He look'd, and saw what numbers numberless 810 In mail their horses clad, yet fleet and strong, 315 311. The city gates out-pour'd,] This is Virgil's ―plenis Agmina se fundunt portis En. xii. 121. -light arm'd troops. vi. ad finem. Virgil also men- κέρατα 310. what numbers numberless] A manner of expression this, though much censured in our author, very familiar with the best Greek poets. Æschyl. Prom. 904. Απολεμος όδε γ' ο πόλεμος, απορα ναις αναίς αναις-πολις απολις. Thyer. Thus Lucretius, iii. 799. and x. 1053. Innumero numero So Virgil, Georg. iv. 314. Dunster. 313. In mail their horses clad,] That this was the practice among the Parthians we learn from Justin, xli. 2. Munimentum ipsis equisque loricæ plumatæ sunt, quæ utrumque toto corpore tegunt: and from Appian, De Bell. Parth. οἱ θ' ἱπποι καταπεφραγμένοι χαλκοις και σιδηροις σκεπασμασι. 313. And Plutarch, in his account of the defeat of Crassus by the Parthians, says, that, on suddenly throwing off the covering of their armour, they seemed all on fire from the glittering brightness of their helmets and breastplates, of Margian steel, and from the brass and iron trappings of their horses. We may compare with our author's Milton has a similar expression, description in this place a pasPar. Lost, iii. 346. Loud as from numbers without number. sage of Claudian, In Rufin. ii. 351. Dunster, 315. Of many provinces from Of Caucasus, and dark Iberian dales, From Atropatia and the neighb'ring plains Of Susiana, to Balsara's haven. He saw them in their forms of battle rang'd, 320 How quick they wheel'd, and fly'ing behind them shot bound to bound;] He had mentioned before the principal cities of the Parthians, and now he recounts several of their provinces: Aracosia near the river Indus, μέχρι του Ινδού ποταμου τε Taμm. Strabo, lib. xi. p. 516. Candaor, not Gandaor as in some editions, I suppose the Candari, a people of India mentioned by Pliny, lib. vi. sect. 18. who are different, Father Harduin says, from the Gandari. These were provinces to the east, and to the north Margiana and Hyrcania, ἅπασαι γαρ αὗται προσέχεις μεν εισι TY BOREIN WλEVgH Tov Tavgov, Strabo, lib. ii. p. 72. and mount Caucasus, and Iberia, which is called dark, as the country abounded with forests, Iberi saltuosos locos incolentes. Tacitus, Annal. lib. vi. Atropatia lay west of Media, δε μεγάλη Μηδια προς dur. Strabo, lib. xi. p. 523. Adiabene was the western part of Babylonia, año di dvoras Adiabavn, and Strabo says was a plain country, της μεν ουν Αδιαβητης ή πλειστη πεδίας εστι, Strabo, lib. xvi. p. 745. Susiana was on the south, extending to the Persian gulf, i de xweα ins Daλatτns xalnxi, Strabo, lib. xv. p. 728. where was also Balsara's haven, the same as Teredon before mentioned. And thus he surveys their provinces from bound to bound. And the reader cannot but remark with pleasure how very exact he is in his account of cities and countries, and how well he must have remembered, and how faithfully he has copied, the ancient geographers and historians. 323. and flying behind them shot Sharp sleet of arrony show'rs] In the first edition it was printed shower by mistake, and is corrected showers among the errata, but this notwithstanding the faulty reading is followed in all the editions since. Sharp sleet &c. is a metaphor, as Mr. Richardson has noted, not unlike that in Virgil, Æn. xi. 610. -fundunt simul undique tela Crebra nivis ritu. of shooting their arrows behind them and overcoming by flight is so celebrated by historians and poets, and is so well known to every one of the least reading, that it is almost needless to bring any authorities to prove it. φευγον γαρ άμα βαλλοντες οἱ Παρθοι και σοφωτατον εστιν, αμυνομένους επι σωζεσθαι, και της φυγης αφαίρειν το ago. Appian. de Bel. Parth. Virg. Georg. iii. 31. And the custom of the Parthians Fidentemque fugâ Parthum versisque sagittis. Hor. Od. i. xix. 11. Sharp sleet of arrowy show'rs against the face Et versis animosum equis 324. Sharp sleet of arrowy show'rs] Virgil has a similar passage, Æn. xii. 284. -it toto turbida cœlo 325 to have spun out into a paragraph of half a page length. Thyer. I believe the reader will agree with me that it greatly exceeds Fairfax, cant. i. st. 64. Imbatteled in walls of iron brown. Tempestas telorum, ac ferreus ingruit and even Virgil, Æn. xi. 601. imber. 