The Complete Poems

by John Milton

188. Publish make publicly known, disseminate a creed (OED 1).

  190–91. converse I With keep company with (OED 2).

  193. bordering desert See below, 354n.

  196–7. thoughts… swarm Cp. Samson’s ‘deadly swarm’ of ‘thoughts’ (SA 19).

  200. sorting corresponding (OED 1).

  201. When I was yet a child See Luke 2 for Christ’s childhood. Jesus’s lines recall some autobiographical statements in M.’s prose. See esp. YP 4. 612.

  203. Serious earnestly bent, keen (OED 1b).

  204–5. myself… truth Cp. John 18. 37: ‘To this end was I born… that I should bear witness unto the truth’.

  207–8. Law… delight Cp. Ps. 1.2 (M.’s translation): ‘Jehovah’s Law is ever his delight’.

  209–14. ere… all Luke 2. 46–50. M. adds the detail that the twelve-year-old Jesus entered the Temple to teach the doctors. Cp. iv 215–20.

  214. admired marvelled at.

  215–19. victorious… pow’r The Gospels give no hint that Jesus had ever wished to oppose violence with violence.

  223. persuasion… fear Cp. RCG (YP 1. 746): ‘Persuasion certainly is a more winning, and more manlike way to keepe men in obedience then feare’. Cp. also Plato, Laws iv 718.

  226. subdue destroy 1671, corr. to subdue in the Errata. Cp. Luke 9. 56: ‘the Son of man is not come to destroy men’s lives’.

  233. express manifest, reveal.

  234. For know The Gospels give no hint that Mary informed Jesus of his divine nature, or that Jesus needed to be told.

  238. messenger Gabriel, who appeared to Mary (Luke 1. 26–33) and Joseph (Matt. 1. 20–23). ‘Angel’ means ‘messenger’.

  253. -grav’n indelibly fixed (OED ‘grave’ v 6b).

  255. Just Simeon Simeon was ‘just and devout’ and ‘it was revealed unto him by the Holy Ghost, that he should not see death, before he had seen the Lord’s Christ’. Simeon recognized the infant Jesus as Messiah (Luke 2. 25–35). See ii 87–91n.

  prophetic Anna The ‘prophetess’ Anna saw Jesus in the same ‘instant’ as Simeon and acknowledged him as the Redeemer (Luke 2. 36–8).

  258. This is the last line of Mary’s speech.

  259. revolved studied, read (OED 5).

  262–3. of whom they spake / I am Cp. the divine ‘1 AM’ at Exod. 3. 14, John 8. 58, and PL viii 316; also Mark 14. 61–2, where the high priest asks: ‘Art thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed? And Jesus said, I am’.

  264. assay affliction (OED 2).

  even to the death Cp. Matt. 26. 38 (Christ’s words in Gethsemane): ‘My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death’. Isa. 53. 3. 12 prophesies the Messiah’s death.

  271. Not knew by sight Cp. John 1. 33: ‘I knew him not’. M. follows Matt. 3. 13–17 in having John recognize the Messiah before the Spirit descends. At John 1. 29–34 the Spirit’s descent causes the recognition.

  274. from above The Bible never hints that Jesus had looked upon John as his superior. When John declared his unworthiness to baptize Jesus, Jesus said ‘Suffer it to be so now’ (Matt. 3. 15).

  279. hardly won persuaded with difficulty.

  281. eternal doors Cp. Ps. 24. 7: ‘everlasting doors’.

  283. sum ultimate end, highest point (OED sb1 13a).

  286–7. the time / Now full Cp. Gal. 4. 4: ‘When the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son’.

  290. motion working of God in the soul (OED 9b). Cp. Samson’s ‘rousing motions’ (SA 1382).

  292. I… not know M. in CD i 5 cites Mark 13. 32 as proof that the Son is not omniscient.

  294. Morning Star Cp. Rev. 22. 16: ‘I am the… bright and morning star’. The star is in its rise because Jesus’s ministry is about to begin. The morning-and-evening star symbolized Christ’s death and Resurrection.

  296. dusk with horrid shades gloomy with bristling trees.

  302. solitude… society Cp. PL viii 427–8, ix 249 and notes.

  303. forty days M. follows Matt. 4. 2 in placing the temptation at the end of the forty days. Mark 1. 13 and Luke 4. 2 say that the temptation itself lasted forty days.

  309. hungered then at last At ii 244 M. says that Jesus first felt hunger during the banquet temptation. Lewalski (202) therefore infers that then means ‘later’, and that Jesus is not hungry now, during the stones-into-bread temptation. See below, 355n.

