THE GIFT OF 
 
 JAMES MORGAN HART 
 
 PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH 
 
THE ABYSSINIAk PARADISE IN COLERIDGE 
 AND MILTON 
 
 LANE COOPER 
 
 PRINTED AT THE UiJIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS 
 
XT^>7 
 
 Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tiiis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013465780 
 
THE ABYSSINIAN PARADISE IN COLERIDGE 
 AND MILTON 
 
 In his Poems of Coleridge, p. 292, Dr. Garnett annotates the 
 allusion to Abyssinia in Kiibla Khan as follows: 
 
 L. 40. Singing of Mount Abora. There seems to be no mountain 
 of this name in Abyssinia at the present day, though one may be men- 
 tioned by some ancient traveler. Whether this be the case, or whether 
 the mountain be Coleridge's invention, the name must be connected with 
 the river Atbara, the Astaboras of the ancients, which rises in Abyssinia 
 and falls into the Nile near Berber. The principal affluent of this river 
 is the Tacazze = terrible, so called from the impetuosity of its stream. 
 It Coleridge knew this, an unconscious association with the impetuosity 
 of the river he had been describing may have led to the apparently far- 
 fetched introduction of the Abyssinian maid into a poem of Tartary. 
 
 Abora might be a variant spelling, not only of Atbara, but 
 of Amara in some old itinerary or, say, in one of the seventeenth- 
 and eighteenth-century books that touch on the location of the 
 paradise terrestrial. I have not, however, been able to find the 
 variant in anything that Coleridge read. Presumably he read 
 many both of the earlier and of the later travelers. One of the 
 later, the best authority that he could have for his knowledge of 
 Abyssinia, was James Bruce, whose Travels to Discover the 
 Sources of the Nile fell into Coleridge's hand perhaps as early 
 as 1794.' It is barely possible that Coleridge borrowed the book 
 from Southey, for the latter's library in 1844 contained a copy of 
 the Dublin (1790) edition. Bruce, of course, mentions the river 
 Astaboras or Atbara, as well as Atbara, a peninsula, and Amhara 
 (compare Amara), a "division of country." He speaks of the 
 Tacazzd also, remarking on the contrast between its placidity at 
 one season^ and its turbulence when swollen with rain; 
 
 But three fathoms it certainly had rolled in its bed; and this prodi- 
 gious body of water, passing furiously from a high gromid in a very deep 
 descent, tearing up rocks and large trees in its course, and forcing down 
 
 1 Coleridge^s Poems : Facsimile Reproduction, p. 173. 
 
 2 Edinburgh edition (1790), Vol. Ill, p. 157. 
 
 327] 1 [MoDBEN Philology, January, 1906 
 
2 Lane Cooper 
 
 their broken fragments scattered on its stream, with a noise like thunder 
 echoed from a hundred hills, these very naturally suggest an idea, that, 
 from these circumstances, it is very rightly called the terrible.^ 
 
 Some of the diction and imagery here reminds one of Cole- 
 ridge's tumultuous river Alph. However, there is in general not 
 enough of the fabulous about Bruce to warrant the supposition 
 that Coleridge is indebted to him for much of Kubla Khan, full 
 though that poem be of the spirit of the "old travellers." In any 
 case, I cannot believe that Dr. Garnett has hit upon the "uncon- 
 scious association" that brought Abyssinia into "a poem of 
 Tartary." 
 
 For that matter, I cannot regard "poem of Tartary" as an 
 entirely fitting name for Coleridge's sensuous vision. This might 
 preferably be termed a dream of the terrestrial, or even of the 
 "false," paradise; since, aside from its unworthy, acquiescent 
 admission of demoniac love within so-called "holy" precincts,^ it 
 reads like an arras of reminiscences from several accounts of 
 naturaP or enchanted parks, and from various descriptions of that 
 elusive and danger-fraught garden which mystic geographers 
 have studied to locate from Florida to Cathay.* Like the Tartar 
 paradise at the beginning of Kubla Khan and the bewitched 
 inclosure of the Old Man of the Mountain which seems to appear 
 toward the end,* this Abyssinian hill in the middle is simply one 
 of those "sumptuous" retreats whose allurements occupied the 
 imagination of a marvel-hunter like Samuel Purchas. It is cer- 
 tainly not "Coleridge's invention." The Portuguese Alvarez 
 passed by the mountain Amara in Abyssinia and was acquainted 
 with the myth concerning it." Incidentally he speaks of a city 
 
 1 Edinburgh edition (1790), Vol. Ill, p. 158. 
 
 2 A savage place ! as holy and enchanted 
 As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted 
 By woman wailing for her demon-lover! 
 