327. Nor wanted clouds of foot,] So we have in Homer, Iliad. iv. 274. νεφος πεζων, and in Virgil, Æn. vii. 793. nimbus peditum : but as Mr. Thyer observes with me, this verse is not very consistent with what goes before, ver. 307. All horsemen, in which fight they most excel; nor with what follows to the same purpose, ver. 344. Such and so numerous was their chivalry. 327. By horsemen Milton meant only skilled in the management of a horse, as every Parthian was; and by no means that they never engaged except on horseback. We may collect from Tacitus, Ann. vi. 34. that the Iberians who make a part of this L Cuirassiers all in steel for standing fight, army were foot soldiers. Strabo also notices the best soldiers of Iberia as coming from the mountainous part of the country, 1. xi. p. 500. And these, it is obvious, were more likely to be foot soldiers. Milton had probably this passage of Strabo in his mind when he specified the dark Iberian dales. Dunster. 328. Cuirassiers all in steel] By cuirassiers are to be understood horsemen armed with cuirasses, which covered the body quite round from the neck to the waist. If what Chambers says in his Dictionary be true, viz. that these sort of troops were not introduced till the year 1300, Milton has been guilty of a great anachronism. Thyer. But it appears that the Parthians had such troops, and particularly from the quotation which we lately made from Justin; Munimentum ipsis equisque loricæ plumatæ sunt, quæ utrumque toto corpore tegunt, xli. 2. 328. Claudian has, Ferratique viri-De vi. Cons. Honor. 571. And Homer, Il. xiii. 192. 330 in steel. See also Sallust, Fragment, l. iv. Livy, xxxv. 48. and xxxvii. 40. Ammianus Marcellinus, xxiii. 6. Dunster. 329. elephants indors'd with towers] That is, with towers upon their backs. The reader must know very little of Milton's style, who knoweth not that it is his method to make use of words in their primary and original meaning, rather than according to their common acceptation. 329. To indorse is used in a sense exactly similar by Ben Jonson, in an Epigram to William Earl of Newcastle, upon his horsemanship. Pliny speaks of the turrigeros elephantorum humeros, 1. xi. c. 12. And Silius Italicus, speaking of elephants bearing towers, terms them turritæ moles. Dunster. 330. nor of lab'ring pioneers A multitude &c.] Nor wanted (the verb in ver. 327,) a multitude with spades and axes armed, very like that in Paradise Lost, i. 675. -as when bands Of pioneers with spade and pickaxe arm'd &c. 333.- or overlay With bridges rivers proud, as with a yoke ;] Alluding probably to Eschylus's description of Xerxes's bridge With bridges rivers proud, as with a yoke; The city' of Gallaphrone, from thence to win 335 340 over the Hellespont, Persæ, ver. of Milton, that the impression 71. Πολυγομφον όδισμα Ζυγον αμφιβαλων αυχένι ποντου. Thyer. Thus Virgil speaks of the Araxes, Æn. viii. 728. -pontem indignatus Araxes, from its carrying away, by a violent inundation, a bridge which Alexander had just built over it. Dunster. 337. Such forces met not, nor so wide a camp. When Agrican &c] What Milton here alludes to is related in Boiardo's Orlando Inamorato, 1. i, cant. 10. The number of forces said to be there assembled is incredible, and extravagant even beyond the common extravagancy of romances. Agrican the Tartar king brings into the field no less than two millions two hundred thousand; Ventidua centinaia di migliara Di cavalier havea quel Rè nel campo, And Sacripante the king of Cir- which romances had made upon -for never, since created man, Met such imbodied force. And Lucan thus concludes his description of the forces assembled under Pompey, Pharsal. iii. 284. Non, cum Memnoniis deducens agmina regnis Cyrus, et effusis numerato milite telis Descendit Perses, fraternique ultor amoris Equora cum tantis percussit cladibus, |
