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A world who would not purchase with a bruise,
Or much more grievous pain? Ye have th' account
Of my performance: what remains, ye Gods,
But up and enter now into full bliss?

So having said, a while he stood, expecting
Their universal shout and high applause
To fill his ear, when contrary he hears
On all sides, from innumerable tongues
A dismal universal hiss, the sound

Of public scorn; he wonder'd, but not long
Had leisure, wond'ring at himself now more ;
His visage drawn he felt to sharp and spare,
His arms clung to his ribs, his legs intwining
Each other, till supplanted down he fell
A monstrous serpent on his belly prone,

513. till supplanted down he fell] We may observe here a singular beauty and elegance in Milton's language, and that is his using words in their strict and literal sense, which are commonly applied to a metaphorical meaning, whereby he gives peculiar force to his expressions, and the literal meaning appears more new and striking than the metaphor itself. We have an instance of this in the word supplanted, which is derived from the Latin supplanto, to trip up one's heels or overthrow, a planta pedis subtus emota: and there are abundance of other examples in several parts of this work, but let it suffice to have taken notice of it here once for all.

514. A monstrous serpent on his belly prone,] Our author, in

VOL. II.

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Reluctant, but in vain, a greater power
Now rul'd him, punish'd in the shape he sinn'd
According to his doom: he would have spoke,
But hiss for hiss return'd with forked tongue
To forked tongue, for now were all transform'd
Alike, to serpents all as accessories

To his bold riot: dreadful was the din

Of hissing through the hall, thick swarming now
With complicated monsters head and tail,
Scorpion, and Asp, and Amphisbæna dire,
Cerastes horn'd, Hydrus, and Elops drear,
And Dipsas (not so thick swarm'd once the soil

524. -Amphisbæna dire,
&c.] Amphisbæna said to have
a head at both ends, so named of.
aup and Baw, because it went
forward either way.
Cerastes
horned, of κέρας ε
horn. Hydrus,
the water-snake, of dwg water.
Elops drear, a dumb serpent that
gives no notice by hissing to
avoid him, drear sad, dreadful.
Dipsas of dra thirst, because
those it stung were tormented
with unquenchable thirst. Hume
and Richardson.

These and several verses which follow Dr. Bentley throws quite away. He dislikes Milton's reckoning Scorpion, and Asp, among the serpents, and thinks them rather insects: but Pliny viii. 23. numbers the Asp among the serpents; (and Nicander in his Theriac, gives both the Scorpion and Asp that title:) so does Lucan, from whom our poet seems to have taken his catalogue of serpents; for in book ix. of his Pharsalia, he gives us the names of all these serpents

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525

mentioned by Milton except the Elops. But what is the Elops? Dr. Bentley says that the editor has here discovered himself to be an ignorant fellow, the Elops being no serpent but a fish, and one of the most admired too, the Acipenser. But Pliny (from whom the Doctor learned this) only says of the Acipenser, that some people call it Elops; quidam eum Elopem vocant, ix. 17. But might there not have been a serpent of that name too? That there was, we have Pliny's own testimony in xxxii. 5. where he tells us of the remedies to be used by those who were bit by the Elops and other serpents, a Chalcide, Ceraste, aut quas Sepas vocant, aut Elope, Dipsadéve percussis. Nicander too, in his Theriac. mentions the Elops, T85 Exoras, Abuαors &c. Pearce. 526.

-the soil

Bedropt with blood of Gorgon,] Lybia, which therefore abounded so with serpents, as Ovid says, Met. iv. 616.

Bedropt with blood of Gorgon, or the isle
Ophiusa) but still greatest he the midst,
Now Dragon grown, larger than whom the sun

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Where'er sublime in air the victor

flew,

The monster's head distilled a deadly dew;

The earth receiv'd the seed, and pregnant grew.

Still as the putrid gore dropt on the sand,

'Twas temper'd up by Nature's forming hand;

The glowing climate makes the work complete

And broods upon the mass, and

lends it genial heat.

