"But he though blind of sight, / Despis'd and thought extinguish't quite, / With inward eyes illuminated / His fierie vertue rouz'd / From under ashes into sudden flame"
— Milton, John (1608-1674)
Author
Work Title
Place of Publication
London
Publisher
Printed by J.M. for John Starkey [etc.]
Date
1671
Metaphor
"But he though blind of sight, / Despis'd and thought extinguish't quite, / With inward eyes illuminated / His fierie vertue rouz'd / From under ashes into sudden flame"
Metaphor in Context
Semichor. But he though blind of sight,
Despis'd and thought extinguish't quite,
With inward eyes illuminated
His fierie vertue rouz'd
From under ashes into sudden flame,
And as an ev'ning Dragon came,
Assailant on the perched roosts,
And nests in order rang'd
Of tame villatic Fowl; but as an Eagle
His cloudless thunder bolted on thir heads.
So vertue giv'n for lost,
Deprest, and overthrown, as seem'd,
Like that self-begott'n bird
In the Arabian woods embost
That no second knows nor third,
And lay e're while a Holocaust,
From out her ashie womb now teem'd
Revives, reflourishes, then vigorous most
When most unactive deem'd,
And though her body die, her fame survives,
A secular bird ages of lives.
(ll. 1687-1707)
Despis'd and thought extinguish't quite,
With inward eyes illuminated
His fierie vertue rouz'd
From under ashes into sudden flame,
And as an ev'ning Dragon came,
Assailant on the perched roosts,
And nests in order rang'd
Of tame villatic Fowl; but as an Eagle
His cloudless thunder bolted on thir heads.
So vertue giv'n for lost,
Deprest, and overthrown, as seem'd,
Like that self-begott'n bird
In the Arabian woods embost
That no second knows nor third,
And lay e're while a Holocaust,
From out her ashie womb now teem'd
Revives, reflourishes, then vigorous most
When most unactive deem'd,
And though her body die, her fame survives,
A secular bird ages of lives.
(ll. 1687-1707)
Categories
Provenance
Reading Alwin Thaler's "In My Mind's Eye, Horatio." Shakespeare Quarterly. Vol. 7, No. 4 (Autumn, 1965), p. 353.
Citation
Renascence Editions text. Transcribed by Judy Boss. URL is http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~rbear/samson.html
Theme
Mind's Eye
Date of Entry
04/19/2006
