The Complete Poems (Penguin Classics)

by John Milton

260. challenged laid claim to (OED 5). Apollo claims authorship of Homer’s poems in an epigram in The Greek Anthology ix 455.

  262. chorus or iambic The chorus in Greek tragedy is written in various metres; the dialogue is usually in iambic trimeter. See M.’s preface to SA.

  264. sententious precepts aphoristic maxims. M. in Defensio (1651) cites maxims from Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides and Seneca. He concludes that poets place their own opinions in the mouths only of their great characters. Other characters (such as the royalist chorus in Aeschylus’s Suppliants) do not speak for their authors (YP 4. 446).

  266. passions including ‘sufferings’ (OED 3).

  268. resistless irresistible.

  269. Wielded ruled.

  democraty democracy.

  270. Shook the Arsenal caused the dockyards to reverberate. Athenian orators addressed large crowds in the Piraeus, and their oratory could stir men into making noisy preparations for a naval expedition. Aristophanes imagines just such an event in Acharnians 550f., where he says that ‘all the arsenal had rung with noise’. In 415 BC, Alcibiades’ eloquence was decisive in launching the Sicilian expedition (Thucydides vi 15–19).

  fulmined thundered. Aristophanes says that Pericles thundered and lightened over Greece (Acharnians 530). Cicero describes Demosthenes as fulmina (Ad Atticum xv 1a).

  271. Artaxerxes name of several Persian kings hostile to Athens.

  273. low-roofed Socrates lived in a modest home. See Xenophon, Oeconomicus II iii, and Aristophanes, Clouds 92.

  275–6. oracle… men When Chaerephon asked the Delphic oracle if any man was wiser than Socrates, the oracle replied that none was (Plato, Apology 21).

  278. Academics old and new Ancient writers divided the Academy’s history into three phases: old, under Plato (d. 347 BC); middle, under Arcesilas (d. 242 BC); and new, under Carneades (d. 128 BC).

  279. Peripatetics Aristotle’s school derived its name from a covered walk (peripatos) in the Lyceum, or from Aristotle’s habit of walking about (peripatein) while lecturing.

  279–80. sect / Epicurean The teaching of Epicurus (341–271 BC derived from Aristippus, a pupil of Socrates. See 299n, below.

  Stoic severe See A Masque 707n.

  281. revolve turn over in your mind.

  289. fountain of light a traditional image for God the Father. See PL iii 7–8n.

  293. the first Socrates.

  294. To know… nothing knew Socrates was puzzled when he learned that the Delphic oracle had pronounced him the wisest of men (see above, 275–6n). After searching Athens for a man wiser than himself, he concluded that he was the wisest – but only because he knew that he knew nothing (Plato, Apology 21 –3).

  295. The next Plato. The contempt for his fabling is itself Platonic. Plato banished the poets from his ideal city because they were fablers (Republic x 595–607), yet he is one himself. M. in Idea 38 calls him fabulator maximus, ‘the greatest storyteller’.

  smooth conceits specious, fanciful notions.

  296. third sort the Sceptics, founded by Pyrrhon of Elis (c. 365–c. 270 BC). They held that knowledge was unattainable, either by reason or the senses, and that the opposite to any statement is no less true than the statement itself.

  297. Others the Peripatetics. Aristotle had argued that both virtue and external goods were necessary for happiness (Nicomachean Ethics i 11).

  299. he Epicurus. He taught that pleasure was the chief good – but by ‘pleasure’ he meant the pleasure of a virtuous mind, not corporal pleasure. Jesus is repeating slanders levelled at the Epicureans by the Stoics.

  300–307. The Stoic… boast The Stoics (founded by Zeno of Citium, c. 333–262 BC) believed in the absolute freedom of the individual will. The wise man’s aim was to accept whatever happened and live in harmony with divine reason. M. sees Stoicism as flawed because it ignores Original Sin. Cp. his contempt in CD ii 10 for the Stoics’ ‘hypocritical patience’ (trans. Carey, YP 6. 740).

  303. shames not to prefer ‘is unashamed to prefer himself to God’.

  305–6. life… he leaves Stoics permitted suicide in some circumstances. Nero forced Seneca to commit suicide.

  308. conviction including ‘consciousness of sin’ (OED 8).

  316–17. usual names… Fate M. in CD i 2 explains that ‘fate or fatum is only what is fatum, spoken, by some almighty power’ (trans. Carey, YP 6. 131). Cp. PL vii 173.

  321. empty cloud alluding to Ixion, who embraced a cloud instead of Juno. Cp. M.’s veiled allusions to the same myth in The Passion 56 and PL iv 499–500.