  310–13. wild beasts… aloof Cp. Mark 1. 13: ‘he was… with the wild beasts’. The beasts grow mild in accordance with Ezek. 34. 25: ‘evil beasts… shall dwell safely in the wilderness’. But the serpent, lion and tiger do not regain the innocence prophesied at Isa. 11. 6–9 and 65. 25 (cp. PL iv 243–4). Contrast Fletcher, CV (1610) ii 3–5, where the lion licks Jesus’s feet and sports with the lamb.

  312. noxious worm harmful snake.

  314. an aged man Renaissance writers and artists often assumed that Satan had appeared in disguise (Pope 43). Spenser’s Archimago (FQ I i 29–30) and Fletcher’s Satan (CV ii 15–18) appear as old hermits, but M.’s Satan seems a simple poor old man, with no pretensions to asceticism. As such, he can feign concern for Jesus’s welfare ‘with an energy that would be highly unbecoming in a pious recluse’ (Pope 47). See also ii 299n, iv 449n.

  315. in quest of some stray ewe Lewalski (118) sees a reference to Satan as ‘a false shepherd’ looking for lost souls.

  316. withered sticks Cp. John 15. 6: ‘If a man abide not in me he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire’.

  324–5. dropped… carcass Cp. Num. 14. 29: ‘Your carcases shall fall in this wilderness’.

  pined wasted.

  326. admire marvel.

  327. For that because.

  328. *baptizing OED’s earliest participial instance.

  333–4. aught… What anything that.

  334. fame rumour.

  337. swain rustic.

  339. stubs stumps of trees, shrubs or plants.

  342–50. But if… God Matt. 4. 3–4 and Luke 4. 3–4.

  347. Is it not written Deut. 8. 3.

  352. Moses… forty days Exod. 24. 18.

  353. forty days Elijah without food I Kings 19. 8.

  354. the same I now At i 193 M. had placed Jesus in the Desert of Quarentana between Jerusalem and Jericho. Now he follows a rival tradition which identified Jesus’s wilderness with that in which the Jews wandered for forty years and Moses and Elijah fasted for forty days. The former desert suits geography; the latter, typology. See Pope 16, 110–12.

  355. suggest prompt to evil (OED 2a).

  distrust The Church Fathers saw the stones-into-bread temptation as an invitation to gluttony. Protestants saw it as an attempt to arouse distrust of God. Cp. Fletcher, CV ii 20, where the marginal note states that Satan tempts Jesus ‘to despaire of Gods providence, and provide for himselfe’. See Pope (57).

  356. Knowing who I am, as I know who thou art Allen (110–12) and Woodhouse (171–2) cite the line as proof that Satan (despite his professed doubts) knows who the Son is. MacCallum (248) (following Carey) thinks that Satan might know Jesus to be ‘Son of God’ without knowing what the title means. But as implies that Satan and the Son know each other in the same way. Cp. Fletcher, CV ii 30: ‘Well knewe our Saviour this the Serpent was, / And the old Serpent knewe our Saviour well’.

  357. now undisguised Satan retains his ‘grey dissimulation’ (i 498), though Jesus has seen through it.

  358. that Spirit unfortunate Satan avoids speaking his name, for he does not want Jesus to think of him as an enemy (see above, 33n, below, 387n). Satan never speaks his name in PR and is ‘abashed’ when Jesus confronts him with it (iv 194).

  363. *unconniving unwinking (OED’s sole instance, from Latin inconivus). Satan implies that God has either connived at Satan’s misdoings or at least ‘shut [His] eyes from neglect’ (OED ‘connive’ 4). At PL x 624 God denies that he would connive with Satan.

  368. I… sons of God Cp. Job 1. 6: ‘The sons of God came to present themselve
s before the Lord, and Satan came also among them’. Satan’s allusion insinuates his own claim to be a ‘son of God’. Cp. iv 517–20.

  369. Uzzéan job Cp. Job 1. 1: ‘There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job’. See iii 94n.

  370. prove put to the test.

  illústrate set in a good light, render illustrious (OED 3, 4). Satan’s real motive had been to make Job curse God (Job 1. 11, 2. 5).

  372–6. Ahab… destruction See I Kings 22.19–35. God sent ‘a lying spirit’ to King Ahab of Israel and so lured him to defeat and death. A. V.’s marginal note to II Chron. 18. 20 (a cross-reference to Job 1. 6) implicitly identifies the ‘lying spirit’ with Satan.

  372. fraud the state of being defrauded (a passive usage unique to M.). Cp. PL vii 143, ix 643.

  373. they demurring while they hesitated.

  375. glibbed rendered fluent and slippery (OED ‘glib’ v1 2, 1).

  383–4. What can be then less in me Satan’s surface meaning is: ‘How can I feel anything less than a desire to see thee?’ but his ‘opposite and truer meaning’ is that he desires ‘nothing… less than thus to confront and listen to Christ’ (Lewalski 351).

