Paradise Lost (Modern Library Classics) (15 page)

Cornice or frieze
⁷¹⁶
, with bossy sculptures grav’n;

The roof was fretted gold
⁷¹⁷
. Not Babylon,

Nor great Alcairo
⁷¹⁸
such magnificence

Equaled in all their glories, to enshrine

Belus
⁷²⁰
or Serapis their gods, or seat

Their kings, when Egypt with Assyria strove

In wealth and luxury. Th’ ascending pile
⁷²²

Stood fixed her stately highth, and straight the doors

Op’ning their brazen folds discover wide

Within, her ample spaces, o’er the smooth

And level pavement: from the archèd roof

Pendant by subtle magic many a row

Of starry lamps and blazing cressets
⁷²⁸
fed

With naphtha
⁷²⁹
and asphaltus yielded light

As from a sky. The hasty multitude

Admiring entered, and the work some praise

And some the architect: his hand was known

In Heav’n by many a towered structure high,

Where sceptered angels held their residence,

And sat as princes, whom the supreme King

Exalted to such power, and gave to rule,

Each in his hierarchy, the orders bright.

Nor was his name unheard or unadored

In ancient Greece; and in Ausonian land
⁷³⁹

Men
⁷⁴⁰
called him Mulciber; and how he fell

From Heav’n, they fabled, thrown by angry Jove

Sheer o’er the crystal battlements; from morn

To noon he fell, from noon to dewy eve,

A summer’s day; and with the setting sun

Dropped from the zenith
⁷⁴⁵
like a falling star,

On Lemnos th’ Aegean isle: thus they relate,

Erring; for he with this rebellious rout

Fell long before; nor aught availed him now

To have built in Heav’n high tow’rs; nor did he scape

By all his engines
⁷⁵⁰
, but was headlong sent

With his industrious crew to build in Hell.

Meanwhile the wingèd heralds by command

Of sov’reign power, with awful ceremony

And trumpets’ sound throughout the host proclaim

A solemn council forthwith to be held

At Pandaemonium
⁷⁵⁶
, the high capital

Of Satan and his peers: their summons called

From every band and squarèd regiment

By place or choice
⁷⁵⁹
the worthiest; they anon

With hundreds and with thousands trooping came

Attended: all access was thronged, the gates

And porches wide, but chief the spacious hall

(Though like a covered field, where champions bold

Wont
⁷⁶⁴
ride in armed, and at the soldan’s chair

Defied the best of paynim
⁷⁶⁵
chivalry

To mortal combat or career
⁷⁶⁶
with lance)

Thick swarmed
⁷⁶⁷
, both on the ground and in the air,

Brushed with the hiss of rustling wings. As bees

In springtime, when the sun with Taurus
⁷⁶⁹
rides,

Pour forth their populous youth about the hive

In clusters; they among fresh dews and flowers

Fly to and fro, or on the smoothèd plank,

The suburb of their straw-built citadel,

New rubbed with balm, expatiate
⁷⁷⁴
and confer

Their state affairs. So thick the airy crowd

Swarmed and were straitened; till the signal giv’n,

Behold a wonder! They but now who seemed

In bigness to surpass Earth’s giant sons
⁷⁷⁸

Now less than smallest dwarfs, in narrow room

Throng numberless, like that pygmean race
⁷⁸⁰

Beyond the Indian mount
⁷⁸⁰
, or faerie elves

Whose midnight revels, by a forest side

Or fountain some belated peasant sees
⁷⁸³
,

Or dreams he sees, while overhead the moon

Sits arbitress
⁷⁸⁵
, and nearer to the earth

Wheels her pale course, they on their mirth and dance

Intent, with jocund music charm his ear;

At once with joy and fear his heart rebounds.

Thus incorporeal spirits to smallest forms

Reduced their shapes immense, and were at large,

Though without number still amidst the hall

Of that infernal court. But far within

And in their own dimensions like themselves

The great Seraphic lords and Cherubim

In close recess
⁷⁹⁵
and secret conclave sat

A thousand demigods on golden seats,

Frequent
⁷⁹⁷
and full. After short silence then

And summons read, the great consult
⁷⁹⁸
began.

