Mammon, the least erected spirit that fell From Heaven, for even in Heaven his looks and thoughts The richest of Heaven's pavement, trodden gold, Men also, and by his suggestion taught, And digged out ribs of gold. Let none admire What in an age they with incessant toil A various mould, and from the boiling cells By strange conveyance filled each hollow nook, To many a row of pipes the sound-board breathes. Rose like an exhalation, with the sound 1 There were 360,000 men employed for nearly twenty years upon a single pyramid. 2 Bullion is here an adjective. The sense is: "they founded or melted the ore that was in the mass, by separating or severing each kind, that is, the sulphur, earth, &c., from the metal; and after that they scummed the dross that floated on the top of the burning ore."Pearce. 3 On which instrument Milton was himself a performer. With golden architrave; nor did there want 3 Their kings, when Egypt with Assyria strove 1 This introduction of a modern name is rather clumsy. 2 Belus the son of Nimrod, second king of Babylon, and the first man worshipped for a god, by the Chaldæans styled Bel, by the Phoenicians, Baal. Serapis, the same with Apis, the god of the Egyptians.-Hume. 3 A cresset is any great blazing light, as a beacon. So Shakspeare, 1 Hen. IV. act. iii.: " at my nativity The front of Heaven was full of fiery shapes, Of burning cressets." 4 Compare Homer, Il. i., where Vulcan (the same as Mulciber) describes his misfortune : "Once in your cause I felt his matchless might, Hurled headlong downward, from the ethereal height, Tost all the day in rapid circles round; Nor, till the sun descended, touched the ground; Breathless I fell, in giddy motion lost; The Sinthians raised me on the Lemnian coast."-Pope. From Heaven, they fabled, thrown by angry Jove Fell long before; nor aught availed him now Meanwhile the winged heralds by command Of sovereign power, with awful ceremony And trumpet's sound, throughout the host proclaim At Pandemonium, the high capital Of Satan and his peers: their summons called By place or choice the worthiest; they anon To mortal combat, or career with lance), Thick swarmed, both on the ground and in the air 1i.e means, contrivances. 2 Pagan. 3 "As from some rocky clift the shepherd sees -Pope's Iliad, book ii. Swarmed and were straitened; till, the signal given, Or dreams he sees, while overhead the moon1 Wheels her pale course; they, on their mirth and dance At once with joy and fear his heart rebounds. Reduced their shapes immense, and were at large, Of that infernal court. But far within, 1 This alludes to the part which the moon is supposed to play in the revels of elves and fairies. 2 So we have in Latin frequens senatus, a full house. And he makes use of the same expression in English prose. "The assembly was full and frequent according to summons.' See his History of England in the reign of Edward the Confessor.-Newton. END OF THE FIRST BOOK BOOK II. 記 THE ARGUMENT. The consultation begun, Satan debates whether another battle be to be hazarded for the recovery of Heaven: some advise it, others dissuade a third proposal is preferred, mentioned before by Satan, to search the truth of that prophecy or tradition in Heaven concerring another world, and another kind of creature equal or not much inferior to themselves, about this time to be created: their doubt who should be sent on this difficult search: Satan their chief undertakes alone the voyage, is honoured and applauded. The council thus ended, the rest betake them several ways, and to several employments, as their inclinations lead them, to entertain the time till Satan return. He passes on his journey to Hellgates, finds them shut, and who sat there to guard them, by whom at length they are opened, and discover to him the great gulf between Hell and Heaven; with what difficulty he passes through, directed by Chaos, the power of that place, to the sight of this new world which he sought. HIGH On a throne of royal state, which far To that bad eminence; and from despair 1 An island in the Persian Gulf, celebrated for its wealth in diamonds. 2 Not that Ormus and Ind were in the west, but the sense is that the throne of Satan outshone diamonds, or pearls and gold, the choicest whereof are produced in the east. Spenser expresses the same thought thus, F. Q. iii. 4, 23. "that it did pass The wealth of th' east, and pomp of Persian kings." And the east is said to "shower them on her kings," in allusion to the 16. |