The Complete Poems (Penguin Classics)

by John Milton

  521. state original, flourishing, prosperous condition (OED 6a), exalted position (OED 16).

  526. vehement both ‘ardent’ and ‘deprived of the mind’ (from Latin vehe mens).

  530. Transported enraptured, but ‘transport’ could also mean ‘banish’ (OED 2c), so Adam speaks with dramatic irony.

  531. Commotion mental perturbation, excitement (OED 5).

  535. proof impervious.

  sustain withstand (OED 8a).

  536. subducting subtracting.

  539. exact finished, refined, perfect (OED 1).

  547. absolute complete, perfect (OED 4), independent (OED 7).

  553. Looses becomes unstable (OED 5), as in: ‘the hole frame of the joyntes of his body dissolved and losed’ (1526). Many editors modernize to ‘loses’, but Adam’s point is that he goes to pieces even when he wins an argument with Eve.

  556. Occasionally incidentally (OED 2b), on the occasion of Adam’s request. Eve was made for Adam, but not as an afterthought.

  consúmmate make perfect (OED 3).

  562. diffident mistrustful (OED 1).

  563–4. she… her Wisdom.

  565–6. things / Less excellent Eve is less excellent than Adam (570–75), but her outside (568) is also less excellent than her own inner wisdom (578).

  569–70. thy love / Not thy subjection i.e. ‘love her, don’t subject yourself to her’. See x 153 and note.

  572. *self-esteem OED’s earliest instance is from 1657, but M. coined the term in An Apology for Smectymnuus (1642), where he boasts of his ‘honest haughtinesse, and self-esteem either of what I was, or what I might be’ (YP 1. 890).

  574. head Cp. I Cor. 11. 3: ‘the head of the woman is the man’.

  576. *adorn adorned (sole adjectival instance in OED).

  577. awful awe-inspiring.

  578. who sees… wise See x 925–7 and xi 163 for instances of Eve’s wisdom. Cp. also Ariosto’s view that a woman’s intuition is a special gift from Heaven (Orl. Fur. xxvii 1).

  583. divulged *imparted generally (OED 3, sole instance), with overtones of ‘reveal a secret’ (love-making as a ‘mystery’). See below, 599n.

  590. heart enlarges including ‘makes wise’. See i 444n.

  591. scale ladder (the neo-Platonic ladder of love).

  598. genial nuptial, generative. Cp. iv 712.

  599. mysterious St Paul describes marriage as ‘a great mystery’ (Eph. 5. 32), patterned after Christ’s union with his Church. Cp. iv 743.

  601. decencies *decent or becoming acts (OED 4).

  607. subject not do not make me subject to her.

  608. foiled overcome.

  609–10. from… representing variously represented to me by the senses.

  611. Approve… approve Cp. Ovid’s Medea committing herself to evil: ‘I see the better, I approve it too: / The worse I follow’ (Met. vii 20–21, trans. Sandys).

  617. virtual in essence or effect, though not actually (OED 4a).

  immediate involving actual contact (OED 2a). Virtual love-making would be limited to looks; immediate love-making would include touch.

  619. proper distinctive, morally commendable, comely. M. approved of both sexes blushing in the context of love. See above, 511n. Critics have disapproved of Raphael’s blush, and Waldock (108) mocks it; but Raphael’s blush is ‘a delightful touch’ (Flannagan), and a natural response to Adam’s embarrassing question.

  624. In eminence eminently, surpassingly.

  626. Easier… embrace Devils had been thought to mate with women (see v 446–50n), but amorous encounters between angels were rare in angelology. Editors compare Henry More, The Immortality of the Soul (1659), where angels are ‘mutual Spectators of the perfect pulchritude of one anothers persons’ (III ix 4), but this is at best virtual rather than immediate love-making. West (172) finds no ‘hint’ of ‘amorous… penetration’ in More.

  628. restrained conveyance restricted mode of expression. Raphael might be thinking of monogamy as well as physical bars of joint or limb. Cp. Mark 12. 25: ‘the angels which are in heaven’ ‘neither marry, nor are given in marriage’. Cp. M.’s covert allusion to polygamy at iv 762.

  631. green cape Cape Verde.

  verdant isles the Cape Verde Islands, off West Africa.

  632. Hesperian in the west (OED 1), suggesting also the Hesperian Isles, with which the Cape Verde Islands were sometimes identified.

  634–5. love… command Cp. I John 5. 3: ‘this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments’.

  637. admit permit (OED 2a).

  639. persevering continuing in a state of grace (OED 1e).

  641. arbitrament free choice (OED 1).

