Paradise Lost (Modern Library Classics)

by Milton, John

  310. Access: increase.

  314. raised unite: unite all his strengths in a state of generally heightened vigor.

  320. Less: too little.

  326. still: always.

  335–36. Cp. Areop (MLM 939, 944).

  341. Eden were no Eden: See 4.27–28n.

  353. still: always.

  363. she: reason.

  367. approve: prove.

  371. securer: more careless.

  372. Go; for thy stay: The conjunction of go and stay prepares, well over 3,000 lines in advance, for a major poetic effect at the end of the poem (12.615–20n, 648–49n).

  386. light: light-footed.

  387. Oread: mountain nymph; Dryad: wood nymph; Delia’s train: the attendants of Diana, goddess of the moon, the hunt, and chastity.

  393. Pales: the Roman goddess of flocks; Pomona: the goddess of fruit trees.

  395. Vertumnus: a garden god who pursued Pomona.

  396. Yet virgin of Proserpina: before she bore Proserpina, whose rape by Pluto anticipates Eve’s fall. See 4.268–72n.

  404–11. A rich apostrophe. The “Eve” in deceived and event, puns hitherto muted, erupts into full clarity. We first take deceived and failing in a general sense, announcing the whole process of her fall, but in the next lines must localize their reference to her failing, deceived presumption about her return. In this one mistake, however, lie all mistakes (Ricks 97). The loss of sound sleep and sweet repast recalls Shakespeare’s conscience-stricken Macbeth.

  405. Event perverse: unforeseen outcome.

  413. Mere: pure, unmixed.

  431. mindless: heedless.

  432. See 4.269–71.

  436. voluble: from the Latin volubilis, rolling.

  438. Imbordered: planted as borders; hand: handiwork.

  439–44. The catalog of gardens less delicious than Eden begins with those of Adonis, which Spenser represented as a paradise (FQ 3.6.39–42), and Alcinous, whose garden is visited by Odysseus (Homer, Od. 7.112–35). The last, not mystic (allegorical), is the garden where sapient Solomon entertained his wife, Pharaoh’s daughter (Song of Solomon 6.2).

  446. sewers annoy the air: as they certainly annoyed the air of London; see John Evelyn, Fumifugium: or, the Inconveniencie of the Aer and Smoak of London Dissipated (1661), who argued that smoke and odors had made the city into “the suburbs of Hell” (6).

  450. tedded: mown and spread out to dry; kine: archaic plural of cow

  453. for: because of.

  456. plat: plot of ground.

  458. more soft: Cp. 4.479.

  463. That space: for that space of time.

  467. Confirming lines 254–55, but ironically (the mind cannot make a Heaven of Hell).

  472. gratulating: greeting; excites: stirs up (his thoughts, by addressing or greeting them).

  480. Occasion: opportunity or falling together, from the Latin root cadere, “to fall.”

  485. mold: material.

  490–92. “Beauty and love inspire awe, unless counteracted by a stronger hatred.” The spondee in the chiasmic Hate strong makes the point metrically.

  496. indented: sliding back and forth, zigzagging.

  500. carbuncle: red gem.

  505–10. Lovelier … Rome: Satan is compared to serpents in classical literature into which men and gods were transformed. Cadmus, founder of Thebes, was changed into a snake, as was his wife, Hermione, when she embraced his serpentine form. The god of healing, Asclepius, journeyed as a serpent from his shrine in Epidaurus to Rome in order to stop a plague. In Plutarch’s Life of Alexander, we learn that Philip of Macedonia saw his wife in bed with a snake. The oracle identified the serpent as Jupiter-Ammon. He was thus the divine father of Alexander the Great, foreshadowing Jupiter Capitolinus, who would assume a serpent body in siring Scipio Africanus.

  510–14. Klemp (1977) noticed that the first letters of these lines spell Satan.

  522. The sorceress Circe transformed men into obedient animals (Od. 10.212–19).

  525. turret: towering; enamelled: smooth and variegated in color like enamel.

  526. Here Satan, who balked at “prostration vile” in Heaven (5.782), invents proskynesis, the prostrate devotion paid to tyrants; Alexander the Great tried unsuccessfully to introduce this Persian custom into his court (Kerrigan 1998, 130).

  529–30. with … air: Satan caused the serpent to speak either by using its tongue as an instrument or by impressing his words on the nearby air (A. Williams 116–117).

