please help me: does the first five lines in Book I conclude grammatical error?

I wanna recite PL. As a matter of fact, I am done with Book I. But I still feel puzzled at the first 5 lines:

OF MAN’S first disobedience, and the fruit
Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste
Brought death into the World, and all our woe,
With loss of Eden, till one greater Man
Restore us, and regain the blissful Seat, 5

According to my personal knowledge, it seems that the sentence above mentioned should be "till one greater Man/Restores us, and regains the blissful Seat".

Whether "till one greater Man/Restore us, and regain the blissful Seat" has anything wrong?

Thanks!

No, it's not wrong. It's just an example of the English subjunctive, like in the phrase, "'til kingdom come".

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Originally Posted by bluevictim

No, it's not wrong. It's just an example of the English subjunctive, like in the phrase, "'til kingdom come".

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Many thanks! Now I got it: this kind of subjunctive mood was used in old English. Currently, few persons use it like that. Thank you again!

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Originally Posted by recitePL

Many thanks! Now I got it: this kind of subjunctive mood was used in old English. Currently, few persons use it like that. Thank you again!

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You're welcome :). May your recitation project go well!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by recitePL

I wanna recite PL. As a matter of fact, I am done with Book I. But I still feel puzzled at the first 5 lines:

OF MAN’S first disobedience, and the fruit
Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste
Brought death into the World, and all our woe,
With loss of Eden, till one greater Man
Restore us, and regain the blissful Seat, 5

According to my personal knowledge, it seems that the sentence above mentioned should be "till one greater Man/Restores us, and regains the blissful Seat".

Whether "till one greater Man/Restore us, and regain the blissful Seat" has anything wrong?

Thanks!

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Actually, the reason you think it's a wrong sentence doesn't have to do with subjunctives, but because you're reading it wrong: you're NOT supposed to stop on "blissful seat" because the verse paragraph is still INCOMPLETE. For that sentence to make sense in it's entirety, and you have to find the MAIN VERB, which in that verse paragraph would be "Sing."

This is because the main essence of the verse paragraph is for the muse to SING of all these things and to "Sing" of the regaining of the blissful seat (the word SING is when it goes from past tense to present, and it's the main ACTION of the verse paragraph). Without this main verb, the sentence doesn't make sense, and the first five lines you posted are just part of the whole paragraph, so you have to read the whole verse paragraph and can't stop just five lines from the start.