  642. require call upon, look for (OED 9).

  649. condescension See above, 9n.

  BOOK IX

  1–47. The induction to book ix refers to the Muse in the third person (21), but never invokes her. Contrast the invocations at i 1–49 and vii 1–50, and cp. iii 1–55, where M. invokes Light but not the Muse (see iii 19n;).

  1. No more of talk both ‘no more talk about conversation’ and ‘no more conversation’.

  2. familiar both ‘on a family footing’ (OED 2) and ‘familiar (guardian) angel’ (OED 2d).

  5. Venial permissible, blameless (OED 3). Orgel and Goldberg object that unblamed ‘would make no sense’ if Adam were blameless. They conclude that Adam ‘is at fault’, though ‘not seriously’, for his ‘inquisitiveness about astronomy’. But unblamed is a Latin use of the past participle and means ‘unblameable’. Cp. iii 4, iv 493, 987 and A Masque 793. M. also plays on Latin venialis, ‘gracious’.

  6. breach breaking of a command (OED 3) and break-up of friendly relations (OED 5b).

  9. distance including ‘aloofness’.

  distaste aversion and disrelish.

  13 (and 28). argument subject-matter (OED 6).

  14–15. wrath… Achilles Homer’s subject in the Iliad (i 1). See Il. xxii 136f. for Achilles’ pursuit of Hector.

  16–17. rage / Of Turnus Turnus, King of the Rutuli, was a suitor of Lavinia, daughter of King Latinus. He made war on the Trojans when Latinus gave Lavinia to Aeneas (Virgil, Aen. vii).

  17. *disespoused OED’s sole instance.

  18. Neptune’s ire Odysseus (the Greek) incurred Poseidon’s anger when he blinded Poseidon’s son, Polyphemus (Homer, Od. ix 526–35).

  or Juno’s Juno hated Aeneas because his mother Venus (Cytherea) had defeated her in the beauty contest judged by Paris (see v 381–2n).

  19. Perplexed *tormented (OED 1b).

  20. answerable fitting, corresponding.

  22. nightly visitation See vii 29n.

  *unimplored.

  26. long choosing, and beginning late See headnote to PL (p. 711).

  29. dissect both ‘cut to pieces’ and ‘anatomize’. Classical and Italian epics give precise details in describing wounds.

  33. races and games See ii 528–55n.

  34–7. Turning from the classical epic, M. now rejects medieval romances and Renaissance romance epics.

  34. tilting furniture accoutrements for jousting.

  *emblazoned OED’s earliest participial instance.

  35. Impreses heraldic devices (often with a motto).

  quaint cunningly designed (OED 3), haughty (OED 9). caparisons ornamental coverings (or armour) for horses.

  36. Bases cloth coverings for horses (OED sb3 1).

  tinsel trappings Spenser equips the horses of Duessa (FQ I ii 13) and Florimell (FQ III i 15) with ‘tinsell trappings’.

  37. *marshalled feast a feast with the guests placed at table according to rank (OED ‘marshal’ 2). OED’s earliest participial instance.

  38. sewers attendants at a feast who supervised the seating of the guests. seneschals stewards.

  39. artifice *mechanic art, artificer’s work (OED 1b).

  43. raise both ‘evoke’ and ‘raise to a new level’.

  44. That name of epic.

  age too late In his po
em Naturam non pati senium M. had argued against the theory that the world is decaying, but in RCG he fears that something ‘advers in our climat, or the fate of the age’ might inhibit the epic poet (YP 1. 814).

  44–5. cold / Climate Aristotle had said that cold climates dull intelligence (Politics VII vii 1) and the idea troubles M. in Mansus 24–9, RCG and Of Education (YP 1. 814, 2. 383).

  45. years M. was fifty-eight in 1667.

  damp stupefy, benumb (OED 2) and dampen (cold Climate).

  intended both ‘purposed’ and ‘outstretched’ (wing).

  46. Depressed lowered (wing) and dejected (spirits).

  49. Hesperus Venus, the evening star.

  54. improved augmented, made worse (OED 4).

  56. maugre despite.

  63. seven continued nights Satan experiences a week of darkness by flying in the earth’s shadow, thus eluding the eye of Uriel in the sun (60). But M. nods when he places Satan in darkness From pole to pole. Earth’s poles were in perpetual daylight before the Fall (x 680–87). Fowler sees a ‘deliberate prolepsis’ as Satan describes ‘a fallen world’, but even in the fallen world darkness extends only to one pole at a time.

  65. car of Night the earth’s shadow (conceived as the chariot of Nox, goddess of night).

