by John Milton
530. Pythian vale: Delphi.
531. Python: the great serpent born of the slime left behind by Deucalion’s flood (Ovid, Met. 1.438) and eventually slain by Apollo.
536. Sublime: exalted, elated.
556. 526–27. soil … Gorgon: As Perseus flew over Libya with the head of Medusa, drops of her blood fell to the earth and became snakes—which explains why, according to Ovid, Met. 3.616, and Lucan, Pharsalia 9.696, serpents are so common there.
559–60. snaky locks … Megaera: Her hair, like Medusa’s, was serpents (Ovid, Met. 4.771).
560–68. the bituminous lake is the Dead Sea, beside which Sodom and Gomorrah were situated. According to Josephus, Wars 4.8.4, the ashes of Sodom grow in the fruit of the area, which when plucked dissolve into smoke and ashes.
565. gust: gusto.
568. drugged: nauseated.
575. some say: A source has not been found for Milton’s account of the annual metamorphosis of the devils.
578–84. Fowler notes that purchase can mean “annual return or rent from land,” and thus alludes to the annual metamorphosis. According to some authorities, Milton says, the devils spread stories of primordial serpents in the ancient world, among them that of Ophion (from Gk. for “serpent”) and Eurynome, the first rulers of Olympus.
584. Dictaean: Jove was raised in Crete, in the vicinity of Mount Dicte.
586–87. there … body: a brief history of sin in Paradise: there by power or potential before the Fall, then actual at the Fall, now in body, as the character Sin arrives.
590. pale horse: See Rev. 6.8.
601. unhidebound: skin so loose that it can hold a great deal.
611. unimmortal: mortal; the negative of immortal neatly conveys the effect of the Fall.
617. havoc: Kings victorious on the battlefield had the privilege of shouting “havoc,” a signal that no quarter should be given in slaughter and pillage. See Shakespeare, JC 3.1.273.
627. quitted: handed over.
630. draff: refuse, swill.
633–34. at one sling … arm: “The souls of thine enemies, them shall he sling out, as out of the middle of a sling” (1 Sam. 25.29).
640. precedes: has precedence.
645. extenuate: disparage.
656. blank: pale.
658. aspects: astrological positions.
659. A list of aspects: sextile (60°), square (90°), trine (120°), and opposite (180°).
661. synod: conjunction; cp. 6.156n; fixed: fixed stars.
668–87. Before the Fall, the ecliptic follows the equinoctial road (l. 672) or equator, which produces spring/Perpetual (ll. 678–79), and a sun always in Aries. There are two ways to modify these conditions in order to produce a result consistent with astrological observations in the fallen world. In a heliocentric (Copernican) system, the axis of the earth must be tilted around 23°. In a terracentric (Ptolemaic) system, the plane of the sun’s orbit must be tilted like distant breadth (that is, around 23°). Milton presents both explanations and does not choose between them. Some say (l. 668) the one, some say (l. 671) the other.
672–77. Was bid … Capricorn: Once resident in Aries, the sun now travels through the zodiac.
686. Estotiland: northern Labrador.
687. Magellan: Strait of Magellan.
688. Thyestean banquet: In Seneca’s tragedy Thyestes, the sun turns aside in horror from the sight of Thyestes eating his sons. A chorus (789–881) wonders if the sun’s departure might not signal a return to “formless chaos” (832).
693. sideral blast: probably not malign astral influences, as Fowler and Leonard suggest, because Milton has shifted from celestial to terrestial change; perhaps exhalations or vapors released from the earth, drawn toward the stars (sideral) by the sun’s heat, and thought to produce various blasts or explosions, such as shooting stars and comets.
696. Norumbega: a province of North America; Samoed: northeastern Siberia.
697. brazen dungeon: where Aeolus imprisoned the winds (Aen. 1.141).
699–706. The northern winds of Boreas, Caecias, Argestes, and Thrascias are opposed by the southern winds of Notus and Afer. This system is attacked at various side angles to the east and west (thwart) by winds named Levant et cetera.
