University of Virginia Library

ARTICLE IV. — THE PLAN OF PARADISE LOST.

IN all the attempts to trace the origin of Paradise Lost to the Caedmon, to Andreini, to Grotius, to Du Bartas, and to a score of others, no claim, so far as I am aware, has been advanced to having found in any, or in all, of them the entire plan upon which Milton worked and which he filled out. Caedmon is said to have helped here, Andreini there, and Du Bartas in a third place, but no one of them and not all of them together give in any just sense an explanation of the existence of the great English epic.

During an extended study of Paradise Lost, the results of which were published in 1878, I became convinced that there remained a point of view from which the poem would show a better unity than it is commonly supposed to have. This point of view I found, accidentally, it must be admitted, shortly after the publication of my essay, and at once and without any difficulty I wrote out the substance of what I am here about to give. Reviewing my material after an interval of nearly five years, during which much thought has been expended upon the poem, I am more than ever convinced of its value in explanation of the poet's method.

Milton is no exception to the rule that great poets find rather than make their plans. There is a narrative exactly coincident with the story of the poem in its beginning, breadth, and end. It is found where Milton would naturally look for his plan. It conforms to the poet's classical taste. As commonly understood, it accords with Milton's early religious training and political sympathies. It is highly figurative, and therefore just what a poet's soul would delight to interpret. In the last-named characteristic we find the chief reason why Milton's selection of the passage as the foundation of his poem has not sooner been discovered.

St. John's vision of the seven trumpets in the Apocalypse is a vision of Judgment covering the entire course of angelic and human transgression. It begins before the Creation, takes

in the whole reach of time, and ends with the final disposition of things for eternity. It is a view of the origin and the final punishment of evil. What else could be said of Paradise Lost? Its scope and purpose are the same, its method is the same, and we shall find that every distinct feature of the prophecy can be found in the poem.

The prophet's vision and the poet's may best be compared first in their general features. In the former a part of the action is extra-mundane and a part intra-mundane, and the transition from the one to the other is marked by the warning cry between the fourth and the fifth trumpet: "Woe to the inhabiters of the earth by reason of the other voices of the trumpet of the three angels which are yet to sound!" Magnificent opportunity for an epic poet meditating this subject in the way of an opening leading at once in medias res! Milton was not slow to see and take advantage of such a feature. At this point of time, near the sounding of the fifth trumpet, he enters upon the narrative, and from this looks before and after. Raphael is brought from Heaven to narrate the past, Michael to foretell the future. Two angels, unnamed, likewise appeared to St. John: the first, seen "flying through the midst of Heaven," is identical with Raphael, who, charged with a warning to man, similarly sprang up and "flew through the midst of Heaven" (v. 251); the second is Michael, having the same radiant form as he, and clothed, like him, with a cloud and a rainbow (xi. 229, 244).

It will be observed that the angels who sound the trumpets are stationed in Heaven, while the judgments following are executed in some other place. The last three are separated from the rest as alone executed upon the earth; and it is most natural to infer that the other four are to be referred to Hell, the place of punishment, which is unmistakably prominent in the passage. In Paradise Lost, six soundings of the trumpet in Heaven are explicitly mentioned, and the remaining one is with sufficient clearness implied. Two of the soundings occur on the first day of the war in Heaven. On the morning of that day, as a sign of wrath awaked for the first time in celestial history, "the loud ethereal trumpet from on high gan blow" (vi. 60). It announced the approaching combat between

Faith, represented in Abdiel, and Unbelief, embodied in Satan. Again, just as the two armies were about to engage in a general battle,

It was the signal for the conflict between the Letter and the Spirit of the Law, such as took place when Michael contended with Satan for the body of Moses (Jude 9). The third sounding was at the dawning of the second day, when

Following this came the fierce and doubtful encounter which symbolizes the struggle between the Flesh and the Spirit, or between Desire and Duty. Another sounding on the morning of the third day is naturally looked for, but instead thereof the chariot of the Messiah then rushes forth "with whirlwind sound." What reason is there for believing this to be a substitute for the fourth sounding of the trumpet, and its equivalent?

