Say, [Muse,] their names then known ;] who first, who last, At their great Emperour's call, as next in worth 385 Among the nations round and durst abide First, Moloch, horrid king, besmeared with blood Though, for the noise of drums and timbrels loud, His temple right against the temple of God 378. Milton varies the terms employed to designate Satan, 337, he is called General, 348, Sultan, 358, Commander, and here Emperour. 378. As [being] next in worth. 379. Singly is not now used in the sense of one after another, the Latin singillatim. 384. The omission of as before gods is a Latiuism. 392. Supply came from 379. 395. The omission of were before unheard is very unusual. 400. Wisest, the Superlat., is a Latinism. See ii. 954. 403. On that opprobrious hill.-See i. 2, Note. This hill is the Mount of Olives, 1 Kings xi. 7; the hill of scandal of 416, the offensive mountain of 443. 405 And black Gehenna called, the type of Hell. | Of southmost Abarim; in Hesebon Peor his other name,] when he enticed With these came they, who, from the bordering flood 420 Of old Euphrates to the brook) that parts Egypt from Syrian ground, had general names These feminine) for Spirits,) when they please, | 430 Can execute their aery purposes,) And works of love or enmity fulfil.] For those the race of Israel oft forsook Their Living Strength, and unfrequented left His righteous altar, bowing lowly down 435 To bestial gods ;] for which their heads as low 406. Supply came again. 406. Obscene, because supposed to be identical with Priapus. 411. The Asphaltic pool, the Dead Sea, so called from the asphaltus or bitumen in it 412. See Numb. xxv. 9. 413. From Nile.-The article omitted, as 353, "to pass Rhene." 417. Lust hard by hate, i.e., closely connected with hate, in Appos. with orgies. 422. Those male, these feminine.-The correlative term to male is female; feminine is the correlative of masculine. Bowed down in battle, sunk before the spear Her temple on the offensive mountain, built To idols foul. Thammuz came next behind,| Whose annual wound in Lebanon allured Of alienated Judah. | Next came one Where he fell flat, ❘ and shamed his worshippers ;] And Accaron and Gaza's frontier bounds.] 436. Bow'd down-The participle. 439. With crescent horns cannot be governed by called, nor by came. We must supply being their before queen. 442. Unsung, agrees with Astoreth. 451. Supposed [to run purple] with blood, &c., not supposed (to be) wounded. 458. Who mourned in earnest.-The lamentations for Thammuz were unfounded; his annual wound (447) was fabled, but Dagon suffered truly. See 1 Sam. v. 4. 460. Grunsel, i.e., groundsel edge, the basement of the pillars. Him followed Rinmon, | whose delightful seat Of Abbana and Pharphar, lucid streams. 470 He also 'gainst the house of God was bold :| For one of Syrian mode, whereon to burn With monstrous shapes and sorceries abused 480 Fanatic Egypt and her priests, to seek Their wandering gods disguised in brutish forms Rather than human. Nor did Israel 'scape The infection, | when their borrowed gold composed 485 Doubled that sin in Bethel, and in Dan, Jehovah, | who, in one night,) when he passed 495 Turns atheist, as did Eli's sons, | who filled 471. A leper-Naaman, cured by Elisha, 2 Kings v. 17. 472. Ahaz.-See 2 Kings xvi. 10. 479. Abused perverted. 481. Wandering. So called because Osiris was supposed, on the death of the sacred bull, to wander into some other. 484. The rebel king-Jeroboam. 486. Bentley raises some weighty objec tions to the four following verses, which he considers spurious. 488. Equalled, in the sense of killed, not usual. 492. To him stood-A Latinism. 495. Atheist, not used in the strict sense of believer in no god, but as equivalent to godless, or ungodly. With lust and violence the house of God? | And in luxurious cities, where the noise 505 Exposed a matron, to avoid worse rape. | These were the prime in order and in might ;| Gods, yet confessed later) than Heaven and Earth, Of cold Olympus, ruled the middle air, 502. Flown, i.e., overflowing; in Latin, fluere is so used, and though an Intrans. Verb, the past participle, fluxus, corresponding to flown, is common in poetry. The proposed emendations, blown or swol'n, are gratuitous, and no improvements. 503. Sodom.-See Genesis xix., Gibeah; Judges xix., Witness the streets of Sodom, i.e., Let the streets of Sodom witness. 507. The rest were long to tell.-A Latinism; longum est enumerare. 508. The Ionians are here assumed to be descendants of Javan, the son of Japhet. Milton here adopts the view of the early Fathers, that the gods of the Greeks were not empty creations of the imagination, but real beings, of the class of fallen angels who seduced mankind from the worship of the true God. See i. 364-375. 511. And [with his] birthright seized, i.e., having his birthright seized. Seized must not be joined to with his enormous brood. This brood, the Titans, were not seized by Saturn. 519. Or who-an ellipse for-These or they who, &c. 521. To Celtic supply fields. To roam, as |