by Milton, John
And fly, ere evil intercept thy flight.’
“He said, and as the sound of waters deep
Hoarse murmur echoed to his words applause
Through the infinite host, nor less for that
The flaming seraph fearless, though alone
Encompassed round with foes, thus answered bold.
“ ‘O alienate from God, O spirit accursed,
Forsaken of all good; I see thy fall
Determined, and thy hapless crew involved
In this perfidious fraud, contagion spread
Both of thy crime and punishment: henceforth
Not more be troubled how to quit the yoke
Of God’s Messiah; those indulgent laws883
Will not be now vouchsafed, other decrees
Against thee are gone forth without recall;
That golden scepter which thou didst reject
Is now an iron rod to bruise and break
Thy disobedience. Well thou didst advise,
Yet not for thy advice or threats I fly
These wicked tents devoted890, lest the wrath
Impendent, raging into sudden flame,
Distinguish not: for soon expect to feel
His thunder on thy head, devouring fire.
Then who created thee lamenting learn,
When who can uncreate thee thou shalt know.’
“So spake the Seraph Abdiel faithful found,
Among the faithless, faithful only he;
Among innumerable false, unmoved,
Unshaken, unseduced,899 unterrified,
His loyalty he kept, his love, his zeal;
Nor number, nor example with him wrought
To swerve from truth, or change his constant mind
Though single. From amidst them forth he passed,
Long way through hostile scorn, which he sustained
Superior, nor of violence feared aught;
And with retorted scorn906 his back he turned
On those proud tow’rs to swift destruction doomed.”
5. temperate vapors bland: soothing and perfectly proportioned vapors. Sleep, it was believed, was caused by vapors arising in the stomach. Adam’s benign internal system is here perfectly blended with the external breezes and streams of Eden. th’ only sound: the sound only.
6. fuming rills: foaming brooks; some editors gloss fuming as “misting,” but the exhalations of lines 185–6 are not said to rise from streams. Aurora: goddess of the dawn.
15. peculiar: its (beauty’s) own, from the Latin peculium, “private property.”
16. Zephyrus on Flora breathes: The west wind (Zephyrus) blows gently (breathes) on the flowers (Flora, goddess of flowers).
17–25. Awake … liquid sweet: The language of Adam’s aubade is drawn from Song of Solomon 2.10–13, 7.12.
21. prime: sunrise, or the first hour of the day, which in Paradise is always six o’clock.
22. blows: blooms.
23. balmy reed: balsam.
38. Why sleep’st thou Eve?: Satan used much the same formula, as we will soon learn (l. 673), to awaken Beëlzebub, his first co-conspirator.
44. his eyes: the stars.
47. still: always.
60. god: angel. See CD 1.5.
61. reserve: referring to both God’s restriction on the fruit and man’s self-restraint.
65. horror chilled: Cp. 9.890.
66. vouched with: affirmed by.
79. “The words as we are so placed between the two sentences, as equally to relate to both” (Todd).
94. sad: grave, serious.
98. uncouth: strange, unpleasant.
100–13. But … late: The main outlines of this conventional account of the role of “Fancy” (sometimes called “Phantasy”) in dreaming can be found in Renaissance encyclopedias (Svendsen 1969, 36–38); Sir John Davies, Nosce Teipsum, 46–47; and Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy, 139–40.
109. cell: ventricle of the brain.
115. our last evening’s talk: Yesterday they spoke in general of the prohibition on the Tree of Knowledge (4.419–28) and, prompted by Eve’s question, about why the stars shine at night (4.657–88). Both concerns reappear in Eve’s dream. Yet only the second conversation took place at evening.
118. so: provided that it remains; unapproved: unchosen.
123. wont to be: are accustomed to being.
133–34. he ere they fell/Kissed: Adam’s tender gesture enacts the words be not sad (l. 116) and Be not disheartened then, nor cloud those looks (l. 122) from his just-concluded speech.
146–50. Their morning prayers unite the fallen alternatives of deliberate artistic elaboration (various style), favored by Anglicans in Milton’s day, and spontaneous inspiration (holy rapture, Unmeditated), favored by Puritans.
147. wanted: lacked.
