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1. The green border of Paradise
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John Milton
6. Mount Amara in Abyssinia Milton continues with another false paradise, but this one is in Abyssinia,
and involves Mount Amara, where the Abyssinian kings come from, and the
headwaters of the Nile, as it comes up from underneath a lot of rock. Satan sees no joy in the delightful gardens of Eden,
though they are so much more beautiful than the area in Ethiopia, where
the Nile appears.
Lowes postulates that Milton's Mount Amara, described as the "supposed" true
Paradise, reinforces Coleridge's memory of Purchas (which Lowes argues
Milton also read with care), where Purchas describes "the Hill of Amara":
There are two Temples, built before the Raigne of the Queene of Saba, one
in honour of the Sunne, the other of the Moone, the most magnificent in all
Ethiopia. Purchas VII 844.
Perhaps the name Amara merged with the names of rivers such as Abola and
Astaboras and became Abora, in Kubla Khan. Lowes argues:
Mount Amara--its name merged with the name of the river that flowed by the
Mountains of the Moon--was drawn into that concourse of impressions which, as
Coleridge sat sleeping over Purchas, was slipping through the ivory gate.
Glad of some scholarly support, Lowes cites Professor Lane Cooper, who
suggested, in an article on "The Abyssinian Paradise in Coleridge and
Milton," that Coleridge's Mount Abora was really Milton's Mount Amara. 374
Modern Philology, III, 327-32
Text
Nor where Abassin Kings thir issue Guard, |
 Other sources
William Bartram
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