Full, to the utmost measure, of what bliss
Human desires can seek or apprehend ?"

To whom the angel: "Son of Heaven and Earth!
520 Attend. That thou art happy, owe to God;
That thou continuest such, owe to thyself,
That is, to thy obedience; therein stand.
This was that caution given thee; be advised.
God made thee perfect, not immutable;
525 And good he made thee, but to persevere
He left it in thy power; ordained thy will
By nature free, not overruled by fate
Inextricable, or strict necessity:
Our voluntary service he requires,

530 Not our necessitated; such with him

Finds no acceptance, nor can find; for how
Can hearts, not free, be tried whether they serve
Willing or no, who will but what they must
By destiny, and can no other choose?

535 Myself, and all the angelic host,) that stand
In sight of God enthroned, our happy state
Hold,) as you yours,] while our obedience holds ; |
On other surety none :] freely we serve,|

Because we freely love, as in our will

540 To love or not; | in this we stand or fall :|
And some are fallen-to disobedience fallen,
And so from Heaven to deepest Hell | O fall,
From what high state of bliss, into what woe!"
To whom our great progenitor: "Thy words
545 Attentive, and with more delighted ear,

Divine instructor! I have heard, than when
Cherubic songs by night from neighbouring hills

520. Owe to God, i.e., know that thou owest.

531. The order is :-How can hearts not free, who will only what they must [will] by destiny, and can [will] no other, be said whether they serve willingly or no.

534. No other.-Nothing else. Other is used very freely by Milton for the neuter gender, as if answering the Latin aliud.

539. As in our will.-Elliptical phrase for it being placed in our will.

543. Compare 1. 91.

Aërial music send. Nor knew I not
To be, both will and deed, created free ;|
550 Yet) that we never shall forget to love

Our Maker, and obey him | whose command
Single is yet so just, my constant thoughts

Assured me,) and still assure:] though what [thou tell'st] Hath passed in Heaven, | some doubt within me move ; 555 But more desire to hear,) if thou consent, |

The full relation,) which must needs be strange,
Worthy of sacred silence to be heard ; |

And we have yet large day; for scarce the Sun
Hath finished half his journey, and scarce begins
560 His other half in the great zone of Heaven."
Thus Adam made request; and Raphael,
After short pause assenting, thus began:

"High matter thou enjoin'st me, O prime of men!
Sad task and hard; for how shall I relate
565 To human sense the invisible exploits

Of warring spirits? how, without remorse,
The ruin of so many, glorious once

And perfect while they stood? how, last, unfold
The secrets of another world, perhaps

570 Not lawful to reveal ?-Yet, for thy good,
This is dispensed; and what surmounts the reach

548. See note on v. 421.

549. Both will and deed.-An imitation of the so called Greek accusative. The meaning is, I know to be created free with respect to will and deed.

552. Single is YET so just. The force of the adversative yet is not at first sight obvious; for, if the commands were many, Adam might yet call them just and therefore be ready to obey them; but as there was only one command, why should he call it just nevertheless ? If single meant singular, strange, the difficulty would vanish. But it means the only one, and Adam's reasoning implies, that there is nothing capricious or irksome in this single restraint.

553, Thou tell'st must here be analysed as a parenthetical sentence.

557. Worthy of sacred silence to be heard. We can say worthy of sacred silence, or worthy to be heard; but the two objects cannot be joined. Perhaps we ought to read, worthy IN sacred silence to be heard. Milton had in his mind Horace, Ode II. 13, 29. 566. Remorse.--Sorrow, grief.

569. Perhaps.-Can the archangel be in doubt? But here, as also v. 574 ("though what if Earth," &c.), the poet's own personal sentiment is put into the mouth of the angel.

571. And what surmounts the reach of human sense. . . best.-These lines contain an apology for the form of the following narrative, in which the conflict of spiritual

Of human sense, I shall delineate so,

By likening spiritual to corporal forms,

As may express them best; though what if Earth 575 Be but the shadow of Heaven, and things therein

Each to other like, more than on earth is thought!

"As yet this world was not, and Chaos wild

Reign'd where these heavens now roll, where Earth now rests
Upon her centre poised; when, on a day,

580 (For time, though in eternity, applied
To motion, measures all things durable
By present, past, and future,) on such day

As Heaven's great year brings forth, the empyreal host
Of angels, by imperial summons called,

585 Innumerable before the Almighty's throne

Forthwith, from all the ends of Heaven, appeared,
Under their hierarchs in orders bright :

Ten thousand thousand ensigns high advanced,
Standards and gonfalons 'twixt van and rear
590 Stream in the air, and for distinction serve
Of hierarchies, of orders, and degrees;
Or in their glittering tissues bear emblazed
Holy memorials, acts of zeal and love
Recorded eminent. Thus when in orbs
595 Of circuit inexpressible they stood,
Orb within orb, the Father infinite,

By whom, in bliss embosomed, sat the Son,
Amidst, as from a flaming mount, whose top
Brightness had made invisible, thus spake :

beings is described as one of corporeal
forms. This apology is weakened by the
mental reserve, 574, though what if Earth,
&c.

