1. 320. Bentley's objection that 'dress' should be used here (as in Gen. ii. 15) because the common earth was 'tilled' after the Fall (Gen. iii. 23), is answered by the fact that the same Hebrew word is used in both places. The Septuagint translation is épyáŜeσlaι, and the Vulgate operari'; that of Junius, ad colendum.'

1. 335. Cf. x. 779.

6

1. 337. purpose;-conversation (propos). (Keightley.) Cf. Much Ado about Nothing, iii. 1, 'listen our purpose,' and Spenser (Faery Queene, IV. vi. 45), And by the way she sundry purpose found

Of this and that.'

1. 353. Adam had the wisdom given him to know all creatures and to name them according to their properties.' Cf. Bacon's words (Advancement of Learning, i.): The pure knowledge of nature and universality, by the light whereof man did give names unto other creatures in Paradise, according to their properties.' The two summary parts of knowledge,' Bacon elsewhere asserts are the view of creatures, and the imposition of names.'

1. 356. Acts xxvi. 19.

1. 379. Gen. xviii. 30.

1. 387. The stretched (intense) musical string cannot make harmony with one that is slack (remiss).

1. 407. Horace, Odes, i. 12. 18.

1. 413. Rom. xi. 33.

1. 414. of things;-like the 'pulcherrime rerum' of Ovid (Metamorphoses, viii. 49). (Keightley.)

1. 421. absolute;-omnibus numeris absolutus' is here literally translated. Perfection and completeness in all parts is meant. Ben Jonson has used the same expression in the inscription of his poem on Venetian Digby. Landor stigmatizes it as 'a pedantic, quibbling Latinism, which our language has never admitted.' Yet absolute Marina' is found in Pericles iv. Prologue, and Ben Jonson has it frequently.

1. 422. His single imperfection;—the imperfection of him when single. 1. 453. Dan. x. 17.

1. 460. Numb. xxiv. 4. The commentators on this text regard the 'eyes' as those of the mind.

1. 466. cordial;-nearest the heart, because some divines held the rib to have been taken from the left side.

1. 478. Cf Sonnet xviii, last line.

1. 488. Parallels to this beautiful line are found in Troilus and Cressida (iv. 4),

The lustre in your eye, Heaven in your cheek;'

and in Antony and Cleopatra (i. 3),

Eternity was in our lips and eyes.'

The very phrase 'Heaven is in your eyes' occurs in Beaumont and Fletcher (Philaster, iii. 1). Keightley quotes from Chaucer,

'And Paradise was formed in her eyen.'

1. 489. Keightley quotes

'Illam quidquid agit, quoquo vestigia movet,
Componit furtim subsequiturque Decor.'

(Tibullus, iv. 2. 7.)

1. 494. Nor enviest;-unlike the Greek gods, who envied man's happiness. 1. 498. Adhaerebit uxori suae' is the rendering of the Vulgate and of Junius.

1. 500. divinely;-from heaven (Lat. divinitus).

1. 502. conscience;—consciousness (conscientia) so used in our translation of Heb. x. 2.

1. 503. Helena says (Midsummer Night's Dream, ii. 1),

'We should be woo'd, and were not made to woo.' 1. 511. Cant. vi. 10.

1. 519. Cf. Vesper adest, juvenes, consurgite, Vesper Olympo Expectata diu, vix tandem lumina tollit.'

Cf. also Spenser (Epithal. 285):

(Catullus, lxii.)

Long though it be, at last I see it gloome
And the bright evening-star with golden creast

Arise out of the East.'

And Ben Jonson, in his Hue and Cry after Cupid (a nuptial mask), has a song with the burden

'Shine, Hesperus, shine forth, thou wished star.'

The appearance of the evening-star was the signal for lighting the torches to conduct the bride to her new home. (Cf. xi. 589.) Milton (Doctrine of Divorce, i. 3) speaks feelingly of the evil consequences of marriage when sober men, from inexperience, haste too eagerly to light the nuptial torch.' 1. 537. Cf. Samson Agonistes 1025 et seq.

1. 547. absolute;-perfect, as in l. 421.

1. 556. occasionally;-supplementally. But God had from the first intended to create Eve. Cf. line 444.

1. 568. Ephes. v. 28, 29; 1 Pet. iii. 7.

1. 576. adorn; an adjective made from a participle, like the Italian adorno (from adornato). Spenser uses it as a substantive (Faery Queene, III. xii. 20):

'Without adorne of gold or silver bright.'

1. 578. art seen;—'art' (videris) as in Sonnet iv. 3, and Bk. ix. 508, 546. So to be known' is used for 'to be' (iv. 836).