 ~ Kubla Khan, II. U-16 
 
 3 For example, Bartram's descriptions of Georgia and Florida in his Traveh, etc 
 (Philadelphia, 1791). 
 
 * See the authorities cited in Pierre Daniel Huet's La situation du paradis terrestre 
 (Paris, nil). 
 
 5 Compare Purchas his Pilgrimage (1617), p. 428. 
 
 6 See his account (chap. 54) in Ramusio. 
 
 328 
 
The Abyssinian Paradise in Coleridge and Milton 3 
 
 in that region, called Abra, the name of which may in some way 
 be connected with Coleridge's Abora. 
 
 However, if we do not demand unusual exactitude in the poet's 
 handling of proper names, we need not go far afield to discover 
 his mountain ; no farther, in fact, than the volume which he says 
 he was reading before he fell asleep and dreamed his Kitbla Khan. 
 Purchas has an entire chapter of his Pilgrimage, entitled "Of 
 the Hill Amara," in which he has collected the substance of the 
 stories about that fabulous spot. An excerpt or two from him 
 may serve in identification: 
 
 The hill Amara hath alreadie been often mentioned, and nothing 
 indeed in all Ethiopia more deserueth mention. . . . This hill is situ- 
 ate as the nauil of that Ethiopian body, and center of their Empire, 
 vnder the Equinoctiall line, where the Sun may take his best view 
 thereof, as not encountering in all his long iourny with the like Theatre, 
 wherein the Graces & Muses are actors, no place more graced with 
 Natures store, .... the Sunne himself so in loue with the sight, that 
 
 the first & last thing he vieweth in all those parts is this hill 
 
 Once, Heauen and Earth, Nature and Industrie, have all been corriuals 
 to it, all presenting their best presents, to make it of this so lonely pres- 
 ence, some taking this for the place of our Pore-fathers Paradise. And 
 yet though thus admired of others, as a Paradise, it is made a Prison to 
 some [i. e., the princes of Abyssinia], on whom Nature had bestowed the 
 greatest freedome ' 
 
 This, then, is the Mount Abora of which Coleridge (or his 
 slave-girl) sings, a paradise which he is led to compare with that 
 of Tartary by the most intimate of mental associations. It is 
 also the Mount Amara of Milton's Paradise Lost, occurring in a 
 section of that poem with which I can fancy the author of Kubla 
 Khan as especially familiar; in the fourth book, where Milton 
 offers his marvelous description of the authentic paradise terres- 
 trial, distinguishing it carefully from sundry false claimants: 
 
 Nor, where Abassin kings their issue guard, 
 Mount Amara (though this by some supposed 
 True Paradise) under the Ethiop line 
 By Nilus' head, enclosed with shining rock 
 A whole day's journey high, but wide remote 
 From this Assyrian garden ^ 
 
 1 Purchas (1617), p. 843. 2 Paradise Lost, Book IV, 11. 280-86. 
 
 329 
 
4 Lane Cooper 
 
 When the industrious Todd' pointed out a connection between 
 these lines and Purchas' chapter on Mount Amara, quoting the 
 passage given below from the Pilgrimage, he failed to note that 
 later on in the fourth book Milton had, in spite of his distinction, 
 to all appearances levied on Purchas' description of the false 
 Abyssinian garden for embellishment of the true "Assyrian." 
 Purchas goes on with the account of his "hill." 
 
 It is situate in a gi'eat Plains largely extending it selfe every way, 
 without other hill in the same for the space of 30. leagues, the forme 
 thereof round and circular, the height such, that it is a daies worke to 
 ascend from the foot to the top; round about, the rock is cut so smooth 
 and euen, without any vnequall swellings, that it seemeth to him that 
 stands beneath, like a high wall, whereon the Heauen is as it were propped : 
 and at the top it is over-hanged \vith rocks, tutting forth of the sides the 
 space of a mile, bearing out like mushromes, so that it is impossible to 
 
 ascend it It is above twenty leagues in circuit compassed with a 
 
 wall on the top, well wrought, that neither man nor beast in chase may 
 fall downe. The top is a plaine field, onely toward the South is a rising 
 hill, beautifying this plaine, as it were with a watch-tower, not seruing 
 alone to the eye, but yeelding also a pleasant spring which passeth 
 through all that Plaine .... and making a Lake, whence issueth a River, 
 which hauing from these tops espied Nilus, never leaves seeking to find 
 
