Of Chaos blustering round, inclement sky;
Save on that side, which from the wall of heaven,
Though distant far, some small reflection gains
Of glimmering air, less vex'd with tempest loud:
Here walk'd the fiend at large in spacious field.
As when a vulture on Imaus bred,
Whose snowy ridge the roving Tartar bounds,
Dislodging from a region scarce of prey
On hills where flocks are fed, flies towards the springs
To gorge the flesh of lambs, or yeanling kids
Of Ganges or Hydaspes, Indian streams;
But in his way lights on the barren plains
Of Sericana, where Chineses drive
With sails and windy their cany waggons light:
So on this windy sea of land the fiend
Walk'd up and down alone, bent on his prey;
Alone, for other creature in this place,
Living or lifeless, to be found was none;
None yet, but store hereafter from the earth
Up hither like aërial vapours flew
Of all things transitory and vain, when sin
With vanity had fill'd the works of men :
Both all things vain, and all who in vain things
Built their fond hopes of glory, or lasting fame,
Or happiness in this or the other life;
All who have their reward on earth, the fruits
Of painful superstition and blind zeal,
Naught seeking but the praise of men, here find
Fit retribution, empty as their deeds:
All the unaccomplish'd works of nature's hand,
Abortive, monstrous, or unkindly mix'd,
Dissolved on earth, fleet hither, and in vain,
Till final dissolution wander here:
Not in the neighbouring moon, as some have dream'd;
Those argent fields more likely habitants,
Translated saints, or middle spirits hold
Betwixt the angelical and human kind :
This simile is very apposite and lively, and corresponds exactly in all the particulars. Satan coming from hell to earth, in order to destroy mankind, but lighting first on the bare convex of the world's outermost orb, "a sea of land," as the poet calls it, is very fitly compared to a vulture flying in quest of his prey, tender lambs or kids new-yeaned, from the barren rocks to the more fruitful hills and streams of India; but lighting in his way on the plains of Sericana, which were in a manner a sea of land" too; the country being so smooth and open, that carriages were driven (as travellers report) with sails and wind. Imaus is a celebrated mountain in Asia.-NEWTON.
Gray has caught the tone of this :
The dusky people drive before the gales.
Hither of ill-join'd sons, and daughters born
First from the ancient world those giants came
With many a vain exploit, though then renown'd:
The builders next of Babel on the plain
Of Sennaar, and still with vain design
New Babels, had they wherewithal, would build :
Others came single; he, who to be deem'd
A god, leap'd fondly into Etna flames,
Empedocles; and he who, to enjoy
Plato's Elysium, leap'd into the sea,
Cleombrotus, and many more too long,
Embryos and idiots, eremites and friars,
White, black, and grey, with all their trumpery.
Here pilgrims roam, that stray'd so far to seek
In Golgotha him dead, who lives in heaven;
And they, who to be sure of Paradise a,
Dying put on the weeds of Dominic,
Or in Franciscan think to pass disguised;
They pass the planets seven, and pass the fix'd,
And that crystalline sphere b whose balance weighs
The trepidation talk'd, and that first moved :
And now Saint Peter at heaven's wicket seems
To wait them with his keys, and now at foot
Of heaven's ascent they lift their feet, when, lo!
A violent cross wind from either coast
Blows them transverse ten thousand leagues awry
Into the devious air: then might ye see
Cowls, hoods, and habits with their wearers toss'd
And flutter'd into rags; then reliques, beads,
Indulgences, dispenses, pardons, bulls,
The sport of winds: all these upwhirl'd aloft,
Fly o'er the backside of the world far off,
Into a limbo large and broad o, since call'd
Hither of ill-join'd sons.
He means the sons of God ill-joined with the daughters of men, alluding to that text of Scripture, Gen. vi. 4:-"There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them; the same became mighty men, which were of old, men of renown.' Where, by the "sons of God," some Fathers and commentators have understood angels, as if the angels had been enamoured and married to women: but the true meaning is, that the posterity of Seth and other patriarchs, who were worshippers of the true God, and therefore called "the sons of God," intermarried with the idolatrous posterity of wicked Cain.-NEWTON.
a And they, who to be sure of Paradise.
This verse, and the two following, allude to a ridiculous opinion that obtained in the dark ages of popery; that, at the time of death, to be clothed in a friar's habit, was an infallible road to heaven.-BOWLE.
b And that crystalline sphere.
He speaks here according to the ancient astronomy, adopted and improved by Ptolemy.-NEWton.
c Into a limbo large and broad.
The limbus patrum, as it is called, is a place that the schoolmen supposed to be in
The Paradise of Fools, to few unknown
Long after, now unpeopled, and untrod.
All this dark globe the fiend found as he pass'd;
And long he wander'd till at last a gleam
Of dawning light turn'd thitherward in haste
His travel'd steps: far distant he descries,
Ascending by degrees magnificent
Up to the wall of heaven, a structure high;
At top whereof, but far more rich, appear'd
The work as of a kingly palace gate,
With frontispiece of diamond and gold
Imbellish'd; thick with sparkling orient gems
The portal shone, inimitable on earth
By model or by shading pencil drawn.
The stairs were such as whereon Jacob saw
Angels ascending and descending, bands
Of guardians bright, when he from Esau fled
To Padan-Aram in the field of Luz,
Dreaming by night under the open sky,
And waking cried "This is the gate of heaven."
