The Complete Poems (Penguin Classics)

by John Milton

  252–3. Death… sting Cp. I Cor. 15. 55: ‘O death, where is thy sting?’

  255. lead Hell captive Cp. Eph. 4. 8: ‘he led captivity captive’. maugre in spite of.

  258. ruin hurl to the ground and destroy.

  259. Death last Cp. I Cor. 15. 26: ‘The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death’.

  261. long absent The Son seems to imagine a longer absence than thirty-three years. See Empson (127–9).

  271. Admiration astonishment and veneration.

  276. complacence pleasure, delight (OED 2).

  281–2. Thou… join ‘Therefore join to thy nature the nature of those whom thou alone canst redeem’.

  281. thou only canst redeem At line 211 God had implied that angels were ‘able’ to redeem us. Are we now to infer that God was then deliberately misleading the angels (as he does at vi 44–55)?

  286. The head Cp. I Cor. 11. 3: ‘The head of every man is Christ’.

  287–8. As in him… restored Cp. I Cor. 15. 22: ‘as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive’.

  291. Imputed attributed vicariously (OED 2, theological term).

  293. transplanted continuing the horticultural image begun in seed and root (284, 288). Cp. CD i 21, ‘Of Ingrafting in Christ’, where M. defines ingrafting as ‘the process by which God the Father plants believers in Christ. That is to say, he makes them sharers in Christ, and renders them fit to join, eventually, in one body with Christ’ (trans. Carey, YP 6. 477).

  299. Giving submitting.

  300. dearly lovingly and at great cost.

  307. fruition pleasurable possession (OED 1). ‘Christ is ready to renounce God-like fruition for man, but man will not renounce the fruit that makes him Godlike’ (Fowler). quitted renounced (OED 6b), left (OED 7), redeemed, set free (OED ia), remitted a debt (OED 4).

  309. By merit Cp. Satan ‘by merit raised’ (ii 5).

  317–18. all power / I give thee Cp. Matt. 28. 18: ‘All power is given unto me’.

  320. Thrones… Dominions The four angelic orders named at Col. 1. 16 (with Princedoms for ‘principalities’).

  321–2. All knees… earth Cp. Phil. 2. 10: ‘at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth’.

  324–9. Shalt in the sky appear… rouse their sleep See Revelation, Matt. 24. 30–31, and I Cor 15. 51–2.

  327. cited summoned, roused.

  330. saints all the elect.

  331. arraigned accused.

  334. The world shall burn See II Peter 3. 10–13.

  340. need be needed.

  341. God shall be All in All Empson (130) takes God to mean that he is ‘going to abdicate’, but see I Cor. 15. 28: ‘then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all’. Cp. vi 730–33.

  342–3. Adore him… as me Cp. John 5. 23: ‘AH men should honour the Son, even as they honour the Father’.

  347. rung probably a transitive verb, with multitude of angels (345) the subject, and Heav’n the object.

  348. jubilee jubilation. Fowler hears a play on the Hebrew Jubilee – a ritual celebration occurring every fifty years, when slaves were freed. It was a ‘type’ of the Atonement. hosannas Hebrew ‘save now’ or ‘save, pray’.

  351–2. down… crowns Cp. Rev. 4. 10, where the twenty-four elders ‘cast their crowns before the throne’.

  353. amarant Greek ‘unfading’: a legendary immortal flower. The crown of glory ‘that fadeth not away’ (I Pet. 1. 4) is in the Greek said to be amarantinon. Clement of Alexandria says that the righteous will be awarded crowns of amarant in Heaven (Paedagogus II viii 78). Cp. Lycidas 149.

  363. sea of jasper Cp. Rev. 4. 6: ‘before the throne there was a sea of glass like unto crystal’. See also iii 518–19.

  367. *preamble musical prelude.

  370. exempt excluded.

  373. Immutable, immortal, infinite, a direct lift from Sylvester, DWW (1592–1608), I i 45. M. often uses triple negatives. See e.g. ii 185, iii 231, PR iii 429.

  375. Fountain of light see above, iii 7–8n.

  377. but except.

  378–80. cloud… dark At the dedication of the Temple ‘the house was filled with a cloud, even the house of the Lord; for the glory of the Lord had filled the house of God. Then said Solomon, The Lord hath said that he would dwell in thick darkness’ (II Chron. 5. 13 – 6. 1). Cp. ii 263–7.

  381. that so that.

  382. veil their eyes Isa. 6. 2.

