Death's harbinger: sad task, yet argument 155 20 death, so there is misery, which does not usher in death, but invoke it in vain. But by misery here, Milton means sickness, disease, and all sorts of mortal pains. So when in b. xi. Michael is going to name the several diseases in the lazar-house represented to Adam in a vision, he says ver. 475. -that thou may'st know large in the Æneid. The anger that he is about to sing is an argument more heroic not only than the anger of men, of Achilles and Turnus, but than that even of the gods, of Neptune and Juno. The anger of the true God is a more noble subject than of the false gods. In this respect he has the advantage of Homer and Virgil, his argu What misery th' inabstinence of Eve ment is more heroic as he says, Shall bring on men. 13. Pearce. -Sad task, yet argument] The Paradise Lost, even in this latter part of it, concerning God's anger and Adam's distress, is a more heroic subject than the wrath of Achilles on his foe, Hector, whom he pursued three times round the walls of Troy according to Homer; or than the rage of Turnus for Lavinia disespoused, having been first betrothed to him, and afterwards promised to Æneas according to Virgil; or Neptune's ire that so long perplexed the Greek, Ulysses, as we read in the Odyssey; or Juno's ire that for so many years perplexed Cythe if he can but make his style answerable. 21. my celestial patroness,] His heavenly Muse, his Urania, whom he had invoked i. 6. vii. 1, 31. And he boasts of her nightly visitation, as he was not unaccustomed to study and compose his verses by night; as he intimates himself at the beginning of book the third. And it is probable that in both these passages he alludes to the beginning of Hesiod's Theogony, Her nightly visitation unimplor'd And dictates to me slumb'ring, or inspires Easy my unpremeditated verse: Since first this subject for heroic song Pleas'd me long choosing, and beginning late; Muses walking by night, ver. 10. Εννυχια στειχον, περικαλλέα οσσαν εισαι. 21.] Milton's third wife related of him, that he used to compose his poetry chiefly in winter, and on his waking in a morning would make her write down sometimes twenty or thirty verses and being asked whether he did not often read Homer and Virgil, she understood it as an imputation upon him for stealing from those authors, and answered with eagerness that he stole from nobody but the Muse who inspired him; and being asked by a lady present who the Muse was, replied it was God's grace, and the Holy Spirit that visited him nightly. Newton's Life of Milton. Mr. Richardson also says, that "Milton would sometimes lie "awake whole nights, but not a verse could he make; and " on a sudden his poetical fancy "would rush upon him with an " impetus or astrum." See Johnson's Life of Milton. Dunster. 23. ——or inspires Easy my unpremeditated verse:] Here is the same kind of beauty that we observed before in iii. 37. The verse flows so easy, that it seems to have been made without premeditation. 25 26. -long choosing, and beginning late;] Our author intended pretty early to write an epic poem, and proposed the story of King Arthur for the subject of it: but that was laid aside probably for the reasons here intimated. The Paradise Lost he designed at first as a tragedy; it was not till long after that he began to form it into an epic poem: and indeed for several years he was so hotly engaged in the controversies of the times, that he was not at leisure to think of a work of this nature, and did not begin to fashion it in its present form till after the Salmasian controversy which ended in 1655, and probably did not set about the work in earnest till after the Restoration, so that he was long choosing, and beginning late. 28. -hitherto the only argument Heroic deem'd,] By the moderns as well as by the ancients; wars being the principal subject of all the heroic poems from Homer down to this time. But Milton's subject was different, and whatever others may call it, we see he reckons it himself An heroic poem, though he names it only A poem in his title page. It is indeed, as Mr. Warburton most excellently observes in his Heroic deem'd, chief mast'ry to dissect Divine Legation of Moses, book 29. -chief mastry to dissect &c.] As the admired subjects for an heroic poem were mistaken, so those were wrong who thought the dissecting of knights was a principal part of the skiil of a poet, describing wounds as He doubtless here a surgeon. 30 35 affectation of this sort of knowledge, which certainly debases his poetry. Richardson. 