Paradise Lost (Modern Library Classics) (57 page)

453.
Earthly
: earthly nature.

454.
stood under
: been exposed to.

462–82.
Cp.
Sonnet
23
.

466.
cordial spirits
: vital spirits residing in the heart’s blood.

481.
When out of hope
: when I had ceased to hope.

494.
nor enviest
: nor given reluctantly, begrudgingly.

499.
one heart, one soul
: an addition to Gen. 2.23–24, again suggesting companionate marriage (see 450n).

502.
conscience
: internal awareness. Cp. Eve’s account of her initial turning away at 4.477–80.

509.
obsequious
: acquiescent (not servile).

511.
blushing
: Most blushes in the fallen world indicate shame. But there are innocent blushes, too, compounded of shyness and a sense of awe at participating in a great thing. The syntax leaves open the possibility that Adam is also blushing.

513.
influence
: emanation from the heavens, here entirely favorable; cp. 10.661–64.

519.
ev’ning star
: Hesperus or Venus, whose appearance in the sky is a signal in the epithalamium tradition to light the bridal lamps and torches and bring the bride to the bride-groom. See Spenser,
Epithalamion
286–95;
DDD
in
MLM
873–74.

532–33.
Cp.
SA
1003–1007.

536.
subducting
: subtracting.

537–39.
Cp.
SA
1025–30.

547.
absolute
: complete, perfect; Adam earlier used the word of God (ll. 419–21n).

553.
Looses
: goes to pieces.

555.
As one intended first
: Adam sees Eve as himself.

556.
Occasionally
: on the occasion of Adam’s request.

559.
guard angelic placed
: “Adam has just used, by ironic anticipation, the image of Paradise after he has been excluded from it,” Frye wrote (1965, 64), thinking of 12.641–44.

562.
diffident
: mistrustful.

572.
self-esteem
: Milton may well have coined the term in
Apology;
see
MLM
850 (Leonard).

574.
head
: “The head of the woman is the man” (1 Cor. 11.3).

575.
shows
: appearances. Turner finds the passage “particularly appalling” (280) because he takes
shows
to mean “pretenses, wiles,” as if Eve were deliberately nurturing her husband’s uxoriousness.

576.
adorn
: adorned.

577.
awful
: awe-inspiring.

583.
divulged
: done openly.

591–92.
the scale … ascend:
Earthly love as the
scale
or ladder by which we may ascend to
Heav’nly love
is a central feature of Neoplatonic works such as Marsilio Ficino’s
Commentary on Plato’s Symposium
and Spenser’s
Four Hymns
.

598.
genial
: nuptial. As before he demonstrated his freedom in disputing with God (ll. 379–97, 412–33), so here Adam rejects Raphael’s insistence that marital sexuality is no more than what animals do. He rather values it with the
reverence
appropriate to religious mysteries. Cp.
Tetrachordon
(
MLM
1004).

608.
foiled
: overcome.

617.
virtual
: in effect, not actually (modifies
touch
). Adam imagines three ways in which angels might express love (if they do): by looks, by mingling their radiance, or by actual (
immediate
) touch. Cp. his earlier interest in whether angels eat what humans eat (5.401–403, 466–67).

618–19.
Todd: “Does not Milton here mean that the Angel both smiled and blushed at Adam’s curiosity?” He does, and goes on to say that a red blush is love’s
proper
, correct or natural,
hue
. Cp. 511n.

624–25.
The passage has in mind the criticism of sexual intercourse voiced at the opening of Book 4 of Lucretius’
On the Nature of Things
. Human lovers desire full union, such as that enjoyed by Milton’s angels, but are repeatedly frustrated in having to make do with the friction of surfaces: “Again they in each other would be lost,/But still by adamantine bars are crossed” (trans. John Dryden).

624.
In eminence
: in an elevated manner.

625.
exclusive
: excluding.

628.
restrained conveyance
: restraining transportation (such as the human body). Angels can apparently mix at a distance, uniting what Adam considered a disjunctive choice between
virtual
and
immediate touch
(l. 617).

631.
green cape
: Cape Verde;
verdant isles:
the Cape Verde Islands off the west (
Hesperean
) coast of Africa.

645.
Since to part
: since we must part.

   No more
¹
of talk where God or angel guest

With man, as with his friend, familiar
²
used

To sit indulgent, and with him partake

Rural repast, permitting him the while

Venial
⁵
discourse unblamed: I now must change

Those notes to tragic; foul distrust, and breach

Disloyal on the part of man, revolt,

And disobedience; on the part of Heav’n,

Now alienated, distance and distaste,

Anger and just rebuke, and judgment giv’n,

That brought into this world a world of woe,

Sin and her shadow Death, and Misery,

Death’s harbinger: sad task, yet
¹³
argument

Not less but more heroic than the wrath

Of stern Achilles on his foe pursued

Thrice fugitive about Troy wall; or rage

Of Turnus for Lavinia disespoused,

Or Neptune’s ire or Juno’s, that so long

Perplexed
¹⁹
the Greek and Cytherea’s son;