First of those plagues the drowsy Asp appear'd,

Then first her crest, and swelling neck she rear'd

The Swimmer there the crystal stream pollutes;

-and there the Dipsas burns ; The Amphisbæna doubly arm'd appears,

At either end a threat'ning head she Rowe.

rears.

528. Ophiusa] A small island

Illa tamen sterilis tellus, fecundaque in the Mediterranean, so called

nulli

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by the Greeks, and by the Latins Colubraria; the inhabitants quitted it for fear of being devoured by serpents. Hume and Richardson.

529. Now Dragon grown,] In the same place, where Lucan gives an account of the various serpents of Libya, he describes the Dragon as the greatest and most terrible of them all: and our author, who copies him in the rest, very rightly attributes this form to Satan, and especially since he is called in Scripture the great Dragon, Rev. xii. 9. He may well be said to be larger than the fabulous Python,

Ingender'd in the Pythian vale on slime,
Huge Python, and his pow'r no less he seem'd
Above the rest still to retain; they all
Him follow'd issuing forth to th' open field,
Where all yet left of that revolted rout
Heav'n-fall'n, in station stood or just array,
Sublime with expectation when to see

In triumph issuing forth their glorious chief;
They saw, but other sight instead, a crowd
Of ugly serpents; horror on them fell,
And horrid sympathy; for what they saw,

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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. There stood 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

that was ingendered of the slime
after the Deucalion deluge in
the Pythian vale, near Pythia, a
city of Greece. See the de-
scription of this monster, Ovid's
Metamorphosis, i. 438.

-Te quoque, maxime Python,
Tum genuit: populisque novis, in
cognite serpens,

Terror eras: tantum sptaii de monte
tenebas.

-And then she brought to lightThee Python too, the wond'ring world to fright,

And the new nations with so dire

a sight.

550

So monstrous was his bulk, so large

a space

Did his vast body and long train
Dryden.

embrace.

550. Their penance, laden with fair fruit, like that] This is the verse in the first edition; in the second fair was by mistake omitted, which left the verse imperfect.

Mr. Fenton has patience in his edition instead of penance. We have continued Milton's own reading.

Which grew in Paradise, the bait of Eve

Us'd by the Tempter; on that prospect strange
Their earnest eyes they fix'd, imagining

For one forbidden tree a multitude

Now ris'n, to work them further woe or shame ;
Yet parch'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, sat thicker than the snaky locks
That curl'd Megara: greedily they pluck'd
The fruitage fair to sight, like that which grew
Near that bituminous lake where Sodom flam'd;
This more delusive, not the touch, but taste
Deceiv'd; they fondly thinking to allay
Their appetite with gust, instead of fruit

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Chew'd bitter ashes, which th' offended taste

With spattering noise rejected: oft they' assay'd,
Hunger and thirst constraining, drug'd as oft,
With hatefullest disrelish writh'd their jaws

560. That curl'd Megara :] She was one of the Furies, whose hair was serpents, as Medusa's;

-crinita draconibus ora.

Ov. Met. iv. 771.

Richardson. 562. Near that bituminous lake where Sodom flam'd;] The lake Asphaltites, near which Sodom and Gomorrah were situated. Josephus affirms, the shapes and fashions of them and three other cities, called the cities of the plain, were to be seen in his days, and trees laden with fair fruit (styled the apples of Sodom)

rising out of the ashes, which at the first touch dissolved into ashes and smoke. B. iv. of the Wars of the Jews, c. 8. But this fair fruitage was more deceitful than Sodom's cheating apples, which only deceived the touch, by dissolving into ashes; but this endured the handling, the more to vex and disappiont their taste. Hume.

568. drug'd] Tormented with the hateful taste usually found in drugs. Richardson.

569. With hatefullest disrelish writh'd their jaws] Virg. Georg. ii. 246.

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