The Astronomy of Milton's 'Paradise Lost' by Thomas Nathaniel Orchard (read along books .TXT) 📖
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Full-orbed the Moon, and with more pleasing light,
Shadowy sets off the face of things.—v. 41-43.
The association of the Moon with the nocturnal revels and dances of elves and fairies is felicitously expressed in the following passage:—
Whose midnight revels, by a forest side
Or fountain, some belated peasant sees,
Or dreams he sees, while overhead the Moon
Sits arbitress, and nearer to the Earth
Wheels her pale course.—i. 781-86.
In contrast with this, we have Milton’s description of the Moon when affected by the demoniacal practices of the ‘night-hag’ who was believed to destroy infants for the sake of drinking their blood, and applying their mangled limbs to the purposes of incantation. The legend is of Scandinavian origin and the locality Lapland:—
In secret, riding through the air she comes,
Lured with the smell of infant blood, to dance
With Lapland witches, while the labouring Moon
Eclipses at their charms.—ii. 662-66.
In his description of the massive shield carried by Satan, the poet compares it with the full moon:—
Ethereal temper, massy, large, and round,
Behind him cast. The broad circumference
Hung on his shoulders like the Moon.—i. 284-87.
The phases displayed by the Moon in her monthly journey round the Earth, and which lend a variety of charm to the appearances presented by the orb, are poetically described by Milton in the following lines:—
(So call that opposite fair star) her aid
Timely interposes, and her monthly round
Still ending, still renewing, through mid-Heaven
With borrowed light her countenance triform
Hence fills and empties, to enlighten the Earth,
And in her pale dominion checks the night.—iii. 726-32.
It is interesting to observe how aptly Milton describes the subdued illumination of the Moon’s reflected light, as compared with the brilliant radiance of the blazing Sun, and how the distinguishing glory peculiar to each orb is appropriately set forth in the various passages in which they are described; their contrasted splendour enhancing rather than detracting from the grandeur and beauty belonging to each.
THE PLANET EARTH[14]No lovelier planet circles round the Sun than the planet Earth, with her oceans and continents, her mountains, valleys, rivers, lakes, and plains; surrounded by heaven’s azure, radiant with the sunlight of her day and adorned by night with countless sparkling points of gold. This beautiful world, the abode of MAN, is of paramount importance to us, and is the only part of the universe of which we have any direct knowledge.
The Earth may be regarded as one of the Sun’s numerous family, and is situated third in order from the refulgent orb, round which it revolves in an elliptical orbit at a mean distance of 92,800,000 miles. The Earth is nearest to the Sun at the end of December, and furthest away at the beginning of July; the difference between those distances is 3,250,000 miles—the extent of the eccentricity of the planet’s orbit. The figure of the Earth is that of an oblate spheroid; it is slightly flattened at the poles and bulges at the equator. Its polar or shortest diameter is 7,899 miles, its equatorial diameter is 7,926 miles—greater than the other by 27 miles. The circumference of the Earth at the equator is 24,899 miles, and the total area of its surface is 197,000,000 square miles. Its mean density is 5½ times greater than that of water.
The two principal motions performed by the Earth are: (1) Rotation on its axis; (2) its annual revolution round the Sun. The Earth always rotates in the same manner, and in the same direction, from west to east. As the axis of rotation corresponds with the shortest diameter of the planet, it affords strong evidence that the Earth assumed its present shape whilst rapidly rotating round its axis when in a fluid or plastic condition. This would accord with the nebular hypothesis. The ends of the Earth’s axis are called the poles of the Earth; one is the north, the other the south pole. The north pole is directed towards a star in the Lesser Bear called the Pole Star. The south pole is directed to a corresponding opposite part of the heavens. The Earth’s axis is inclined 63° 33' to the plane of the ecliptic, and is always directed to the same point in the heavens. The Earth accomplishes a revolution on its axis in 23 hours 56 minutes 4 seconds mean solar time, which is the length of the sidereal day. This rate of rotation is invariable. At the equator, where the circumference of the globe exceeds 24,000 miles, the velocity of a point on its surface is upwards of 1,000 miles an hour, but, as the poles are approached, the tangential velocity diminishes, and at those points it is entirely absent. The Earth accomplishes a revolution of her orbit in 365 days 6 hours 9 minutes; in her journey round the Sun she travels a circuit of 580,000,000 miles at an average pace of 66,000 miles an hour. The Earth has other slight motions called perturbations, which are produced by the gravitational attraction of other members of the solar system. The most important of these is Precession of the Equinoxes, which is caused by the attraction of the Sun, Moon, and planets, on the protuberant equatorial region of the globe. This attraction has a tendency to turn the Earth’s axis at right angles to her orbit, but it only results in the slow rotation of the pole of the equator round that of the ecliptic, which is occurring at the rate of 1° in 70 years, and will require a period of 25,868 years to complete an entire revolution of the heavens.