  385. attent attentive.

  387. Men… foe Satan again distances himself from his name and identity. See above, 358n, and cp. ii 330, iv 525–7.

  393. disposer distributor (OED 3) and ruler (OED 2). Notice the slipperiness of Satan’s If not. Satan declines to say whether he distributes anything to his human partners, who may be no more than subjects.

  397. Envy malice, enmity (OED i).

  400. proof experience (OED 5).

  401. fellowship… smart The thought (and its opposite) was a classical and Renaissance commonplace. See e.g. Seneca, De Consolatione ad Polybium xii 2, Shakespeare, The Rape of Lucrece 790, Sir Thomas Browne, Christian Morals I xviii.

  402. peculiar own.

  407. composed of lies Cp. John 8. 44: ‘the devil… is a liar, and the father of it’.

  413. the prime the most exalted, highest ranking (angels).

  414. emptied Jesus means ‘devoid of true worth’, but M.’s voice behind him might allude to the Greek version of Phil. 2. 7, where it is Christ who ‘emptied himself’ at the Incarnation. Cp. On the Circumcision 20.

  418. representing displaying to (your) eye (OED 4a) and presenting again (OED ‘re-present’).

  420. never more in Hell than when in Heaven Cp. PL iv 18–23, ix 119–23, 467–8.

  421. serviceable both ‘useful’ and ‘willing to be of service’ (OED Ia), as in Shakespeare, King Lear IV iv 257: ‘A serviceable villain’.

  423. pleasure to do ill Cp. PL i 159–60.

  427. other service Satan’s deception of Ahab (see above, 372–6n).

  428. four hundred mouths Ahab’s prophets numbered ‘about four hundred men’ (I Kings 22. 6).

  430. pretend’st lay claim (with overtones of the modern sense).

  430–35. oracles… deluding The most famous pagan oracles were those of Apollo at Delphi, Zeus at Dodona, and Zeus-Ammon at Siwa. Patristic writers saw them as the work of demons and condemned them for their ambiguity (see Nativity 173n). A notable victim was King Croesus of Lydia, who consulted Delphi before invading Persia. He was told: ‘if you cross the Halys you will destroy a great realm’. He crossed the Halys and lost his own realm.

  433. vent utter.

  436. seldom understood a grudging admission that not all oracles led to disaster. When Xerxes invaded Greece, the Delphic oracle told the Athenians to trust in their ‘wooden walls’. Themistocles understood that the walls were ships.

  442–3. justly… delusions Cp. II Thess. 2. 11: ‘And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie’. The previous verses speak of ‘the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness’ (II Thess. 2. 9).

  446. then i.e. when God declares his Providence. Jesus is drawing a distinction between Satan’s false oracles and God’s true ones. The distinction is also made by Aquinas, who cites the Sibyl’s prophecy of Christ as an instance of a good oracle. See Summa II ii 172 (6).

  447. president presiding. M. in CD i 9 thinks it ‘probable’ that ‘angels are put in charge of nations, kingdoms and particular districts’ (trans. Carey, YP 6. 246).

  452. parasite including the Greek sense: ‘one admitted to the feast after a sacrifice’ (OED Ib). Notice temples (449) and sacrifice (457) and cp. the dictionary definition given by M.’s nephew, Edward Phillips: ’Parasite (among the Ancients) was the Priest’s Guest, whom he invited to eat part of the Sacrifice’.

  454. retrenched cut short, repressed (OED v1 1).

  456. oracles are ceased Cp. Nativity 173 and Mic. 5. 12. The cessation of the oracles was usually dated to the Nativity (see Nativity 173n), or (less often) the Crucifixion. See C. A. Patrides, ‘The Cessation of the Oracles: the History of a Legend’ (MLR 60, 1965, 500–507).

  458. Delphos Delphi, site of Apollo’s oracle.

  460. Oracle divine teacher (OED 3c). The etymology (Latin orare, ‘to speak’) points to Jesus’s identity as ‘the Word’.

  462. Spirit of Truth John 16. 13.

  466. disdain vexation (OED 2), loathing (OED 3).

  474. Say and unsay Cp. PL iv 947–9: ‘To say and straight unsay… Argues no leader, but a liar’.

  476. submiss submissive, lit. ‘placed beneath’. Notice placed above (475).

  477. quit both ‘free, clear’ (OED a 1) and ‘requited for an injury’ (OED v 11 a).

  480. tuneable melodious, sweet-sounding.

  sylvan woodland.

  482–3. Most men… her lore Cp. Rom. 7. 19: ‘For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do’; also Medea’s words in Ovid, Met. vii 20–21: ‘I see the better, I approve it too: / The worse I follow’. Cp. PL viii 611.

