For who can think submission ?|

War then, War,

Open or understood, must be resolved. |

He spake | and, to confirm his words, out-flew Millions of flaming swords, drawn from the thighs 665 Of mighty Cherubim ; the sudden blaze

670

Far round illumined Hell: highly they raged
Against the Highest, and fierce with graspèd arms,
Clashed on their sounding shields the din of war,
Hurling defiance toward the vault of Heaven.]
There stood a hill not far, whose grisly top
Belched fire and rolling smoke; the rest entire
Shone with a glossy scurf; undoubted sign
That in his womb was hid metallic ore,

The work of sulphur. | Thither, winged with speed,
675 A numerous brigad hastened | as when bands
Of pioneers, with spade and pickaxe armed,
Forerun the royal camp, to trench a field,
Or cast a rampart. | Mammon led them on ;
Mammon, the least erected Spirit that fell

680 From Heaven; | for e'en in Heaven his looks and thoughts
Were always downward bent, admiring more
The riches of Heaven's pavement, trodden gold,|
Than aught, divine or holy, else enjoyed

In vision beatific :] by him first

685 Men also, and by his suggestion taught,

Ransacked the center, and with impious hands
Rifled the bowels of their mother Earth,
For treasures, better hid.] Soon had his crew
Opened into the hill a spacious wound,

661. War open or understood.-Understood is not opposed to open, for what is understood is not concealed. Bentley ingeniously suggests to read open or underhand.

668. Clashed the din of war.-Intransit. Verbs may govern as Objects Nouns which express the action of the verb. For instance, to sleep a sleep, to run a race, to fight a battlo. Thus to clash din, and ii. 881, the

doors grate harsh thunder, and i. 723, the pile stood her stately highth. It was the custom of the Roman soldiers to strike their shields with their swords when they applauded an address of their general.

673. Womb is not uterus, strictly speaking, or else it could not here be attributed to the masculine hill. It is used in its wider and original sense of stomach or belly, like the German Wamme and Wampe.

690 And digged out ribs of gold.] Let none admire] That riches grow in Hell; | that soil may best

Deserve the precious bane.

Who boast in mortal things,

And here let those)

and wondering tell

Of Babel, and the works of Memphian kings,]
695 Learn) how their greatest monuments of fame,
And strength and art are easily out-done
By Spirits reprobate, and in an hour]
What in an age they with incessant toil
And hands innumerable scarce perform. |
700 Nigh on the plain, in many cells prepared,)
That underneath had veins of liquid fire
Sluiced from the lake, | a second multitude
With wondrous art, founded the massy ore,
Severing each kind,) and scummed the bullion dross :]
705 A third as soon had formed within the ground
A various mould, and from the boiling cells
By strange conveyance filled each hollow nook ;]
As in an organ, from one blast of wind,

To many a row of pipes the sound-board breathes. | 710 Anon, out of the earth, a fabric huge

Rose like an exhalation, with the sound
Of dulcet symphonies and voices sweet,
Built like a temple, | where pilasters round
Were set, and Doric pillars overlaid

715 With golden architrave; | nor did there want
Cornice or frieze, with bossy sculptures graven :|
The roof was fretted gold.

690. Admire, wonder, a Latinism.

696. And strength and art, are not in the Genit. governed by monuments, but the Nomin. Supply how before strength.

697. And in an hour, scil., is easily outdone.

699. Hands innumerable.-It is hardly wise to lay stress on the great numbers of the workmen of Babel and Memphis, after all that has been said of the countless kgions of devils (see 302, 338, 344, 351,

Not Babylon,

547, 571,) who, if numerable at all, must be numbered by millions, 664.

715. Architrave-An architectural term for the horizontal stone immediately above two pillars.

717. The works of Babel and Memphis have already been alluded to, 694. To name the same places again is not a proof of a rich imagination. Bentley, therefore, expunges the five lines. But there is no doubt of their genuineness

Nor great Alcairo, such magnificence Equalled in all their glories, to enshrine 720 Belus or Sérapis their gods; or seat

Their kings, when Egypt with Assyria strove
In wealth and luxury. The ascending pile
Stood fixed her stately highth | and straight the doors,
Opening their brazen folds, discover, wide

725 Within, her ample spaces, o'er the smooth
And level pavement | from the arched roof,
Pendent by subtle magic, many a row

Of starry lamps and blazing cressets, fed With naphtha and asphaltus, yielded light 730 As from a sky. The hasty multitude