Note the features of the third day's conflict. They are such as the Sacred Writings associate with the Final Judgment. The unexpected appearance of the Messiah on his throne in the clouds accompanied by his saints and his portentous heavenly ensign; his renewal of the disordered celestial territory, as he will finally renew the earth; his approval of the faithful; his affliction of the disobedient, until they call for the mountains to fall upon them and shield them from his wrath; his expulsion of his enemies, as a flock of timorous goats, from Heaven; his imprisonment of them in the dungeon of despair, form together a scene of unmistakable significance. Matthew and Paul mention the sounding of a trumpet as announcing the Judgment, but Mark and Luke omit it, and Peter speaks only of "a great noise." The Old Testament writers frequently connect a whirlwind with their Judgment scenes, and at least one (Zech. ix. 14) includes both the sounding of a trumpet and a whirlwind. The poet, then, may be allowed to choose as to whether he will mention the trumpet

again, or, by substituting the whirlwind, bring out with additional distinctness the meaning of the whole scene. Like the sound of a whirlwind in the natural world, the sound of the Judgment trumpet proclaims the impending doom and over-throw of those who have "sowed the wind."

The weight of these considerations being admitted, the only difficulty has vanished. The next trumpet sounded when Michael prepared to descend to drive Adam and Eve out of Paradise; and the sounding of the sixth and the seventh is foretold in the same sentence in which this is announced.

This passage, when its leadings are carefully followed, furnishes a clew to the whole poem. Why should Milton interrupt his narrative at such a juncture with the sounding of a trumpet? For speaking of a trumpet at Oreb and at "general doom" he had authority in the Sacred Scriptures; had he any for this? had he any for the soundings in the sixth book? Step by step such questions lead us to the vision of the trumpets in the Apocalypse, where we find thus divided into seven divine eras the history of evil and its punishment.

It is in order next to inquire whether there is in Paradise Lost anything that agrees with the judgments described as following the several soundings of the trumpets. That we may proceed intelligently, it is necessary to have a firm hold upon Milton's principle of interpretation. The comprehension of one fact will greatly help our progress — the fact that the fallen spirits number one-third of the original inhabitants of Heaven; and whenever St. John speaks of one-third of any class of objects, Milton understands him to refer to the devils. We read of judgments upon the third part of the trees, of the creatures in the sea, of the ships, of the rivers, of the waters, and of the stars. To justify his belief that under all these terms the devils are referred to, Milton might have pointed to the epistle of Jude, where "the angels which kept not their first estate" are designated as "clouds without water," "trees

whose fruit withereth," "raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame," "wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever." That this method of denoting the evil spirits was not uncommon in apostolic times is evident from 2 Pet. ii. 17, where nearly the same language is used as that just quoted from Jude. In strict harmony with the apostles, Milton compares the devils to trees, "the forest oaks or mountain pines" (i. 613), to the "starry flock" led by Lucifer (v. 708, 709), and more obscurely to rivers or streams of water — serpents formed from the blood of Gorgon, the storm-cloud (x. 527). Satan, a representative spirit, is likened to that sea-beast Leviathan (i. 200), to the sun or the morning star (in many places), to a cloud without water (iv. 813-819), to a ship or fleet (ii. 636, 1043).

The "hail and fire mingled with blood" that followed the sounding of the first trumpet are the "sulphurous hail" and the "red lightning" (i. 171, 175) remembered by Satan as having been ingredients of the terrible storm which pursued the fleeing castaways through the Deep. The earth upon which the storm fell is not this planet of ours, but the land portions of Hell, burned, and desolated, and changed by a curse into those "dry places" over which the evil spirits are said to wander. Standing on this barren soil, the evil spirits are like trees, not such as grow along the heavenly rivers of water, flourishing and bearing fruit, but such as have been swept through with fires, showing bare and lifeless branches and a "singed top." This judgment of the singed top, implying intellectual loss, is a fit reward for the willful unbelief manifested in the first day's fight in Heaven, and agrees perfectly with St. John's statement that "the third part of the trees was burnt up."