  485. I despair to attain Satan does not say what he despairs to attain. He despairs of salvation, but he also wants to ‘detect [Jesus] in an offence’ (OED ‘attain’ 3), and so ‘attaint’ him in the senses: ‘accuse of crime’, ‘infect with corruption’, ‘condemn to death’ (OED 10, 7, 6).

  487. atheous impious (OED 1). Cp. PL i 495 (‘the priest / Turns atheist’).

  488. To tread his sacred courts Cp. Isa. 1. 12: ‘who hath required this at your hand, to tread my courts? Bring no more vain oblations’.

  491. Balaam Balak, King of Moab, ordered Balaam to curse the Israelites, but Balaam blessed them at God’s command (Num. 22–4).

  reprobate morally corrupt (OED 2). M. calls Balaam a ‘Reprobate hireling Priest’ in Of Reformation (YP 1. 589).

  494. scope aim, purpose.

  498. grey dissimulation Cp. Ford, The Broken Heart (1633) IV ii 101: ‘Lay by thy whining grey dissimulation’.

  499. Into thin air diffused Satan vanishes like gods and ghosts in pagan epics (cp. Homer, Od. iv 838–9, Virgil, Aen. iv 278) or the spirits in Shakespeare’s The Tempest that melt ‘into air, into thin air’ (IV i 150).

  500. sullen gloomy.

  double-shade Cp. A Masque 335.

  500–502. Night… roam Cp. Ps. 104. 20: ‘Thou makest darkness, and it is night: wherein all the beasts of the forest do creep forth’; also Shakespeare, Macbeth III ii 50–53.

  THE SECOND BOOK

  1–7. In Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Jesus meets his disciples only after Satan has tempted him. M. finds evidence for an earlier meeting in John 1. 35–42, where two disciples, including Andrew, follow Jesus on the day after his baptism.

  3–4. expressly… declared The voice from Heaven called Jesus Son of God, not Messiah. But Andrew expressly called Jesus ‘the Messias’ at John 1. 41, and John the Baptist implicitly acknowledged him as such at John 1. 27 and 29.

  6. lodged Cp. John 1. 39: ‘They came and saw where he dwelt, and abode with him that day’.

  15. Moses… missing long Exod. 32. 1.

  16. the great Thisbite Elijah, called ‘the Tishbite’ at I Kings 17. 1. See II Ki
ngs 2. 2 for his ascent to Heaven in a chariot of fire (fiery wheels), and cp. PL iii 522.

  17. once again to come Cp. Mai. 4. 5: ‘Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord’.

  18. those young prophets After Elijah’s translation, ‘the sons of the prophets’ sent fifty men in search of him, ‘but found him not’ (II Kings 2. 15–17).

  20. Bethabara the place of Jesus’s baptism (John 1. 28).

  20–21. Jericho / The city of palms Deut. 34. 3.

  21. Aenon… Salem old Cp. John 3. 23: ‘And John was also baptizing in Aenon near to Salim’. Patristic tradition identified Salim with the Salem of Gen. 14. 18 (hence old).

  22. Machaerus a fortress to the east of the Dead Sea, the traditional site of John the Baptist’s execution.

  23. lake Genezaret the Sea of Galilee (Luke 5. 1).

  24. Perea the land east of the Jordan.

  27. Plain fishermen… them call Cp. Spenser, Shep. Cal. Januarye 1: ‘A shepeheards boye (no better doe him call)’, and Phineas Fletcher, Piscatory Eclogues (1633) iii 1: ‘A fisher-lad (no higher dares he look)’.

  34. full of grace and truth John 1. 14.

  36. The kingdom… restored In Acts 1. 6 the disciples ask the risen Christ: ‘Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?’

  38. perplexity distress (OED 1b).

  40. rapt carried off.

  44. the kings of the earth Cp. Ps. 2. 2: ‘The kings of the earth set themselves… against the Lord, and against his anointed’.

  50. his Anointed the Messiah (which means ‘the anointed one’).

  51. Prophet John the Baptist.

  pointed at John 1. 29–37.

  54. he will not fail Cp. Joshua 1. 5: ‘I will not fail thee’.

  67. salute Gabriel’s salutation (Luke 1. 28).

  76. murd’rous king Herod. See Matt. 2. 16.

  87–91. old Simeon… A sword Cp. Luke 2. 34–5: ‘And Simeon blessed them, and said unto Mary his mother, Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel; and for a sign which shall be spoken against; (yea, a sword shall pierce through thy own soul also)’. Cp. i 255–6.

  92. My exaltation Miriam (the Hebrew form of ‘Mary’) was thought to mean ‘exaltation’.