Each stair mysteriously was meant, nor stood
There always, but drawn up to heaven sometimes
Viewless; and underneath a bright sea flow'd
Of jasper, or of liquid pearl, whereon
Who after came from earth, sailing arrived,
Wafted by angels; or flew o'er the lake,
Rapt in a chariot drawn by fiery steeds.
The stairs were then let down; whether to dare
The fiend by easy ascent, or aggravate
His sad exclusion from the doors of bliss:
Direct against which open'd from beneath,
Just o'er the blissful seat of Paradise,
A passage down to the earth, a passage
Wider by far than that of after times
Over Mount Sion, and, though that were large,
Over the promised land to God so dear;
By which, to visit oft those happy tribes,
On high behests his angels to and fro
Pass'd frequent, and his eye with choice regard,
From Paneas, the fount of Jordan's flood,
To Beërsaba, where the Holy Land
Borders on Ægypt and the Arabian shore:
So wide the opening seem'd, where bounds were set
To darkness, such as bound the ocean wave.
the neighbourhood of hell, where the souls of the patriarchs were detained, and those good men who died before our Saviour's resurrection. Our author gives the same name to his "Paradise of Fools," and more rationally places it beyond "the backside of the world."-NEWTON.
The "Limbo of Vanity" has been censured as unbecoming the dignity of the epic.
Satan from hence now on the lower stair,
That scaled by steps of gold to heaven gate,
Looks down with wonder at the sudden view
Of all this world at once. As when a scout,
Through dark and desert ways with peril gone
All night, at last by break of cheerful dawn
Obtains the brow of some high-climbing hill,
Which to his eye discovers unaware
The goodly prospect of some foreign land
First seen; or some renown'd metropolis,
With glistering spires and pinnacles adorn'd,
Which now the rising sun gilds with his beams :
Such wonder seized, though after heaven seen,
The spirit malign; but much more envy seized,
At sight of all this world beheld so fair.
Round he surveys 4, (and well might, where he stood
So high above the circling canopy
Of night's extended shade,) from eastern point
Of Libra to the fleecy star that bears
Andromeda far off Atlantic seas
Beyond the horizon: then from pole to pole
He views in breadth; and without longer pause
Downright into the world's first region throws
His flight precipitant; and winds with ease
Through the pure marble air his oblique way
Amongst inumerable stars, that shone
Stars distant, but nigh had seem'd other worlds,
Or other worlds they seem'd, or happy isles,
Like those Hesperian gardens, famed of old,
Fortunate fields, and groves and flowery vales,
Thrice happy isles; but who dwelt happy there
He stay'd not to inquire. Above them all,
The golden sun, in splendour likest heaven,
Allured his eye: thither his course he bends
Through the calm firmament; but up or down,
By centre or eccentric, hard to tell,
Or longitude, where the great luminary,
Aloof the vulgar constellations thick,
Their starry dance in numbers that compute
Days, months, and years, towards his all-cheering lamp
Turn swift their various motions; or are turn'd
By his magnetic beam, that gently warms
He surveys the whole creation from east to west, and from north to poetry delights to say the most common things in an uncommon manner. it is natural, to represent Satan taking a view of the world before he into it.-NEWTON.
south. But It is fine as threw himself
The universe, and to each inward part
With gentle penetration, though unseen,
Shoots invisible virtue even to the deep;
So wondrously was set his station bright.
There lands the fiend; a spot like which perhaps
Astronomer in the sun's lucent orb
Through his glazed optic tube yet never saw e.
The place he found beyond expression bright,
Compared with aught on earth, metal or stone
Not all parts like, but all alike inform'd
With radiant light, as glowing iron with fire:
If metal, part seem'd gold, part silver clear;
If stone, carbuncle most or chrysolite,
Ruby or topaz, to the twelve that shone
In Aaron's breastplate; and a stone besides
Imagined rather oft than elsewhere seen:
That stone, or like to that which here below
Philosophers in vain so long have sought;
In vain, though by their powerful art they bind
Volatil Hermes, and call up unbound
In various shapes old Proteus from the sea,
Drain'd through a limbeck to his native form.
What wonder then if fields and regions here
Breathe forth elixir pure, and rivers run
Potable gold; when with one virtuous touch,
The arch-chemic sun, so far from us remote,
Produces, with terrestrial humour mix'd,
Here in the dark so many precious things,
Of colour glorious and effect so rare ?
Here matter new to gaze the devil met
Undazzled; far and wide his eye commands:
For sight no obstacle found here, nor shade,
But all sunshine. As when his beams at noon
Culminate from the equator, as they now
Shot upward still direct, whence no way
Shadow from body opaque can fall; and the air,
No where so clear, sharpen'd his visual ray
To objects distant far; whereby he soon
Saw within ken a glorious angel stand.
The same whom John f saw also in the sun :
His back was turn'd, but not his brightness hid;
Of beaming sunny rays a golden tiar
Circled his head; nor less his locks behind
• Through his glazed optic tube yet never saw.
The spots in the sun are visible with a telescope; but astronomer perhaps never saw, "through his glazed optic tube," such a spot as Satan, now he was in the sun's orb. The poet mentions this glass the oftener in honour of Galileo, whom he means here by the astronomer.-NEWTON.
See Rev. xix. 17:-"And I saw an angel standing in the sun."--NEWTON.
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