150. numerous: subject to numbers, therefore measured, rhythmic, musical.
153–208. Giving voice to Creation, the orisons evoke Psalm 148 primarily, with touches drawn from the “Song of the Three Children,” prescribed for morning prayers as the canticle “Benedicite omnia opera Domini” in the Book of Common Prayer.
165. Cp. Rev. 22.13 (“I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last”), and Ben Jonson, “To Heaven,” l. 10.
166–67. Fairest of stars: Venus or Lucifer; last … dawn: Venus, the last star of morning, is also, as Hesperus, the first star of evening.
178. not without song: the music of the spheres, inaudible on Earth after the Fall; see Nat Ode 125–29, Arcades 63–73.
181. in quaternion: in a group of four (earth, air, fire, and water).
205. still: always.
214. pampered: overgrown.
215–19. Fruitless embraces … leaves: The feminine vine curled about the masculine elm was a traditional emblem of marriage; cp. Eve’s vinelike hair at 4.307.
221–23. Raphael, Hebrew for “Health of God,” helps Tobias claim his bride in the apocryphal Book of Tobit. Raphael is often associated with Christian medicine; see Cotton Mather, 48–54.
238. swerve: err; secure: overconfident. 244–45. pretend/Surprisal: claim to have been the victim of a surprise attack.
249. ardors: angels, ardent (burning) with the love of God.
250. Veiled: Cp. 3.382.
253. empyreal: belonging to the empyrean realm beyond the outermost sphere of Creation.
254. self-opened: Cp. the grating gates of Hell at 2.881–82.
257–59. No cloud or star interposed itself between Raphael and the sight of Earth, which appeared as small as the other stars.
259. Not unconform to: like to.
263. Imagined: conjectured. Galileo’s conjectures about lunar topography are not rejected at 1.288–91; Raphael seems to sanction their rejection at 5.419–20, but leaves the question open at 8.144–45.
264–65. Cyclades … Samos: islands in the Aegean, including the supposedly floating island of Delos; Samos, an island off the coast of Asia Minor, did not belong to the Cyclades.
265. kens: discerns.
266. prone: bent forward and downward.
270. Winnows the buxom air: parts the yielding air. On buxom see 2.842n and L’All 24n.
271. tow’ring eagles: Descending Raphael has just reached the apex of ascending eagles.
271–74. to all … flies: To earthly birds, the bright and unique Raphael seems a phoenix. This mythical bird, of which there was only one, regenerated every five hundred or one thousand years by immolating itself, then depositing its own ashes (relics) at the temple of the sun in the Egyptian city of Heliopolis.
277. six wings: like the angels in Isa. 6.2.
279. mantling: covering him, as with a mantle.
281. starry zone: belt of stars (cp. 11.247).
284. feathered mail: The feathers lie in overlapping rows suggestive of the metal plates in mail armor.
285. Sky-tinctured: blue, a sacred color among the Israelites, as Fowler notes, citing Cowley’s Davideis, bk. 1, n. 60; gra
in: dye; Maia’s son: Mercury, messenger of the gods.
288. state: status.
293. cassia, nard, and balm: aromatic spices.
296. more sweet: Nature’s splurging sweetness recalls Eve at 4.439, 641–56. She translates this aspect of Eden into the spiritual Paradise of their marriage.
297. Wild above rule or art: The organic at its height is superior to artifice at its height, as we have just seen in the “clothing” of Raphael; enormous: beyond the norm, immense.
300. while now: Raphael arrives precisely at noon.
305. disrelish: destroy the relish for.
306. nectarous: as sweet as nectar; milky: sweet (not salty).
319. disburd’ning: harvesting.
321. earth’s hallowed mold: Adam is sometimes said to derive from the Hebrew for “red,” alluding to the red earth from which he was formed.
324. frugal: careful in the use of food (from Lat. frux, “fruit”). Thriftiness is not implied.
333–36. “Eve’s composing of food” is “a trope for poetry” (D. McColley 1993, 133), the culinary equivalent of Milton’s “the sense variously drawn out from one verse into another” (see his note on The Verse, p. 9).
339. India: Indies; middle shore: lands to the north (Pontus, the shore of the Black Sea) and the south (Punic, the shore of North Africa) of the Mediterranean Sea.
