Read Paradise Lost (Modern Library Classics) Online
Authors: John Milton,William Kerrigan,John Rumrich,Stephen M. Fallon
453.
Earthly
: earthly nature.
454.
stood under
: been exposed to.
462–82.
Cp.
Sonnet
23
.
466.
cordial spirits
: vital spirits residing in the heart’s blood.
481.
When out of hope
: when I had ceased to hope.
494.
nor enviest
: nor given reluctantly, begrudgingly.
499.
one heart, one soul
: an addition to Gen. 2.23–24, again suggesting companionate marriage (see 450n).
502.
conscience
: internal awareness. Cp. Eve’s account of her initial turning away at 4.477–80.
509.
obsequious
: acquiescent (not servile).
511.
blushing
: Most blushes in the fallen world indicate shame. But there are innocent blushes, too, compounded of shyness and a sense of awe at participating in a great thing. The syntax leaves open the possibility that Adam is also blushing.
513.
influence
: emanation from the heavens, here entirely favorable; cp. 10.661–64.
519.
ev’ning star
: Hesperus or Venus, whose appearance in the sky is a signal in the epithalamium tradition to light the bridal lamps and torches and bring the bride to the bride-groom. See Spenser,
Epithalamion
286–95;
DDD
in
MLM
873–74.
532–33.
Cp.
SA
1003–1007.
536.
subducting
: subtracting.
537–39.
Cp.
SA
1025–30.
547.
absolute
: complete, perfect; Adam earlier used the word of God (ll. 419–21n).
553.
Looses
: goes to pieces.
555.
As one intended first
: Adam sees Eve as himself.
556.
Occasionally
: on the occasion of Adam’s request.
559.
guard angelic placed
: “Adam has just used, by ironic anticipation, the image of Paradise after he has been excluded from it,” Frye wrote (1965, 64), thinking of 12.641–44.
562.
diffident
: mistrustful.
572.
self-esteem
: Milton may well have coined the term in
Apology;
see
MLM
850 (Leonard).
574.
head
: “The head of the woman is the man” (1 Cor. 11.3).
575.
shows
: appearances. Turner finds the passage “particularly appalling” (280) because he takes
shows
to mean “pretenses, wiles,” as if Eve were deliberately nurturing her husband’s uxoriousness.
576.
adorn
: adorned.
577.
awful
: awe-inspiring.
583.
divulged
: done openly.
591–92.
the scale … ascend:
Earthly love as the
scale
or ladder by which we may ascend to
Heav’nly love
is a central feature of Neoplatonic works such as Marsilio Ficino’s
Commentary on Plato’s Symposium
and Spenser’s
Four Hymns
.
598.
genial
: nuptial. As before he demonstrated his freedom in disputing with God (ll. 379–97, 412–33), so here Adam rejects Raphael’s insistence that marital sexuality is no more than what animals do. He rather values it with the
reverence
appropriate to religious mysteries. Cp.
Tetrachordon
(
MLM
1004).
608.
foiled
: overcome.
617.
virtual
: in effect, not actually (modifies
touch
). Adam imagines three ways in which angels might express love (if they do): by looks, by mingling their radiance, or by actual (
immediate
) touch. Cp. his earlier interest in whether angels eat what humans eat (5.401–403, 466–67).
618–19.
Todd: “Does not Milton here mean that the Angel both smiled and blushed at Adam’s curiosity?” He does, and goes on to say that a red blush is love’s
proper
, correct or natural,
hue
. Cp. 511n.
624–25.
The passage has in mind the criticism of sexual intercourse voiced at the opening of Book 4 of Lucretius’
On the Nature of Things
. Human lovers desire full union, such as that enjoyed by Milton’s angels, but are repeatedly frustrated in having to make do with the friction of surfaces: “Again they in each other would be lost,/But still by adamantine bars are crossed” (trans. John Dryden).
624.
In eminence
: in an elevated manner.
625.
exclusive
: excluding.