  383. of all Creation first Cp. Col. 1. 15: ‘the firstborn of every creature’.

  385. without cloud Contrast the Father, who appears through a cloud (378).

  387. Whom else no creature can behold Cp. John 1. 18: ‘No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him’.

  388. *ejfulgence coined from Latin effulgence.

  392. Dominations an angelic order (‘Dominions’ at iii 320 and Col. 1. 16).

  405. much more to pity inclined The clause could refer either to the Father (402) or the Son.

  412–15. Hail… disjoin echoing many pagan hymns, which end with a hailing of the god and a promise to resume his praises. Cp. the Homeric hymn to Delian Apollo.

  412. thy name The name ‘Christ’ never appears in PL.

  413. my song Bentley wanted to emend to ‘our songs’, but the shift to the first person allows M. to refer to his own poem.

  418. opacous opaque.

  419. first convéx the outer shell encompassing the universe.

  422. alighted both ‘landed’ and ‘illumined’ (OED ‘alight’ v3 1). Satan and the shell on which he walks are dimly lit by the reflected light of Heaven (427–30).

  429. vexed tossed about.

  431. Imaus mountains extending from the Himalayas to the Arctic Ocean.

  432. roving Tartar Nomadic Mongols had ravaged Asia and Europe under Genghis Khan and Tamerlane. Ricks hears a pun on Tartarus (Milton’s Grand Style, 126). Martindale (128) finds the pun ‘far-fetched’, but it had been a commonplace since 1237, when Friar Julian of Hungary referred to Mongol Tatars as Tartari, ‘people of hell’. Tartar was also a variant of ‘Tartarus’ (OED ‘Tartar’ sb4).

  434. yeanling newborn. Fowler associates the lambs and kids with the sheep and goats separated at the Last Judgement (Matt. 25. 32–3).

  436. Hydaspes now the river Jhelum, which rises in Kashmir.

  438. Sericana China. Travellers’ reports of cany wagons reached a wide audience through Mendoza’s Historie of the Great and Mightie Kingdome of China (trans. Parke, 1588).

  *cany made of cane or bamboo.

  441. Walked up and down Cp. Job 1. 7: ‘Whence comest thou? Then Satan answered the Lord, and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it’.

  444–97. M.’s Paradise of Fools is indebted to Ariosto’s Limbo of Vanity on the moon (Orl. Fur. xxxiv 73ÍT.). Ariosto’s Limbo is less satirical than M.’s, but it includes one anti-ecclesiastical stanza (on the Constantine Donation) that M. translated. See Ah Constantine in this volume.

  444. store plenty (OED 4b) and a body of persons (OED 3).

  446. vain empty, foolish (OED 2, 3).

  449. fond infatuated and foolish.

  452. painful painstaking.

  456. Abortive prematurely born (see line 474) and failing of the intended effect.

  unkindly unnaturally.

  457. fleet glide away, flit, vanish (OED 10). Of the soul: to pass away from the body (OED 10b).

  459. some Ariosto. See above, 444–97n.

  461. Translated saints holy men removed from earth by God. Such were Enoch (Gen. 5. 24) and Elijah (II Kings 2. 11). Cp. xi 705–10. Although M. scorns Ariosto’s notion of the moon’s inhabitants, M.’s own speculation is indebted to Orl. Fur. xxxiv 58–68, where Astolfo ascends to the moon in Elijah’s chariot.

  461–2. middle… kind M.’s contemporaries were excited
by the possibility of extraterrestrial life. See e.g. John Wilkins, The Discovery of a World in the Moone (1638). Wilkins paraphrases Nicholas of Cusa: ‘the inhabiters of the Sunne are like the nature of that Planet, more cleare and bright, more intellectual and spirituall than those in the Moone,… and those of the earth… more grosse and materiall than either, so that these intellectuall natures in the Sun, are more forme than matter, those in the earth more matter than forme, and those in the Moone betwixt both’ (194). There was much curiosity as to whether aliens would be infected by Adam’s sin (Wilkins 189–90). M. hints strongly that they would not (iii 568–71, viii 144–58).

  463–4. ill-joined… Giants Gen. 6. 4 describes how the Sons of God begot a race of Giants on the daughters of men. M. returns to the story in xi 573–627 and (with a different interpretation) in PR ii 178–81.

  467. Sennaär the LXX and Vulgate form of ‘Shinar’ (Gen. 11. 2). M. returns to the Babel story in xii 38–62.

  470. fondly foolishly.

