On April 10th, I challenged you to diagram a 153-word sentence from "Paradise Lost."

It all started with a weather report that used the word "haboob," which got me thinking about whether "haboob" is related to "hubbub." It's not. "Hubbub" comes (probably) from the ancient Irish war-cry "ub! ub! ubub!" Looking "hubbub" up in the OED, I came across a snippet from "Paradise Lost": "A universal hubbub wilde Of stunning sounds and voices all confus'd." I wanted the complete sentence and found what I thought was the whole thing, a passage 153 words long.

Today, I get an email from Clark who says, "I have been noodling your sentence from Paradise Lost. Here is my attempt." He informs me that the 153-word text in my post is not the full sentence. There's an opening clause, and it seems to have been harder to diagram the sentence without these additional 30 words. Here's the diagram Clark sent me (click and click again to enlarge and clarify):



Here's the full 183 word passage from John Milton's magnificent poem.

As when a Gryfon through the Wilderness
With winged course ore Hill or moarie Dale,
Pursues the Arimaspian, who by stelth
Had from his wakeful custody purloind
The guarded Gold:
So eagerly the fiend
Ore bog or steep, through strait, rough, dense or rare,
With head, hands, wings, or feet pursues his way,
And swims or sinks or wades, or creeps, or flyes:
At length a universal hubbub wilde
Of stunning sounds and voices all confus'd
Born through the hollow dark assaults his eare
With loudest vehemence: thither he plyes,
Undaunted to meet there whatever power
Or spirit of the nethermost Abyss
Might in that noise reside, of whom to ask
Which way the nearest coast of darkness lyes
Bordering on light; when strait behold the Throne
Of Chaos, and his dark pavilion spread
Wide on the wasteful deep; with him Enthron'd
Sat Sable-vested Night, eldest of things,
The Consort of his Reign; and by them stood
Orcus and Ades, and the dreaded name
Of Demogorgon; Rumor next and Chance,
And Tumult and Confusion all imbroil'd,
And Discord with a thousand various mouths.

Thanks SO much to Clark for taking on the challenge. He says he now wants to read "Paradise Lost," so I hope the experience of diagramming a sentence builds appreciation for the writing. It seems ridiculous to make sentences that long, but I want to believe all the parts hang together and to diagram the sentence is to demonstrate that they do. Nice!

UPDATE: Clark emails:

To answer your question, diagramming the sentence made me appreciate the poetry by letting me get to know the passage intimately. It was just a wall of words before, but now (I just reread the passage) it makes sense to me in every twist and turn. E.g., the phrase "And swims or sinks or wades, or creeps, or flyes" has a rhythm to it that is created by those two commas. Diagramming it brought that home to me in a way that I would have missed by just reading it. I am serious about now wanting to read the whole poem.