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Sorrows, and labours, opposition, hate

Attends thee, scorns, reproaches, injuries,
Violence and stripes, and lastly cruel death;

A kingdom they portend thee, but what kingdom,
Real or allegoric I discern not,

Nor when, eternal sure, as without end,

Without beginning; for no date prefix'd
Directs me in the starry rubric set.

So say'ing he took (for still he knew his power
Not yet expir'd) and to the wilderness
Brought back the Son of God, and left him there,
Feigning to disappear. Darkness now rose,
As day-light sunk, and brought in low'ring night
Her shadowy offspring, unsubstantial both,
Privation mere of light and absent day.

Our Saviour meek and with untroubled mind
After his aery jaunt, though hurried sore,
Hungry and cold betook him to his rest,
Wherever, under some concourse of shades,

390

395

400

Whose branching arms thick intertwin'd might shield From dews and damps of night his shelter'd head, 406 But shelter'd slept in vain, for at his head

The Tempter watch'd, and soon with ugly dreams

386. Sorrows, and labours, op

position, hale Attends thee, &c.] Compare the very remarkable description of the fate which Plato says it is easy to foresee will attend the Just Man. De Repub. lib. ii. p. 361. ed. Serran. Ο δίκαιος μαςιγώσεται, στρεβλώσεται, δεδησεται

τελευτων παντα κακα

παθων ανασχινδιλευθήσεται. "The Just Man shall be scourged,

tortured, bound, at length, having suffered every species of barbarous treatment, he shall be crucified." Dunster.

399.-unsubstantial both,] His philosophy is here ill placed. It dashes out the image he had just been painting. Warburton,

408. and soon with ugly dreams &c.] It is remarkable, that the poet made the Devil begin his temptation of Eve by

Disturb'd his sleep; and either tropic now 'Gan thunder, and both ends of heav'n, the clouds 410

working on her imagination in dreams, and to end his temptation of Jesus in that manner. I leave it to the critics to find out the reason; for I will venture to say he had a very good one. Warburton.

It may be observed, that the Tempter here tries only "to disturb our Lord with ugly dreams," and not to excite in him, as in Eve,

Vain hopes, vain aims, inordinate desires.

Dunster. 409.—and either tropic now 'Gan thunder, and both ends of heav'n, the clouds &c.] Place the stops thus:

-and either tropic now

'Gan thunder, and both ends of heav'n.

The clouds &c.

It thundered from both tropics, that is, perhaps, from the right and from the left. The ancients had very different opinions concerning the right and the left side of the world. Plutarch says, that Aristotle, Plato, and Pythagoras were of opinion, that the

δε προς νότον, αριστερα. ld. de Isid. p. 363. If by either tropic be meant the right side and the left, by both ends of heaven may be understood, before and behind. I know it may be objected, that the tropics cannot be the one the right side, and the other the left, to those who are placed without the tropics: but I do not think that objection to be very material. I have another exposition to offer, which is thus: It thundered all along the heaven, from the north pole to the tropic of Cancer, from thence to the tropic of Capricorn, from thence to the south pole. From pole to pole. The ends of heaven are the poles. This is a poetical tempest, like that in Virgil, Æn. i.

Intonuere poli

Id est extremæ partes cœli
a quibus totum cœlum contonu-
isse significat. Servius. Jortin.

Mr. Sympson proposes to read and point the passage thus;

-and either tropic now 'Gan thunder; at both ends of heav'n the clouds &c.

east is the right side, and the Mr. Meadowcourt points it thus;

--and either tropic now

'Gan thunder, and both ends of heav'n: the clouds &c.

But after all I am still for preserving Milton's own punctu

west the left; but that Empedocles held that the right side is towards the summer tropic, and the left towards the winter tropic. Πυθαγόρας, Πλατων, Αριστοτελης, δεξία του κοσμου τα ανατολικα pesen, aṣ wv i agxa s nosas agation, unless there be very good στερα δε, τα δυτικα. Εμπεδοκλης reason for departing from it, and δεξία μεν τα κατα τον θερινον τροπικον· I understand the passage thus: αριστερα δε τα κατα τον χειμερινον. and either tropic now 'gan thunder, De Placit. Philos. ii. 10. AyoTTI it thundered from the north and οίονται τα μεν έωα, του κόσμου προσω- from the south, for this I conπου είναι, τα δε προς βορραν, δεξια, τα ceive to be Milton's meaning,

From many a horrid rift abortive pour'd

Fierce rain with lightning mix'd, water with fire
In ruin reconcil'd: nor slept the winds

though the expression is inaccu-
rate, the situation of our Saviour
and Satan being not within the
tropics: and both ends of heaven,
that is, and from or at both ends
of heaven, the preposition being
omitted, as is frequent in Milton,
and several instances were given
in the notes on the Paradise Lost.
See particularly Dr. Pearce's note
on i. 282. and from both ends of
heaven, the clouds &c. This storm
is described very much like one
in Tasso, which was raised in
the same manner by evil spirits.
See Canto vii. st. 114, 115.

409. Most probably, as Mr. Dunster says, by either tropic Milton meant the north and south, and by both ends of heaven the east and west; as his purpose is to describe a general storm coming from every point of the horizon at once." But I see no reason for supposing the preposition from or at omitted; the syntax is exact without it.

E.

the clouds

410.
From many a horrid rift, abor-
tive pour'd

Fierce rain with lightning mix'd,
&c.]

