The Astronomy of Milton's 'Paradise Lost' by Thomas Nathaniel Orchard (read along books .TXT) 📖
- Author: Thomas Nathaniel Orchard
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Milton now makes a digression in order to describe what Satan observed in the Sun after having landed there. The poet embraces an opportunity for exercising his imaginative and descriptive powers by giving an ideal description of what, judging from the appearance of the orb, might be the natural condition of things existing on his surface—
Astronomer in the Sun’s lucent orb
Through his glazed optic tube, yet never saw.
The place he found beyond expression bright,
Compared with aught on Earth, metal or stone;
Not all parts like, but all alike informed
With radiant light, as glowing iron with fire;
If metal, part seemed gold, part silver clear;
If stone, carbuncle most or chrysolite,
Ruby or topaz, to the twelve that shone
In Aaron’s breastplate, and a stone besides,
Imagined rather oft than elsewhere seen;
That stone, or like to that, which here below
Philosophers in vain so long have sought,
In vain, though by their powerful art they bind
Volatile Hermes, and call up unbound
In various shapes old Proteus from the sea,
Drained through a limbec to his native form.
What wonder then if fields and regions here
Breathe forth elixir pure, and rivers run
Potable gold, when, with one virtuous touch,
The arch-chemic Sun, so far from us remote,
Produces, with terrestrial humour mixed,
Here in the dark so many precious things
Of colour glorious, and effect so rare?
Here matter new to gaze the Devil met
Undazzled; far and wide his eye commands;
For sight no obstacle found here, nor shade,
But all sunshine, as when his beams at noon
Culminate from the equator, as they now
Shot upward still direct, whence no way round
Shadow from body opaque can fall; and the air,
Nowhere so clear sharpened his visual ray
To objects distant far, whereby he soon
Saw within here a glorious Angel stand.—iii. 588-622.
The physical structure of the interior of the Sun is unknown; all that we see of the orb is the photosphere—the dazzling luminous envelope which indicates to the eye the boundary of the solar disc, and which is the source of light and heat. Milton, in his imaginative and beautifully poetical description of the Sun, is not more fanciful in his conception of the nature of the refulgent orb than a renowned astronomer (Sir William Herschel) who writes in the following strain: ‘A cool, dark, solid globe, its surface diversified with mountains and valleys, clothed in luxuriant vegetation and richly stored with inhabitants, protected by a heavy cloud-canopy from the intolerable glare of the upper luminous region, where the dazzling coruscations of a solar aurora some thousands of miles in depth evolved the stores of light and heat which vivify our world.’ Satan, disguised as a cherub, makes himself known to Uriel, Regent of the Sun. The upright Seraph in response to his request directs him to the Earth, the abode of Man—
With light from hence, though but reflected, shines,
That place is Earth, the seat of Man; that light
His day, which else, as the other hemisphere,
Night would invade; but there neighbouring Moon
(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. 722-32.
It would be impossible not to feel impressed with the accuracy and comprehensiveness of Milton’s astronomical knowledge; and how he has united in charming poetic expression the dry details of science with the divine inspiration of the heavenly muse. The distinctive appearances of the Sun, Moon, planets, and stars; their functional importance as regards this terrestrial sphere; the splendour and lustre peculiar to each; and the glory displayed in the entire created heavens, are portrayed with a skill indicative of a masterly knowledge of the science of astronomy.
If rightly thou art called, whose voice divine
Following, above the Olympian hill I soar,
Above the flight of Pegasean wing!
The meaning, not the name, I call; for thou
Nor of the Muses nine, nor on the top
Of old Olympus dwell’st; but heavenly-born,
Before the hills appeared or fountain flowed,
Thou with Eternal Wisdom didst converse,
Wisdom thy sister, and with her didst play
In presence of the Almighty Father, pleased
With thy celestial song. Up led by thee,
Into the Heaven of Heavens I have presumed,
An earthly guest, and drawn empyreal air,
Thy tempering. With like safety guided down,
Return me to my native element;
Lest, from this flying steed unreined, (as once
Belerophon, though from a lower clime)
Dismounted, on the Aleian field I fall,
Erroneous there to wander, and forlorn.
Half yet remains unsung, but narrower bound
Within the visible diurnal sphere.
Standing on Earth, not rapt above the pole,
More safe I sing with mortal voice, unchanged
To hoarse or mute, though fallen on evil days,
On evil days though fallen, and evil tongues,
In darkness, and with dangers compassed round,
And solitude; yet not alone, while thou
Visit’st my slumbers nightly, or when morn
Purples the east. Still govern thou my song,
Urania, and fit audience find though few.—vii. 1-32.
