Half what in thee is fair, one man except, 545 Who sees thee'? (and what is one?) who should'st be seen So gloz'd the Tempter, and his proem tun'd; What may this mean? language of man pronounc'd The latter I demur, for in their looks Much reas'on, and in their actions oft appears. 550 555 560 556. -whom God on their is to be understood in the former creation-day Created mute] This is mere fillings, says Dr. Bentley; for when could they be created, but on their creationday? But this is exactly in the style of Scripture, Gen. ii. 4. These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created; in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens. 563. How cam'st thou speakable of mute,] The word speakable is used in an active as well as in a passive sense, and may signify what can speak as well as what can be spoken. Here it sense, speakable or able to speak, as comfortable, delectable, passable, &c. signify able to comfort, to delight, to pass, &c. And there are instances of such words used sometimes actively, and sometimes passively, in the best authors. Thus in Horace the word illacrymabilis is used in its passive signification. Od. iv. ix. 26. -sed omnes illacrymabiles · Urgentur ; and in its active signification, Od. ii. xiv. 6. -places illacrymabilem Plutona tauris. How cam'st thou speakable of mute, and how To whom the guileful Tempter thus replied. 565 What thou command'st, and right thou should'st be' obey'd: I was at first as other beasts that graze The trodden herb, of abject thoughts and low, 570 Till on a day roving the field, I chanc'd A goodly tree far distant to behold Loaden with fruit of fairest colours mix'd, Ruddy and gold: I nearer drew to gaze; 575 When from the boughs a savoury odour blown, 581. -sweetest fennel, or the teats] He mentions such things as were reputed most agreeable to serpents. Feniculum anguibus gratissimum, says Pliny, Nat. Hist. 1. xix. c. 9. sect. 56. They were likewise supposed to suck the teats of ewes and goats. 585. those fair apples,] 580 585 Not to defer; hunger and thirst at once, 595 For high from ground the branches would require 590 I turn'd my thoughts, and with capacious mind 601. shape retain'd.] Bentley would have it restrained. But the word of exactest propriety is retained. For retained signifies the being kept within such and such bounds in a natural state; restrained to be kept within them in an unnatural; but the serpent's being confined to his own shape, was being in his natural state. Warburton. 605. or middle,] In the air, the element placed between, and, as our author says, spun out between, heaven and earth, vii. 241. Hume. 600 605 605. all things fuir and But all that fair and good in United 1 beheld;] This is very like what Adam had said before to the angel, viii. 471. -so lovely fair, That what seem'd fair in all the And in her looks. But all that fair and good in thy divine Me thus, though importune perhaps, to come So talk'd the spirited sly Snake; and Eve 610 615 620 Univer and the Latin domina. 613. So talk'd &c.] Milton has shewn more art and ability in taking off the common objections to the Mosaic history of the temptation by the addition of some circumstances of his own invention, than in any other theologic part of his poem. Warburton. 618. trees of God] A Scripture phrase, as in Psal. civ. 16. 624. birth.] In Milton's own editions this word is spelt bearth in this place, but as in all other places he spells it birth, To whom the wily Adder, blithe and glad. Lead then, said Eve. He leading swiftly roll'd 625 630 635 in my notes on the first book. There is one, however, in this part of the poem, which I shall here quote, as it is not only very beautiful, but the closest of any in the whole poem; I mean that where the serpent is described as rolling forward in all his pride, animated by the evil spirit, and conducting Eve to her destruction, while Adam was at too great a distance from her to give her his assistance. These several particulars are all of them wrought into the following similitude. -Hope elevates, and joy Brightens his crest; as when a wand'ring fire, &c. Addison. And there is not perhaps any more philosophic account of the ignis fatuus, than what is contained in these lines. Philosophy and poetry are here mixed together. |