  532. Wonder not: punningly announcing the theme of one, oneness, and singularity that winds through the speech.

  544. shallow to discern: without the intelligence to discern.

  549. glozed: spoke flatteringly; proem: prelude.

  558. demur: hesitate over.

  563. speakable: able to speak.

  571–612. The fourth and final of the major autobiographies in the poem: Sin’s (2.747–809), Eve’s (4.449–91), Adam’s (8.250–520), and now the serpent’s fraudulent story.

  581. fennel: Serpents were supposed to be fond of this herb (Pliny, Natural History 19.9); they were also thought to suck the teats of sheep and goats. Serpent lore aside, it is brilliant strategy to present the Tree of Knowledge as, metaphorically, an unappreciated mother.

  585. apples: The double sense of the Latin malum (apple, evil) sponsored a tradition identifying the forbidden fruit as an apple.

  586. defer: delay.

  596–97. Adam and Eve will entertain the same high estimate of the forbidden fruit’s taste (ll. 786–87, 1022–24).

  598–612. Having the serpent represent his powers of speech and reasoning as the effects of eating the forbidden fruit is a masterstroke. Evans (276–77) maintains that Milton’s only precedent was Joseph Beaumont’s Psyche (1648), a long and uninspired poem whose serpent does indeed claim to have gained language and wisdom from the fruit (canto 6, ll. 1699–1710), and tempts Eve with the idea that she may gain even loftier wisdom from such a meal, since she is starting at a higher level than the brute (1711–22). But Beaumont only vaguely anticipates the crisp argument to be advanced by Milton’s Satan (see 710–12n).

  605. middle: the air.

  606–608. But … beheld: Cp. 8.472–74.

  613. spirited sly snake: a sibilant phrase, anticipating the prolonged hissing of 10.508–77.

  616. virtue: power.

  623. their provision: the fruits provided for them.

  629. blowing: blooming.

  634. wand’ring fire: the ignis fatuus or “will-o’-the-wisp,” as in Masque 433. See Winny 168–70 and Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy 166.

  635. Compact of: composed of.

  640. amazed: both perplexed and lost, as in a labyrinth.

  641. pond or pool: an indication that Eve is being led not just to the Tree of Knowledge but back to her initial infatuation with her own image (4.456–65).

  644–45. “ ‘Into fraud led Eve …’ overlaps magnificently with ‘… led Eve to the Tree,’ so that what begins as a moving and ancient moral metaphor (lead us not into temptation) crystallizes with terrifying literalness” (Ricks 1963, 76).

  648. Fruitless: pointless, but also literally fruitless, since she cannot eat this fruit; Milton anticipates the fully fallen sense of the word at line 1188.

  668. Fluctuates: undulates.

  672. since mute: Eloquence itself is said to be extinct, not just in Greece and Rome; judging from PR 4.356–60, Milton may not have regarded the loss to be altogether negative.

  674. Motion: gesture; audience: attention.

  679–83. This speech, a brief travesty of Paradise Lost intending to prove the ways of God to man unjust, begins appropriately with an invocation to the power of the forbidden fruit inside the serpent and (so he claims) manifest in his very words. Cp. the four invocations at the beginnings of Books 1, 3, 7, and 9.

  680. science: in the wide original sense of the Latin scientia, “knowledge.”

  698–99. Of evil … shunned?: A poten
t bit of sophistry stemming from the double meaning of known: (1) known by rational apprehension; (2) known by experience. Eve knows in sense 1 that eating the fruit is evil. But if eating the fruit becomes known in sense 2, she can hardly use that knowledge to shun evil. For in that case, she will have done evil. It is the difference between innocence and experience.

  710–12. The power of speech becomes Satan’s most tangible argument: as eating the fruit allowed him to change from brute to human, rising a notch in the chain of being, so eating the fruit will allow Eve to change from human to angel, a proportion meet. See 598–612n. The irony is pointed. The snake has not ascended the scale of being; Satan has in fact descended into the snake (ll. 163–71).

  717. participating: partaking of.

  720. question: Cp. 5.853–63, where Satan doubts whether the Son or anyone else created angels. The introduction of questioning is crucial; note the high proportion of questions in lines 686–732, 747–79.

  722. if they all things: if they author all things.

  732. humane: gracious, as in 2.109 and PR 1.221.