The Muses were Greek mythological divinities who possessed the power of inspiring song, and were the patrons of poets and musicians. According to Hesiod they were nine in number and presided over the arts. Urania was the Goddess of Astronomy, and Calliope the Goddess of Epic Poetry. They are described as the daughters of Zeus, and Homer alludes to them as the goddesses of song who dwelt on the summit of Mount Olympus. They were the companions of Apollo, and accompanied with song his playing on the lyre at the banquets of the Immortals. Milton does not invoke the mythological goddess, but Urania the Heavenly Muse, whose aid he also implores at the commencement of his poem prior to his flight above the Aonian Mount. Under her divine guidance he ascended to the Heaven of Heavens and breathed empyreal air, her tempering; in like manner he requests her to lead him down to his native element lest he should meet with a fate similar to what befell Bellerophon. Half his task he has completed, the other half, confined to narrower bounds within the visible diurnal sphere, remains unsung, and in its fulfilment he still implores his celestial patroness to govern his song.
The natural phenomena which occur as a consequence of the motions of the heavenly bodies and the diurnal rotation of the Earth on her axis, are accompanied by agreeable alternations in the aspect of nature with which every one is familiar. The rosy footsteps of morn; the solar splendour of noonday; the fading hues of even; and night with her jewelled courts and streams of molten stars, have been sung with rapturous admiration by poets of every nation and in every age. They, as ardent lovers of nature, have described in choicest language the pleasing vicissitudes brought about by the real and apparent motions of the celestial orbs.
In this respect Milton is unsurpassed by any poet in ancient or in modern times. The occasions on which he describes the heavenly bodies, or alludes to them in association with other phenomena, testify to the felicity of his thoughts and to the greatness of his poetic genius. Surely no poet has ever given us a lovelier description of evening, or has added more to its exquisite beauty by his allusion to the celestial orbs, than Milton when he describes the first evening in Paradise—
Had in her sober livery all things clad;
Silence accompanied; for beast and bird,
They to their grassy couch, these to their nests
Were slunk, all but the wakeful nightingale.
She all night long her amorous descant sung;
Silence was pleased. Now glowed the firmament
With living sapphires: Hesperus that led
The starry host, rode brightest, till the Moon,
Rising in clouded majesty, at length
Apparent queen, unveiled her peerless light,
And o’er the dark her silver mantle threw.—iv. 598-609.
In the avowal of her conjugal love, Eve, with charming expression, associates the orbs of the firmament with the delightful appearances of nature which presented themselves to her observation after she awoke to the consciousness of intelligent existence.
With charm of earliest birds: pleasant the Sun,
When first on this delightful land he spreads
His orient beams, on herb, tree, fruit, and flower,
Glistering with dew; fragrant the fertile Earth
After soft showers; and sweet the coming on
Of grateful Evening mild; then silent Night,
With this her solemn bird, and this fair Moon,
And these the gems of Heaven, her starry train:
But neither breath of Morn, when she ascends
With charm of earliest birds; nor rising Sun
On this delightful land; nor herb, fruit, flower,
Glistering with dew; nor fragrance after showers;
Nor grateful Evening mild; nor silent Night,
With this her solemn bird; nor walk by Moon,
Or glittering star-light, without thee is sweet.
But wherefore all night long shine these? for whom
This glorious sight, when sleep hath shut all eyes?—iv. 641-58.
One of the charms of Milton’s verse is the devoutly poetical sentiment which pervades it. His thoughts, though serious, are not austere or gloomy, and it is in his loftiest musings that his reverence becomes most apparent. This feeling is conspicuous in Adam’s reply to the inquiry addressed to him by Eve—
These have their course to finish round the Earth
By morrow evening, and from land to land
In order, though to nations yet unborn,
Ministering light prepared, they set and rise;
Lest total Darkness should by night regain
Her old possession, and extinguish life
In Nature and all things; which these soft fires
Not only enlighten, but with kindly heat
Of various influence foment and warm,
Temper or nourish, or in part shed down
Their stellar virtue on all kinds that grow
On Earth, made hereby apter to receive
Perfection from the Sun’s more potent ray.
These, then, though unbeheld in deep of night,
Shine not in vain; nor think, though men were none,
That Heaven would want spectators, God want praise:
Millions of spiritual creatures walk the Earth
Unseen, both when we wake, and when we sleep:
All these with ceaseless praise his works behold
Both day and night. How often from the steep
Of echoing hill or thicket, have we heard
Celestial voices to the midnight air,
Sole, or responsive each to other’s note
Singing
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