The spot on Earth round which is centred the chief interest in Milton’s poem is Paradise, which was situated in the east of Eden, a district of Central Asia. It was here where God ordained that man should first dwell—a place created for his enjoyment and delight. Satan, after his soliloquy on Mount Niphates, directs his way to Paradise, and arrives first in Eden, where he beholds from a distance the Happy Garden—
Of Eden, where delicious Paradise,
Now nearer, crowns with her enclosure green,
As with a rural mound, the champain head
Of a steep wilderness, whose hairy sides
With thicket overgrown, grotesque and wild,
Access denied; and overhead upgrew
Insuperable highth of loftiest shade,
Cedar, and pine, and fir, and branching palm,
A sylvan scene, and, as the ranks ascend,
Shade above shade, a woody theatre
Of stateliest view. Yet higher than their tops
The verdurous wall of Paradise up-sprung;
Which to our general sire gave prospect large
Into his nether empire neighbouring round.
And higher than that wall, a circling row
Of goodliest trees, loaden with fairest fruit,
Blossoms and fruits at once of golden hue,
Appeared, with gay enamelled colours mixed;
On which the Sun more glad impressed his beams
Than in fair evening cloud, or humid bow,
When God hath showered the Earth: so lovely seemed
That landskip. And of pure now purer air
Meets his approach, and to the heart inspires
Vernal delight and joy, able to drive
All sadness but despair. Now gentle gales,
Fanning their odoriferous wings, dispense
Native perfumes, and whisper whence they stole
Those balmy spoils.—iv. 131-59.
Satan, having gained admission to the Garden by overleaping the tangled thicket of shrubs and bushes which formed an impenetrable barrier and prevented any access to the enclosure within, he flew up on to the Tree of Life—
To all delight of human sense exposed,
In narrow room Nature’s whole wealth; yea, more!—
A Heaven on Earth: for blissful Paradise
Of God the garden was, by Him in the east
Of Eden planted, Eden stretched her line
From Auran eastward to the royal towers
Of great Seleucia, built by Grecian kings,
Or where the sons of Eden long before
Dwelt in Telassar. In this pleasant soil
His far more pleasant garden God ordained.
Out of the fertile ground he caused to grow
All trees of noblest kind for sight, smell, taste;
And all amid them stood the Tree of Life,
High eminent, blooming ambrosial fruit
Of vegetable gold; and next to life,
Our death, the Tree of Knowledge, grew fast by—
Knowledge of good, bought dear by knowing ill.
Southward through Eden went a river large,
Nor changed his course, but through the shaggy hill
Passed underneath ingulfed; for God had thrown
That mountain, as his garden mould, high raised
Upon the rapid current, which, through veins
Of porous earth with kindly thirst up-drawn,
Rose a fresh fountain, and with many a rill
Watered the garden; thence united fell
Down the steep glade, and met the nether flood,
Which from his darksome passage now appears,
And now, divided into four main streams,
Runs diverse, wandering many a famous realm
And country whereof here needs no account;
But rather to tell how, if Art could tell
How, from that sapphire fount the crisped brooks,
Boiling on orient-pearl and sands of gold,
With mazy error under pendent shades
Ran nectar, visiting each plant, and fed
Flowers worthy of Paradise, which not nice Art
In beds and curious knots, but Nature boon
Poured forth profuse on hill, and dale, and plain,
Both where the morning Sun first warmly smote
The open field, and where the unpierced shade
Imbrowned the noontide bowers.—iv. 205-46.
Milton’s description of Paradise is not less remarkable in its way than the lurid scenes depicted by him in Pandemonium. The versatility of his poetic genius is nowhere more apparent than in the charming pastoral verse contained in this part of his poem. The poet has lavished the whole wealth of his luxuriant imagination in his description of Eden and blissful Paradise with its ‘vernal airs’ and ‘gentle gales,’ its verdant meads, and murmuring streams, ‘rolling on orient-pearl and sands of gold;’ its stately trees laden with blossom and fruit; its spicy groves and shady bowers, over which there breathed the eternal Spring.
In Book IX. Satan expresses himself in an eloquent apostrophe to the primitive Earth, over which he previously wandered for seven days—
More justly, seat worthier of gods, as built
With second thoughts, reforming what was old!
For what God, after better, worse would build?
Terrestrial Heaven, danced round by other Heavens,
That shine, yet bear their bright officious lamps,
Light above light, for thee alone, as seems,
In thee concentring all their precious beams
Of sacred influence! As God in Heaven
Is centre, yet extends to all, so thou
Centring receiv’st from all those orbs; in thee,
Not in themselves, all their known virtue appears,
Productive in herb, plant, and nobler birth
Of creatures animate with gradual life
Of growth, sense, reason, all summed up in Man,
With what delight I could have walked thee round,
If
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