The judgments following the second trumpet are that "a great mountain burning the fire was cast into the sea, and the third part of the sea became blood." In reproducing this scene, as in the preceding, Milton takes the word "blood" to designate only the color and not the essence of the thing so represented, and is evidently at pains to make his description of the Lake of Fire consistent with this verse. The "fiery waves" and the "inflamed sea" might seem enough to represent

the color suggested in the Apocalyptic vision, but in addition the whole body of "liquid fire" is compared to the Red Sea (i. 306). Still further, there is the very precise statement that the "hue" of the shore is like the color of the ground, whence

A number of the minor cones of Etna have received such names as Monte Rossi and Monte Arso, from the redness of the ashes and cinders of which they are mainly composed; and it is not an unusual thing for such cones to fall into the crater (Encyc. Brit., vol. viii., pp. 629, 630). Mount Sinai, the mountain where the Law was given, often typifies, with its thunders and lightnings, the penalty of the Law broken. The "great mountain burning with fire" that was cast into the sea is no other than Sinai in its terrific spiritual meaning, and symbolizes the punishment of those who fought against Michael, the representative of the Law, after the second trumpet of the first day in Heaven.

"The third part of the creatures which were in the sea, and had life died; and the third part of the ships were destroyed." These "ships" and "creatures," according to Milton's principle of interpretation, are simply the fallen spirits again presented under new figures consistent with their changed relations. St. John says of the "ships" that they "were destroyed," and of the "creatures" that they "died." Milton likewise describes the devils as laid low "in horrible destruction," "as far as gods and heavenly essences can perish." They remained in their state of inactivity, or "confusion" nine days and nights; just as long as the mythical Latona (Leto=Death) labored at the birth of her children, Apollo and Diana; and likewise as long as from the beginning of the creative week in Genesis to the creation of Eve. At the end of that period, Satan and Beelzebub, who, as will hereafter appear, are identical with the twin children of Latona, rise from the fiery lake, the bonds of death having been broken. Death is with perfect consistency represented as the special doom for resisting Michael, the

genius of the Law, because "the soul that sinneth, it shall die."

Connected with the sounding of the third angel is the fall of a "great star" from Heaven. Milton treats this star as identical with that which falls from Heaven to Earth after the sounding of the fifth angel; and he personifies what it represents in the form of Sin sitting at Hell gates. The description of Sin as "a great star burning as it were a lamp" sets forth the consuming nature of Lust which feeds upon the soul as the flame upon oil. Milton's Sin is an impersonation not so much of lawlessness as of carnal Pleasure — the Venus of Paradise Lost, dressed in deceitful beauty. In common with the star whose name is Wormwood, she proves herself, as her cheated devotees invariably experience, "a bitter morsel" (ii. 808). But one fact of itself would establish the identity of Sin with the star, — the fact that "the key of the bottomless pit," which St. John assigns to the star is by Milton given to Sin. The star fell upon "the third part of the rivers and fountains of waters;" that is, it caused in all the rebellious spirits the bitterness of remorse. Afterward the sin and the remorse came also among men through the agency of the evil spirits. Following the trumpet which announced the celestial encounter between Duty and Pleasure, comes fitly the fall of Sin into Hell, and then the birth of Death.

Consequent upon the sounding of the fourth angel is the smiting of the third part of the Sun, the Moon, and the Stars. Milton's angels are very often described under images and forms of expression drawn from, and applicable to, the celestial orbs. The poet's custom is sanctioned by the usage of Scripture, where the righteous in Heaven are directly compared to the stars and the sun (Dan. xii. 3; Matt. xiii. 43). Of the fallen angels Satan is the solar spirit, Beelzebub the lunar spirit, and the others are the stellar spirits. Their smiting is their loss of glory so impressively described in the first book of Paradise Lost. But there is loss not only in them, but on account of them; for "the day shone not for a third part of it, and the night likewise." There is loss in Heaven, because of the Divine curse which in the third day's fight stripped them of their splendor and expelled them from Heaven.

Before the fifth trumpet sounds, the scene of action is transferred to this world. The evil spirits have already risen in the smoke of the Pit in clouds, like the locusts of Egypt, which darkened the land (i. 343). Hell-gates have been thrown open by Sin, and have begun to cast forth their furnace smoke and flame. Satan has accomplished his journey through Chaos into the world, a precursor of the irruption of devils that was later to take place. After announcing the fifth trumpet, St. John gives a very particular description of the locusts, or devils, who are soon to invade the world. They have faces like men, hair like women, bodies like war-horses, and tails like scorpions; the other features are properties rather than essentials. What meaning did Milton take out of this description? Long familiarity with the poet's habits of thought encourages me to venture a reply.

