Paradise Lost (Modern Library Classics) (49 page)

535.
Zophiel
: “spy of God”; one of Michael’s chieftains, according to the Zohar (Soncino Zohar, Bemidbar, sec. 3, p. 154a).

541.
Sad
: serious, grim;
secure:
confident.

544.
ev’n or high
: in front of the body or overhead (to ward off flaming arrows).

547.
aware themselves
: already wary.

548.
impediment
: carriage and baggage of an army.

549.
“Instantaneous, without disorder, they sprang to arms.” Here as elsewhere, Milton indicates angels in action with substantive adjectives, rather than by using an adverb to describe how they act; see, e.g., “union of pure, with pure/Desiring” (8.627–28). The angels are
instant
in this case, with the result that they respond instantly.

550.
embattled
: in battle formation.

553.
Training
: dragging;
enginery:
artillery;
impaled:
hedged, enclosed.

555.
At interview
: in mutual view.

560.
composure
: agreement, settlement;
breast:
heart, front lines; initiates the series of puns that infects the following lines.

562–67.
overture:
opening of negotiations; opening of a cannon’s muzzle (from Lat.
apertura
, hole). The more obvious puns in the following lines include
discharge, charge, touch
, and
loud
as Satan orders his troops to fire under the linguistic cover of a peace initiative. Editors and critics have long groaned over these puns, but Satan and the rebels are at last enjoying themselves.

572.
triple-mounted
: mounted threefold in a row (see ll. 604–5, 650), perhaps in anticipation of the Son’s
three-bolted thunder
(l. 764).

576.
mold
: substance. Raphael says that the cannons look like pillars or hollowed-out tree trunks on wheels, except that they are made of metal or stone.

580.
suspense
: undecided, with a play on “dangling in air.” The angels are literally and figuratively “hanging fire.”

581.
amused
: preoccupied; deceived.

585.
As the cannons fire, the angels see
all Heav’n
first in a flame and then obscured in smoke.

586–89.
From those … glut:
Note the alimental imagery, predominantly of inversion and spasm:
deep-throated, belched, emboweled
(filled to bursting),
entrails tore, disgorging, glut
. Shared imagery ties Satan’s perverse engines of destruction to his generative history with Sin and Death (cp. 2.755–802). See also God’s description of the impact of Sin and Death on the world, 10.630–37.

589–94.
chained thunderbolts … rolled:
S. Fallon argues that Milton associates the Devil with Hobbes, who believed that everything that exists is matter in motion. With the moving of the angels, Milton gives the Devil (and Hobbes) his due (1991, 228–29).

595–97.
The sooner … remove:
On spirits’ ability to reduce or expand their bodies, see, e.g., ll. 351–53, 1.789–90.

595.
The sooner for their arms
: Fish sees this as a mock-heroic moment because the armor of the good angels confers vulnerability (1967, 179). As many have suggested, however, their armor signifies the armor of faith, complete with shields “able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked” (Eph. 6.16). Though their faith protects them from direct assault by evil, their vulnerability to deceit is considerable (see the deception of Uriel, 3.686–89).

598.
dissipation
: dispersion.

599.
“Nor did it help any to open up their close ranks.”

601.
indecent
: unseemly.

603.
laughter
: “a sudden glory arising from some sudden conception of some eminency in ourselves, by comparison with the infirmity of others, or with our own formerly” (Hobbes 55).

605.
displode
: fire;
tire:
volley.

611–12.
open front:
both “honest face” and “divided front line”; for
breast
, see 560n.

614–27.
Satan continues scoffing at his opponents, describing their violent dispersal by artillery as if it were a response to a peace negotiation. Hence his plays on
result
(outcome, jump back),
stumble
(perplex, trip),
understand
(comprehend, prop up). In wondering whether they are dancing, he again taunts them with behaving like minstrels (166–68n); cp. Aeneas’s similar scorn (Homer,
Il
. 16.617). It is ritual taunting revived in Westerns; tough guys don’t dance.

623.
amused
: held their attention, diverted them.

635.
Expanding Vergil’s
furor arma ministrat
(
Aen
. 1.150). Instead of peasants throwing rocks, we witness angels heaving mountains.

639–46.
Removal of hills and mountains features prominently in the epic’s geological and geographical similes as well as its mythological and scriptural allusions, almost always with apocalyptic resonance (see 195–98n, 1.230–35n, 4.987n). In this instance, which has the distinction of being an actual narrative event, Milton alludes to the tribulation before the Second Coming. Here, however, furious angels “flee into the mountains” to tear them up by the roots and fling them, nearly destroying Heaven (Matt. 24.16–22). The final instance of mountain moving in the poem occurs as part of a divine judgment, when the Flood pushes the mount of Paradise from its place (11.829–38).

646.
amaze
: amazement, dread, with ironic allusion to Ps. 121.1: “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, whence cometh my help.”

650.
triple-row
: Cp. 572n.

653.
invaded
: attacked.

654.
Main
: massive, entire.

655.
oppressed
: crushed.

657.
pent
: closely confined; cp. Shakespeare: “a liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass” (
Sonnet 5
, l. 10).

665–66.
jaculation … dismal shade:
Cp. the
dismal hiss
of the
fiery darts
on the first day of the war and the hellish canopy of flame they form above the battlefield (ll. 212–13).
Jaculum
is Latin for “dart”;
jaculation
means “throw.” The verb for throwing darts seems overtly out of scale when applied to hills or mountains. The war has escalated dramatically from the first day.

673.
sum of things
: Milton’s literal translation of
summa rerum
, or the established order of existence (Lucretius 1.333, 756, 1008). Ovid uses a similar phrase to mean “the highest public interest” as he relates the myth of Phaeton, ironically pertinent here inasmuch as Apollo’s inept son is blasted from his father’s chariot to preserve universal order (
Met
. 5.379–391).