628.
restrained conveyance
: restraining transportation (such as the human body). Angels can apparently mix at a distance, uniting what Adam considered a disjunctive choice between
virtual
and
immediate touch
(l. 617).
631.
green cape
: Cape Verde;
verdant isles:
the Cape Verde Islands off the west (
Hesperean
) coast of Africa.
645.
Since to part
: since we must part.
Satan having compassed the Earth, with meditated guile returns as a mist by night into Paradise, enters into the serpent sleeping. Adam and Eve in the morning go forth to their labors, which Eve proposes to divide in several places, each laboring apart. Adam consents not, alleging the danger, lest that enemy, of whom they were forewarned, should attempt her found alone. Eve, loath to be thought not circumspect or firm enough, urges her going apart, the rather desirous to make trial of her strength. Adam at last yields: the serpent finds her alone; his subtle approach, first gazing, then speaking, with much flattery extolling Eve above all other creatures. Eve, wondering to hear the serpent speak, asks how he attained to human speech and such understanding not till now. The serpent answers, that by tasting of a certain tree in the garden he attained both to speech and reason, till then void of both. Eve requires him to bring her to that tree, and finds it to be the Tree of Knowledge forbidden. The serpent now grown bolder, with many wiles and arguments induces her at length to eat. She, pleased with the taste, deliberates a while whether to impart thereof to Adam or not, at last brings him of the fruit, relates what persuaded her to eat thereof. Adam at first amazed, but perceiving her lost, resolves through vehemence of love to perish with her, and extenuating the trespass eats also of the fruit. The effects thereof in them both: they seek to cover their nakedness; then fall to variance and accusation of one another.
No more
1
of talk where God or angel guest
With man, as with his friend, familiar
2
used
To sit indulgent, and with him partake
Rural repast, permitting him the while
Venial
5
discourse unblamed: I now must change
Those notes to tragic; foul distrust, and breach
Disloyal on the part of man, revolt,
And disobedience; on the part of Heav’n,
Now alienated, distance and distaste,
Anger and just rebuke, and judgment giv’n,
That brought into this world a world of woe,
Sin and her shadow Death, and Misery,
Death’s harbinger: sad task, yet
13
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
19
the Greek and Cytherea’s son;
If answerable
20
style I can obtain
Of my celestial patroness, who deigns
Her nightly visitation unimplored
22
,
And dictates to me slumb’ring, or inspires
Easy my unpremeditated
24
verse:
Since first this subject for heroic song
Pleased me long choosing, and beginning late;
Not sedulous by nature to indite
27
Wars, hitherto the only argument
Heroic deemed, chief mast’ry to dissect
With long and tedious havoc fabled knights
In battles feigned; the better fortitude
Of patience and heroic martyrdom
Unsung; or to describe races and games,
Or tilting furniture
34
, emblazoned shields,
Impresses quaint, caparisons and steeds;
Bases and tinsel trappings, gorgeous knights
At joust and tournament; then marshalled feast
37
Served up in hall with sewers and seneschals;
The skill of artifice or office
39
mean,
Not that which justly gives heroic name
To person or to poem. Me of these
Nor skilled nor studious, higher argument
Remains, sufficient of itself to raise
That name
44
, unless an age too late, or cold
Climate, or years
45
damp my intended wing
Depressed
46
, and much they may, if all be mine,
Not hers who brings it nightly to my ear.
The sun was sunk, and after him the star
Of Hesperus
49
, whose office is to bring
Twilight upon the Earth, short arbiter
’Twixt day and night, and now from end to end
Night’s hemisphere had veiled the horizon round:
When Satan who late fled before the threats
Of Gabriel out of Eden, now improved
In meditated fraud and malice, bent
On man’s destruction, maugre
56
what might hap
Of heavier on himself, fearless returned.
