And horrid sympathy; for what they saw,

540 They felt themselves now changing; down their arms, , Down fell both spear and shield, down they as fast, And the dire hiss renew'd, and the dire form Catch'd by contagion, like in punishment, As in their crime. Thus was th' applause they meant, Turn’d to exploding hiss, triumph to shame 546 Cast on themselves from their own mouths. Thereftood A

grove hard by, sprung up with this their change, His will who reigns above, to aggravate Their penance, laden with fair fruit, like that 550 Which

grew in Paradise, the bait of Eve Us’d by the Tempter : on that prospect strange

Their

near Pythia a city of Greece. See 550. Their penance, laden with fair the description of this monfter, Ovid's fruit, like that This is the Metamorphosis, l. 438. 1

verse in the firft edition ; in the se-Te quoque, maxime Python,

cond fair was by mistake omitted, Tum genuit; populisque novis, in which left the verse imperfect, cognite serpens,

Their penance, laden with fruit, Terror eras: tantum spatii de monte like that

tenebas. - And then the brought to light

but yet this is follow'd in some edi. Thee Python too, the wond'ring

tions, though others have it thus, world to fright,

Their penance, laden with fruit, And the new nations with so dire like to that.

a fight. So monstrous was his bulk, so large Mr. Fenton (I know not for what a space

reason) has patience in his edition Did his valt body and long train instead of penance. We have concio

embrace. Dryden. pued Milton's own reading.

Their earnest eyes they fix'd, imagining
For one forbidden tree a multitude
Now ris’n, to work them further woe or shame; 555
Yet parçh'd with scalding thirst and hunger fierce,
Though to delude them sent, could not abstain,
But on they roll'd in heaps, and up the trees
Climbing, fat thicker than the snaky locks
That curl'd Megæra : greedily they pluck'd 560
The fruitage fair to fight, like that which grew
Near that bituminous lake where Sodom flam’d;
This more delusive, not the touch, but taste

Deceiv'd; 560. That curld Megara:] She diffolving into alhes; but this indur'd was one of the Furies, whale hair the handling, the more to vex and was ferpents, as Medusa's; disappoint their taste, by filling the crinita draconibus ora.

mouths of the damned with grating Ov. Met. IV. 771.

cinders and bitter alhes, instead of Richardson. allaying their scorching thirft pro

voking and inflaming it: fo hand562. Near that bituminous lake fomely has our author improved their

wbere Sodom flam'd;] The punishment. Hume. lake Asphaltites near which Sudom and Gomorrah were situated. Jo

568. - drug'd] It is a metaphor fephus affirms, the shapes and falhions taken from the general nauseousness of them and three other cities, called of drugs, when they are taken by

Pearce. ibe cities of the plain, were to be way of medicine. seen in his days, and trees loaden Physic’d, tormented with the hateful with fair fruit (tiled the apples of taste usually found in drugs.

" Sodom) rising out of the ashes, which

Richardson at the first touch diffolved into ashes

569. With batefulleft difrelif and smoke. B. 4. of the Wars of

writh'd their jaws] Virg. the Jews, c. 8. But this fair fruitage Georg. II. 246. was more deceitful and disappointing than Sodom's cheating apples, Trillia tentantum sensu torquebit which only deceiv'd che touch, by

The

et ora

2maror.

Deceiv'd; they fondly thinking to allay
Their appetite with gust, instead of fruit 565
Chew'd bitter alhes, which th' offended taste
With spattering noise rejected: oft they' affay'd,
Hunger and thirst constraining, drug'd as oft,
With hatefullest disrelish writh'd their jaws
With foot and cinders fill'd; so oft they fell 570
Into the same illusion, not as Man

[plagu'd
Whom they triumph'd once laps’d. Thus were they
And worn with famin, long and ceaseless hiss,
Till their loft shape, permitted, they resum’d,

Yearly The sound of Virgil's words admi- fell are the firf words of the senrably expresses the thing; nor are tence, once laps'd is very artfully Milton's less expressive in this line, thrown to the end. and that foregoing,

573. And worn with famin, long which th' offended tafe

and ceaseless biss,] Dr. BentWith spattering noise rejected.

ley reads, 572: Wbom they triumpb'd once

With thirst and famin dire, and laps'd.] Is the construction

ceaseless hils. thus, Not as Man whom they triampb'd over, once laps'd, semel lap. Worn (he says) is flat and low, after fase: Or thus rather, Quo semel plagud; but plagu'd in the metapholapso triumpharunt, W bom being once rical sense is only vex'd and torlaps'd they triumpb’d? Mr. Fenton's mented; an idea below that of work pointing would lead one to the for- or wasted away. He asks, why mer fense, but Milton's own will thirf is omitted, though mention à rather determin one to the latter; before, and lefs tolerable than faand thus Ds. Trapp translates it,

min? it is, because famin more pro

perly, at least sooner and more viNon ut homo ; quo, egere, semel, ably, wears men away than thirst. labente, triumphos.