If answerable
²⁰
style I can obtain

Of my celestial patroness, who deigns

Her nightly visitation unimplored
²²
,

And dictates to me slumb’ring, or inspires

Easy my unpremeditated
²⁴
verse:

Since first this subject for heroic song

Pleased me long choosing, and beginning late;

Not sedulous by nature to indite
²⁷

Wars, hitherto the only argument

Heroic deemed, chief mast’ry to dissect

With long and tedious havoc fabled knights

In battles feigned; the better fortitude

Of patience and heroic martyrdom

Unsung; or to describe races and games,

Or tilting furniture
³⁴
, emblazoned shields,

Impresses quaint, caparisons and steeds;

Bases and tinsel trappings, gorgeous knights

At joust and tournament; then marshalled feast
³⁷

Served up in hall with sewers and seneschals;

The skill of artifice or office
³⁹
mean,

Not that which justly gives heroic name

To person or to poem. Me of these

Nor skilled nor studious, higher argument

Remains, sufficient of itself to raise

That name
⁴⁴
, unless an age too late, or cold

Climate, or years
⁴⁵
damp my intended wing

Depressed
⁴⁶
, and much they may, if all be mine,

Not hers who brings it nightly to my ear.

   The sun was sunk, and after him the star

Of Hesperus
⁴⁹
, whose office is to bring

Twilight upon the Earth, short arbiter

’Twixt day and night, and now from end to end

Night’s hemisphere had veiled the horizon round:

When Satan who late fled before the threats

Of Gabriel out of Eden, now improved

In meditated fraud and malice, bent

On man’s destruction, maugre
⁵⁶
what might hap

Of heavier on himself, fearless returned.

By night he fled
⁵⁸
, and at midnight returned

From compassing the Earth, cautious of day,

Since Uriel, Regent of the Sun, descried

His entrance, and forewarned the Cherubim

That kept their watch; thence full of anguish driv’n,

The space of seven continued nights he rode

With darkness, thrice the equinoctial line

He circled, four times crossed the car of night

From pole to pole, traversing each colure;

On the eighth returned, and on the coast averse
⁶⁷

From entrance or Cherubic watch, by stealth

Found unsuspected way. There was a place,

Now not, though sin, not time, first wrought the change,

Where Tigris at the foot of Paradise

Into a gulf shot underground, till part

Rose up a fountain by the Tree of Life;

In with the river sunk, and with it rose

Satan involved in rising mist, then sought

Where to lie hid; sea he had searched and land

From Eden
⁷⁷
over Pontus, and the pool

Maeotis, up beyond the river Ob;

Downward as far Antarctic; and in length

West from Orontes to the ocean barred

At Darien, thence to the land where flows

Ganges and Indus: thus the orb he roamed

With narrow search; and with inspection deep

Considered every creature, which of all

Most opportune might serve his wiles, and found

The serpent subtlest beast of all the field.

Him after long debate, irresolute

Of thoughts revolved, his final sentence chose

Fit vessel, fittest imp
⁸⁹
of fraud, in whom

To enter, and his dark suggestions hide

From sharpest sight: for in the wily snake,

Whatever sleights none would suspicious mark,

As from his wit and native subtlety
⁹³

Proceeding, which in other beasts observed

Doubt might beget of diabolic pow’r

Active within beyond the sense of brute.

Thus he resolved, but first from inward grief

His bursting passion into plaints thus poured:

   “O Earth, how like to Heav’n, if not preferred

More justly, seat worthier of gods, as built

With second thoughts, reforming what was old!

For what god after better worse would build?

Terrestrial Heav’n,
¹⁰³
danced round by other heav’ns

That shine, yet bear their bright officious lamps,

Light above light, for thee alone, as seems,

In thee concent’ring all their precious beams

Of sacred influence: as God in Heav’n

Is center, yet extends to all, so thou

Cent’ring receiv’st from all those orbs; in thee,

Not in themselves, all their known virtue appears

Productive in herb, plant, and nobler birth

Of creatures animate with gradual life

Of growth, sense, reason
¹¹³
, all summed up in man.

With what delight could I have walked thee round,

If I could joy in aught, sweet interchange

Of hill and valley, rivers, woods and plains,

Now land, now sea, and shores with forest crowned,

Rocks, dens, and caves; but I in none of these

Find place or refuge; and the more I see

Pleasures about me, so much more I feel

Torment within me, as from the hateful siege
¹²¹

Of contraries; all good to me becomes

Bane, and in Heav’n much worse would be my state.

But neither here seek I, no nor in Heav’n

To dwell, unless by mast’ring Heav’n’s Supreme;

Nor hope to be myself less miserable

By what I seek, but others to make such

As I, though thereby worse to me redound:

For only in destroying I find ease

To my relentless thoughts; and him destroyed,

Or won to what may work his utter loss,

For whom all this was made, all this will soon

Follow, as to him linked in weal or woe;

In woe then, that destruction wide may range:

To me shall be the glory sole among

The infernal Powers, in one day to have marred

What he Almighty styled, six nights and days

Continued making, and who knows how long

Before had been contriving, though perhaps

Not longer than since I in one night freed

From servitude inglorious well nigh half

Th’ angelic name
¹⁴²
, and thinner left the throng

Of his adorers: he to be avenged,

And to repair his numbers
¹⁴⁴
thus impaired,

Whether such virtue spent of old now failed

More angels to create, if they at least

Are his created, or to spite us more,

Determined to advance into our room

A creature formed of earth, and him endow,

Exalted from so base original,

With Heav’nly spoils, our spoils: what he decreed

He effected; man he made, and for him built

Magnificent this world, and Earth his seat,

Him lord pronounced, and, O indignity!