By night he fled
58
, and at midnight returned
From compassing the Earth, cautious of day,
Since Uriel, Regent of the Sun, descried
His entrance, and forewarned the Cherubim
That kept their watch; thence full of anguish driv’n,
The space of seven continued nights he rode
With darkness, thrice the equinoctial line
He circled, four times crossed the car of night
From pole to pole, traversing each colure;
On the eighth returned, and on the coast averse
67
From entrance or Cherubic watch, by stealth
Found unsuspected way. There was a place,
Now not, though sin, not time, first wrought the change,
Where Tigris at the foot of Paradise
Into a gulf shot underground, till part
Rose up a fountain by the Tree of Life;
In with the river sunk, and with it rose
Satan involved in rising mist, then sought
Where to lie hid; sea he had searched and land
From Eden
77
over Pontus, and the pool
Maeotis, up beyond the river Ob;
Downward as far Antarctic; and in length
West from Orontes to the ocean barred
At Darien, thence to the land where flows
Ganges and Indus: thus the orb he roamed
With narrow search; and with inspection deep
Considered every creature, which of all
Most opportune might serve his wiles, and found
The serpent subtlest beast of all the field.
Him after long debate, irresolute
Of thoughts revolved, his final sentence chose
Fit vessel, fittest imp
89
of fraud, in whom
To enter, and his dark suggestions hide
From sharpest sight: for in the wily snake,
Whatever sleights none would suspicious mark,
As from his wit and native subtlety
93
Proceeding, which in other beasts observed
Doubt might beget of diabolic pow’r
Active within beyond the sense of brute.
Thus he resolved, but first from inward grief
His bursting passion into plaints thus poured:
“O Earth, how like to Heav’n, if not preferred
More justly, seat worthier of gods, as built
With second thoughts, reforming what was old!
For what god after better worse would build?
Terrestrial Heav’n,
103
danced round by other heav’ns
That shine, yet bear their bright officious lamps,
Light above light, for thee alone, as seems,
In thee concent’ring all their precious beams
Of sacred influence: as God in Heav’n
Is center, yet extends to all, so thou
Cent’ring receiv’st from all those orbs; in thee,
Not in themselves, all their known virtue appears
Productive in herb, plant, and nobler birth
Of creatures animate with gradual life
Of growth, sense, reason
113
, all summed up in man.
With what delight could I have walked thee round,
If I could joy in aught, sweet interchange
Of hill and valley, rivers, woods and plains,
Now land, now sea, and shores with forest crowned,
Rocks, dens, and caves; but I in none of these
Find place or refuge; and the more I see
Pleasures about me, so much more I feel
Torment within me, as from the hateful siege
121
Of contraries; all good to me becomes
Bane, and in Heav’n much worse would be my state.
But neither here seek I, no nor in Heav’n
To dwell, unless by mast’ring Heav’n’s Supreme;
Nor hope to be myself less miserable
By what I seek, but others to make such
As I, though thereby worse to me redound:
For only in destroying I find ease
To my relentless thoughts; and him destroyed,
Or won to what may work his utter loss,
For whom all this was made, all this will soon
Follow, as to him linked in weal or woe;
In woe then, that destruction wide may range:
To me shall be the glory sole among
The infernal Powers, in one day to have marred
What he Almighty styled, six nights and days
Continued making, and who knows how long
Before had been contriving, though perhaps
Not longer than since I in one night freed
From servitude inglorious well nigh half
Th’ angelic name
142
, and thinner left the throng
Of his adorers: he to be avenged,
And to repair his numbers
144
thus impaired,
Whether such virtue spent of old now failed
More angels to create, if they at least
Are his created, or to spite us more,
Determined to advance into our room
A creature formed of earth, and him endow,
Exalted from so base original,
With Heav’nly spoils, our spoils: what he decreed
He effected; man he made, and for him built
Magnificent this world, and Earth his seat,
Him lord pronounced, and, O indignity!
Subjected to his service angel wings,
And flaming ministers to watch and tend
Their earthy charge: of these the vigilance
I dread, and to elude, thus wrapped in mist
Of midnight vapor glide obscure, and pry
In every bush and brake, where hap may find
The serpent sleeping, in whose mazy folds
To hide me, and the dark intent I bring.
