understood not that a grateful mind

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40. worse ambition: worse in its consequences, in the degradation which it had brought upon him.

45. James i. 5. God giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not.'

46. What (service) could be less (hard) &c.

50. 'sdain'd: for disdain'd: from the Italian sdegnare: used by

Spenser.

51. quit: for acquit : clear off, discharge.

53. (it being) so burdensome &c.

55. and understood not to be connected with the verbs in 1.

50. I'sdain'd and thought.