1. 583. divulg'd;-made common. See note on Arcades 6.

1. 589. Cf. Nature is fine in love' (Hamlet, iv. 5). Spenser, in his Hymn to Love, writes:

'Such is the power of that sweet passion,
That it all sordid baseness doth expel,
And the refined mind doth newly fashion
Unto a fairer form.'

King Arthur (in Tennyson's Guinevere)

'knew

Of no more subtle master under heaven
Than is the maiden passion for a maid,
Not only to keep down the base in man,
But teach high thought, and amiable words,
And courtliness, and the desire of fame,

And love of truth, and all that makes a man.'

1. 591. scale;-ladder, as in v. 509.

1. 598. genial bed;—the 'lectus genialis' of Horace (Epistles, i. I. 87). 1. 601. decencies;-comely acts. Decent' is always used in Milton's poems in its primary sense of comely,' befitting.' Il Penseroso 36, and Paradise Lost, iii. 644.

1. 608. foiled;-defeated, as in ii. 330.

6

1. 610. The reverse of the hackneyed video meliora' of Medea (Ovid, Metamorphoses, vii. 20).

1. 632. Hesperian ;—i. e. in the west.

to depart; cf. v. 376.

1. 634. 1 John v. 3.

1. 635. passion;-i. e. his affection for Eve.

1. 636. else ;-i. e. if not so swayed.

1. 637. Aeneid, xii. 59.

1. 645. since to part;-since you are about to depart. 'Part' is used for 'depart' in Comus 56, and Samson Agonistes 1447.

1. 652. Iliad, i. 531-533.

Book IX.

1. 2. Exod. xxxiii. II.

1. II. Cf. xi. 627.

1. 12. Cf. x. 249.

1. 14. In allusion to the subjects of the Iliad, Odyssey, and Aeneid. Neptune persecuted Ulysses, and Juno Aeneas.

1. 21. Cf. vii. I.

1. 26. In Milton's extant MSS. are many sketches for dramatic poems on Scripture subjects. In his youth he had proposed to write an epic on the theme of King Arthur. Aubrey asserts that Paradise Lost was begun about two years before the Restoration.

1. 33. races and games are described in Iliad xxiii. and Aeneid v.; tilting by the Italian poets and by Spenser.

1. 35. Impreses ;-(Ital. impresa) the devices and emblems on the shield; sometimes so enigmatical that they were not to be understood,' as Sir Henry Wotton remarks of the impreses of a tournament at court. They usually conveyed an allusion to the name, nature, or fortune of the wearer.

1. 36. Bases; the mantle, hanging from the middle to the knees or lower, worn by knights on horseback. Radegund compels the captive Artegal to put on an apron and petticoat instead of cuirass and bases (Faery Queene, V. v. 20).

1. 37. The marshal' set the guests in order of rank; the sewer placed the dishes on the table, his office being to sew,' assay,' or taste. (Another derivation of sewer is from asseoir,' to set down). The seneschal appears to have been the senior servant, the major-domo.

1. 39. the skill;-i. e. the result of it, like the 'hand of Eve,' 1. 438. 1. 44. Cf. the passage in Reason of Church Government, Bk. ii: If to the instinct of nature, and the imboldening of art, aught may be trusted; and that there be nothing adverse in our climate, or the fate of this age, it haply would be no rashness, from an equal diligence and inclination, to present the like offer in our own ancient stories.' Milton is here speaking of his choice

of a theme, 'to be left so written to after-times, as they should not willingly let it die.'

i. 56. maugre;—in spite of (malgré), frequent in Spenser, occurring sometimes in Shakespeare (Lear, v. 3).

1. 58. Job i. 7.

L. 63. The meaning is, for the space of an entire week he compassed the earth, three days from east to west, going round with night, or parallel to the equinoctial line, and four days at right angles to it, from north to south. The colures are two great circles, of which the one called the solstitial colure passes through the poles of the ecliptic and the equinoctial; the other, named the equinoctial colure, is a meridian drawn through the equinoxes. By traversing, then, is meant going along.' Cf. 1. 434. (Keightley.) Newton takes traverse in its usual sense of crossing.' 'As Satan was moving from pole to pole at the same time that the car of night was moving from east to west, if he would keep in the shade of night as he desired, he could not move in a straight line, but must move obliquely, and thereby cross the two colures.'

1. 77. Leaving the garden on the east (iv. 861), he turned northwards to the Euxine Sea and Palus Moeotis, and then went up along the river Ob. He then went probably down to the other side of the globe, as far south as the Line, and, as we are to suppose, back to the Orontes in Syria, whence he went westwards to the Isthmus of Darien, and so round by India and back to Eden. (Keightley.)

