The oracles are dumb, No voice or hideous hum XIX. Runs through the arched roof in words deceiving. 175 Apollo from his shrine Can no more divine, With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving. No nightly trance, or breathed spell Inspires the pale-ey'd priest from the prophetic cell. 180 XX. The lonely mountains o'er And the resounding shore, A voice of weeping heard and loud lament; was still pleased with it when he was older, and had his eye upon it several times in the Paradise Lost. 172. This image is copied, says Dr. J. Warton, from the descriptions of serpents and dragons in the old Romances and Ariosto. Compare Sylvester's Du Bartas (p. 205. 4to.) W. i. D. 6. of a lion —swindging with his sinewie traine, &c. T. Warton. 176. Apollo from his shrine Can no more divine, &c.] Our author builds here upon the common hypothesis of the oracles being struck dumb at the coming of Christ, which is allowable enough in a young poet: and in this passage he alludes particularly to the famous story of Augustus Cæsar's consulting the Pythia or priestess of Apollo who should reign after him, and her answering that an Hebrew boy had commanded her to leave that temple and return to hell. See Suidas in Augustus Cæsar. 180. Inspires the pale-ey'd priest.] Milton was impressed with reading Euripides's Tragedy of Ion, which suggested these ideas. T. Warton. 183. A voice of weeping heard and loud lament;] Alluding to the story of a voice proclaiming and immediately was heard a that the great Pan was dead, great groaning and lamentation. See more to this purpose in Plutarch's treatise De oraculorum defectu. 183. Although Milton was well acquainted with all the Greek writers in their original languages, and might have seen the ground-work of this tradition of a voice proclaiming the death of the great Pan, and cessation of oracles, in Plutarch on the Defect of Oracles, and the fifth book of Eusebius's Præparat. Evangel. yet it is most probable, From haunted spring, and dale Edg'd with poplar pale, The parting Genius is with sighing sent; With flow'r-inwoven tresses torn 185 The nymphs in twilight shade of tangled thickets mourn. that the whole allusion was suggested to his imagination by a note of the old commentator on Spenser's Pastorals in May, who copied Lavaterus's treatise de Lemuribus, newly translated into English. "About the time that "our Lord suffered his most "bitter passion, certaine persons "sayling from Italie to Cyprus, "and passing by certaine iles. "called Paxa, heard a voyce calling Thamus, Thamus, the pylot of the ship; who, giving "eare to the cry, was bidden "when he came to Palodas to "tell, that the great god Pan "was dead: which he doubting "to doe, yet for that when he to Palodas there was "such a calme of wind, that the ship stood still in the sea un"moored, he was forced to cry "aloud, that Pan was dead: "wherewithall, there was heard "such piteous outcries and dread"ful shrieking, as hath not been "the like. By which Pan, "though of some be understood "the great Sathanas, whose "came 66 kingdom was at that time by "Christ conquered, and the gates "of hell broken up, for at that "time all Oracles surceased, and "enchanted spirits that were wont to delude the people "thenceforth held their peace, "&c." So also Hakewill in his Apologie, lib. iii. sect. ii. p. 208. VOL. III. ed. 1630. But this is a second edition. And Sandys has much the same story. Travels, p. 11. ed. 1627. Compare Par. Reg. i. 456. If we connect the three lines (181-183.) with the general subject of the last stanza, undoubtedly Milton, in the voice of weeping and loud lament, referred to this story, from whatsoever source it was drawn. But if, without such a retrospect, they belong only to the context and purport of their own stanza, he implies the lamentations of the nymphs and wood-gods at their leaving their haunts. And surely nothing could be more allowable, not only in a young poet, but in a poet of any age, than this allusion to the notion of the cessation of oracles at the coming of Christ. And how poetically is it extended to the pagan divinities and the oriental idolatries? The words of v. 183. a voice of weeping &c. are from Matt. ii. 18. In Rama was there a voice heard, lamentation, and weeping, &c. T. War ton. 187. With flow'r-inwoven tresses torn.] See note on interwove in Par. Lost, i. 261. Inwove is also not uncommon in Milton. See Par. L. iii. 352. iv. 693. Spenser gives the first instance that I can recollect. T. Warton. B b In consecrated earth, And on the holy hearth, XXI. 190 The Lars, and Lemures moan with midnight plaint; In urns, and altars round, A drear and dying sound Affrights the Flamens at their service quaint; And the chill marble seems to sweat, While each peculiar pow'r foregoes his wonted seat. Peor and Baälim XXII. Forsake their temples dim, With that twice batter'd God of Palestine; And mooned Ashtaroth, Heav'n's queen and mother both, Now sits not girt with tapers holy shine; The Lybic Hammon shrinks his horn, 195 200 In vain the Tyrian maids their wounded Thammuz mourn. XXIII. And sullen Moloch fled, 191. Lars, and Lemures] Household gods and night spirits. Flamens, priests. 