  321–2. many books… wearisome Cp. Eccles. 12. 12: ‘of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh’. In Areopagitica M. adds: ‘but neither he, nor any other inspired author, tells us that… reading is unlawful’ (YP 2. 514). Some pagan philosophers agreed with Jesus. Cp. Marcus Aurelius, Meditations ii 3: ‘cast away the thirst after books’.

  328. Crude lacking power to digest (OED 3b).

  329. worth a sponge both *‘worth very little’ (OED ‘sponge’ 1b) and ‘fit to be expunged’ (OED 4a).

  334. story the historical books of the O.T.

  335. artful terms either ‘artistic expressions’ or ‘technical terms’ (such as appear in the headings of certain psalms).

  336–7. Our… victors’ ear Cp. Ps. 137. 1‘ 3: ‘By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion… For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song… saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion.’

  338. Greece from us these arts derived It was a patristic and Renaissance commonplace that the Jews invented the arts and passed them on to the Egyptians and Greeks.

  341. personating both ‘representing in writing’ (OED 5) and ‘imitating the example of’ (OED 4).

  343. swelling bombastic, turgid (OED 8).

  343–4. thick-laid… harlot’s cheek Cp. Shakespeare, Hamlet III i 51: ‘The harlot’s cheek, beautied with plast’ring art’.

  344. varnish cosmetics, outward show.

  346–7. unworthy to compare / With Sion’s songs M. in RCG (1642) affirms that biblical poets are superior to all others ‘in the very critical art of composition’ (YP 1. 816). Sidney also believed that biblical poets were superior to the Greeks. See A Defence of Poesie, in Works, ed. Feuillerat (1923) iii 9.

  347. tastes *faculty of perceiving what is excellent in art or literature (OED 8a).

  351. Unless refers back to ‘unworthy’ (346).

  352. light of Nature reason, God’s image in man.

  354. statists statesmen.

  366. all his darts were spent Cp. Eph. 6. 16: ‘the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked’.

  377. Nicely fastidiously.

  380. fulness of time Cp. Gal. 4. 4: ‘when the fulness of time was come, God sent forth his Son’.

  382. contrary on the contrary.

  382–93. read… rubric set Satan casts Jesus’s horoscope. Astrology was controversial in seventeenth-century England. Cp. Jer. 10. 2: ‘Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven’. M. cites this verse in CD ii 5, but he also points to the Magi and their star as evidence that ‘there is some astrology which is neither useless nor unlawful’ (trans. Carey, YP 6. 696).

  384. Voluminous forming a large book.

  characters stars regarded as individual letters in the book, with a pun on ‘astrological symbol of a planet’ (OED 5). Cp. Marlowe, Faustus II i 168: ‘a book where I might see all characters and planets of the heavens’.

  385. conjunction the apparent proximity of two stars or planets.

  spell comprehend by study (OED 2a), with a pun on ‘spell out letter by letter’.

  387. Attends are in store for (OED 14). The matching of plural subject with singular verb was not unusual in seventeenth-century English.

  injuries including ‘insults’ (OED 2).

  391–2. eternal… Without beginning Satan sarc
astically plays on the notion that eternity has neither beginning nor end.

  393. rubric a chapter-title printed in red letters (OED 2a), continuing the book metaphor (384–5).

  399. unsubstantial Darkness and night are merely the absence of light. Cp. PL ii 439: ‘unessential Night’.

  400. mere including the modern sense and ‘absolute, entire’ (OED 4). Darkness is no less total for being privative.

  402. jaunt fatiguing or troublesome journey (OED 1).

  407. at his head See PL viii 292n.

  409. either tropic the northern and southern skies (Cancer and Capricorn). The ends of heav’n are the east and west.

  410–19. thunder… sheer As ‘prince of the power of the air’ (Eph. 2. 2), Satan can raise storms (Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy I ii I 2). Cp. the storms raised by malevolent deities to harass particular mortals in Homer, Od. v 291–6, Virgil, Aen. i 82–123, and Tasso, Gerus. Lib. vii 115–17.

  411. abortive The clouds are imagined to be wombs that miscarry the elements of fire and water. Cp. the ‘abortive gulf of Chaos (PL ii 441), which also brings contraries together and so fails to deliver the four elements.

  412–13. water with fire… reconciled Cp. Aeschylus, Agamemnon 650–52: ‘fire and sea, once bitterest enemies, swore alliance and conspired to ruin the Greek fleet’.

  413. ruin both ‘destruction’ and ‘falling’.

  414. caves Aeolus kept the winds imprisoned in a vast cavern. See Virgil, Aen. i 52–4, Lucan, Pharsalia v 608–10.