1. 80. Job xxxvii. 10.

1. 82. orb for 'world' (orbis terrarum). So used by the Clown in Twelfth Night, iii. 1.

66

I. 86. Landor censures these lines as 'some of the dullest in Milton.' He somewhat captiously objects: Who could suspect the serpent? or know anything about his wit and subtilty? He had been created but a few days; diabolic" power had taken as yet no such direction; and the serpent was so obscure a brute, that Satan himself scarcely knew where to find him. And why had the snake so bad a character? He was “not nocent yet;" “fearless, unfeared he slept." These are the contradictions of a dreamer; but how fresh and vigorous Milton arises the next moment!'

1. 89. imp;—from impan, to graft: whereon to graft deceit.' In Shakespeare the word, as an appellation, never bears a bad sense. Its primary meaning is 'child,' 'scion' (which latter word is properly a cutting from a tree). 1. 99. Cf. v. 574

1. 121. siege;-seat (siège), as in the 'siege of justice' (Measure for Measure, iv. 2). The 'siege' of a town is the sitting down' before it.

1. 130. bim destroyed. This version of the ablative absolute occurs also in vii. 142; Samson Agonistes 463. But in general Milton observes the usual English form of taking the nominative for the case absolute.

1. 146. if they at least ;-Cf. v. 859.

1. 156. Psalm civ. 4.

1. 157. Psalm xci. II.

1. 166. Cf. Comus 468.

1. 170. obnoxious;-exposed to, obnoxius fortunae.' (Tacitus, Historiarum, ii. 75.)

1. 176. son of despite ;-as the wicked are termed 'sons of Belial'; valiant men, 'sons of courage'; wild beasts, 'sons of pride.' (Deut. xiii. 13; 2 Sam. ii. 7; Job xli. 34.)

1. 178. So Prometheus (Aeschylus, Prometheus Vinctus 970) holds it right to scorn the scornful.'

1. 187. Iliad, xvii. 210.

1. 218. The original meaning of 'spring' (whence sprig ') was shoot,' 'rod.' It was then used chiefly, if not solely, by the poets for 'coppice,' 'grove,' or 'wood.' (Keightley.)

1. 240. In the song in Merchant of Venice (iii. 2) Fancy (i. e. Love) is said to be 'by gazing fed.'

1. 245. wilderness;-for 'wildness,' as

'For such a warped slip of wilderness

Ne'er issu'd from his blood.' (Measure for Measure, iii. 1).

1. 249. Cf. Paradise Regained, i. 302.

1. 278. Just then. Eve is speaking of the visit of the angel, a week back. 1. 291. entire; the 'integer vitae scelerisque purus' of Horace (Odes, i. 22. 1).

2

1. 312. Here the ordinary form is used for the case absolute. See line 130,

note.

1. 320. less ;—i. e. too little, a Latinism. Spenser also has this use of the comparative, e. g. 'thy weaker novice' (Faery Queene, I. Introduction). 1. 328. affront;-meet face to face (affronter).

1. 353. erect-on her feet: the Italian 'all' erta' (i.e. all' eretta), alert. The metaphor is military. (Keightley.)

1. 387. Oread or Dryad ;-nymph of the mountain or of the grove. 1. 390. Cf. Faery Queene, I. vi. 16.

1. 392. Guiltless of fire. Fire was unknown on earth before the Fall, according to Milton (cf. v. 396, and x. 1070). We have here a hint of the Puritan feeling that art sprang from the corruption of human nature—a notion put forward still more forcibly in Paradise Regained, iv, where the highest sanction is claimed for it. It is true that we hear of palaces in heaven (Paradise Lost, i. 732), but we are immediately informed of the fate of their architect. But he is careful to vindicate the celestial origin of music. 1. 395. The classic poets make the gods pass from youth to age, 'sed cruda deo viridisque senectus.' (Aeneid, vi. 304.) 1. 396. virgin of is a French and Italian idiom. (Keightley.) 1. 398. Delia's self;-i. e. Diana, from her birthplace Delos. 1. 402. And all things ;—i. e. and (to have) all things, &c.

1. 404. Cf. Iliad, xvii. 497; Aeneid, x. 501.

1. 410. Here and at 1. 420, Keightley believes that Milton dictated 'and' for the or' of the received text.

1. 426. Bentley proposed to read blushing' for the bushing' of the early

editions.

1. 431. Cf. iv. 269.

1. 437. arborets;—a word used by Spenser (Faery Queene, II. vi. 12). 'Arboretum' is a form of 'arbustum,' a shrubbery.

1. 439. The gardens of Adonis, frequently mentioned by Greek writers. were the little earthen pots, with lettuce and fennel growing in them, car