  471. Empedocles a pre-Socratic philosopher who threw himself into Etna so as to conceal his mortality. His plan was frustrated when the volcano threw up one of his sandals.

  473. Cleombrotus a youth who drowned himself so as to enjoy the immortality promised in Plato’s Phaedo.

  474. Embryos and idiots were consigned by Franciscan theologians to a limbo above the earth. M. satirizes this doctrine by placing the friars in their own limbo.

  474. eremites hermits.

  475. White, black and grey Carmelites, Dominicans, Franciscans. trumpery religious ornaments (OED 2c), imposture (OED 1).

  477. Golgotha Calvary, where Christ was crucified and buried. Cp. Luke 24. 5–6: ‘Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is not here but is risen’.

  479. meeds robes.

  481–3. They… moved Moving outward through the Ptolemaic system, the traveller from earth would pass the seven planetary spheres, the fixed stars, the ninth (crystálline) sphere, and the primum mobile (first moved).

  The trepidation (oscillation) of the eighth sphere had been added to Ptolemy’s system so as to account for the precession of the equinoxes; it was much debated (talked) in M.’s time. Balance and weighs allude punningly to Libra, the Scales: a point of reference for measuring the trepidation or ‘libration’ (Fowler).

  484. wicket not the palace gate of line 505, but ‘a small door made in, or placed beside, a large one, for ingress and egress when the large one is closed’ (OED 1). The image implies that Roman superstition seeks clandestine ingress.

  485. keys Matt. 16. 19 (cp. Lycidas no).

  489. devious off the main road (OED 1), erring, straying (OED 3); also a transferred epithet implying the Friars’ deviousness.

  491. beads rosaries.

  492. dispenses dispensations.

  bulls papal decrees.

  493. *upwhirled Cp. the neologisms ’upsent’ (i 541) and ‘upgrown’ (ix 677).

  494. backside lower hemisphere of the universe – with a scatological pun (notice winds).

  496. Paradise of Fools The phrase ‘fool’s paradise’ had long been proverbial.

  501. travelled including travailed, wearied.

  502. degrees steps or rungs of a stairway or ladder (OED ia). Since each stair mysteriously was meant (516), there is also a play on degrees of dignity or rank. See below, 516n.

  506. frontispiece pediment over a door (OED 2).

  507. orient lustrous, sparkling.

  510–15. Jacob… gate of Heav’n Jacob fled to Padan-Aram (in Syria) after cheating his brother Esau out of their father’s blessing. While sleeping in Luz, he had a dream of angels ascending and descending a ladder reaching to Heaven (Gen. 28. 10–17). Fowler sees a parallel between Jacob and Satan, who has ‘fled retribution and is at a parting of the ways where he could still repent’. But God has said that the devils will not find grace (iii 129–32) and the ladder confronts Satan with his exclusion (525).

  513. The Ed I and Ed II pointing (comma after Luz, not Padan-Aram) creates the false impression that Padan-Aram is in the field of Luz. Luz is in the Judaean hills, not Syria.

  516. mysteriously allegorically. D. C. Allen (MLN 68, 1953, 360) shows that Jacob’s ladder was sometimes identified with Zeus’s golden chain (see ii 1051n) and interpreted as a symbol of the Chain of Being. M.’s stairway may be the ‘golden chain’ of ii 1051, but here it is retractable.

  518. Viewless invisible.

  sea the waters that flow ‘above the firmament’ (Gen. 1. 7). H. F. Robins (PMLA 69, 1954, 903–14) argues that this sea envelops the whole primum mobile, even though Satan had walked on ‘firm land’ at iii 75 and 418. But the sea flows only underneath the stairway, ‘about’ its foot (Argument to book iii).

  519. liquid including ‘clear, transparent, bright’ (OED 2).

  521. Wafted by angels refers to Lazarus, who was ‘carried by the angels into Abraham’s bosom’ (Luke 16. 22).

  522. Rapt… fiery steeds Elijah ascended to Heaven in a chariot drawn by ‘horses of fire’ (II Kings 2. 11).

  524. easy ascent Cp. ’Th’ ascent is easy’ (ii 81) and contrast Virgil, Aen. vi 126 (‘the descent… is easy… but to retrace one’s steps… this is the task’). See ii 432–3, iii 19–21.