Admiring entered; and the work some praise,|
And some the architect :] his hand was known
In Heaven by many a towered structure high,|
Where sceptered Angels held their residence, |
735 And sat as princes ;] whom the Supreme King
Exalted to such power, and gave to rule,
Each in his hierarchy, the Orders bright.]
Nor was his name unheard or unadored
In ancient Greece; and in Ausonian land
740 Men called him Mulciber;| and) how he fell
From Heaven,) they fabled,) thrown by angry Jove
Sheer o'er the crystal battlements :) from morn
To noon he fell, from noon to dewy eve,
A summer's day ; and with the setting sun
745 Dropt from the zenith like a falling star,

On Lemnos the 'gean isle | thus they relate,
Erring; for he with this rebellious rout

Fell long before; nor aught availed him now

To have built in Heaven high towers ; nor did he 'scape

723. See 668, note.

723. Her-Milton very often makes neuter nouns Mascul. or Fem. See Craik, The English of Shakspere, section 54, especially page 95.

728. Cressets, originally beacon lights, but often used in a wider sense. See Shakspere, 1 Henry Iv., iii. 1.

740. Mulciber, or Vulcan, the Hephorstos of the Greeks.

750 By all his engines, | but was headlong sent
With his industrious crew to build in Hell.]

Meanwhile the wingèd heralds, by command
Of sovran power, with awful ceremony

And trumpet's sound, throughout the host proclaim 755 A solemn council, forthwith to be held

At Pandemonium, the high capital

Of Satan and his peers | their summons called
From every band and squared regiment,

By place or choice the worthiest | they anon,
760 With hundreds and with thousands, trooping came,
Attended | all access was thronged; the gates
And porches wide, but chief the spacious hall
Though like a covered field,) where champions bold
Wont ride in armed, and at the Soldan's chair
765 Defied the best of Panim chivalry

To mortal combat, or career with lance,]

Thick swarmed both on the ground and in the air Brushed with the hiss of rustling wings.) As bees In spring time,) when the sun with Taurus rides, 770 Pour forth their populous youth about the hive

750. Engines-devices, contrivances. The word in this signification points to its derivation from ingenium.

751. To build.-See 259, note.

752. Winged heralds.-In Greek mythology, Hermes, the herald of the gods, has wings; but the other gods have none. Here all the devils are winged (see i. 345, 768). It is therefore no distinction for the heralds to be winged, and the adjective is idle.

756. Pandemonium-Formed upon the model of Panionium, the place of meeting for all the Ionians.

759. By place or choice the worthiest.The worthiest by his rank, or by the choice of whom? probably not of the heralds, but of Satan. And those whom Satan thought the worthiest, one would fancy, were chosen by him as leaders.

763 The same allusion as in 582, ff. See note to 717.

764 Wont, from the obsolete word to wone, to be accustomed, of which the current Adj. wont is the Participle, and wonted another Participle, formed upon the belief that the verb is wont and not wone. See v. 123.

765. Panim-Pagan.

767. The air brushed with the hiss of rustling wings, i.e., brushed with hissing, rustling wings. The substitution of abstract nouns for concrete nouns or adjectives, is very common in poetry. See Note on Cowper, Task, i. 15.

770. Populous-derived from populus, people-is a strange term to be applied to animals. It would hardly be suitable to call a rookery populous, or to speak of populous flocks of sheep.

In clusters :) they among fresh dews and flowers,
Fly to and fro, or on the smoothèd plank,
The suburb of their straw-built citadel,

New rubbed with balm, expatiate] and confer
775 Their state affairs.] So thick the aery crowd
Swarmed, and were straitened ;] till, the signal given,
Behold a wonder!] They) but now who seemed
In bigness to surpass Earth's giant sons, |
Now less) than smallest dwarfs, | in narrow room
780 Throng numberless, like that Pigmean race
Beyond the Indian mount; or faery elves,)
Whose midnight revels, by a forest side
Or fountain, some belated peasant sees,

Or dreams] he sees,] while over-head the moon

785 Sits arbitress, and nearer to the earth

Wheels her pale course ;] they on their mirth and dance

Intent, with jocund music charm his ear ;|

At once with joy and fear his heart rebounds. |

Thus incorporeal Spirits to smallest forms

790 Reduced their shapes immense, and were at large,
Though without number still amidst the hall
Of that infernal court.] But far within,
And in their own dimensions, like themselves,
The great Seraphic Lords and Cherubim
795 In close recess and secret conclave sat ;

multitude of the populous north, which was like a deluge (351).

795. In close recess and secret conclave sat.-Dr. Newton observes,-"It is not impossible that the poet might here allude to what is strictly and properly called the conclave; for it is certain that he had not a much better opinion of the one than of the other of these assemblies.". In another note he observes, that Satan is often called the Sultan, and his council the Divan; "the Devil, the Turk, and the Pope being commonly thought to be nearly related." Without disputing this triple alliance,