679.
assessor
: sharer; literally, “one who sits by.”

681–82.
invisible is beheld/Visibly:
“the image of the invisible God” (Col. 1.15). The oxymoronic effect owes to the use of
invisible
as a noun, i.e., “one who is invisible.”

684.
Second omnipotence
: indicates the derivative or secondary nature of the Son’s power (ll. 703–5; cp. John 5.19).

698.
main
: continent of Heaven.

699.
the third is thine
: “Milton, by continuing the war for three days, and reserving the victory upon the third for the Messiah alone, plainly alludes to the circumstances of his death and resurrection” (Newton).

701.
suffered
: permitted.

707–8.
heir/Of all things:
quotation of Heb. 1.2.

712.
war
: synecdoche for instruments of war.

716.
utter
: outer.

720–21.
“For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor. 4.6). Cp. 10.63–67.
expressed/Ineffably:
another seeming oxymoron (see ll. 681–82, 684), here describing the
full
expression of the Father into his Son’s face. It is after this silent communication that the Son is called
the filial Godhead
(l. 722). His subsequent reply (ll. 723–41) is woven from scriptures detailing relations between Father and Son.

725.
“Glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee” (John 17.1).

728.
That thou in me well pleased
: “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Matt. 3.17).

731–32.
gladlier … all:
“When all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all” (1 Cor. 15.28).

734.
But whom thou hat’st, I hate
: “Do I not hate them, O Lord, that hate thee? And am I not grieved with those that rise up against thee?” (Ps. 139.21).

738.
prepared ill mansion
: Hell. The grim counterpoint to John 14.2: “In my father’s house are many mansions.… I go to prepare a place for you.”

739.
“God delivered them into chains of darkness” (2 Pet. 2.4); “where their worm dieth not” (Mark 9.44). Cp. Isa. 66.24, Jude 6.

744.
Unfeignèd hallelujahs
: Contrast Mammon’s disdain for
forced hallelujahs
(2.243).

749–59.
forth rushed … arch:
Milton’s description of the throne-chariot of the deity and its four-faced cherubic transmission is built from details in Ezekiel 1 and 10. Noting the contrast between this animate chariot and the merely material weapons of the devils, S. Fallon argues that the War in Heaven pits Milton’s animist materialism against Satan’s (and Hobbes’s) mechanist materialism (1991, 226–31, 237–41).

752.
instinct with
: impelled by.

756.
beryl
: transparent mineral;
careering:
darting, flashing.

759.
show’ry arch
: rainbow.

761.
radiant urim
: Milton thought
urim
among twelve gemstones mounted on the “breastplate of judgment,” worn by the high priest and used as a divine oracle (Exod. 28.30): “Urim and Thummim, those oraculous gems/On Aaron’s breast” (
PR
3.14–15). Fowler cites hermetic writers’ identification of urim with the philosopher’s stone, but Milton more likely had Josephus’s account in mind: “God declared beforehand, by those twelve stones … when they should be victorious in battle; for so great a splendor shone forth from them before the army began to march, that all the people were sensible of God’s being present for their assistance” (
Antiq
. 3.8.9).

762–64.
Victory
is a winged goddess who aids Zeus in his thundering defeat of the Titans and the Giants. The eagle is his bird. Milton may have in mind Pausanias’ description of the statue of Zeus at Olympia: “in his right hand a figure of Victory” (5.11.1).

766.
bickering
: quivering, flashing.

767–70.
The numbers are scripturally based; see Rev. 5.11, Jude 14, Ps. 68.17.

771.
“And he rode upon a cherub, and did fly” (2 Sam. 22.11, Ps. 18.10).
sublime:
lifted up, on the chariot’s
crystal firmament
and
sapphire throne
(ll. 757–58).

773.
Illustrious
: shining brightly; see 5.738–39.

776.
his sign
: “And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven” (Matt. 24.30).

777.
reduced
: “led back,” with a secondary sense of “diminished.” See next note.

779.
their head
: See 5.606 and cp. Abdiel’s interpretation of the Son’s exaltation: “he the head/One of our number thus reduced becomes” (5.842–43).

785.
obdured
: hardened; cp. 3.200.

791.
hardened more
: like Pharaoh (see
CD
1.4).

797.
last
: Bentley would change to “lost,” not unreasonably.

801.
Stand still … saints
: Moses similarly orders the Hebrews to stand and witness the destruction of Pharaoh’s army (Exod. 14.13).

808.
“Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord” (Rom. 12.19; cp. Deut. 32.35).

815.
“For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory” (Matt. 6.13).

827.
the Four
: the chariot’s
four cherubic shapes
(l. 753);
starry wings:
The wings were previously described as
set with eyes
(l. 755; cp. Ezek. 10.12); the poetic equation of eyes and stars is, however, commonplace.

828.
contiguous
: “Their wings were joined one to another” (Ezek. 1.9).

831.
right onward
: Milton thought of himself as proceeding in the same way; cp.
Sonnet 22
8–9.

833–34.
The steadfast empyrean … God:
In the first speech of the epic, Satan claims that the battle did shake God’s throne (1.105). Editors cite as Heaven-shaking precedents Hesiod’s account of Zeus’s battle with Typhoeus (
Theog
. 842–43) and various scriptures, including Isa. 13.12–13, and 2 Sam. 22.8. Overlooked is Heb. 12.26, the key verse for
Lycidas
(Tayler 1979, 234–36) and one fundamental to the typological structure and range of the War in Heaven, from Moses receiving the Law to Christ’s Second Coming (cp. 56–60n): “[His] voice then shook the earth: but now he hath promised, saying, ‘Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven.’ ”