1.
The first line’s introduction of an exemplary man recalls the epics of Homer and Vergil. Milton’s theme, however, is neither martial nor imperial but spiritual: humanity’s disastrous failure to obey God counterpoised by the promise of redemption.
Of man’s:
The proper name
Adam
is also the Hebrew word for generic man or humankind. He is both an individual male and, with Eve, the entire species: “so God created man …; male and female he created them” (Gen. 1.27).
Of man
translates the Hebrew for “woman” (Gen. 2.23).
fruit:
Its dual meanings (outcome, food) are put in play by enjambment, a primary formal device by which Milton draws out sense “from one verse into another” (
The Verse
).

4.
one greater man
: Jesus, second Adam (1 Cor. 15.21–22; Rom. 5.19). Cp.
PR
1.1–4.

5.
blissful seat
: translates Vergil’s epithet for Elysium,
Aen
. 6.639.

6.
Sing Heav’nly Muse
: the verb and subject of the magnificently inverted sixteen-line opening sentence. By invoking a Muse, Milton follows a convention that dates from Homer. Yet Milton’s Muse is not the muse of classical epic (Calliope) but the inspiration of Moses, David, and the prophets (cp. 17–18n).
secret:
set apart, not common. When the Lord descends to give Moses the law, thick clouds and smoke obscure the mountaintop, and the people are forbidden on pain of death to cross boundaries around the mountain (Exod. 19.16, 23).

8.
shepherd
: The vocation of shepherd is a key vehicle for Milton’s integration of classical and scriptural traditions. Moses encounters God while tending sheep on Mount Horeb (
Oreb
) and later receives the law on
Sinai
, a spur of Horeb (Exod. 3; 19). (Or the doubling of names may simply acknowledge the inconsistency of Exod. 19.20 and Deut. 4.10.)

9.
In the beginning
: opening phrase of Genesis and the Gospel of John.

10.
Chaos
: classical term for the primeval state of being out of which God creates, also referred to as “the deep” (as in Gen. 1.2) and “the abyss” (as in l. 21).
Sion hill:
Mount Zion, site of Solomon’s Temple, “the house of the Lord” (1 Kings 6.1, 13). Adding to the persistent doubleness of the invocation, Milton requests inspiration from two scriptural sites associated with God’s presence and prophetic inspiration. Both sites receive dual designations: Mount Horeb/Sinai and Mount Zion/Siloa’s brook.

11–12.
Siloa’s brook … God:
spring whose waters flowed through an underground aqueduct, supplied a pool near (
Fast by
) Solomon’s Temple, and irrigated the king’s lush garden (cp. 4.225–30). Jerome says it ran directly beneath Mount Zion (A. Gilbert 1919, 269). Scripturally, it symbolizes David’s monarchical line (Isa. 7–8, esp. 8.6). In opening the eyes of the man born blind, Jesus sends him to wash his eyes with its waters (John 9). Cp. 3.30–31.
oracle of God:
the holiest place in the Temple, the tabernacle of the Ark of the Covenant (1 Kings 6.19). The classical Muses haunt a spring (Aganippe) on Helicon (cp. 15n), “the sacred well, / That from beneath the seat of Jove doth spring” (
Lyc
15–16). In identifying the spring near the “Holy of Holies” as similarly a site of inspiration, Milton again links scriptural and classical prophetic and poetic traditions.

14.
no middle flight
: Milton will go beyond middle air, whose upper boundary is as high as the peaks of tall mountains, and soar to the highest Empyrean, the abode of God. His soaring ambition recalls the myth of Icarus, whose failure to follow a
middle flight
caused him to tumble into the sea (cp. 7.12–20).

15.
Aonian mount
: Helicon, Greek mountain favored by the Muses (cp. 11–12n). Hesiod says that while he tended sheep on Helicon (like Moses on Horeb), the Muses called him to sing of the gods (
Theog
. 22).

16.
Translates the opening of
Orlando Furioso
(1.2) and is reminiscent of
Masque
43–45; cp. similar claims by Lucretius (De
Rerum Nat
. 1.925–30) and Horace (
Odes
3.1.2–4).