714–17. these … within: a beautiful effect: the chain of bad external causes in lines 651–714 has led to the part (l. 716) Adam already sees, whereupon Milton shifts to his inner turbulence, which Adam then seeks to disburden through externalizing speech. We have moved back in time before the arrival of Sin and Death on Earth (342–45n).
729. propagated curse: the curses of Adam’s children upon their original forefather, increased and multiplied by the act of propagation. The commandment to “increase and multiply” is now literally transformed into ramifying curses, as Milton, an author much concerned with fame, has Adam confront the terror of infamy.
740–41. On me … place: When a body occupies its natural center in Aristotle’s physics, it is weightless, but the curses of Adam’s children are mysteriously heavy.
743–46. Isa. 45.9: “Woe unto him that striveth with his Maker! … Shall the clay say to him that fashioneth it, What makest thou?”
748. equal: equitable.
758. Thou: “I myself.” Adam here addresses himself, not his Maker, as in lines 743–55.
762. Isa. 45.10: “Woe unto him that saith unto his father, ‘What begettest thou?’ ”
782. one doubt: The same doubt reroutes the thoughts of Hamlet in his “To be, or not to be” soliloquy (3.1.56–88).
783. all: altogether, entirely.
786–92. then … die: Adam’s reasoning here closely follows Milton’s formulation of the mortalist heresy—the idea that body and soul die together (CD 1.13).
791. The body properly hath neither: Augustine, City of God 14.3.
798–801. “The power of God is not exerted in those kinds of things which … imply a contradiction” (CD 1.2 in MLM 1150).
815–16. Death and I take the singular verb am because they are incorporate, united in one body.
831. conviction: See 84n.
831–34. first and last … wish!: Eve later gives voice to the same fond wish (ll. 933–36). The only being with the power to realize this desire is the Son (3.236–37).
837–38. what thou desir’st: Death; what thou fear’st: Death.
842–44. O conscience … plunged!: evoking 4.75–78, and thus indeed To Satan only like (l. 841).
849–50. Which … terror: Greville observes that frightening hallucinations provoked by darkness “proper reflections of the error [original sin] be,/And images of self-confusednesses/ Which hurt imaginations only see;/And from this nothing seen, tells news of devils,/Which but expressions be of inward evils” (Caelica C).
853–54. since … offense: “since it was announced that death would fall on the day man ate the fruit.” Adam forgets that the sentence was delayed (see ll. 209–11).
867–908. The speech bristles with misogyny, some of it standard, such as the opening allusion to a false etymology deriving Eve from hevia (Heb. for “snake”), the insult terming Eve but a rib/Crooked by nature (ll. 884–85), or the disparagement of the act of propagation, and some of it Miltonic, such as the closing catalog of the ways in which marriage will fail in the fallen world, which echoes complaints in the poet’s divorce tracts. But it would be a mistake to confuse Adam’s sour diatribe with Milton’s own attitudes. His representation of Adam and Eve’s subsequent behavior shows that the author did not subscribe to the articles of Adam’s vituperation.
872–73. pretended/To: masking.
886. sinister: literally “left,” figuratively “unlucky.”
887. The line itself contains, in its feminine ending, a supernumerary syllable.
888–95. O why … Mankind: Adam’s lament that God created woman at all follows Euripides, Hippolytus 616–19.
890. spirits masculine: Although, as we have earlier been told (1.424), angels (or at least fallen angels) can
assume either sex, the ability to take on female form is evidently not the same thing as being female in sex. The angels of the poem are unwaveringly masculine in look and attitude.
891–92. defect/Of nature: as Aristotle had maintained in On Generation 737a28, 766a31–32, 766b8–15, 767b8–9.
925. Eve calls attention to the joint enmity against the serpent foretold in the protevangelium (175–81n).
940. Commiseration: compassion for another’s misery, precisely what was missing in his misogynistic diatribe (ll. 867–908).
