This is the first disadvantage of the subject chosen by Milton, that he believed in it too much. The fact that he did so and thought its prose truth all-important at once limited the freedom of his imagination and diverted him from the single-minded pursuit of the proper end of poetry. He was evidently quite unaware of this drawback and it has been little, if at all, noticed by his critics. {152} On the other hand, he was perfectly aware of what would appear to other people to be the disadvantages involved in the choice of a subject so unlike those of previous epics. He speaks more than once of the novelty of this theme, the best-known allusion being the beautiful introduction to Book IX., in which he describes his subject, that of the human sin and the divine anger "That brought into this World a world of woe, Sin and her shadow Death, and Misery, Death's harbinger:" and contrasts it with those other sins and other angers on which Homer and Virgil built their poems. But he is not afraid of the contrast: he thinks it is all to his own advantage-- "Sad task! yet argument Not less but more heroic than the wrath Of stern Achilles on his foe pursued Thrice fugitive about Troy wall; or rage Of Turnus for Lavinia disespoused; Or Neptune's ire or Juno's, that so long Perplexed the Greek, and Cytherea's son: If answerable style I can obtain Of my celestial Patroness who deigns Her nightly visitation unimplored, And dictates to me slumbering, or inspires Easy my unpremeditated verse, {153} Since first this subject for heroic song Pleased me, long choosing and beginning late, Not sedulous by nature to indite Wars, hitherto the only argument Heroic deemed--"