17–18.
1 Cor. 3.16–17, 6.19. The
Spirit
is the Holy Spirit (l. 21). In Milton’s theology, the diverse functions of the Holy Spirit derive from “the virtue and power of God the Father,” in this case “the force or voice of God, in whatever way it was breathed into the prophets” (
CD
1.6, p. 1194). The site of revelation progresses from Horeb/Sinai to Sion hill/Siloa’s brook to, finally, the individual human heart.

21.
brooding
: Milton thus renders the Hebrew word translated as “moved” in the
AV
(Gen. 1.2) but as
incubabat
(brooded) in St. Basil and other Latin patristic authors (see also 7.235). Cp. Sir Thomas Browne,
Religio Medici:
“This is that gentle heat that brooded on the waters, and in six days hatched the world” (73).

24.
argument
: subject matter; cp. 9.28.

25.
assert
: take the part of, champion.

26.
justify
: vindicate; cp. Pope,
Essay on Man:
“Laugh where we must, be candid where we can,/But vindicate the ways of God to man” (1.15–16). Milton’s word order permits dual readings: either “justify (the ways of God to men)” or “justify (the ways of God) to men.” Cp.
SA:
“Just are the ways of God,/And justifiable to men” (293–94).

27–28.
Milton introduces the narrative with a query, an epic convention; cp. “Tell me, O Muse, the cause” (Vergil,
Aen
. 1.8). Homer also depicts the Muses as all-knowing: “Tell me now, ye Muses that have dwellings on Olympus—for ye are goddesses and are at hand and know all things” (
Il
. 2.484–85).

29.
grand
: great, original, all-inclusive; cp. line 122.

30.
fall off
: deviate, revolt (as in l. 33).

33.
Cp.
Il
. 1.8.

36.
what time
: when; cp.
Masque
291,
Lyc
28.

44–49.
Him … arms:
“God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell and delivered them into chains of darkness” (2 Pet. 2.4; cp. Jude 6).

45.
“I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven” (Luke 10.18); cp. Homer’s Hephaestus “hurled … from the heavenly threshold … headlong” (
Il
. 1.591–92).

46.
ruin
: a fall from a great height, from the Latin
ruina;
cp 6.867–68.

48.
adamantine
: unbreakable (Gk.); cp. Aeschylus’s Prometheus, clamped “in shackles of binding adamant that cannot be broken” (
Prom
. 6). The myth of adamant persists today; the indestructible claws of the Marvel Comics hero Wolverine are made of “adamantium.”

49.
durst
: dared.

50–52.
The rebel angels regain consciousness after nine days falling from Heaven (6.871) and nine days
rolling in the fiery gulf
. Hesiod’s Titans fall nine days from heaven to earth and another nine from earth to Tartarus (
Theog
. 720–25). Milton, like many Christian mythographers, deemed the Titans’ rebellion a pagan analogue for Satan’s fall.

53.
Confounded
: destroyed. Combined with
though immortal
, it neatly defines the Christian concept of damnation.

54.
Reserved
: “And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day” (Jude 6; cp. 2 Pet. 2.4). In
CD
, Milton cites these verses and others to show that “bad angels are kept for punishment” (1.9 in
MLM
1218).

56.
baleful
: Of Old English origin,
baleful
signifies evil in both its active and its passive aspects. Satan’s eyes thus brim with his own suffering and with malice toward others.

57.
witnessed
: Like
baleful
, active and passive. Satan’s eyes express spite and woe and also observe it in the surrounding scene.

59.
ken
: “are able to see.” Possessive apostrophes do not appear in early modern texts, so that
ken
here could also mean “visual range” of angels. The word is used both as a verb and as a noun elsewhere in
PL
(5.265, 11.379).

63.
darkness visible
: Judged “difficult to imagine” by T. S. Eliot, the paradox has scriptural and classical precedents. See the description in Job of the realm of the dead, “where the light is as darkness” (10.22) or, in Euripides’
Bacchae
, Pentheus’s command to imprison Dionysus “so that he may see only darkness” (510). Milton previously flirted with the paradox in
Il Pens
(79–80). Cp. Keats’s marginalia: “It can scarcely be conceived how Milton’s blindness might here aid the magnitude of his conceptions, as a bat in a large gothic vault” (Lau 74).