 him, whom he cannot leave both to seeke and finde The way vp to 
 
 it is cut out within the Rocke, not with staires, but ascending by little 
 and little, that one may ride vp with ease; it hath also holes cut to let 
 in light, and at the foote of this ascending place, a faire gate, with a 
 Corpus du Giiarde. Halfe way vp is a faire and spacious Hall cut out 
 of the same rocke, with three windowes very large vp wards: the ascent 
 is about the length of a lance and a halfe : and at the top is a gate with 
 
 another gard There are no Cities on the top, but palaces, standing 
 
 by themselves, in number four and thirtie, spacious, sumptuous, and 
 beautifull, where the Princes of the Royall bloud have their abode with 
 their Families. The Souldiers that gard the place dwell in Tents.^ 
 
 This sunlit and symmetrical hill, with its miracle of inner 
 carven passages, may partially explain Coleridge's "sunny dome" 
 and "caves of ice" (why of ice?) which must have puzzled more 
 than one reader in Kubla Khan. The preceding lines from 
 Milton should also be compared, and, as I have hinted, the 
 following as well: 
 
 1 Milton's Poetical Works, ed. Todd (1809), Vol. Ill, pp. 101, 102. 
 2 Purchas (1617), p. 844. 
 
 330 
 
The Abyssinian Pabadise in Coleridge and Milton 5 
 
 .... the setting Sun 
 Slowly descended, and with right aspect 
 Against the eastern gate of Paradise 
 Levelled his evening rays. It was a rock 
 Of alabaster, piled up to the clouds. 
 Conspicuous far, winding with one ascent 
 Accessible from Earth, one entrance high ; 
 The rest was craggy cliff, that overhung 
 Still as it rose, impossible to climb. 
 Betwixt these rocky pillars Gabriel sat. 
 Chief of the angelic guards . . . .' 
 
 There are, it is true, too many points of similarity in the 
 various paradises of The Fathers and geographers to permit the 
 critic to say with great assurance that Milton or Coleridge borrowed 
 this or that embellishment of his mystical inclosure from any one 
 prior writer. We are dealing here, I presume, with a world- 
 old effort of imagination showing certain reappearing essentials 
 of an inherited conception, such as a fountain with outflowing 
 "sinuous rills," a symmetrical mountain, a disappearing "sacred 
 river," all within a wall of measured circuit, and the like, the 
 chief of which may be found in a poem of small compass like 
 Kubla Khan' — probably all of them in the fourth book of Para- 
 dise Lost. In how far Milton may be indebted to Purchas' com- 
 pendium for all sorts of quasi-geographical lore, in addition to 
 the slight obligations already indicated, is a question lying rather 
 in the province of the professed student of Milton. For the 
 present writer, whose interest here is more particularly in Coleridgej 
 it seems enough to point out the relationship between Coleridge's 
 beautiful fragment and Milton's completed masterpiece; to indi- 
 cate, in passing, Milton's greater distinctness and mastery in 
 handling his material ; finally, to suggest, on the basis of this brief 
 paper, that, instead of continuing to treat Kubla Khan as a sort 
 of incomparable hapox legomenon, wholly unexplainable, because 
 
 1 Paradise Lost, Book IV, U. 540-49. 
 
 2 Compare, for example, Coleridge ^s " mighty fountain," " sinuous rills," and " meander- 
 ing " river with the following, quoted by Todd: " In ipso hortorum apice foTis est eximius, 
 qui primfim argenteis aquarum vorticibus ebulliens, moz diffusus in fluvium sinuosis 
 flexibns, atque meeandris concisus oberrat, et felicia arva perennibus foecundat rivulis."— 
 P. Causinus, de Eloq., lib. XI., edit. 1634 (Todd, Milton's Poetical Works [1809], Vol. Ill, pp, 
 95, 96). Cf. Milton, Paradise Lost, Book IV, 11. 223 ff., and the first part of Kubla Khan. 
 
 331 
 
6 Lane Coopek 
 
 incomparable, we shall understand it and its author better if we 
 seek to trace the subtle, yet no less real, connection between them 
 and the literature to which they belong. Specifically, let the 
 reader of Coleridge be also a reader of Coleridge's master, Milton, 
 and the lover of Kubla Khan a lover also of that "pleasant soil" 
 in which "his far more pleasant garden God ordained." ' 
 
 Lane Coopeb. 
 Cornell University. 
 
 1 Paradise Lost, Book IV, 1. 215. 
 
 332 
 
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