199. With that twice batter'd God of Palestine ;] Dagon, who was twice battered by Samson, Judges xvi. and by the ark of God, 1 Sam. v. Our author is larger in his account of these deities in the first book of the Paradise Lost, and thither we must refer our reader, and to the notes there. Selden had a few years before published his De Diis Syris Syntagmata duo, and 205 therefore we may suppose Milton was so well instructed in this kind of learning. 201. Heav'n's queen and mother both,] She was called regina cœli and mater Deúm. See Selden. 202. Shine is a substantive in Harrington's Ariosto, c. xxxvii. 15. In Jonson's Panegyre, 1603. And Drummond, Sonnets, sign. B. ed. 1616. And in other places: but see Observal. on Spenser's F. Q. ii. 181. T. Warton. 205. And sullen Moloch fled, &c.] In Sandys's Travels, p. 186. His burning idol all of blackest hue; In vain with cymbals ring They call the grisly king, In dismal dance about the furnace blue; The brutish Gods of Nile as fast, Isis and Orus, and the dog Anubis haste. Nor is Osiris seen XXIV. In Memphian grove or green, 210 Trampling the unshow'r'd grass with lowings loud; 215 Nor can he be at rest Within his sacred chest, Nought but profoundest hell can be his shroud; ed. 1615. fol. a popular book in Milton's time, is a description of the sacrifices and image of Moloch, exactly corresponding with this passage, and with Par. Lost, i. 392. where see the note. But the imagery is introduced into the Paradise Lost with less effect. There the dreadful circumstances of this idolatrous worship are only related; in our Ode they are endued with life and action, they are put in motion before our eyes, and made subservient to a new purpose of the poet by the superinduction of a poetical fiction, to which they give occasion. "The sul"len spirit is fled, and has left "in solitude and darkness his "burning image; the priests "dancing with horrid gesticu"lations about the blue furnace "from which his idol was fed "with fire, in vain attempt to "call back their grisly king "with the din of those cymbals "with which they were wont to "overwhelm the shrieks of the "sacrificed infants." In Burnet's treatise De statu mortuorum et resurgentium, there is a fine picture of the rites of Moloch. Milton like a true poet, in describing the Syrian superstitions, selects such as were most interesting to the fancy, and most susceptible of poetical enlargement. T. Warton. 212. the dog Anubis] Virg. Æn. viii. 698. latrator Anubis. 215. the unshow'r'd_grass] There being no rain in Egypt, but the country made fruitful with the overflowings of the Nile. Richardson. Tibullus of the Nile, Te propter nullos tellus tua supplicat imbres, Arida nec pluviosupplicat herba Jovi. T. Warton. 218. shroud;] Shelter, hiding-place. See note on Par. Lost, x. 1068. E. In vain with timbrell'd anthems dark The sable-stoled sorcerers bear his worshipp'd ark. 220 XXV. He feels from Juda's land The dreaded Infant's hand, The rays of Bethlehem blind his dusky eyn; Nor all the Gods beside, Longer dare abide, Not Typhon huge ending in snaky twine: Our Babe to show his Godhead true, 225 Can in his swaddling bands control the damned crew. So when the sun in bed, XXVI. Curtain❜d with cloudy red, 230 227. Our Babe to show &c.] In to be of much higher antiquity. the printed copies it is Our Babe to shew his Godhead true: but this pitiful jingle could not be Milton's. He undoubtedly be Milton's. He undoubtedly wrote it show. Calton. 229. So when the sun, &c.] Our author has here beautifully applied the vulgar superstition of spirits disappearing at the break of day, as the groundwork of a comparison. The false gods of every heathen religion depart at the birth of Christ, as spectres and demons vanish when the morning dawns. See L'Allegro, 114. and Par. Reg. iv. 426-431. The moment of the evanescence of spirits was supposed to be limited to the crowing of the cock. This belief is mentioned by Prudentius, Cathem. Hymn. i. 38. But some of his commentators, and those not easily to be found, prove it Shakespeare has made an admirable use of this popular idea. Haml. a. i. s. 1. where a vulgar poet would have made the ghost tamely vanish without a cause, and without that preparation to speak, which so greatly heightens the interest. T. Warton. We will cite the passage in Prudentius above referred to; Ferunt vagantes dæmonas, Lætos tenebris noctium Gallo canente exterritos Sparsim timere, et cedere: Invisa nam vicinitas Lucis, salutis, numinis, Rupto tenebrarum situ, Noctis fugat satellites. We find the superstition two hundred years before Prudentius, in Philostratus's Life of Apollonius Tyanæus. There the ghost of Achilles, that had appeared to Apollonius, vanishes at once in the midst of a con |