  735–43. A passage built on the structure of the five senses, moving from sight to sound to smell, then to the desire to touch or taste, given imperative force in Satan’s last words (reach then, and freely taste, l. 732), and in the end circling back to her longing eye.

  744. to herself she mused: the first time in the poem that Milton represents the silent inward speech of Adam or Eve.

  756–57. good unknown: good unexperienced; yet unknown: good not apprehended rationally. The word-tree derived from “knowledge” has become a treacherous labyrinth. See 698–99 n.

  771. author unsuspect: authority above suspicion.

  776. cure: Eve means “remedy,” but editors hear an unintended pun on the Latin cura, “care.”

  780. hand: Is hand the subject or object of reaching in line 781? (Evans in Broadbent); evil hour: noon.

  784. all was lost: The poem has arrived at the meaning of its title.

  792. knew not eating death: At least four meanings are copresent: “She did not experience death while eating”; “She did not know death, which devours”; “She did not know she was eating death”; “She did not gain knowledge when eating death.”

  797. sapience: knowledge, from the Latin sapere, “to taste.”

  820. odds: advantage; see 4.447n.

  823. more equal: The first words that Milton uses to define gender differences are “Not equal, as their sex not equal seemed” (4.296).

  825. for inferior who is free?: as Satan has maintained (6.164–70).

  827. I shall be no more: Heard at the opening of this book, no more is here applied to death and oblivion (see 1n).

  835. low reverence: “She … now worships a vegetable” (Lewis 122).

  837. sciential: conferring knowledge on those who partake of it.

  845. divine of something ill: A stricken heart often signals a bad omen or premonition, as in HAM 5.2.208: “How ill all’s here about my heart.”

  846. falt’ring measure: The elision of the middle syllable in faltering keeps Adam’s measure or heartbeat in an iambic mold; the pun on falt/fault (fault’ring was the original spelling) suggests cardiac problems to come.

  851. downy smiled: seemed attractive covered with down.

  853–54. in her face … prompt: “Excuse, the pleading expression on her face, was the prologue to Apology [Justification], and continued to serve as this actor’s prompter.”

  855. bland: smooth, containing blandishments.

  868. Or … or: either … or.

  890. Astonied: astonished, with pun on “as stone”; horror chill: cp. Vergil’s frigidus horror (Aen. 3.29).

  893. faded roses: A first instance of decay in Eden (Fowler). Evans thinks the faded roses symbolize Eve’s mortality. But since fallen roses will acquire thorns (4.256), and since these woven flowers were intended to crown (l. 841), the decayed garland may also be meant to evoke Christ’s crown of thorns.

  895. he inward silence broke: as Eve also did before her fall (744n).

  896. last and best: last but not best, Raphael warned (8.565–66).

  901. deflow’red: Accounts of the Fall sometimes made use of sexual metaphors such as ravishment, seduction, and infidelity (A. Williams 120, 125), and sometimes included speculations about the actual deterioration of human sexuality (Turner 124–73). devote: consecrated.

  911. another Eve: Eve also rejected this idea (ll. 828–30).

  916. bliss or woe: echoing Eve at line 831.

  924. sacred: set apart, unlike all other fruits (in being subject to abstinence).

  926. The line contains two nearly synonymous proverbs: “Things past cannot be recalled” (Tilley T203) and “Things done cannot be undone” (Tilley T200).

  928. fact: deed and crime.

  936. Proportional ascent: echoing Satan at lines 710–12.

  947–51. lest … foe: And indeed, Satan will not be allowed to gloat—a first intuition of the protevangelium (10.175–81n) and its enactment in Hell (10.504–77).

  954. death is to me as life: Editors hear an echo of Satan’s “Evil be thou my good” (4.110), but the resemblance is more verbal than moral or psychological.

  980. oblige: make liable to a penalty (Lat. obligare).

  988. freely taste: echoing Satan at line 732.

  998. not deceived: Cp. 1 Tim. 2.14: “Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.”

  999. fondly: foolishly.

  1003–1004. sin/Original: The only appearance of the famous theological phrase in the poem; for Milton’s understanding of it, see CD 1.11.

  1016. dalliance: amorous play.

  1017–20. Eve … judicious: The idea, somewhat tortuously expressed, is that we apply words like savor and judicious to both questions of taste and questions of wisdom—hence the word sapience, epitomizing such usages, brilliantly denotes both taste and wisdom.