O foul descent! That I who erst contended
With gods to sit the highest, am now constrained
Into a beast, and mixed with bestial slime,
This essence
166
to incarnate and imbrute,
That to the highth of deity aspired;
But what will not ambition and revenge
Descend to? Who aspires must down as low
As high he soared, obnoxious
170
first or last
To basest things. Revenge, at first though sweet
171
,
Bitter ere long back on itself recoils
172
;
Let it; I reck not, so it light well aimed,
Since higher
174
I fall short, on him who next
Provokes my envy, this new favorite
Of Heav’n, this man of clay, son of despite
176
,
Whom us the more to spite his Maker raised
From dust: spite then with spite is best repaid.”
So saying, through each thicket dank or dry,
Like a black mist low creeping, he held on
His midnight search, where soonest he might find
The serpent: him fast sleeping soon he found
In labyrinth of many a round self-rolled,
His head the midst, well stored with subtle wiles:
Not yet in horrid shade or dismal den,
Nor nocent
186
yet, but on the grassy herb
Fearless unfeared he slept: in at his mouth
The Devil entered, and his brutal sense,
In heart or head, possessing soon inspired
With act intelligential, but his sleep
Disturbed not, waiting close
191
th’ approach of morn.
Now whenas sacred light began to dawn
In Eden on the humid flow’rs, that breathed
Their morning incense, when all things that breathe,
From th’ Earth’s great altar send up silent praise
To the Creator, and his nostrils fill
With grateful smell, forth came the human pair
And joined their vocal worship to the choir
Of creatures wanting voice; that done, partake
The season, prime for sweetest scents and airs;
Then commune how that day they best may ply
Their growing work: for much their work outgrew
The hands’ dispatch of two gard’ning so wide.
And Eve first to her husband thus began.
“Adam, well may we labor still
205
to dress
This garden, still to tend plant, herb and flow’r,
Our pleasant task enjoined, but till more hands
Aid us, the work under our labor grows,
Luxurious by restraint; what we by day
Lop overgrown, or prune, or prop, or bind,
One night or two with wanton growth derides
Tending to wild. Thou therefore now advise
Or hear
213
what to my mind first thoughts present;
Let us divide our labors, thou where choice
Leads thee, or where most needs, whether to wind
215
The woodbine round this arbor, or direct
The clasping ivy where to climb, while I
In yonder spring
218
of roses intermixed
With myrtle, find what to redress
219
till noon:
For while so near each other thus all day
Our task we choose, what wonder if so near
Looks intervene and smiles, or object new
Casual discourse draw on, which intermits
Our day’s work brought to little, though begun
Early, and th’ hour of supper comes unearned.”
To whom mild answer Adam thus returned.
“Sole Eve, associate sole, to me beyond
Compare above all living creatures dear,
Well hast thou motioned, well thy thoughts employed
How we might best fulfill the work which here
God hath assigned us, nor of me shalt pass
Unpraised: for nothing lovelier can be found
In woman than to study household good,
And good works in her husband to promote.
Yet not so strictly hath our Lord imposed
Labor, as to debar us when we need
Refreshment, whether food, or talk between,
Food of the mind, or this sweet intercourse
Of looks and smiles, for smiles from reason flow,
To brute denied, and are of love the food
240
,
Love not the lowest end of human life.
For not to irksome toil, but to delight
He made us, and delight to reason joined.
These paths and bowers doubt not but our joint hands
Will keep from wilderness with ease, as wide
As we need walk, till younger hands ere long
Assist us: but
247
if much converse perhaps
Thee satiate, to short absence I could yield.
For solitude
249
sometimes is best society,
And short retirement urges sweet return.
But other doubt possesses me, lest harm
Befall thee severed from me; for thou know’st
What hath been warned us, what malicious foe
Envying our happiness, and of his own
Despairing, seeks to work us woe and shame
By sly assault; and somewhere nigh at hand
Watches, no doubt, with greedy hope to find