341. Alcinous: Homer’s King of the Phaeacians, whose garden bore fruit in every season (Od. 7.112–32).
345. meathes: sweet drinks; obsolete spelling of meads.
346. Metrically, the double anapests make for an unusual line.
349. unfumed: unburned (unlike incense in the fallen world).
350. primitive: primary, original.
353. state: ceremonial display.
356. besmeared with gold: See Horace, Odes 4.9.14f.
371. Virtue: one of the lower angelic orders. Milton uses these hierarchical titles interchangeably, since Raphael is also termed a Seraph (5.277) and an Archangel (7.41).
378. Pomona’s arbor: the lodging of the goddess of fruit trees, to whom Eve is compared at 9.393.
381. fairest goddess: Aphrodite, whom Paris chose over Athena and Juno. Since his reward was Helen, his choice was the mythical origin of the Trojan War. The episode was popular in Renaissance painting and literature.
384. virtue-proof: armored by, and therefore protected by, virtue.
385–87. “Hail” … second Eve: The passage alludes to Luke 1.28, where the angel Gabriel greets Mary: “Hail, thou that art highly favored, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women.” On Mary as second Eve, see 10.183n.
397. author: progenitor.
408. Intelligential substances: angels. The word substance, used variously in metaphysics, here declares that the angels inhabit a degree of matter (see ll. 473–74) in which intelligence is pervasive: smart stuff, as it were.
412. concoct, digest, assimilate: Three stages in the physiology of nourishment: in concoction, food is broken down into a milky fluid called “chyle”; it is then digested, or dispersed by means of blood to the various parts of the body; finally it is assimilated, transformed into the nourished being.
419–20. See 263n.
429. mellifluous: fluid, sweet.
430. pearly grain: dew, but also evoking the manna or angel’s food of Exod. 16.14 and Ps. 78.
433. nice: fastidious, hard to please.
434. nor seemingly: not just apparently (as opposed to really).
435. nor in mist: nor in vapor, as when a visiting angel takes on an airy body; common gloss: This part of the poem, we are given to know, is not conventional. That angels are corporeal, and therefore eat, is entailed by the spiritual materialism set forth in Milton’s CD 1.7: all Creation is material, even the human soul (MLM 1205–06).
437. real hunger, and concoctive heat: Raphael’s body has the same heat that was thought to fuel the digestive process in the human body.
438. transubstantiate: to transform one substance (earthly fruit) into another (the angelic body).
438–39. what … ease: Unassimilated food (what redounds) escapes vaporously through the pores of angels, reminding fallen readers of the more trying evacuations they know so well. “This artfully avoids the indecent idea, which would else have been apt to have arisen on the Angel’s feeding, and withal gives a delicacy to these spirits, which finely distinguishes them from us in one of the most humbling circumstances relating to our bodies” (Richardson).
439–43. nor wonder … mine: The upward transformations claimed in alchemy are intended to make the idea of an angel assimilating earthly food seem plausible rather than an inexplicable wonder. At least one physician in the Paracelsan tradition, Jean-Baptiste van Helmont, developed the idea of digestion as an “inner alchemist” (see Multhauf; Pagel 1955 and 1956).
440. empiric: experimental. The word is sometimes pejorative, and means “quack.” Milton may be contrasting the empiric alchemist, concentrating on the refinement of metals, with adepts of a more philosophical and spiritual outlook.
445. crowned: filled to the top.
446–48. if ever … sight: Milton alludes to Gen. 6.2: “The sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives.” Most exegetes took “sons of God” to refer to men, but some thought them to be fallen angels. Milton is saying that if angels ever were attracted to earthly women, the desire would in this instance have been excusable, since it would have arisen in response to Eve’s innocence, not her sexual wiles.
449–50. All three, in other words, loved without sexual desire, and Adam did not feel jealous.
467. yet what compare?: “Yet what comparison can there possibly be between heavenly and earthly feasts?” Adam asks for a comparison, a metaphor, joining Earth and Heaven, and in reply will be given the literal basis for all such metaphors: matter.