Virgil, Æn. iii. 196.

style. Neither are such storms confined, as Mr. Thyer supposes, to tropical regions. I was a witness of one in the northern part of Germany, lat. 52. which was every thing the poet has here described: the wind was to the full as tremendous as the thunder and lightning, and, like them, seemed to come from every point of the heavens at once. Dunster. -water with fire

412.

In ruin reconcil'd:] That is, joining together to do hurt. Warburton.

This bold figure our poet has borrowed from Eschylus, where he is describing the storm, which scattered the Grecian fleet. Agamemnon. ver. 659.

Ξυνώμοσαν γαρ, οντες έχθιστοι το πριν,
Πυρ και θάλασσα, και τα πιστ' εδειξα

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Φθείροντε τον δύστηνον Αργείων στρατον.
Thyer.

Or perhaps it means only water
and fire falling down both toge-
ther, according to Milton's usage
of the word ruin in Paradise
Lost, i. 46. vi. 868.

413. —nor slept the winds Within their stony caves,] So Virgil describes the winds in the prisons of Æolus, Æn. i. 52.

Involvere diem nimbi, et nox hu. And Lucan, v. 608.

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Within their stony caves, but rush'd abroad
From the four hinges of the world, and fell
On the vex'd wilderness, whose tallest pines,
Though rooted deep as high, and sturdiest oaks
Bow'd their stiff necks, loaden with stormy blasts,
Or torn up sheer: ill wast thou shrouded then,
O patient Son of God, yet only stood'st
Unshaken; nor yet stay'd the terror there,

415

420

Complêrunt, magno indignantur learned father observes, that

murmure clausi

Nubibus.

Dunster.

415. From the four hinges of the world,] That is, from the four cardinal points, the word cardines signifying both the one and the other. This, as was observed before, is a poetical tempest like that in Virgil, Æn. i. 85.

Una Eurusque Notusque ruunt, creberque procellis

Africus.

And as Mr. Thyer adds, though such storms are unknown to us in these parts of the world, yet the accounts we have of hurricanes in the Indies agree pretty much with them.

417. Though rooted deep as high,] Virgil, Georg. ii. 291. Æn. iv. 445.

-quantum vertice ad auras Ethereas, tantum radice in Tartara tendit.

Richardson.

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Christ was tempted forty days and the same number of nights

κοντα, και ταις τοσαυταις νυξιν επείραΚαι επειδήπερ ημεραις τεσσαρα To. And to these night temptations he applies what is said in the ninety-first Psalm, v. 5. and 6. Ou Qobnenon año pobov vuxτegivou, Thou shalt not be afraid for any terror by night, -απο πραγματος

εν σκοτει διαπορευομενον, nor for the danger that walketh in darkness. The first is thus paraphrased in the Targum, (though with a meaning very different from Eusebius's,) Non timebis à timore Dæmonum qui ambulant in nocte. The fiends surround our

Redeemer with their threats and
terrors; but they have no effect.
Infernal ghosts, and hellish furies,
round
Environ'd thee.

This too is from Eusebius, (ibid.
p. 435.] Επείπερ εν τῷ πειράζειν δυ-

quoniam dum tentabatur, maνάμεις ποιηραι εκυκλούν αυτον. lignæ potestates illum circumstabant. And their repulse, it seems, of this Psalm: A thousand shall is predicted in the seventh verse fall beside thee, and ten thousand at thy right hand, but it shall not come nigh thee. Calton.

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Infernal ghosts, and hellish furies, round

Environ'd thee, some howl'd, some yell'd, some shriek❜d,
Some bent at thee their fiery darts, while thou
Sat'st unappall'd in calm and sinless peace.
Thus pass'd the night so foul, till morning fair

422. Infernal ghosts, &c.] This is taken from the legend or the pictures of St. Anthony's temptation. Warburton.

From a print which I have seen of the temptation of St. Anthony. Jortin.

In these lines our author copies Fairfax's Tasso, c. xv. 67. You might have heard, how through

the palace wide, Some spirits howl'd, some bark'd,

some hist, some cride.

It is where Armida, returning to destroy her palace, assembles her attendant spirits in a storm. Indeed, the circumstances and behaviour of Christ in this haunted wilderness, are exactly like those of the Christian champions in Tasso's inchanted forest, who calmly view, and without resistance, the threats and attacks of a surrounding group of the most horrid demons. See c. xiii. 28, 35. Milton adds,

Some bent at thee their fiery darts, while thou

Sat'st unappall'd in calm and sinless peace.

T. Warton.

424. their fiery darts,] Eph. vi. 16. the fiery darts of the wicked. The contrast which the next line, Sat'st unappall'd &c. gives to the preceding description of the horrors of the storm, has a singularly fine effect. Dunster.

426. till morning fair
Came forth &c.]

425

As there is a storm raised by evil spirits in Tasso as well as in Milton, so a fine morning succeeds after the one as well as after the other. See Tasso, cant. viii. st. 1. But there the morning comes with a forehead of rose, and with a foot of gold; con la fronte di rose, e co' piè d'oro; here with pilgrim steps in amice gray, as Milton describes her progress more leisurely, first the gray morning, and afterwards the sun rising: with pilgrim steps, with the slow solemn pace of a pilgrim on a journey of devotion; in amice gray, in gray clothing; amice, a proper and significant word, derived from the Latin amicio to clothe, and used by Spenser, Faery Queen, b. i. cant. iv. st. 18.

Array'd in habit black, and amice

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