Broke from him.]
Milton attains to a higher conception of omnipotence in the passage:
Yet half in strength he put not forth, but check’d
His thunder in mid-volley: for he meant
Not to destroy, but root them out of heaven.
There is, however, nothing in Milton which equals in sublimity the sudden expansion of power in the soul of the deity: ειθαρ μεν μενεος πληντο φρενες. The plan of the battle of angels is evidently built on that of the battle of giants: the Messiah, like Hesiod’s Jove, coming forth to decide the contest; and sending before him thunderbolts and plagues. Milton’s magnificent imagery of the chariot is borrowed from the vision of the prophet Ezekiel.
Through the void
Of Erebus.]
Χαος is here only a gulf or void. Le Clerc quotes Aristophanes to show that it is the vacuity of air: but the conflagration of air has already been described. Grævius is undoubtedly right in interpreting it the subterraneous abyss, or Erebus: in which sense it is afterwards used by Hesiod; when the Titans are said to dwell “beyond the obscure chaos,” or chasm. Virgil uses chaos in this acceptation, Æneid. vi. 205: