292. The meaning is that the largest pine tree would be like a wand or small stick in comparison with Satan's spear. This meaning is expressed more forcibly by the employment of the figure of speech called praeter expectatum (disappointment of expectation). Until the very end of the sentence we expect to be told that to equal Satan's spear we must think of a tall Norwegian pine, and, just as we are managing with difficulty to imagine such an immense spear, the words were but a wand' are unexpectedly introduced to inform us that even this comparison is far below the mark.

294. ammiral or 'admiral 'is derived from Ar. amir (commander), the last syllable being probably the Arabic article. The word formerly meant either the commander or the principal ship of a fleet. Milton here uses the word in the latter sense, which has become obsolete in modern English.

were but a wand, would appear to be no bigger than a wand.

296. the burning marle is the burnt soil of 1. 562. 'Marle' properly means a rich chalky clay used to fertilize poor land, but is used here in a wider sense as a synonym for 'soil.’

297. Heaven's azure, the blue vault of Heaven.

299. Nathless (nevertheless) is a contraction from 'ne-the-less (not by that less, not on that account less).

302. The comparison is a close one. The leaves resemble the fallen angels because they are (1) infinitely numerous, (2) have lost their former splendour, and (3) are floating helplessly on the surface of the water. Milton in this case skilfully borrows and improves upon an illustration that may be found in the poetry of several of his epic predecessors. Tasso in his Jerusalem Delivered, ix. 66, describing the return of the devils to Hell,

says

'Not leaves in woods, when Autumn's first night-frosts
Nip their seared beauty, in such numbers e'er

Heap the low valleys,'

following Virgil, who uses the same comparison to describe the number of ghosts (Aeneid vi. 310); but even in the Aeneid the simile cannot be said to be original, being traceable first to Apollonius Rhodius, and then ultimately, like many other good similes, to an Homeric origin.

303. Vallombrosa (shady valley) is the name of an Italian valley some eighteen miles from Florence, which Milton probably visited in the autumn of 1638. Brewer in his Dictionary of Phrase and Fable declares that the trees of Vallombrosa are not deciduous, that "they are pines, and therefore no thick autumnal leaves ever strow the brooks of that forest." But the evidence of those who have seen the valley show that this criticism is wrong.

Southey in his ballads quotes the description given by a traveller who visited this valley in autumn, after the leaves had begun to fall, and declared that the guide "was obliged to try what was land and what was water, by pushing a long pole before him, which he carried in his hand, the vale being so very irriguous and the leaves so totally covering the stream." Similar evidence is given by Dean Stanley, who describes how in September the leaves constantly falling from the vast chestnut forests of Vallombrosa and almost choking the currents of the numerous streams give the exact picture of the "autumnal leaves that strow the brooks."

304. embower, form bowers. The verb is generally used transitively, as by Shelley in his 'Ode to the Skylark ':

'Like a rose embower'd

In its own green leaves.'

Sedge. The fact that the Red Sea is called in the Hebrew Scriptures the sedgy sea doubtless suggested this comparison.

305. The rising of the constellation called Orion was supposed to bring stormy weather. Orion had been called armed by previous writers because the stars in the constellation suggested to the imagination of the ancients the figure of an armed man with sword and sword-belt. Milton also applies to him the epithet armed, but girds him with fierce winds instead of with starry sword and sword-belt.

306. chivalry generally means knighthood or the courtesy befitting a knight. Here the term is used in the sense generally denoted by cavalry, which is by derivation the same word as chivalry. The Memphian chivalry of Pharaoh was the army com. posed of his chariots and horsemen. Campbell in his poem on the battle of Hohenlinden uses the word in the same way

'Wave, Munich, all thy banners wave
And charge with all thy chivalry.'

For the facts alluded to in the simile see xii. 205-214, and Exodus chapter xiv., where it is related how Pharaoh and his army were drowned in the Red Sea while pursuing the Israelites, for whom God made a dry path through the middle of the waters. As the name of this Pharaoh is unknown, Milton chooses to identify him, as Raleigh had done before, with Busiris, an Egyptian king notorious in Greek mythology for his custom of sacrificing strangers. Memphis was the capital of Egypt after the fall of Thebes.

308. The Egyptians were perfidious, because, after giving the Israelites permission to depart, they changed their minds and pursued them.

309. The Israelites are called here the sojourners of Goshen, be cause they had temporarily dwelt in that district of Egypt.

310. The poet while elaborating the details of the second simile really slides informally into a third comparison, which, from its position immediately before the words 'so thick bestrewn' dwells in our mind as much as the main simile to which it is nominally a mere appendage.

Safe shore, the shore on which they were safe. See note on ii.

561.

316. Flower of Heaven, noblest of the inhabitants of Heaven. 317. If ye are so utterly prostrate, it is evident that you have not sufficient energy to strike another blow for Heaven.

318. Notice the sarcastic irony of the two questions, by which Satan tries to rouse his followers out of their ignominious position of mental and bodily prostration.