583. Heaven's great year.-The ancient philosophers frequently spoke of a great year, comprising thousands of solar years, as the period for a complete revolution of all the heavenly bodies.

589. Standards and gonfalons.-Gonfalon, borrowed from the Italian, is the same as standard.

593. The objects of bear are not memorials and acts, but memorials and acts recorded. The latter expression is equivalent to the record of acts. Comp. note on I. 636. It is of course the record of acts of zeal that is emblazed, not the acts themselves.

594. After recorded supply as.
598. Amidst, scil. them.

598. Whose top brightness had made invisible. Compare 111. 380, "Dark with excessive bright."

600

Hear, all ye angels, progeny of light,

Thrones, Dominations, Princedoms, Virtues, Powers!
Hear my decree, which unrevoked shall stand :
This day I have begot whom I declare
My only Son, and on this holy hill

605 Him have anointed, whom ye now behold

At my right hand; your head I him appoint;
And by myself have sworn, to him shall bow
All knees in Heaven, and shall confess him Lord.
Under his great vicegerent reign abide

610 United, as one individual soul,

For ever happy: him who disobeys,

Me disobeys; breaks union; and that day, Cast out from God, and blessed vision, falls Into utter darkness, deep ingulfed, his place 615 Ordained without redemption, without end.'

"So spake the Omnipotent, and with his words

All seemed well pleased ;—all seemed, but were not all.
That day, as other solemn days, they spent
In song and dance about the sacred hill;
620 Mystical dance! which yonder starry sphere
Of planets, and of fixed, in all her wheels
Resembles nearest ; mazes intricate,
Eccentric, intervolved, yet regular

Then most, when most irregular they seem;

625 And, in their motions, harmony divine

So smooths her charming tones, that God's own ear

600. Progeny of light.-Compare v. 458, "Divine effulgence."

614. His place ordained, in Apposition to darkness.

620. Mystical dance.-Compare v. 178. 621. Fixed, i.e., stars; this substantive must be evolved from planets, which means wandering stars.

621. Wheels.-Revolutions. The idea of rotation lies at the bottom of a great number of cognate words, such as the Latin

volvo; the German wälzen, walzen, walze, welt; the English, wallow, wheel, whirl, world.

622. Mazes, in Appos. to dance, 620.

625. Their does not refer to planets (621), but to they (618). The poet leaves it uncertain how the harmony is produced, whether by instruments and singing (as 655), or as in the case of the mystic dance not without song (178) of the planets, merely by the dancing motion.

Listens delighted.

Evening now approached;

(For we have also our evening and our morn,We ours for change delectable, not need ;) 630 Forthwith from dance to sweet repast they turn Desirous; all in circles, as they stood,

Tables are set, and on a sudden piled

With angels' food; and rubied nectar flows
In pearl, in diamond, and massy gold,

635 Fruit of delicious vines, the growth of Heaven.
On flowers reposed, and with fresh flowerets crowned,
They eat, they drink, and in communion sweet
Quaff immortality and joy, (secure

Of surfeit, where full measure only bounds
640 Excess,) before the all-bounteous King, who showered
With copious hand, rejoicing in their joy.

"Now when ambrosial night, with clouds exhaled From that high mount of God,) whence light and shade Spring both, the face of brightest Heaven had changed 645 To grateful twilight,) (for night comes not there In darker veil,) and roseate dews disposed All but the unsleeping eyes of God to rest Wide over all the plain, and wider far]

627. Evening now approached.-Nomin. Absolute, for there is no conjunction at the beginning of 630.

628. Compare 162 and note.

631. Desirous is explained by 436," with keen despatch of real hunger."

638. Quaff immortality.-This seems to imply that their immortality was the result of their drinking. Very different and very appropriate is the classical expression which Milton had in view; there the departed spirits drink oblivion in Lethe, longa oblivia potant.

639. Secure of surfeit, where full measure only bounds excess.-Bentley despairs of understanding the meaning of these words. He therefore prefers the reading of the first edition,

If we retain the additional lines of the edition of 1674, we must take only as a qualification of bounds, not of measure, and lay a strong emphasis on bounds. The sense then will be, where full measure has only the effect of bounding, i.e., limiting or preventing excess. Where there is always a full and bounteous supply, there is no temptation, even for human beings, to excessive indulgence at any particular time.

640. Showered.-Transit. Verb without object. See I. 259, note.

648. The words and wider far to Courts of God, are condemned by Bentley as an