In worst extremes, and on the perilous edge
Of battle, when it raged, in all assaults
Their surest signal--they will soon resume
New courage and revive, though now they lie
Grovelling and prostrate on yon lake of fire,
As we erewhile, astounded and amazed;
No wonder, fallen such a pernicious height!"
He is addressing his followers and telling them how to regain heaven. Beelzebub is one of the heads of the army who tells Satan that if you speak to those fighters and then you’re your voice, they will revive again. If they hear your voice, they will have courage again.
Satan decided to talk to his defeated army and try to raise their low morals. Milton here is not going to describe how Satan looks because at that time they had a picture in their minds. Of course he doesn't want people to hate him at the beginning. He wants to present him as a hero and he cannot also lie and say that he is beautiful. So he is showing us the side that can be true that he is huge and strong which are characteristics that have nothing to do with being good or bad. He's giving us the characteristics of a leader who knows what to do and who is able to convince those fallen angels and many people to follow him.
I've chosen this part because it has many examples of how Milton makes use of the similes and the encyclopedic information. Here he is describing Satan as a leader which is something which was common at that that time.
He scare had ceased when the superior Fiend
Was moving toward the shore; his ponderous shield,
Ethereal temper, massy, large, and round,
Behind him cast. The broad circumference
Hung on his shoulders like the moon, whose orb
Through optic glass the Tuscan artist views
At evening, from the top of Fesole,
Or in Valdarno, to descry new lands,
Rivers, or mountains, in her spotty globe.
His spear--to equal which the tallest pine
Hewn on Norwegian hills, to be the mast
Of some great ammiral, were but a wand--
He walked with, to support uneasy steps
Over the burning marl, not like those steps
On Heaven's azure; and the torrid clime
Smote on him sore besides, vaulted with fire.
Nathless he so endured, till on the beach
Of that inflamed sea he stood, and called
The superior fiend means the great devil.
He is coming carrying his shield which is very large. Because the shield is huge, so Satan must be strong and huge. So Milton is not describing Satan himself but he's describing his things but we can use imagination to conclude. He is carrying this huge shield very easily.
Circumference means that this shield is appearing behind his back, it is hung on his shoulders like the moon. Moon and the stars are moving in orbits from the earth.
You can see the moon as a small round circle. At that time Galileo invented the telescope and they view that the moon was huge by a means of optic glasses. When they discovered the moon, they found that it's a full opening of volcanoes there were like spots on the moon. To describe that shield, he took us to a scientific image taken from his time.
Then he describes his spear which is one of the weapons used in war. He says that this spear is very long because he is a very huge creature. He compares the length of the spear to the tallest trees that were found at that time.
These trees were used for building ships and they took the tallest one of them to make it a mast. Of course at that time they didn't have ships moved by engines but they had masts and sails to be moved by the wind.
His spear is like the tall mast of an Admiral’s ship which is a very big ship. He's giving us extraordinary information which we call encyclopedic information we don't have much details and this is what we said that he is trying to compensate for the lack of invention.
We don't have suspense here because we know what is happening but we have fresh expressions about what was happening at Milton's time giving us information about certain inventions.
Line 300
His legions--Angel Forms, who lay entranced
Thick as autumnal leaves that strow the brooks
In Vallombrosa, where th' Etrurian shades
High over-arched embower; or scattered sedge
Afloat, when with fierce winds Orion armed
Hath vexed the Red-Sea coast, whose waves o'erthrew
Busiris and his Memphian chivalry,
While with perfidious hatred they pursued
The sojourners of Goshen, who beheld
From the safe shore their floating carcases
And broken chariot-wheels. So thick bestrown,
Abject and lost, lay these, covering the flood,
Under amazement of their hideous change.
He called so loud that all the hollow deep
Here comes Satan and found those fallen angels scattered around the lake like autumnal leaves, this is another simile. It's about the autumn of England. The leaves on the ground yellow, pale, weak and they have lost their greenness and strength. They are no more the spiritual angels of light. Now they have turned into defeated angels, so they have lost the freshness of their complexion. This information is taken from nature. In autumn the leaves fall in huge numbers. They are defeated and Satan wants to revive them. They are helpless defeated numerous yellow in color, weak.
Satan looks at them and addresses them line 315
Of Hell resounded:--"Princes, Potentates,
Warriors, the Flower of Heaven--once yours; now lost,
If such astonishment as this can seize
Eternal Spirits! Or have ye chosen this place
After the toil of battle to repose
Your wearied virtue, for the ease you find
To slumber here, as in the vales of Heaven?
Or in this abject posture have ye sworn
To adore the Conqueror, who now beholds
Cherub and Seraph rolling in the flood
With scattered arms and ensigns, till anon
His swift pursuers from Heaven-gates discern
Th' advantage, and, descending, tread us down
Thus drooping, or with linked thunderbolts
Transfix us to the bottom of this gulf?
Awake, arise, or be for ever fallen!"
He is addressing them as princes of heaven or flowers of heaven. He is trying to revive their spirits. You are strong warriors and you have to regain heaven again or you are going to stay helpless in this place forever instead of heaven. Aren't you going to try again and again to get heaven? Are you going to leave your conqueror who is now enjoying heaven referring to man who is going to heaven. Are you going to stay here forever if you don't rise now you're going to remain here forever?
He is giving them rhetorical questions to raise them. He's not really asking them but he is encouraging them raising them. He's trying to put some enthusiasm is them.
So here Milton makes us interested the story by giving this picture of Satan as a leader trying to arouse his fallen angels and we feel that he is a strong leader who knows what to do he's giving them orders to awaken and arise. His ordering them at the end.
This is how Milton is using his artistic skills. The poem is very musical. You will find internal music all the time the rhyme is very musical and this is one of the talents of Milton and this is how he is getting over the monotony and the boredom.
Next time will be the last time we will have the last poem and prepare any question.
Last time we started Milton and we talked about the problems that faced him on writing this poem. As we said it's divided into different books and we have an argument in book one before the poem.
BOOK I
This first book proposes, first in brief, the whole subject: man's disobedience and the loss thereupon of Paradise wherein he was placed; then touches the prime cause of his fall, the serpent, or rather Satan in the serpent, who, revolting from God and drawing to his side many