33. or to describe races and games,] As the ancient poets have done; Homer in the twenty-third book of the Iliad, Virgil in the fifth book of the Æneid, and Statius in the sixth book of his Thebaid: Or tills and torneaments, which are often the subject of the modern poets, as Ariosto, Spenser, and the like. 34. imblazon'd shields,] The Italian poets in general are much too circumstantial about these trifling particulars. But I cannot help thinking that our author had principally in view Boiardo, who, in his catalogue of Agramante's troops, gives us a most fastidious detail of imblazonry, having for above a hundred verses together nothing else scarcely but names of warriors, and descriptions of the devices and impresses which they bore in their arms. See Boiardo's Orland. Inam. b. ii. c. 29. Thyer. or 35. Impresses quaint, &c.] Uncommon witty devices emblems, painted on their shields usually with a motto. We remember one which was Bases and tinsel trappings, gorgeous knights Not that which justly gives heroic name 40 of spelling obliges us to print it in both places alike; and we prefer torneament, because we suppose the Italian to have been the original word; as we write impresses according to the Latin, because that word is originally derived from the Latin. Shakespeare too uses the word impress as a substantive in the same sense, Richard II. act iii. shield, the motto imported that the wearer would win by his valour wherewith to adorn it. Bases from bas (French) they fall low to the ground; they are also called the housing from houssé, bedaggled. Sewers from asseoir (French) to set down; for those officers set the dishes on the table; in old French asseours. Seneschals from two German words signifying a servant of a family; and was applied by way of eminence to the principal servant, the steward. And Fairfax in Tasso, cant. xx. Richardson. We may observe that Milton spells the word impreses after the Italian impresa, and not as we commonly do impresses, as if it was of Latin extraction: but as he has used the words impressed, iii. 388. and in other places, and impress, iv. 558. we have caused it to be printed impresses out of regard to the uniformity of spelling. And so torneament he spells here after the Italian torneamento, though in xi. 652. he writes it tournament, which seems to be after the French tournoy: but the same regard to the uniformity From mine own windows torn my st. 28. Climate, or years damp my intended wing The sun was sunk, and after him the star 'Twixt day and night, and now from end to end Night's hemisphere had veil'd th' horizon round: When Satan who late fled before the threats 1739. "As Tasso gave to a prince "of Italy his choice, whether "he would command him to "write of Godfrey's expedition against the infidels, or Beli"sarius against the Goths, or "Charlemagne against the Lom"bards; if to the instinct of "nature and the imboldening "of art ought may be trusted, "and that there be nothing ad"verse in our climate, or the fate "of this age, it haply would be "no rashness from an equal diligence and inclination to pre"sent the like offer in our own "ancient stories." Or years damp &c. for he was near sixty when this poem was published. And it is surprising, that at that time of life, and after such troublesome days as he had passed through, he should have sò much poetical fire remaining. -short arbiter 50. 'Twixt day and night,] This expression was probably borrowed from the beginning of Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia, where, speaking of the sun about the time of the equinox, he calls him an indifferent arbiter 45 50 53. When Satan who late fled &c.] If we look into the three great heroic poems which have appeared in the world, we may observe that they are built upon very slight foundations. Homer lived near three hundred years after the Trojan war; and, as the writing of history was not then in use among the Greeks, we may very well suppose, that the tradition of Achilles and Ulysses had brought down but very few particulars to his knowledge; though there is no question but he has wrought into his two poems such of their remarkable adventures, as were still talked of among his contemporaries. The story of Eneas, on which Virgil founded his poem, was likewise very bare of circumstances, and by that means afforded him an opportunity of embellishing it with fiction, and giving a full range to his own invention. We find however that he has interwoven in the course of his fable the principal particulars which were generally believed among the Romans of Æneas's voyage and settlement |