II.1 BOOK V. Major rerum mihi nascitur ordo. -VIRG. Æn. 7, 44. A larger scene of action is displayed. - DRYDEN. E were told in the foregoing book how the evil WE spirit practised upon Eve as she lay asleep, in order to inspire her with thoughts of vanity, pride, and ambition. The author, who shows a wonderful art 5 throughout his whole poem in preparing the reader for the several occurrences that arise in it, founds upon the above-mentioned circumstance the first part of the Fifth Book. Adam, upon his awaking, finds Eve still asleep, with an unusual discomposure in her looks. The posture Io in which he regards her is described with a tenderness not to be expressed, as the whisper with which he awakens her is the softest that ever was conveyed to a lover's ear. 15 20 8 His wonder was to find unwakened Eve, With tresses discomposed, and glowing cheek, Shot forth peculiar graces; then, with voice 1 Spectator, No. 327, March 15, 1712. · 2 Not... expressed' added in second edition; 'wonderful' be fore' tenderness,' first edition (Arber). 3 5.9-30. Mild as when Zephrus on Flora breathes, Her hand soft touching, whispered thus: -'Awake Such whispering waked her, but with startled eye 5 ΙΟ 15 I cannot but take notice that Milton, in the1 conferences between Adam and Eve, had his eye very frequently upon the book of Canticles, in which there is a noble spirit of Eastern poetry, and very often not unlike what we meet with in Homer, who is generally placed 20 near the age of Solomon. I think there is no question but the poet in the preceding speech remembered those two passages which are spoken on the like occasion, and filled with the same pleasing images of nature. 25 'My beloved spake, and said unto me, Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away! for, lo! the winter is past, the rain is over and gone, the flowers appear on the earth, the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land. The fig-tree 30 putteth forth her green figs, and the vines, with the tender grape, give a good smell. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away! 'Come, my beloved! let us go forth into the field, let us get up early to the vineyards, let us see if the vine 35 1 First edition, 'his' (Arber). 5 ΙΟ 15 20 20 flourish, whether the tender grape appear, and the pomegranates bud forth.' His preferring the garden of Eden to that 1 Where the sapient king Held dalliance with his fair Egyptian spouse, shows that the poet had this delightful scene in his mind. Eve's dream is full of those high conceits engendering pride, which we are told the devil endeavored to instil into her. Of this kind is that part of it where she fancies herself awakened by Adam, in the following beautiful lines: 2. Why sleep'st thou, Eve? Now is the pleasant time, To the night-warbling bird, that now awake If none regard. Heaven wakes with all his eyes; In whose sight all things joy, with ravishment An injudicious poet would have made Adam talk through the whole work in such sentiments as these1; but flattery and falsehood are not the courtship of Milton's 25 Adam, and could not be heard by Eve in her state of innocence, excepting only in a dream produced on purpose to taint her imagination. Other vain sentiments of the same kind, in this relation of her dream, will be obvious to every reader. Though the catastrophe of the 30 poem is finely presaged on this occasion, the particulars of it are so artfully shadowed that they do not anticipate the story which follows in the Ninth Book. I shall only 1 9. 442-443. 25. 38-47. * First edition, 'pleasant' (Morley), 'pleasing' (Arber). add that though the vision itself is founded upon truth, the circumstances of it are full of that wildness and inconsistency which are natural to a dream. Adam, conformable to his superior character for wisdom, instructs and comforts Eve upon this occasion : — 1 So cheered he his fair spouse; and she was cheered, From either eye, and wiped them with her hair: 5 ΤΟ 15 The Morning Hymn is written in imitation of one of those Psalms where, in the overflowings of gratitude and praise, the Psalmist calls not only upon the angels, but upon the most conspicuous parts of the inanimate creation, to join with him in extolling their common Maker. Invocations of this nature fill the mind with glorious ideas of God's works, and awaken that divine enthusiasm which is so natural to devotion. But if this calling upon the dead 20 parts of nature is at all times a proper kind of worship, it was in a particular manner suitable to our first parents, who had the creation fresh upon their minds, and had not seen the various dispensations of Providence, nor consequently could be acquainted with those many topics of 25 praise which might afford matter to the devotions of their posterity. I need not remark the2 beautiful spirit of poetry which runs through this whole Hymn, nor the holiness of that resolution with which it concludes. Having already mentioned those speeches which are 30 assigned to the persons in this poem, I proceed to the description which the poet gives3 of Raphael. His depart ΙΟ ure from before the throne, and the flight through the choirs of angels, is finely imaged. As Milton everywhere fills his poem with circumstances that are marvelous and astonishing, he describes the gate of heaven as framed 5 after such a manner that it opened of itself upon the approach of the angel who was to pass through it :— 2 Till, at the gate Of Heaven arrived, the gate self-opened wide, On golden hinges turning, as by work Divine the sovran Architect had framed. The poet here seems to have regarded two or three passages in the Eighteenth Iliad, as that in particular where, speaking of Vulcan, Homer says that he had made twenty tripods running on golden wheels, which upon 15 occasion might go of themselves to the assembly of the gods, and when there was no more use for them return again after the same manner. Scaliger has rallied Homer very severely upon this point, as M. Dacier has endeavored to defend it. I will not pretend to determine whether, 20 in this particular of Homer, the marvelous does not lose sight of the probable. As the miraculous workmanship of Milton's gates is not so extraordinary as this of the tripods, so I am persuaded he would not have mentioned it had not he been supported in it by a passage in the 25 Scripture, which speaks of wheels in heaven that had life in them, and moved of themselves or stood still in conformity with the cherubims whom they accompanied. 30 There is no question but Milton had this circumstance in his thoughts, because in the following book he describes the chariot of the Messiah with living wheels, according to the plan in Ezekiel's vision: 1 First edition, 'his' (Arber). |