320. For, causal, on account of, as in line 32.

324. The various orders of angels are not very clearly distinguished either in Christian tradition or Paradise Lost. Gregory the Great described the angelic host as divided into the nine orders of angels, archangels, virtues, powers, princedoms, dominations, thrones, cherubim, and seraphim. All these titles are found in Paradise Lost, and a comparison of the different passages in which they occur shows how far the poet used them in a definite sense. 'Angel' is used in its ordinary modern sense as a generic term including the members of all the other orders. The archangels, as their name implies, are the highest of all in dignity. Only Satan (1. 243), Michael, Raphael, and Uriel are expressly mentioned by Milton as being archangels, but he no doubt intends Gabriel to hold the same rank, although he never happens to call him an archangel. The cherubim and seraphim seem to be regarded as two mutually exclusive groups including all or most of the angels. Thus in the passage before us the whole army of fallen angels is described as consisting of seraphim and cherubim. Sometimes

(i. 129, 665; ii. 750) large bodies of angels that must have included both seraphim and cherubim are included under one of the two terms, just as the soldiers of the British army are often without discrimination called Englishmen, though some of them are Scotchmen and Irishmen. When an individual angel is mentioned we are generally told whether he is a seraph or a cherub. Thus Beelzebub (i. 157), Azazel (i. 534), and Gabriel (iv. 971) are cherubim, while Uriel (iii. 667) and Raphael (v. 277) are seraphim. Satan appears from 1. 539 to be a seraph, if the arms displayed on his imperial ensign were his own, not those of his conquered enemies. Milton does not seem ever to call one and the same angel a cherub and a seraph, so that these two classes of angels may be regarded as mutually ex

clusive. The five remaining titles (thrones, dominations, virtues, princedoms, powers) are generally used in addresses to the angelic armies, and the poet does not tell us clearly their distinguishing characteristics. We find throned powers' (i. 128) and 'powers that erst sat on thrones' (i. 360), from which we may get an idea of the particular distinction enjoyed by those angels who were called thrones; but of the other four titles no definite information is given.

328. The idea seems to be that God will send down thunderbolts connected together by chains, and that the thunderbolts will act as nails to fasten the chains and the angels bound in the chains firmly to the bottom of the lake.

330. If ye do not now rise ye may expect never to rise. See 1. 317.

332. as when, etc., like men found sleeping at their posts.

333. by whom, by those whom. The ellipse of the antecedent is very common in Milton.

335. Nor did they not perceive, nor did they fail to perceive, i.e., they did perceive. The two negatives cancel each other and make an affirmative.

337. Milton here imitates the Latin use of the dative after verbs of obeying. In ordinary English 'obey' governs the

accusative.

339. Amram's son, Moses. The plague of locusts was the fifth of the seven plagues by which Pharaoh and the Egyptians were afflicted until they consented to let the Israelites go. Moses 'stretched forth his rod over the land of Egypt' and a strong east wind brought up the locusts.

340. a pitchy cloud, cloud black as pitch. mon phrase 'pitch darkness.'

Compare the com

341. The peculiarity of the movements of locusts in the air is that they do not move straight and swiftly to their destination, but go wherever and at whatever pace the wind blows them. Therefore Milton applies to them the word 'warping,' which expresses irregular, zigzag motion. This explanation corresponds with the nautical meaning of 'warp,' which is to tow a ship on by attaching ropes to anchors, buoys, or other ships, and by that means make slow laborious progress with many deviations from a straight line. A piece of wood is said to be warped when it is twisted and made crooked by heat or any other cause.

345. cope (connected with 'cap'), vault.

346. 'Twixt (connected with 'two'), generally indicates position between two objects.

347. Till, as a signal, etc., till, when Satan's uplifted spear, given as a signal, waved to direct their course.

348. Notice the terms used to express Satan's sovereignty. He is here called sultan, and in line 378 and ii. 510 emperor. 'Sultan' not only implies grandeur and absolute power, but also, as being the usual title of Mahometan rulers, opposition to the true faith. The term 'emperor' is intended to call up memories of the immense sway of the great pagan emperors of Rome.

349. in even balance, with evenly poised wings. The meaning is that they flew with their wings beating the air in perfect harmony and so alighted gracefully on the shore of the lake.

350. brimstone (by derivation burning stone) is sulphur, which the soil of hell is popularly supposed to contain in great abundSee 11. 69, 674.

ance.

351. If the meaning were expressed in full, we should have ‘a multitude, like which (multitude) the North never poured a multitude'; but, as the repetition would be clumsy, the word 'multitude' does double duty, not only acting as nominative in apposition to 'they' (1. 349), and as antecedent to which,' but also serving as object of 'poured.'

353. Rhene or the Danaw, the Rhine or the Danube.

354. like a deluge. Milton is referring to the Vandals who crossed the Straits of Gibraltar, and by the capture of Carthage in 429 established themselves firmly in Africa. 'One long wave of the great German deluge,' writes De Quincey in his monograph on the Caesars when describing the same events and perhaps consciously imitating Milton's lines, had stretched beyond the Pyrenees and the pillars of Hercules to the very homesteads of ancient Carthage.' Both writers compare the barbarians who overthrew the Roman Empire to an immense flood that could not be kept within the bounds of Europe, but escaping by the outlet afforded by the Straits of Gibraltar covered a great part of Africa. The peculiarity of the comparison is that it makes us think of a flood walled in by water. The metaphorical flood consisting of barbarians is represented as confined by a barrier of real water, and as bursting that watery boundary at the Straits of Gibraltar, where the surrounding sea was thinnest and therefore offered least resistance to their advance.

Compare with this passage the fine lines in Paradise Lost (iv. 270-271), which describe in metaphorical language how the effects of Athenian eloquence could not be confined within the limits of Greece, but extended to the capitals of Macedon and Persia.

355. Beneath Gibraltar, to the south of Gibraltar.

360. erst (connected with 'early') superlative of 'ere.'