  66. colure one of two great circles intersecting at right angles at the poles and dividing the equinoctial circle into four equal segments.

  67. coast averse side turned away. The sentries are stationed in the east of Paradise (iv 542); Satan enters from the north (iv 223).

  77. Pontus the Black Sea.

  78. Maeotis the Sea of Azov. The river Ob flows from Siberia into the Arctic Ocean.

  80. Orontes a river in Syria.

  ocean barred God sets ‘bars and doors’ for the sea at Job 38. 10.

  81. Darien Panama.

  87. irresolute undecided.

  89. Fit vessel Cp. Rom. 9. 22: ‘What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction’. See also Acts 9. 15, and II Tim. 2. 21.

  89. imp child of the Devil (OED 4a), evil spirit (OED 4b).

  90. suggestions temptations.

  95. Doubt suspicion.

  104–5. officious… for thee alone Contrast Raphael’s words at viii 98–9: ‘Yet not to earth are those bright luminaries / Officious, but to thee earth’s habitant’.

  107–8. God… extends to all Fowler compares the Renaissance commonplace that ‘God is an infinite sphere, whose centre is everywhere, whose circumference nowhere’. Cp. vii 170.

  110. Not… appears Contrast iii 606–12 where the sun’s ‘elixir pure’ arises from its own ‘rivers’, ‘fields and regions’. See also iii 565–71, viii 148–58.

  112. gradual gradated, in steps.

  113. growth, sense, reason the vegetable, animal, and rational souls (see v 484–5).

  118. Rocks, dens, and caves Satan’s celebration of the earth’s beauty carries a melancholy echo from Hell: ‘Rocks, caves, lakes, fens, bogs, dens, and shades of death’ (ii 621).

  120–1. siege / Of contraries Satan is besieged by Pleasures which throw his Torment into acute contrast. Thus M. inverts the allegorical siege, in which it was ‘Satan, with pleasure as his ally, who beleaguered the human soul’ (Fowler). One such allegorical siege is found in Spenser, FQ II xi 6, where Maleger besieges the castle of Alma with various pleasures, deploying them ‘Where each might… his contrary obiect most deface’ (FQ II xi 6).

  123. Bane poison, destruction, woe.

  144. to repair his numbers God does create us to ‘repair’ a ‘detriment’ (vii 152–3), but Satan does not constrain our numbers. See iii 289 and vii 150–56n.

  145. virtue power.

  148–9. into our room… earth So Tasso’s Satan despises ‘Vile man, begot of clay, and born of dust’ who will possess Heaven ‘in our place’ (Gerus. Lib. iv 10), trans. Fairfax (1600).

  150. original origin.

  151. spoils Satan means ‘spoils of war’, but Fowler notes a secondary meaning whereby he ‘unwittingly prophesies’ the Incarnation. Exalted human nature was ‘often referred to as “spoil”’. The context evokes a third meaning: ‘skin of a snake’ (OED 6). Man’s ‘spoil’ is exalted, Satan’s debased.

  156. flaming ministers Cp. Ps. 104. 4 (‘his… ministers a flaming fire’) and Heb. 1. 14 (‘Are they not all ministering spirits?’).

  164. Gods Most modernizing editors read ‘gods’ (angels), but Satan is more likely referring to the Father and the Son, for it is they who sit the highest. Cp. Lucifer’s words at Isa. 14. 13–14: ‘I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation… I will be like the most High’.

  constrained compressed, forced, imprisoned (OED 7, 1, 8).

  166. incarnate the Satanic counterpart to the Messiah’s Incarnation.

  170. obnoxious exposed, liable to punishment (OED Ia, 2). Satan is also ‘injurious’ (OED 5) to the serpent, whom he makes noxious or nocent (186).

  172–4. recoils… well aimed… fall short Cp. the ‘devilish engine’ that ‘recoils’ on Satan at iv 17.

  173. reck care.

  174. higher I fall short ‘I fall short when I aim higher’.

  176. despite both (God’s) ‘spite’ (OED 4) and (Satan’s) ‘contempt’ (OED 1).

  180. black mist low creeping Cp. Lucretius’s description of a spreading plague (De Rerum Nat. vi 1120–21): aer inimicus serpere coepit, / ut nebula ac nubes paulatim repit (‘the baleful air begins to creep, and glides like mist or cloud’). The connection with Satan is fortified by inimicus and serpere. Cp. x 695, where postlapsarian exhalations are ‘pestilent’.

  183. labyrinth home of the monstrous Minotaur.

  186. Nor] Ed II; Not Ed I.

  nocent both ‘harmful’ and ‘guilty’ (OED 1, 2), the opposite of ‘innocent’.