The poet, I think, understands the seer to be giving a visible picture of something in fact immaterial and invisible. Evil has its starting-point in desire, which persuades the will and produces the wrong purpose, that in turn gives birth to the wrong act. Wrong acts always work injustice and cause conflict between the sufferers and the doers of the wrong. The conflict fully carried out ends in death. This is what the Apostle James means by saying: "When lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin; and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death." The back part of the head with its woman's hair represents lust, the front with its man's face is will, the agreement of the two is the formation of the purpose. The body, that of a war-horse, represents the wars and fightings that come from lust (James iv. 1); the tail with its scorpion sting represents death, which is the end of all. The whole process of evil is illustrated in the history of the antediluvian world, when the sons of God were joined to the daughters of men and begat those giants and men of renown who filled earth with violence and led to the destruction of the race in the Deluge. The crowns of gold on these spiritual figures denote the universal power of evil over men, and the lion-like teeth suggest its devouring greediness. Not one of these features has been overlooked by the poet. The spiritual facts are fundamental throughout the poem, and the symbol appropriate

to each is sooner or later brought to notice in a striking simile or metaphor.

But of nothing else in the whole prophetic vision does Milton make such constant use as of the identification of the king of these fallen spirits, Satan or Lucifer, with the Apollyon or Apollo of the Greeks. Let it be noted that Milton here has Scriptural authority, not merely for comparing Satan to Apollo, but for treating him as the same. He whom the Greeks call Apollo is the chief of the devils. The recognition of this fact is essential to the comprehension of Milton's plan, at the same time that it exposes the blunder of such as hold with Dr. Johnson that "the mythological allusions have been justly censured as not being always used with notice of their vanity." To believers of the earlier centuries those myths were far from vain; they contained the true history of beings who were at the same time the gods of the Pagan and the demons or angels of the Christian. Besides, those beings stand for actual facts and principles in the physical and moral constitution of the world. That the Satan of Paradise Lost is intended to be no other than the Apollo of mythology is evident from the frequency of his association with solar phenomena; from his possession of the characteristics and his performance of the functions of Apollo; and from the similarity of his adventures to those of the powerful sun-god.

Standing for the first time after their fall at the head of his legions, Satan is like the sun new-risen in a cloudy sky (i. 591-600); sitting upon his gorgeous throne in Pandemonium, he reminds one of the same luminary nearing its zenith (ii. 1-5); about to depart on a long journey and encompassed with "a globe of fiery seraphim," he is again explicitly compared to the radiant sun taking his farewell from a clear evening sky (ii. 486-495). The sight of the natural sun in this world of ours is hateful to him, because it brings to his remembrance from what state he fell (iv. 32-40); and when we inquire what the splendor of that heavenly state was, we are shown "the Apostate in his sun-bright chariot,"

Satan manifests Apollo's oracular power in predicting the

creation of the world and of man, in misleading angels and men by awaking deceitful hopes of good to be derived from a course of evil, and in giving birth to the sorceress, Sin. He executes the office of Apollo as god of medicine in ministering to the diseased minds of his adherents and reviving their drooping spirits. He discharges the function of Apollo as god of music in effecting this spiritual cure by means of "flutes and soft recorders," such as have

At the same time he follows Apollo's profession of a shepherd in controling and guiding his followers, who are spoken of as "bleating herds" (ii. 494), as a "starry flock" (v. 709), and as a "herd of goats or timorous flock" (vi. 856).

There is an equal coincidence in the events of Satan's and those of Apollo's existence. The circumstances attending Apollo's birth from Latona (Death) are like those of Satan's recovery from the deadly stupor of nine nights and days. As Satan had Pandemonium built for himself by the labor of Mammon and Mulciber, near the "mountain of metals," so Apollo had his temple at Delphi built under the superintendence of the brothers Agamedes and Trophonius, at the foot of Mount Parnassus. As Satan encounters Death on the threshold of Hell, so Apollo encountered Thanatos in the house of Admetus. As Satan was driven out of Heaven, so Apollo was exiled from Olympus. As Apollo was enamored of Daphne, so Satan was momentarily smitten with passion at sight of Eve in her likeness to one of "Delia's train." In addition to this, Satan's doings are very frequently modeled after those of Hector, Sarpedon, and other Homeric leaders who are favorites of Apollo and inspired by him. Taking all this into account I am led to question whether there is anything in the history of Milton's Arch-fiend which cannot be traced directly or indirectly in the Pagan Apollo.