66–67.
And rest … all:
The inscription above the gate to Dante’s Hell reads, “Abandon every hope, who enter here” (
Inf
. 3.9). Cp. Euripides,
Trojan Women
(681–82).

67–68.
but … urges:
“The devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone … and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever” (Rev. 20.10).
Still:
constantly.

70.
Cp. “the everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels” (Matt. 25.41). Dante similarly depicts the inferno as an artifice of divine justice (
Inf
. 3.4).

72.
utter darkness
: destination of those excluded from the kingdom of Heaven (Matt. 8.12, 22.13, 25.30). The
AV
has “outer” instead of “utter”; cp. 3.16. The Geneva gloss on Matt. 8.12 explains, “there is nothing but mere darkness out of the kingdom of heaven.”

73–74.
Homer, Hesiod, and Vergil precede Milton in expressing as a ratio distances between heaven, earth, and the pit of hell (
Il
. 8.16;
Theog
. 722–25;
Aen
. 6.577–79).

74.
center
: the earth, at the center of the Ptolemaic cosmos;
pole:
the point on the outside of the cosmic sphere closest to heaven.

78.
welt’ring
: rolling on waves; cp.
Lyc
13.

81.
Beëlzebub
: Phoenician god at Ekron consulted by King Ahaziah (2 Kings 1.2). The name in Hebrew means “Lord of Flies.” In the Gospels, he is called “prince of the devils”; he was often identified with Satan (Matt. 12.24; cp.
CD
1.9 in
MLM
1219).

82.
Satan
: Hebrew word for adversary or enemy, first applied to Satan after his rebellion (5.658). He ultimately glories in the title (10.386–87).

84.
If … fall’n
: “How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!” (Isa. 14.12; cp. Vergil,
Aen
. 2.274). The appearance of the rebel angels is altered for the worse. They are also bereft of names (ll. 361–65). Hence Satan persists in the conditional salutation (l. 87).

98.
high disdain
: noble scorn. A relatively common reaction in an aristocratic era (Kerrigan 2000), it is characteristic of Satan (cp. 4.50, 82, 180).

103–5.
Satan’s account differs from Raphael’s; cp. 6.832–34, 853–55.

107.
study
: pursuit.

109.
“And what else does it mean ‘not to be overcome’?”

114.
Doubted
: feared for.

115.
ignominy
: can be pronounced “ig-no-min-y” or “ig-no-my” (as it was often spelled). In the former case, the terminal
y
would coalesce with
and
. Cp. 2.207, 6.383.

116.
fate
: Satan makes fate the ultimate authority, distinct from the deity, as in Homer. God later defines fate as what he wills, 7.173; cp.
CD
1.2 in
MLM
1145–46. The portrayal of fate as an independent governing principle is a feature of Stoic philosophy specifically criticized by Jesus in
PR
(4.313–18).
gods:
“Anyone can observe throughout the whole of the Old Testament … that angels often take upon them as their own the name … of God” (
CD
1.5 in
MLM
1185). God himself refers to the angels as gods (3.341). Cp. Herrick,
Of Angels:
“Angels are called gods; yet of them, none / Are gods, but by participation” (1–2).

117.
empyreal substance
: fiery essence, like the substance of Heaven; cp. 2.771. Heaven (the empyrean) and Hell both are based on the element of fire: in Hell it possesses only its destructive properties, in Heaven only its salutary ones. See 63n.

123.
triumphs
: Emphasis on the second syllable stresses a plosive-frictive fusion, as in
harumph
. It was common to accent the word thus.

125–27.
Cp. Vergil’s depiction of the seemingly optimistic Aeneas after he has rallied his distressed comrades: “So spake his tongue; while sick with weighty cares he feigns hope on his face, and deep in his heart stifles the anguish” (
Aen
. 1.208–9).

128–29.
powers … Seraphim:
Thrones and Powers, like
Seraphim
, are angelic orders. The phrase
thronèd powers
invokes no specific order of angel, however. It instead indicates the dignity and spiritual nature of those led by Satan, including the
Seraphim
.