965. derived: passed down by descent. Adam’s return to the question of seed prompts Eve’s next speech.
969. event: outcome, with a rueful pun on her name.
978. As in: considering.
979–1006. Adam has been lamenting at length his forthcoming infamy, but Eve cuts to the chase. Dread of our seed comes down to this: we can either abstain from the sexual act and have no seed, or, if such frustration seems unendurable, we can kill ourselves and again leave no seed. The speech seems to lift a veil from Adam’s mind, reminding us that, as Milton emphasized at 9.1187–89, fallen men discern mistakes in others that they do not mark in themselves.
989. In early editions the words “so Death” were placed at the beginning of line 990. This is most likely an error, since otherwise 989 would be the only tetrameter line, and 990 the only hexameter line, in the poem.
990. deceived: cheated of.
994. sweet: The reintroduction of this key word in unfallen eroticism (4.298, 311, 641–56; 5.296; 8.603; 9.238, 407) suggests how severe the pangs of frustration would be and deftly reminds Adam of their mutual pleasures.
997–98. Satan has already verified that sexual frustration is “not the least” of Hell’s torments (4.509–11).
1030–40. Again the protevangelium revives and guides.
1053. Fruit of thy womb: anticipating Luke 1.41–42; aslope: Adam’s curse (to earn his bread with labor) glanced off him and hit the ground (l. 201: Cursed is the ground) more directly than it hit him. Earlier, when he was in despair (ll. 720–42), his blessings seemed curses. Now that he is reinvigorated, his curse seems a blessing.
1062. by what means: The entire future of peaceful technology is anticipated here.
1066. shattering: shaking, breaking into pieces, as in Lyc 5, where leaves are also the verb’s object.
1068. shroud: shelter.
1071. foment: heat.
1073. attrite: rubbed at.
1075. Tine: ignite. On the theological and philosophical implication of Adam’s invention of fire, see Hoerner 1995.
1086–1104. Another of the poem’s many mirroring effects, this one being the only imitation in Milton’s work of the extensive formulaic repetition found in Homer (e.g., Il. 9.122–57, 264–99). (Lines 1093–96 are not repeated because Adam and Eve’s punishment will eventually include expulsion from Paradise.) Tayler 1979, 84 remarks that “not only do the narrator’s words place a doctrinal seal upon this stage in the process of repentance” but they also create “a moment of stasis in which we all [Adam and Eve, the narrator, the reader] see things the same way”: this is indeed the best thing to say, the best thing to do.
BOOK XI
THE ARGUMENT
The Son of God presents to his Father the prayers of our first parents now repenting, and intercedes for them. God accepts them, but declares that they must no longer abide in Paradise; sends Michael with a band of Cherubim to dispossess them; but first to reveal to Adam future things; Michael’s coming down. Adam shows to Eve certain ominous signs; he discerns Michael’s approach, goes out to meet him: the angel denounces their departure. Eve’s lamentation. Adam pleads, but submits. The angel leads him up to a high hill, sets before him in vision what shall happen till the Flood.
Thus they in lowliest plight repentant stood1
Praying, for from the mercy-seat2 above
Prevenient grace3 descending had removed
The stony from their hearts, and made new flesh4
Regenerate grow instead, that sighs now breathed5
Unutterable, which the spirit of prayer
Inspired, and winged for Heav’n with speedier flight
Then loudest oratory: yet their port8
Not of mean suitors, nor important less
Seemed their petition, than when th’ ancient pair10
In fables old, less ancient yet than these,
Deucalion and chaste Pyrrha to restore
The race of mankind drowned, before the shrine
Of Themis stood devout. To Heav’n14 their prayers
Flew up, nor miss’d the way, by envious winds
Blown vagabond or frustrate: in they passed
Dimensionless17 through Heav’nly doors; then clad
With incense18, where the golden altar fumed,
By their great Intercessor, came in sight
Before the Father’s throne: them the glad Son
Presenting, thus to intercede began.
