470 Of pleasure not for him ordain'd: then foon Thoughts, whither have ye led me! with what sweet Compulfion thus tranfported to forget What hither brought us! hate, not love, nor hope Of Paradise for Hell, hope here to taste 476 Of pleasure, but all pleasure to deftroy, The woman, opportune to all attempts, Her husband, for I view far round, not nigh, God came to prefent themselves before nor from the Heav'n of Heav'ns Hath he excluded my refort fometimes &c. 480 Heroic Eve had faid before that they were not capable of death or pain, ver. 283. that is as long as they continued innocent. 490. Not terrible, though terror be in love And beauty, not approach'd by Aronger hate,] Satan had been faying that he dreaded Adam, fuch was his ftrength of body and mind, and his own fo debas'd from what it was in Heaven: but Eve (he goes on to fay) is lovely, not terrible, though terror be in love and beauty, unlets 'tis approach'd by a mind arm'd with hate as his is; a hate the Heroic built, though of terreftrial mold, So fpake the enemy' of mankind, inclos'd the greater, as 'tis difguis'd under - virgin majefty with mild And fweet allay'd, yet terrible t'approach. Thyer. 496. not with indented wave,] Indented is of the fame derivation as 485 490 495 Crefted indenture, notched and going in and out like the teeth of a faw: and Shakespear applies it likewife to the motions of a snake in As you like it, Act IV. And with indented glides did flip away. 499. Fold above fold &c.] We have the defcription of fuch a fort of ferpent in Ovid. Met. III. 32. criftis præfignis & auro; Igne micant oculi Ille volubilibus fquamofos nexibus orbes Torquet, et immenfos faltu finuatur in arcus: Crested aloft, and carbuncle his eyes; 500 Floted greater propriety, as he was himself now transform'd into a ferpent. And in this view it is faid that none were lovelier, not thofe that in Illyria chang'd Hermione and Cadmus. Cadmus and his wife Harmonia or Hermione, for the is called by either Hermione and Cadmus more mufical name, and I prefume Milton thought in verse as it certainly is than Har monia and Cadmus This Cadmus together with his wife leaving Thebes in Boeotia, which he had founded and for diverfe misfortunes quitted, and coming into Illyria, they were both turned into ferpents for having flain one facred to Mars, as we read in the fourth book of Ovid's Metamorphofis. But the expreffion, those that chang'd Hermione and Cadmus, has occafion'd fome difficulty. Did thofe ferpents, fays Dr. Bentley, change Hermione and Cadmus? or were not thefe, who were man and And Dr. Pearce replies, We may woman once, chang'd into ferpents? excufe this as a poetical liberty of expreffion; 'tis much the fame as the critics have obferved in Ovid's Metam. I.1. where formas mutatas in nova corpora ftands for corpora mutata in novas formas. In both places the changing is attributed, not to the perfons chang'd, but to the forms or fhapes into which they were chang'd. Which chang'd Hermione and Cadmus, that is into which Hermione and Cadmus were chang'd. So Horace fays, Sat. II. VIII. 49. aceto Floted redundant: pleafing was his shape, aceto Quod Methymnæam vitio mutaverit uvam, for in quod vitio mutata eft uva Methymnea. If this may not be allow'd to pass, yet I fee no reason (fays Dr. Pearce) why the conftruction may not be this, not those that in Illyria (were) chang'd, viz. Hermione and Cadmus &c. Or perhaps this; not those that Hermione and Cadmus chang'd, where chang'd ftands for chang'd to, as in X. 540. we have the fame way of speaking, for what they faw, They felt themfelves now changing. But after all these very ingenious conjectures I conceive the meaning to be as it is exprefs'd, and the expreffion to be the most proper and appofite that could be. The ferpents chang'd Hermione and Cadmus. The form of ferpents was fuperinduc'd, but they still retain'd the fame fenfe and memory; and this Ovid fays exprefly. When Cadmus was firft chang'd, IV. 595. Ille fuæ lambebat conjugis ora; Inque finus caros, veluti cognofceret, ibat; Et dabat amplexus, affuetaque colla petebat. The husband-ferpent fhow'd he ftill had thought, With wonted fondness an embrace he fought; 505 Her Play'd round her neck in many a harmless twift, And lick'd that bofom which, a man, he kift. And after the wife was changed too, it is faid, ver. 602. Nunc quoque nec fugiunt homi nem, nec vulnere lædunt: Quidque prius fuerint, placidi meminere dracones. Fearless fee men, by men are fearlefs feen, Still mild and confcious what they once have been. Eufden. They were therefore ftill Hermione and Cadmus, though chang'd; as the Devil was ftill the Devil, though inclos'd in ferpent. And thus it may be faid with the greatest propriety, that none of ferpent kind were lovelier, not thofe that in Illyria chang'd Hermione and Cadmus, or the God in Epidaurus, that is Æfculapius the God of phyfic, the fon of Apollo, who was worshipped at Epidaurus, a city of Peloponnefus, and being fent for to Rome in the time of a plague affumed the form of a ferpent and accompanied the embassadors, as the ftory was related in the eleventh book of Livy, and may still be read in the fifteenth book of Ovid's Metamorphofis: but tho' he was thus chang'd in appearance, he was ftill Æfculapius, In ferpente Deus as Ovid calls him XV. 670. the deity in a ferpent, and under that form con Hermione and Cadmus, or the God In Epidaurus; nor to which transform'd continued to be worshipped at Rome. Nor were those ferpents lovelier, to which transform'd Ammonian Jove or Capitoline was feen, Jupiter Ammon and Jupiter Capitolinus, the one the Lybian Jupiter, the other the Roman, called Capitoline from the Capitol his temple at Rome: He with Olympias, the frft the pretended father of Alexander the great, converfing with his mother Olympias in the form of a ferpent; this with her who bore Scipio the highth of Rome, the latter fabled in like manner to have been the father of Scipio Africanus, who raised his country and himself to the higheft pitch of glory. Dr Bentley objects to this expreffion the bighth of Rome. But as Dr. Pearce obferves in anfwer, this expreffion is much of the fame nature with Ovid's Summa ducum Atrides, Amor. 1. 1. el. 9. v. 37. and with Cicero's expreffion Apex fenectutis eft auctoritas. de Senect The Italians, whofe expreffions Milton often imitates, ufe altezza in the fame fenfe, if I remember aright. : Nigh 513. As when a ship &c.] There are fome Latin poems of Andrew Ramfay, a Scotchman in the time of Charles the firft, under this title Poemata facra Andrea Ramfai Paftoris Edinburgeni. Edinburgi 1633. The book is now grown very fcarce, but there are few poems in it. The principal is one in four books, the firft of the creation, the fecond of the happy ftate of man, the third of the fall of man, the fourth of the redemption of man by Jefus Chrift: and this poem was recommended to me as a performance to which Milton had been much oblig'd and indebted: but upon perufing it I do not well fee how two authors could write fo much upon the fame fubjects, and write more differently. There are few or no traces to be difcover'd of any fimilitude or refemblance between them, but in the fimile before us, and the following one of the Scotch poet, and there are fo different, and applied fo differently, that they may both be originals, or at leaft not the copy the one |