  415. hinges cardinal points (Latin cardo, ‘hinge’).

  419. shrouded sheltered. Lewalski (312) sees a premonition of Jesus’s death and burial.

  420. only solitary (OED 1).

  423. some howled, some yelled, some shrieked Cp. Tasso, Gerus. Lib. xvi 67: ‘Some spirits howld, some barkt, some hist, some cride’ (trans. Fairfax).

  424. fiery darts See above, 366n.

  426–7. morning… amice grey Cp. ‘the grey-hooded Ev’n, / Like a sad votarist in palmer’s weed’ (A Masque 188–9). An amice was an ecclesiastical hood lined with grey fur.

  428. radiant finger Cp. Homer’s ‘rosy-fingered dawn’.

  437. Cleared up sang out clearly.

  438. gratulate greet (OED 1) and show thanks for (OED 4).

  446. despite hatred, spite.

  449. in wonted shape either ‘in his accustomed disguise (as an old man)’ or ‘in his own shape (as the Devil)’. The former reading would mean that Satan has retained the same human disguise (but not the same clothes) throughout his temptations. See ii 299n. Pope (46–50) finds precedents for both readings.

  452. rack gale, storm (OED sb1 2), *crash as of something breaking (OED sb5 1b).

  453. earth and sky would mingle Cp. Virgil, Aen. i 133–4: caelum terramque… miscere.

  454. flaws squalls.

  455. pillared Cp. Job 26. 11: ‘the pillars of heaven tremble’.

  457. main the universe (macrocosm) as opposed to the microcosm of man’s less universe (459).

  458. sneeze Renaissance medicine adopted Aristotle’s belief that sneezing purged the brain and so was therapeutic.

  467. Did I not tell thee See iv 375ff.

  470. push exertion of influence to promote a person’s advancement, critical juncture (OED sb1 1c, 6).

  481. ominous attended by evil omens.

  496. storm’st both ‘rage’ and ‘raise a storm’.

  500–501. Son… doubt Satan mockingly implies that the titles Son of David and Son of God are incompatible. Behind the sneer lies an old debate as to whether Jesus was descended from David through Joseph alone, or both Joseph and Mary (see iii 154n). Satan might even imply that Jesus is Joseph’s biological son. As such, he would be David’s heir, but not the virgin-born Messiah prophesied at Isa. 7. 14.

  503–4. thy birth… with the first I knew Satan has given some indication that he is familiar with Jesus’s early life (see ii 413–15, iv 215–21), but this is his first open admission that he has been watching him since birth.

  518. The Son of God I also am Cp. Job 1. 6: ‘Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also among them’.

  520. All men are Sons of God Cp. Ps. 82. 6–7: ‘all of you are children of the most High’.

  524. collect infer.

  525. fatal both ‘deadly’ and ‘decreed by fate’.

  529. parle parley.

  composition truce, terms of surrender (OED 23). Satan is evasive as to who would surrender.

  534. adamant a mythical substance of impenetrable hardness.

  centre fixed point at the centre of rotation.

  542. hippogriff a fabulous creature (half horse, half griffin) on which Ariosto’s heroes fly around the world and ascend to the moon (Orl. Fur. ii 37–55, iv 4, x 66–7, xxii 26–8, xxxiv 48–51, 68–81).

  sublime raised aloft (OED 1).

  546. Temple the Temple built by Herod the Great (on the site of Solomon’s Temple). Cp. the description in Josephus, De Bellis V v 6.

  547. pile lofty building.

  549. highest pinnacle Satan sets Christ on a ‘pinnacle of the temple’ at Matt. 4. 5 and Luke 4. 9. The nature of this ‘pinnacle’ was much debated. In M.’s time it was variously identified as a projecting cornice, a parapet, a flat roof and a sharp spire (Pope 84–5). M.’s pinnacle is presumably one of the golden spires. Critical opinion is divided as to whether Jesus stands by human effort alone or by a miracle. See below, 584n.

  554. progeny lineage, parentage (OED 5).

  555. Cast thyself down Cp. Matt 4. 6 and Luke 4. 10: ‘If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down’. Biblical commentators assumed that Christ had a choice and that Satan was tempting him to presumption. But Pope (92–5) and Lewalski (315–16) argue that M.’s Satan does not intend Jesus to choose. Rather, ‘he expected him to fall, and by falling to settle the problem of his identity. If he were the Son of God, the angels would save him; if he were not, he would die’ (Pope 94–5). Other critics see Satan as tempting Jesus. See esp. Ashraf H. A. Rushdy, ‘Standing Alone on the Pinnacle: Milton in 1752’, MS (1990) 193–218.