Subjected to his service angel wings,

And flaming ministers to watch and tend

Their earthy charge: of these the vigilance

I dread, and to elude, thus wrapped in mist

Of midnight vapor glide obscure, and pry

In every bush and brake, where hap may find

The serpent sleeping, in whose mazy folds

To hide me, and the dark intent I bring.

O foul descent! That I who erst contended

With gods to sit the highest, am now constrained

Into a beast, and mixed with bestial slime,

This essence
¹⁶⁶
to incarnate and imbrute,

That to the highth of deity aspired;

But what will not ambition and revenge

Descend to? Who aspires must down as low

As high he soared, obnoxious
¹⁷⁰
first or last

To basest things. Revenge, at first though sweet
¹⁷¹
,

Bitter ere long back on itself recoils
¹⁷²
;

Let it; I reck not, so it light well aimed,

Since higher
¹⁷⁴
I fall short, on him who next

Provokes my envy, this new favorite

Of Heav’n, this man of clay, son of despite
¹⁷⁶
,

Whom us the more to spite his Maker raised

From dust: spite then with spite is best repaid.”

   So saying, through each thicket dank or dry,

Like a black mist low creeping, he held on

His midnight search, where soonest he might find

The serpent: him fast sleeping soon he found

In labyrinth of many a round self-rolled,

His head the midst, well stored with subtle wiles:

Not yet in horrid shade or dismal den,

Nor nocent
¹⁸⁶
yet, but on the grassy herb

Fearless unfeared he slept: in at his mouth

The Devil entered, and his brutal sense,

In heart or head, possessing soon inspired

With act intelligential, but his sleep

Disturbed not, waiting close
¹⁹¹
th’ approach of morn.

Now whenas sacred light began to dawn

In Eden on the humid flow’rs, that breathed

Their morning incense, when all things that breathe,

From th’ Earth’s great altar send up silent praise

To the Creator, and his nostrils fill

With grateful smell, forth came the human pair

And joined their vocal worship to the choir

Of creatures wanting voice; that done, partake

The season, prime for sweetest scents and airs;

Then commune how that day they best may ply

Their growing work: for much their work outgrew

The hands’ dispatch of two gard’ning so wide.

And Eve first to her husband thus began.

   “Adam, well may we labor still
²⁰⁵
to dress

This garden, still to tend plant, herb and flow’r,

Our pleasant task enjoined, but till more hands

Aid us, the work under our labor grows,

Luxurious by restraint; what we by day

Lop overgrown, or prune, or prop, or bind,

One night or two with wanton growth derides

Tending to wild. Thou therefore now advise

Or hear
²¹³
what to my mind first thoughts present;

Let us divide our labors, thou where choice

Leads thee, or where most needs, whether to wind
²¹⁵

The woodbine round this arbor, or direct

The clasping ivy where to climb, while I

In yonder spring
²¹⁸
of roses intermixed

With myrtle, find what to redress
²¹⁹
till noon:

For while so near each other thus all day

Our task we choose, what wonder if so near

Looks intervene and smiles, or object new

Casual discourse draw on, which intermits

Our day’s work brought to little, though begun

Early, and th’ hour of supper comes unearned.”

   To whom mild answer Adam thus returned.

“Sole Eve, associate sole, to me beyond

Compare above all living creatures dear,

Well hast thou motioned, well thy thoughts employed

How we might best fulfill the work which here

God hath assigned us, nor of me shalt pass

Unpraised: for nothing lovelier can be found

In woman than to study household good,

And good works in her husband to promote.

Yet not so strictly hath our Lord imposed

Labor, as to debar us when we need

Refreshment, whether food, or talk between,

Food of the mind, or this sweet intercourse

Of looks and smiles, for smiles from reason flow,

To brute denied, and are of love the food
²⁴⁰
,

Love not the lowest end of human life.

For not to irksome toil, but to delight

He made us, and delight to reason joined.

These paths and bowers doubt not but our joint hands

Will keep from wilderness with ease, as wide

As we need walk, till younger hands ere long

Assist us: but
²⁴⁷
if much converse perhaps

Thee satiate, to short absence I could yield.

For solitude
²⁴⁹
sometimes is best society,

And short retirement urges sweet return.

But other doubt possesses me, lest harm

Befall thee severed from me; for thou know’st

What hath been warned us, what malicious foe

Envying our happiness, and of his own

Despairing, seeks to work us woe and shame

By sly assault; and somewhere nigh at hand

Watches, no doubt, with greedy hope to find