Had ended now their orisons, and found eighth he returned, ix. 67. at Now when as sacred light began to dawn &c. Eve is prevailed upon to eat of the forbidden fruit a little before noon, ix. 739. Mean while the hour of noon drew on, and wak'd An eager appetite Adam eats likewise; they sleep, they wake; and Adam reproaches Eve with her desire of wandering this unhappy morn, ix. 1136. In the cool of the evening the Messiah comes down to judge them, x. 92. Now was the sun in western cadence low From noon, and gentle airs due at their hour To fan the earth now wak'd, and usher in The evening cool; when he from wrath more cool Came the mild Judge and Intercessor both To sentence Man. Satan fled from his presence, but returned by night, ver. 341. -return'd In his return to Hell he meets Sin and Death in the morning, ver. 329. -while the sun in Aries rose. After Sin and Death had arrived in Paradise, the angels are commanded to make several alterations in the heavens and elements: and Adam is represented as lamenting aloud to himself, ver. 846. Through the still night, not now, as Wholesome and cool, and mild, but Adam is afterwards made to talk somewhat confusedly, in one place as if it was still the day of the fall, ver. 962. Since this day's death denounc'd, if ought I see, Will prove no sudden, but a slow. pac'd evil. And in another place as if it was some day after the fall, ver. 1048. -we expected Immediate dissolution, which we thought Was meant by death that day, &c. And having felt the cold damps of the night before, he is con By night, and list'ning where the sidering how they may provide hapless pair themselves with some better warmth and fire before another night comes, ver. 1069. -ere this diurnal star Leave cold the night. That other night we must now Out of despair, joy, but with fear yet link'd; The good which we enjoy, from heav'n descends; prayer Of God high-blest, or to, incline his will, suppose to be past, since the morning here appears again To resalute the world with sacred light: So that according to the best calculation we can make, this is the eleventh day of the poem, we mean of that part of it which was transacted within the sphere of day. Mr. Addison reckons only ten days to the action of the poem, that is, he supposes that our first parents were expelled out of Paradise the very next day after the fall; and indeed at first sight it appears so but then we cannot see with what propriety several things are said, which we have here quoted and particularly of the sun's rising in Aries, when Satan met Sin and Death at the brink of Chaos; and if it was still the night after the fall, how could Adam say, as he is : 140 145 150 tually see Adam upon his "knees before the offended "Deity; and by the conclusion "of this paragraph, Bending "his ear, infinite goodness is "visibly as it were represented "to our eyes as inclining to "hearken to the prayers of his Methought I saw him placable and mild, Is past, and we shall live. Whence hail to thee, To whom thus Eve with sad demeanour meek. Ill worthy I such title should belong 155 160 To me transgressor, who for thee ordain'd A help, became thy snare; to me reproach 165 Rather belongs, distrust and all dispraise: That I who first brought death on all, am grac'd Who highly thus to' entitle me vouchsaf'st, 170 ters concerning poetical transla- she was taken out of Ish, Man, tions, &c. p. 58, 59. 157. Assures me that the bitterness of death Is past,] 1 Sam. xv. 32. And Agag said, Surely the bitterness of death is past. 159. Eve rightly called, mother of all mankind,] Gen. iii. 20. And Adam called his wife's name Eve, because she was the mother of all living. He called her before Ishah, Woman, because Gen. ii. 23. -Woman is her name, of Man as it is expressed, viii. 496. But To labour calls us now with sweat impos'd, 175. Her rosy progress smil ing;] This may serve to confirm what we observed before, that Leucothea is the most early morning, that ushers in the Aurora; she was pale and white before, now she is rosy red, with the nearer approach of the sunbeams, agreeably to the quotation that we made from Lucretius, -roseam Matuta per oras Etheris Auroram defert. And the expression of the morn's beginning her progress seems to be copied from Shakespeare, 1 Henry IV. act ii. -the heav'nly-harness'd team Begins his golden progress in the east. 181. So spake, &c.] The conference of Adam and Eve is full of moving sentiments. Upon their going abroad after the melancholy night which they had passed together, they discover the lion and the eagle pursuing each of them their 175 180 of Paradise. There is a double beauty in this incident, not only as it presents great and just omens, which are always agreeable in poetry, but as it expresses that enmity which was now produced in the animal creation. The poet, to shew the like changes in nature, as well as to grace his fable with a noble prodigy, represents the sun in an eclipse. This particular incident has likewise a fine effect upon the imagination of the reader, in regard to what follows; for at the same time that the sun is under an eclipse, a bright cloud descends in the western quarter of the heavens, filled with an host of angels, and more luminous than the sun itself. The whole theatre of nature is darkened, that this glorious machine may appear in all its lustre and magnificence. Addison. 182. Subscrib'd not;] That is, assented not, agreed not to it. Subscribere, to underwrite, On bird, beast, air, air suddenly eclips'd 185 And Phædrus, Fab. iii. x. 57. Aut gratiæ subscribit, aut odio suo. And so Shakespeare in Measure for Measure, act ii. Admit no other way to save his life, 184. nigh in her sight] Dr. Bentley says, Milton gave it, nigh in their sight, not in Eve's only, but in the sight of both. But it should rather be in her sight here, because it is said afterwards Adam observed &c. 185. The bird of Jove, stoop'd from his aery tour, &c.] The bird of Jove, Jovis ales, the eagle. Stooped is a participle here, and a term of falconry. Such omens are not unusual in the poets, Virg. Æn. i. 393. Aspice bis senos lætantes agmine Twelve swans behold in beauteous order move, And stoop with closing pinions from above; Who late the bird of Jove had driv'n along, And through the clouds pursued the scatt'ring throng. Dryden. And Æn. xii. 247. Namque volans rubrâ fulvus Jovis ales in æthra Littoreas agitabat aves, turbamque sonantem Agminis aligeri. For sudden in the fiery tracts above, Appears in pomp th' imperial bird of Jove: A plump of fowls he spies, that swim the lakes, And o'er their heads his sounding pinions shakes. Then stooping on the fairest of the train, &c. Dryden. But these omens have a singular beauty here, as they show the change that is produced among animals, as well as the change that is going to be made in the condition of Adam and Eve; and nothing could be invented more apposite and proper for this purpose. An eagle and a lion chasing a fine hart pursuing two beautiful birds, and hind, and both to the eastern gate of Paradise; as Adam and Eve were to be driven out by the angel at the eastern gate of Paradise. |