  556. it is written See Ps. 91. 11–12: ‘For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. / They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone.’ Both in PR and in the Gospels (Matt. 4. 6, Luke 4. 10) Satan omits the words ‘in all thy ways’. Biblical exegetes saw the omission as a twisting of Psalm 91, where God’s protection is conditional (Pope 82). Psalm 91 continues: ‘the dragon shalt thou trample under feet’. Cp. God’s curse on the serpent (i 53–65).

  560–61. Also… thy God Cp. Luke 4. 12 and Matt. 4. 7: ‘It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God’. Jesus is citing Deut. 6. 16: ‘Ye shall not tempt the Lord your God, as ye tempted him in Massah’. At Massah the Jews had ‘tempted’ (i.e. made trial of) God by demanding a miracle (Exod. 17. 1–7). Jesus therefore hints that he will not give Satan the miracle he is asking for. Many critics hear an additional (or alternative) meaning: ‘Do not tempt me, your God’. There was some precedent for reading the Gospels in this way (Pope 103), but several critics reject that meaning here since it ‘would give Satan the answer that he seeks’ (MacCallum 260). This objection fails to recognize that ambiguities are not clear answers (see i 434–41). M. in his divorce pamphlets had argued that Christ speaks ambiguously to those who would tempt him (see YP 2. 329, 2. 642–3).

  561–2. stood… fell Both words have moral overtones. Cp. PL iii 102: ‘Freely they stood who stood, and fell who fell’. Satan does not fall in the Gospels. Cp. Giles Fletcher, CV ii 38, where Presumption ‘tombled headlong’.

  563. Antaeus a Libyan giant, son of Neptune and Earth. Wrestling with Hercules, he drew strength from contact with his mother Earth, and so arose stronger from each fall. Seeing this, Hercules throttled him in the air (Lucan, Pharsalia iv 593–660). Jesus vanquishes the ‘prince of the power of the air’ in his own element (see i 39n).
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  563–4. to compare… greatest Virgil had compared ‘great things with small’ (Ecl. i 24) and ‘small things with great’ (Georg. iv 176), and M. echoes Virgil in PL ii 921, vi 310, and x 306. He now overgoes Virgil with a superlative.

  565. Jove’s Alcides Hercules, Jove’s son by Alcmene. Alcmene’s husband Amphitryon was the son of Alcaeus (hence Alcides). As Jove’s son, Hercules was not Alcaeus’s grandson, but M. gives him the patronymic perhaps to imply that Jesus is David’s legal heir even though he is not Joseph’s son. See iii 154n, iv 500–1n. Hercules was a ‘type’ of Christ (see Nativity 227–8n).

  568. expired both ‘breathed his last’ (referring to Antaeus) and ‘became void through lapse of time’ (referring to Satan’s power). Cp. iv 174–5 (‘I endure the time, till which expired / Thou hast permission on me’) and iv 394–5 (‘he knew his power / Not yet expired’).

  569. foil including ‘a throw not resulting in a flat fall’ (OED 1, wrestling term).

  572. Theban monster the Sphinx. She leapt to her death from the Theban acropolis (Ismenian steep) after Oedipus answered her riddle: ‘What creature walks on four legs in the morning, on two at noon, and on three at evening?’ Oedipus answered: ‘Man’. Stanley Fish, MS 17 (1983) 182, notes that this is also the answer to Satan’s question about Jesus (iv 538–40), who resists temptation as a man. Cp. i 150–67.

  578. triumphals *tokens of triumph (OED 2, sole instance).

  581. globe compact body of persons (OED 8). Giles Fletcher coined this sense (from Latin globus) to describe Christ’s ascension amidst ‘A globe of winged Angels’ (CV iv 13). Both poets may also suggest a spherical formation of flying angels. Cp. Nativity no and PL ii 512.

  582–3. angels… received him soft Cp. Fletcher, CV ii 38: ‘But him the Angels on their feathers caught, / And to an ayrie mountaine nimbly bore’. M.’s him at first seems to be Satan, the last figure named, but turns out to be Jesus. Carey calls this ‘a splendid dismissal of Satan, now fallen, from the poem. He ceases to count even as a grammatical referent’.

  583. vans *wings (OED sb1 3), a sense coined by M. in PL ii 927.

  584. uneasy station Carey in his note to iv 560–61 takes these words to mean that Jesus stood by human skill, not a miracle. MacCallum (258) replies: ‘it is the station which is… “uneasy”, not the stander’. MacCallum assumes that station means ‘a place to stand’ (OED 7a), but it might mean ‘manner of standing’ (OED 1), as in ‘Nature… allowes us two feet for the firmer station’ (1650).