  188. brutal animal.

  191. close concealed, confined, stifled.

  197. grateful pleasing, and full of gratitude.

  198–9. choir… wanting voice the musical silence of Paradise. Cp. iv 600–604.

  200. airs breezes and melodies.

  204. Eve… began Eve has never before spoken first. Her plain Adam (205) is also unprecedented.

  205. still continually.

  209. Luxurious luxuriant (OED 4), but the pejorative sense (cp. i 498, 722, xi 711, 784) adds an ominous overtone taken up by wanton (211).

  213. hear] Ed I; bear Ed II.

  216–17. direct… where to climb i.e. around the masculine elm. In her new spirit of independence, Eve speaks dismissively about an emblem of wifely dependence. Contrast v 215–16 where she and Adam ‘led the vine / To wed her elm’.

  218. spring grove of young trees.

  219. redress set upright (OED Ia).

  227. Sole… sole Unrivalled… only. The same pun as at iv 411, but here the context also suggests ‘unaccompanied by another’ (OED 2a), so associate sole is an oxymoron.

  229. motioned proposed.

  249. solitude… society See viii 427–8n.

  265. Or whether.

  270. virgin majesty ‘Virginity’ in Puritan usage included chaste marriage (see A Masque 787n).

  272. composure *calmness, collectedness. The extant sense (OED 11). Earlier senses included ‘temperament’ (OED 6c) and ‘posture, pose’ (OED 7).

  275–6. by thee informed… overheard Eve had been ‘attentive’ to all of Raphael’s story about Satan (vii 51), so it is odd that she should now speak as if she had heard only his parting words – especially since Raphael did not mention Satan at viii 630–43. Raphael’s final warning (overheard by Eve?) was about Adam’s passion for Eve. Gagen argues that M. is inconsistent about how much Eve heard (MQ 20, March 1986, 17–22). See also vi 909n.

  292. entire unblemished, blameless (OED 8).

  293. diffident mistrustful.

  296. asperses bespatters, vilifies.

  310. Accéss increase.

  318. domestic concerne
d for his family.

  320. Less too little.

  322–41. If this… exposed Cp. M.’s Areopagitica: ‘I cannot praise a fugitive and cloister’d vertue, unexercis’d & unbreath’d, that never sallies out and sees her adversary’ (YP 2. 515). Eve anticipates Areopagitica, but M. had never intended his argument to apply to the unfallen state, but to the ‘state of man’ as it ‘now is’ (YP 2. 514).

  325. like equal (to each other and to Satan’s attack).

  326. still always.

  328. affronts both ‘insults’ and ‘confronts face to face’ (OED 7). Front (330) means ‘face’.

  329. integrity sinlessness (OED 3). Eve herself is breaking integrity in the sense ‘undivided state’ (OED 1).

  334. event outcome.

  335. what is… virtue Cp. Areopagitica: ‘what were vertue but a name?’ (YP 2. 527).

  341. no Eden including ‘no pleasure’. See iv 27n.

  343. O woman Adam gently reminds Eve of his authority: ‘she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man’ (Gen. 2. 23, cp. viii 496–7).

  353. still erect always alert (OED ‘erect’ 3), and suggesting man’s ‘Godlike erect’ posture, sign of reason (vii 508).

  358. mind… mind remind… pay heed to. Perhaps also *take care of (OED 11a, cited from 1694).

  359. subsist stand firm (OED 7).

  361. specious deceptively attractive (OED 2). There may be a pun on ‘species’ (which is etymologically related).

  suborned procured in an underhand manner (OED 3).

  367. approve prove.

  371. securer more careless, overconfident.

  386. light light-footed, with overtones of ‘fickle, ready of belief’ (OED 16), ‘wanton’ (OED 14b) and ‘frivolous’ (OED 14a), as in ‘A sober grave matron… will never be light’ (1631).

  387. Oread or Dryad mountain- or wood-nymph. Oreads were mortal and Dryads ‘perished with the trees over which they presided’ (Fowler).

  Delia Diana (who was born on Delos).

  388. Betook her to the groves a prolepsis, since ‘groves’ in the O.T. are associated with idolatry. See i 403n and cp. PR ii 289.

  388–9. Delia’s self / In gait surpassed Porter (111) sees a ‘strong allusion’ to the ill-fated Dido, whom Virgil likens to Diana leading her Oreads out to the hunt (Aen. i 500–501): ‘she carries her quiver on her shoulder and, stepping along, surpasses those goddesses’ (gradiensque deas supereminet). See also below, 783n, 1000–1001n.