On the day when Michael descended (the day of the fifth trumpet), Death entered the world with Sin. From this time until the giving of the Law on Mount Sinai, from Adam to

Moses, between the fifth and sixth trumpets, the reign of Death is conspicuous. "And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them," is the language of St. John. In the eleventh book of Milton's poem also, Adam is invited by Michael to behold the effects which the first man's crime wrought in his descendants "who never touched the excepted tree," or in the words of St. Paul, who "had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression." A vast tragedy, rising through more and more appalling events and culminating in the Deluge, is presented before Adam's vision; and in that tragedy is a terrible scene evidently drawn from the words of St. John just quoted. The poet pictures to the view a vast lazar-house, gives a long catalogue of the diseases to which the inmates are subject, and then adds:

The five months' torment spoken of by the apostle was probably understood by the poet to refer to the Deluge itself, the waters of which "prevailed [increased] upon the earth a hundred and fifty days" (Gen. vii. 24), and within that time brought upon all mankind, except those who had "the seal of God upon their foreheads" (Noah and his family), the pangs of dissolution.

The sounding of the sixth trumpet heralded the giving of the Law on Mount Sinai. A part of what was there promulgated related to civil justice, and this part, written in the beginning on the nature of man, must remain operative while human beings live in the world. Another part, consisting in rites and ceremonies, was first ordained at Sinai, and was intended only for temporary use in the way of discipline. At the death of Christ it was abrogated, and after that Christians were even reproved for continuing to observe these "days and months and times and years" (Gal. iv. 10). Such observance is afterward spoken of as the bondage of the Law, which may,

perhaps, not unfitly be represented by the "four angels bound in the great river Euphrates." Milton's account is as follows:

The four angels were loosed, as Milton seems to have understood it, while the Ceremonial Law was in force; they represent a mere literal unintelligent obedience to that Law, and assist in the condemnation and destruction of men by preventing its effectiveness for discipline. The Euphrates, in which the four angels are bound, is the river of Babylon, and the Babylon, Sodom or Egypt of the Apocalypse is Rome, where Milton saw lifeless ceremony and ritual enough during his visit to Italy.

The giving of the Law was signalized by an increased activity among the evil spirits. A vast army of two hundred millions of horsemen comes upon the earth, to inflict spiritual, as the locusts had inflicted bodily, death. They represent at once the spirit of hostility to the Law and the retribution which follows a breaking of the Law. They are, therefore, in array of battle and armed with the weapons which their war-god, Moloch, had proposed in the council in Pandemonium to use against Heaven. He wished,

We now see how it was that the devils might turn the inventions of the Almighty against himself. He had established laws, but even the most faithful ones had at some time violated

them, made enemies of them and stood under their curse: and Christ himself, as the bearer of his people's sins, was numbered among the transgressors, and felt the vengeance of the Law which thus reached even to the Divine throne. The horsemen of St. John's vision were armed just as Moloch proposed to arm the devils: "And thus I saw the horses in the vision, and them that sat on them, having breast-plates of fire, and of jacinth [smoke, or something dark in hue], and brimstone: and the heads of the horses were as the heads of lions; and out of their mouths issued fire and smoke and brimstone. By these three was the third part of men killed, by the fire, and by the smoke, and by the brimstone which issued out of their mouths."

If further evidence is needed of the reasonableness of Milton's conclusion that the events following the sounding of the sixth trumpet are very intimately connected with the giving of the Law, it is only necessary to quote the last two verses of the ninth chapter: "And the rest of the men which were not killed by these plagues yet repented not of the works of their hands, that they should not worship devils, and idols of gold, and silver, and brass, and stone, and of wood; which neither can see, nor hear, nor walk; neither repented they of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornication, nor of their thefts." In these verses we have a pretty complete catalogue of the representative sins against which the Law is directed.