  1018. elegant: in the sense of the Latin elegans, “refined in taste.”

  1025–26. it … ten: His fond wish will be granted when God delivers the Ten Commandments to Moses.

  1028. meet: “appropriate,” the deliciousness of the meal having awakened an appetite for its delicious purveyor; also glancing at help meet, one of Eve’s titles, and by a pun on meat (meaning food in general), anticipating their new carnivorous diet.

  1029–32. See Homer, Od. 14.314–16.

  1037. Her hand he seized: not gently, as at 4.488–89.

  1043. of their mutual guilt the seal: A seal makes a document official. So the mutual act of intercourse, as it were, brazenly authenticates their mutual crime: “We have done this, we who were given sexuality with the commandment to be fruitful and multiply.”

  1048. spirits: a technical term in medical physiology, denoting vaporous substances in the blood that carry out communications between the soul and body. See Thomas Wright, The Passions of the Minde in Generall (1604), 59–68 and passim; Donne, “The Extasie,” 61–64.

  1050. unkindly: unnatural; conscious: full of guilty knowledge.

  1058. he: Shame.

  1059. Danite: Samson’s father belonged to the tribe of Dan.

  1060. Herculean: strong like Hercules; harlot-lap: The word harlot does not appear in Milton’s Samson Agonistes, where Dalila is the hero’s wife.

  1067. Eve, in evil: The pun is prelude to a host of accusations.

  1078. evil store: evil aplenty.

  1079. Even shame, the last of evils: Shame, because it initiates repentance, is the last manifestation of the evil that caused it (the first).

  1083. Earthly: earthly nature.

  1087. umbrage: shadow, foliage.

  1094. obnoxious: exposed.

  1101. fig tree: the banyan, not the common variety. For details and sources, see Svendsen 1969, 31–32, 134–36.

  1103. Malabar: southwest coast of India; Deccan: the peninsula of India (including Malabar).

  1111. as Amazonian targe: as an Amazo
n’s shield (notable for its size).

  1115. naked glory: The paradoxical force of the phrase stems from the idea of glory (Heb. kabod) as an adornment, a radiance of being (Rumrich 1987, 20–21, 131–32).

  1116. Columbus: one of the two near contemporaries mentioned in the poem (see 1.288–91n).

  1117. cincture: belt.

  1187. mutual accusation: Mutual guilt (l. 1043) has now deteriorated into a quarreling mutual accusation.

  1133. intermitted: interrupted (by the quest for covering).

  1188. fruitless hours: See 648n.

  1189. no end: No more at the beginning of the book, declaring unfallen favors at an end, is balanced against the concluding no end, declaring fallen ills (so it appears) interminable.

  BOOK X

  THE ARGUMENT

  Man’s transgression known, the guardian angels forsake Paradise, and return up to Heaven to approve their vigilance, and are approved, God declaring that the entrance of Satan could not be by them prevented. He sends his Son to judge the transgressors, who descends and gives sentence accordingly; then in pity clothes them both, and reascends. Sin and Death, sitting till then at the gates of Hell, by wondrous sympathy feeling the success of Satan in this new world, and the sin by man there committed, resolve to sit no longer confined in Hell, but to follow Satan their sire up to the place of man. To make the way easier from Hell to this world to and fro, they pave a broad highway or bridge over Chaos, according to the track that Satan first made; then preparing for Earth, they meet him proud of his success returning to Hell; their mutual gratulation. Satan arrives at Pandaemonium; in full assembly relates with boasting his success against man; instead of applause is entertained with a general hiss by all his audience, transformed with himself also suddenly into serpents, according to his doom given in Paradise; then deluded with a show of the forbidden tree springing up before them, they greedily reaching to take of the fruit, chew dust and bitter ashes. The proceedings of Sin and Death; God foretells the final victory of his Son over them, and the renewing of all things, but for the present commands his angels to make several alterations in the heavens and elements. Adam more and more perceiving his fallen condition, heavily bewails, rejects the condolement of Eve. She persists and at length appeases him; then to evade the curse likely to fall on their offspring, proposes to Adam violent ways which he approves not, but conceiving better hope, puts her in mind of the late promise made them, that her seed should be revenged on the Serpent, and exhorts her with him to seek peace of the offended Deity, by repentance and supplication.