469. O: A speech about the circular journey of matter begins appropriately with a typographical circle.
472. one first matter all: A remarkable conjunction of major philosophical words. In CD 1.7, Milton argues that the world was created not out of nothing but rather out of preexistent matter, the realm of Chaos visited by Satan in 2.951–1022.
478. bounds: both “limits” and “leaps” (Leonard).
483–85. Raphael adopts the language of Galenic physiology, in which food is elevated or sublimed into vital spirits, which reside in the heart and are the vehicles of passion, and animal spirits, which reside in the brain and are the vehicles of rational thought. No source has ever been adduced for intellectual spirits, which Milton postulates, it would seem, in order to supply a material basis for the intuitive capacities of men and angels.
490. The epic’s definitive statement on the ontological relationship of man to angel, Earth to Heaven, matter to spirit; that the phrase was in common use can be inferred from its appearance in the verse of Katherine Philips: “The same in kind, though diff’ring in degree” (“On Controversies in Religion”). She died in 1664, three years before the publication of Milton’s epic, and was not likely to have seen it in manuscript.
497. Cp. Masque, 558–61.
498. tract: a stretch or lapse.
499–500. Utopias are often criticized for their stasis. Here Raphael introduces the possibility of dynamic improvement into Edenic life.
505. incapable: unable to contain.
509. scale of nature: The scale or ladder of Nature, by which the mind may ascend from particularity to unity or Earth to Heaven, is a commonplace image in philosophy and theology. It was often linked with Jacob’s vision in Gen. 28.12 and with the golden chain connecting heaven and earth in Homer’s Il. 8.19 (Macrobius, Commentary on the Dream of Scipio, 1.14.15).
538. surety: ground of certainty, guarantee of secure possession.
547. Cherubic songs: See 4.680–88.
552. yet: also.
557. sacred silence: echoing Horace, Odes 2.13.29–32.
566. remorse: pity.
571
. dispensed: made lawful.
573. lik’ning spiritual to corporal forms: But as we know from the discussion that arose over Raphael’s eating, spiritual and corporal forms differ only in degree; metaphor has ontological sanction.
575–76. The idea of Earth being the shadow of Heaven is sometimes meant to stress the difference, but Milton clearly thinks of them as being alike, analogical.
576. more than on Earth is thought: The only time that an earthling thought heavenly things too little like earthly things was when Adam assumed that Raphael could not eat earthly food. The error will be multiplied in the future: not everyone is a spiritual materialist, and even Adam took some convincing.
580–82. For time … future: On the unconventional idea that time precedes the Creation, see Milton’s CD 1.7 (MLM 1204). On the idea that time is the measure of motion, see Aristotle, Physics 4.2.219, and lines 7–8 of Milton’s second epitaph on Hobson.
583. Heav’n’s great year: On Earth a great year is the time required for the fixed stars to complete a full revolution, computed by Plato at 36,000 years (Timaeus 39D); we are left to imagine what Heaven’s analogue of this cycle would be.
589. gonfalons: banners hung from cross-pieces affixed to standards, as to this day in religious ceremonies.
601. The line names five of the traditional nine orders of angels. Satan, obviously impressed by this aspect of divine rhetoric, repeats the sonorous roll call of titles throughout his career (1.315–16, 2.11, 2.430, 5.772; PR 2.121). He thinks they signify the inalienable right to rule Heaven (ll. 800–802).
603. This day I have begot: Considering Gen. 22.16, Ps. 2.6–7, and Heb. 1.5, Milton argued in CD 1.5 that the begetting of the Son was a metaphor for his exaltation above the angels. The passage dramatizes that interpretation.
607. by myself have sworn: the formula of God’s vowing found in Gen. 22.16, Isa. 45.23, Heb. 6.13–19; see Donne, “A Hymn to God the Father,” l. 15.
609. vicegerent: the representative of a ruler.
610. individual: indivisible.
611. him who disobeys: whoever disobeys him.
618. solemn days: days set aside for religious ceremonies.
621. fixed: fixed stars.
623. Eccentric: In the Ptolemaic system, an eccentric is a planetary orbit of which the Earth is not the center; these eccentric centers revolve about the earth. intervolved: interlocked, like the two centers of an eccentric orbit.