Not in his shape celestial, but as man actors whom he introduces, has employed Michael in the expulsion of our first parents from Paradise. The archangel on this occasion neither appears in his proper shape, nor in that familiar manner with which Raphael the sociable spirit entertained the father of mankind before the fall. His person, his post, and behaviour are suitable to a spirit of the highest rank, and exquisitely described in the following passage. Addison. 242. Livelier than Melibean,] Of a livelier colour and richer dye than any made at Melibaa, a city of Thessaly, famous for a fish called ostrum, there caught and used in dying the noblest purple. -Quam plurima circum Purpura Mæandro duplici Melibaa cucurrit. Virg. En. v. 251. Or the grain of Sarra, or the dye of Tyre, named Sarra of Sar, the Phoenician name of a fish there taken, whose blood made the purple colour. Georg. ii. 506. Sarrano indormiat ostro. 240 245 Hume. 244. -Iris had dipt the woof;] A most poetical expression. He had said before, that it was livelier than the Melibean grain, or than that of Sarra; it excelled the most precious Iris herself had given the colour, purple but now he says that the most beautiful colours being in the rainbow; nay Iris had dipt the very woof. He had before made use of a like expression in the Mask. The attendant spirit says, -But I must first put off These my sky robes spun out of Iris' woof. 248. and in his hand the spear.] The construction of this, and the former part of the period, is indeed thus: By his side hung the sword, and the spear in his hand. It is common with the ancients for the verb not to be applicable to all the members of the period. So here hung may be restrained to the sword only. There is another like in Adam bow'd low; he kingly from his state Adam, Heav'n's high behest no preface needs: Giv'n thee of grace, wherein thou may'st repent, Permits not; to remove thee I am come, stance, iv. 509. pines agrees to desire only. Markland on Statius's Sylv. i. i. 79. gives several instances of this in the ancients. Richardson. 261. And send thee from the garden forth to till The ground whence thou wast tuken, filter soil.] It is after the manner of Homer, that the angel is here made to deliver the order he had received in the very words he had received it. Homer's exactness is so great in this kind, that sometimes I know not whether it is not rather a fault. He observes this method not only when orders are given by a superior power, but also when messages are sent between equals. Nay in the heat and hurry of a battle a man delivers a message word for word as he received it: and sometimes a thing is repeated so often that it becomes almost tedious. Jupiter delivers a com 250 255 260 mission to a dream, the dream delivers it exactly in the same words to Agamemnon, and Agamemnon repeats it a third time to the council, though it be a tautology of five or six verses together. But in the passage before us, here is all the beauty and simplicity of Homer, without any of his faults. Here are only two lines repeated out of one speech, and a third out of another; ver. 48. and here again ver. 259. But longer in this Paradise to dwell. And it is a decree pronounced solemnly by the Almighty, and certainly it would not have become the angel, who was sent to put it in execution, to deliver it in any other words than those of the Almighty. And let me add, that it was the more proper and necessary to repeat the words in this place, as the catastrophe of the poem depends The ground whence thou wast taken, fitter soil. He added not, for Adam at the news O unexpected stroke, worse than of Death! That must be mortal to us both. O flowers, My early visitation, and my last At even, which I bred up with tender hand so much upon them, and by 263. He added not, for Adam at the news &c.] How naturally and justly does Milton here describe the different effects of grief upon our first parents! Mr. Addison has already remarked upon the beauty and propriety of Eve's complaint, but I think there is an additional beauty to be observed when one considers the fine contrast which there is betwixt that and Adam's sorrow, which was silent and thoughtful, as Eve's was loud and hasty, both consistent with the different characters of the sexes, which Milton has indeed kept up with 265 270 275 great exactness through the whole poem. Thyer. 268. O unexpected stroke, &c.] Eve's complaint upon hearing that she was to be removed from the garden of Paradise, is wonderfully beautiful: the sentiments are not only proper to the subject, but have something in them particularly soft and womanish. Addison. 270. —native soil,] Natale solum, as the Latins say, Nescio qua natale solum dulcedine tangit Humanos animos. Paradise was the native place of Eve, but Adam was formed out of the dust of the ground, and was afterwards brought into Paradise. Your tribes, and water from th' ambrosial fount? With what to sight or smell was sweet, from thee And wild? how shall we breathe in other air Whom thus the Angel interrupted mild. What justly thou hast lost; nor set thy heart, Adam by this from the cold sudden damp Celestial, whether among the Thrones, or nam'd Of them the high'est, for such of shape may seem 296. Celestial, whether &c.] Adam's speech abounds with thoughts, which are equally moving, but of a more masculine and elevated turn. Nothing can be conceived more sublime and poetical than the following passage in it, 280 285 290 295 the twenty-second book of the This most afflicts me, that departing the angel is driving them both hence &c. Addison. There is the same propriety in these speeches of Adam and Eve, as the critics have observed in the speeches of Priam and Hecuba to dissuade Hector from fighting with Achilles, in out of Paradise, Adam grieves that he must leave a place where he had conversed with God and his angels; but Eve laments that she shall never more behold the fine flowers of Eden: here Adam mourns like a man, and Eve like a woman. Prince above princes, gently hast thou told Thy message, which might else in telling wound, Nor knowing us nor known: and if by prayer No more avails than breath against the wind, His blessed count'nance; here I could frequent 300 305 310 315 320 |