  528. A passage down to th’ earth Since the passage opens just 0 ’er Paradise, and Satan views the universe in breadth from pole to pole (561–2), Satan is standing at some point on the celestial equator, not at a celestial pole. The primum mobile is constantly rotating, so one of two conclusions must follow: (1) the passage is also rotating and just happens to be below the stairway when Satan reaches it, or (2) the shell on which Satan stands is a motionless sphere exterior to the primum mobile. In either case, the universe ‘is lying, as it were, on its side’ (Fowler), with earth’s axis parallel to Heaven’s floor.

  534. and and so did.

  choice careful in choosing (OED 3a).

  535. Paneas Greek name for the city of Dan, the northernmost city of Canaan.

  536. Beërsaba Beersheba, the southernmost city of Canaan. The phrase ‘from Dan even to Beersheba’ is common in the O.T.

  543. scout The military sense suggests that Satan has come to conquer the cosmic metropolis.

  546. Obtains reaches (OED 5) and occupies (OED 6).

  547. discovers reveals.

  552. though after Heaven seen though he had seen Heaven.

  556–7. circling… shade the earth’s shadow rotating around the universe. It does not extend beyond the sphere of the moon, and beyond it the sky is blue, with stars, sun, and planets clearly visible.

  556. canopy Canopies over beds or thrones were often conical in shape.

  558. fleecy star Aries, the Ram.

  559. Andromeda a constellation adjacent to Aries. In Greek myth Andromeda was a beautiful princess menaced by a dragon.

  562. world’s first region the vast space between the universe’s outer shell and the earth’s atmosphere.

  563. precipitant rushing headlong.

  564. marble gleaming, sparkling (Greek marmareos).

  567. happy isles alluding to the Fortunate Isles, or Islands of the Blest, in Greek mythology. Cp. ii 410, where the devils speak of man’s ‘happy isle’. Here the plural implies that inhabitants of other worlds may have escaped man’s Fall.

  568. Hesperian gardens Editors detect a foreshadowing of the Fall in this allusion to the stolen apples of the Hesperides (see A Masque 393n), but M. might be implying that extraterrestrials have their own, perhaps uneaten, forbidden fruit. See above, 461–2n.

  571. above them Fowler notes that the sun is above the stars in splendour (572), but below them in space. Since Satan does not know whether he is moving up or down, M. might intend both senses of above.

  575. By centre or eccentric by a centric or eccentric orbit. A centric orbit has the earth (or sun) at its centre; an eccentric orbit does not. M. avoids choosing between the Ptolemaic and Copernican systems. Cp. viii 83.

  576. longitude the distance he flew (
measured by degrees of arc) along the ecliptic.

  578. distance due Cp. Satan’s contemptuous reference to the courtier angels’ ‘practised distances’ about God’s throne (iv 945).

  580. numbers that compute rhythms that measure.

  581. Days… years Cp. Gen. 1. 14: ‘Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years’. See also Plato, Timaeus (38–40).

  582–3. turned I By his magnetic beam Kepler’s theory that the sun’s magnetism was responsible for planetary motions was popular in M.’s time. See Marjara (123–7).

  588–90. a spot… saw Galileo had observed sun-spots through his telescope (optic tube) in 1610.

  592. metal] medal Ed I, Ed II. The case for emending is clinched by the repetition of metal and stone in lines 595–6.

  596. carbuncle any red gem, including ‘a mythical gem said to emit a light in the dark’ (OED 1).

  chrysolite any green gem.

  597. to the twelve ‘up to and including all the twelve’. See Exod. 28. 17–20 for the jewels in Aaron’s breastplate. See also PR iii 14n.

  598. a stone the Philosopher’s Stone. Alchemists had identified it with the urim on Aaron’s breastplate (Exod. 28. 30). The stone allegedly had the power to heal all diseases and restore Paradise, as well as transmute base metals into gold. See Lyndy Abraham, Marvell and Alchemy (1990) 16.

  599. Imagined… seen ‘elsewhere imagined more often than seen’.

  601. Philosophers magicians, alchemists (OED 2).

  603. volatile able to fly (OED 2a) and evaporating rapidly (OED 3a).

  Hermes the winged god and the element mercury. Hermes Trismcgistus (see Il Penseroso 88n) was the reputed father of alchemy. Alchemists would bind mercury by sealing it in a limbeck (alembic) and solidifying it.

  604. Proteus the shape-shifting sea-god (from ancient times a symbol of matter). Alchemists can dissolve matter into its native form, but they cannot recompose the four contraries of this primal matter (see ii 898) into the Philosopher’s Stone. The allusion to shape-shifting prepares for Satan’s first metamorphosis (634).