“See Father, what first fruits on Earth are sprung
From thy implanted grace in man, these sighs
And prayers, which in this golden censer, mixed
With incense, I thy priest before thee bring,
Fruits of more pleasing savor from thy seed
Sown with contrition in his heart, than those
Which his own hand manuring28 all the trees
Of Paradise could have produced, ere fall’n
From innocence. Now therefore bend thine ear
To supplication, hear his sighs though mute;
Unskillful with what words to pray, let me
Interpret for him, me33 his advocate
And propitiation, all his works on me
Good or not good ingraft35; my merit those
Shall perfect, and for these my death shall pay.
Accept me, and in me from these receive
The smell of peace toward mankind, let him live
Before thee reconciled, at least his days
Numbered, though sad, till death, his doom (which I
To mitigate thus plead, not to reverse)
To better life shall yield him, where with me
All my redeemed may dwell in joy and bliss,
Made one44 with me as I with thee am one.”
To whom the Father, without cloud, serene.
“All thy request for man, accepted Son,
Obtain, all thy request was my decree:
But longer in that Paradise to dwell,
The law I gave to nature him forbids:
Those pure immortal elements that know
No gross, no unharmonious mixture foul,
Eject him tainted now, and purge him off
As a distemper53, gross to air as gross,
And mortal food, as may dispose him best
For dissolution55 wrought by sin, that first
Distempered all things, and of incorrupt
Corrupted. I at first with two fair gifts
Created him endowed, with happiness
And immortality: that fondly59 lost,
This other60 served but to eternize woe;
Till I provided death; so death becomes
His final remedy, and after life
Tried in sharp tribulation, and refined
By faith and faithful works, to second life,64
Waked in the renovation of the just,
Resigns66 him up with heav’n and Earth renewed.
But let us call to synod all the blest
Through Heav’n’s wide bounds; from them I will not hide
My judgments, how with mankind I proceed,
As how with peccant angels late they saw;
And in their state, though firm, stood more confirmed.”
He ended, and the Son gave signal high
To the bright minister that watched; he blew
His trumpet, heard in Oreb74 since perhaps
When God descended, and perhaps once more75
To sound at general doom
. Th’ angelic blast
Filled all the regions: from their blissful bow’rs
Of amarantine78 shade, fountain or spring,
By the waters of life, where’er they sat
In fellowships of joy: the sons of light
Hasted, resorting to the summons high,
And took their seats; till from his throne supreme
Th’ Almighty thus pronounced his sov’reign will.
“O Sons, like one of us man is become
To know both good and evil, since his taste
Of that defended86 fruit; but let him boast
His knowledge of good lost, and evil got,
Happier, had it sufficed him to have known
Good by itself, and evil not at all.
He sorrows now, repents, and prays contrite,
My motions91 in him; longer than they move,
His heart I know, how variable and vain
Self-left93. Lest therefore his now bolder hand
Reach also of the Tree of Life, and eat,
And live forever, dream at least to live
Forever, to remove him I decree,
And send him from the garden forth to till
The ground whence he was taken, fitter soil.
“Michael, this my behest have thou in charge,
Take to thee from among the Cherubim
Thy choice of flaming warriors, lest the fiend
Or in behalf of man, or102 to invade
Vacant possession, some new trouble raise:
Haste thee, and from the Paradise of God
Without remorse drive out the sinful pair,
From hallowed ground th’ unholy, and denounce106
To them and to their progeny from thence
Perpetual banishment. Yet lest they faint108
At the sad sentence rigorously urged,
For I behold them softened and with tears
Bewailing their excess111, all terror hide.
If patiently thy bidding they obey,
Dismiss them not disconsolate; reveal
To Adam what shall come in future days,
As I shall thee enlighten, intermix
My cov’nant in the woman’s seed renewed;
So send them forth, though sorrowing, yet in peace:
And on the east side of the garden place,
Where entrance up from Eden easiest climbs,
Cherubic watch, and of a sword the flame