Pearce. The antithesis is between so oft they The greatest obje&tion to this line fell and eco laps'd; and as so oft they is the want of a conjunction between

Yearly injoin’d, some say, to undergo

575 This annual humbling certain number'd days, To dash their pride, and joy for Man seduc’d. However some tradition they dispers'd Among the Heathen of their purchase got, And fabled how the Serpent, whom they call 3 588 Ophion with Eurynome, the wide

En

with famin and long and ceaseless hiss; 580. And fabled bow the Serpent,&c.] but that might be remedied thus, Dr. Bentley is for rejecting this whole And worn with famin, and long passage : but our author is enderorceaseless hiss :

ing to show, that there was some Or thus,

tradition, among the Heathen, of And worn with famin long, and taind over mankind. And this be

the great power that Satan had obceaseless hils.

proves by what is related of Opbimo 575. — fome say,) I know not, with Eurgronie. Ophion with Exor cannot recollect, from what au

rynome, he says, bad first the rule of thor or what tradition Milton hath high Olympus, and were

driven thence borrow'd this notion. Mr. War- by Saturn and Ops or Rhea, ere get burton believes that he took the hint their fon Dictean Jove 'was born, from the old romances of which he so call'd from Dicte a mountain of was a great reader; where it is very Crete where he was educated. And common to meet with these annual, Milton seems to have taken this or monthly, or weekly penances of story from Apollonius Rhodius, Armen changed into animals: but the

gonaut. words fome say seem to imply that he has some express authority for it, Hedev do as "patoy Optwr E.;and what approaches nearest to it is purounte the speech of the faery Manto in Ωκεανις νιφοεν εχον κρατά Ariosto, Cant. 43. St. 98.

ελυμποίο, Ch' ogni settimo giorno ogn' una 'CS Bın xet xeporir, o uso K porque

è certa, Che la sua forma in biscia li con

Η δε Ρε» επεσον δ' ει κυμασιν verta. Each sev'nth day we constrained

Ωκεανοιο. are to take

“Οι δε τεως μακαρεοι θεοις ΤιτηUpon ourselves the person of a GIV 14DOV snake, &c. Harrington.

Oops

I. 503.

εικαθε τιμης,

Encroaching Eve perhaps, had first the rule
Of high Olympus, thence by Saturn driven
And Ops, ere yet Dictæan Jove was born,

Mean while in Paradise the hellish pair
Too soon arriv'd, Sin there in pow'r before,
Once actual, now in body, and to dwell
Habitual habitant; behind her Death

585

Close

Ορφα Ζευς ετι κερς επι φρεσι " took this story from Apollonius I. ITIL EID WS

“ who is quoted by Lloyd's DictioΔικαιον γαμεσκεν υπο σπεος. .

nary, under the word Ophion. Pro

" metheus in Æschylus, ver. 956. Now Ophion according to the Greek" says that two Gods had borne rule etymology fignifies a Serpent, and “ before Jupiter : where the Schotherefore 'Milton conceives that by “ lialt; s6dcineUOS apWtor per ó Opbion the old Serpent might be in. " Opwy xat Eupuroun. E UTA tended, the Serpent whom they call’d Κρονος και Pea" μετα ταυτα δε Ophion : and Eurynome fignifying “ • Zeus xac HpQ. Others will wide-ruling, he says but says doubt. “ have it that Oupaves and in fully, that the might be the wide“ reigned first. I think the epithet encroaching Eve perbaps. For I un- wide-encroaching belongs to Eve derstand i be wide encroaching not as not to Eurynome. He calls Eve an epithet to Eurynome, explaining “ wide-encroaching, because, as he her name, but as an epithet to Evi, “ tells us, she wanted to be superior Milton having placed the comma to her husband, to be a Goddess after Eurynome, and not after the “ &c." wide-encroaching. And besides some 586. - Sin there in pow'r before, epithet should be added to Eve to Once actual, now in body, and to dwell show the fimilitude between her and Habitual babitant;] The sense is, Eurynome, and why he takes the one That before the fall Sin was in pow'r, for the other; and therefore in al. or potentially, in Paradise ; that once lufion to the name of Eurynome he viz. upon the fall, it was actually Atiles Eve the wide-encroaching, as there, tho' not bodily ; but that extending her rule and dominion now, upon its arrival in Paradise, it farther than the should over her hus. was there in body, and dwelt as a band, and affecting Godhead. This constant inhabitant. The words in explanation may be farther confirm'd body allude to what St. Paul says and illukrated by the following note Rom. VI. 6. that the body of fin of the learned Mr. Jortin. “Milcon might be defroyd. Pearce,