The tenth chapter of the Apocalypse is taken up with an account of the descent and the message of "another mighty angel," who becomes the Michael of Paradise Lost. The angel gave to John a little book, which, as he devoured it, was in his mouth "sweet as honey," but afterward it made his "belly bitter." When Michael narrated to Adam the future history of the world, the tale was animating and enchanting, but the patriarch's subsequent experience of the same was painful. Men enjoy, the poet and the seer remind us, a rehearsal or representation of the great events of time, the most tragic parts most, just as they might watch the unfolding of a powerful drama; but to act one's part on the great stage of life, to experience its losses, passions, sorrows, sin, remorse, is indeed

bitter. This bitterness began in Adam, when, hand in hand, he and Eve, having turned their backs on Paradise, "with wandering steps and slow, through Eden took their solitary way."

The remainder of the Apocalyptic vision which Milton has been following clearly has reference to events that are to happen near the end of the world. The measurement of the temple which the Seer is directed to make shows the extent of the true Christian Church. The outer court, which the Gentiles profane, but in which God's two Witnesses are to prophesy, embraces the limits of so-called Christendom where the light of the Gospel shines but is not heeded. The two Witnesses preach here for a time with success, but their message is afterward despised, and they themselves are overcome and killed by the beast from the Pit. Faith and Truth, enlightened by the Holy Spirit and Conscience are represented by Milton as going through a somewhat similar course of maltreatment. The poet tells us that in the closing scenes of the world's history,

This degeneracy of the Church into "outward rites and specious forms" may very well be represented as an exposure to shame of the dead bodies of Truth and Faith, after the life has departed. Moreover they are to be exposed "in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt." Milton understood this to refer to Rome, the seat of the great hierarchy, whose names, places, titles, and secular power are used to force spiritual laws upon the conscience.

The absence of Truth and the lack of Faith seem to hurry on the closing scenes of the world's history. Two woes out of the three that were to fall upon the earth are past, and "the third woe cometh quickly." The seventh, and last, trumpet sounds, and heavenly voices are heard praising the Messiah, and saying: "We give thee thanks, O Lord God Almighty,

which art, and wast, and art to come; because thou hast taken to thee thy great power, and hast reigned. And the nations were angry, and thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that thou shouldest give reward unto thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and them that fear thy name, small and great; and shouldest destroy them which destroy the earth." Just to this consummation does the archangel Michael in the poem likewise pursue his narrative; and just here, at "the world's great period," does he pause, having told how the Messiah will come,

Long before the poet had decided to make his masterpiece an epic, and while he was yet considering the suitableness of various subjects for a dramatic composition, he published his opinion that "the Apocalypse of St. John is the majestic image of a high and stately tragedy shutting up and intermingling her solemn scenes and acts with a sevenfold chorus of hallelujahs and harping symphonies." Here is strong external probability to join with the unlimited internal evidence that Paradise Lost is founded upon the passage of Revelation which we have been considering. A clearer case, it seems to me, we could not have, unless the poet had taken the awkward step of explaining his own work to the world.

Other portions of the Apocalypse, indeed I might say almost the whole of it, are incorporated in the poem. Considerable portions of other books, — Canticles, the Proverbs, the Psalms, the Gospels, the Epistles, the Historical books, and the Prophecies are to be found. Indeed, a minute and careful examination, clause by clause, of nearly the whole poem almost warrants me in believing that every idea in it, however apparently remote, was meant by Milton to set forth some Scriptural truth. But nowhere, not even in the first of Genesis, do I find any plan which can at all be regarded as coëxtensive with that of Paradise Lost except the plan of the vision of the seven trumpets. The Fall of Man, more than any other event, is the central and important fact in this history of disobedience to

the Sovereign of the Universe, Adam and Eve are indeed nowhere mentioned by name in the vision, but they are inseparably associated with that fall of the Wormwood Star, symbolizing the introduction of Sin upon the earth. To human beings, for whom St. John's vision was recorded, the first four soundings of the trumpet had no direct relation; and it is at the fifth that the Seer begins to expand his narrative into greater particularity. It is right that the poet also should at the same point labor upon that long and careful analysis of the human nature in Adam and Eve, and that minute description of their state, environment and temptations which occupies so much of the work. The very full account of the Creation seems at first somewhat remote from the main subject, but it can scarcely be regarded as a violation of unity in this way to give prominence to the great transition, in the midst of the story, from Hell to this world. Indeed, if the poem is examined in the light of its relation to the Apocalyptic vision, one cannot fail to be impressed with its perfect unity and logical coherence.