Paradise Lost (Modern Library Classics) (48 page)

276.
Thy offspring
: perhaps an allusion to Sin (see 2.743–60).

282.
Adversary
: translates “Satan.”

284–88.
Hast thou … hence?:
i.e., “Have you turned the weakest in my army to flight, or have any fallen failed to rise again undefeated, that you should hope to deal (
transact
) so easily with me as to chase me away with imperious threats?” Satan’s speeches here and before his clash with Abdiel are incoherent.

288.
Err not that
: “don’t erroneously suppose.”

290.
The strife of glory
: Cp. the Son’s interpretation of the conflict (5.738–39).

296.
parle
: parley;
addressed:
prepared, but in play with
parle
and
unspeakable
.

297–98.
tongue/Of angels:
recalls St. Paul’s insistence on the emptiness of oratory without charity (1 Cor. 13.1), a fitting transition from talking to fighting.

299.
conspicuous
: “perceivable,” modifies
things
. In asking what could
lift / Human imagination to such highth / Of godlike power
, Raphael seeks an aesthetic of the sublime.

303.
empire
: command, control.

306–7.
while expectation stood/In horror:
The personification of
expectation
conveys the angels’ alarm; cp. Shakespeare,
ANT
3.6.47, where expectation is “faint” from lack of satisfaction, and
H5
2.Prol.8: “Now sits Expectation in the air.”

310–15.
Fowler notes the passage’s ironic anticipation of the fallen world, when celestial order is deliberately altered so that malignant opposition between planets becomes a regular astrological occurrence (10.657–61). Here, however, cosmic
concord
is imagined not simply as altered for the worse but as broken, and the planets not merely in
aspect malign
but rushing toward each other “in mere oppugnancy,” as Shakespeare’s Ulysses says in a precedent passage (
TRO
2.111). The sublimely horrifying prospect of Michael and Satan’s imminent combat dwarfs (
great things by small
) that of planets hurtling toward each other on a collision course.

318–19.
determine … once:
decide the outcome and not need to be repeated because it lacked the necessary power to finish the fight in itself (at once). The common gloss of
as not of power—
“because so powerful a blow could not be repeated”—is unconvincing.

320.
prevention
: anticipation.

321.
armory of God
: mentioned in Jer. 50.25. Cp. the irresistible sword given Arthegall by Astraea, goddess of justice: “Wheresoever it did light, it thoroughly sheared” (
FQ 5
.1.10).

323–27.
Nor solid might … side:
Though hardly Homeric in his dissection of battle, Raphael is careful to relate how Satan’s wound occurs. Michael’s sword
descending
cuts Satan’s sword sheer in two; then Michael executes a
swift wheel reverse
(a backhand upstroke) that cuts off (
shared
) Satan’s entire
right side
. Satan’s left (Lat.
sinister
) side remains.

328.
convolved
: rolled together; coiled up. Satan’s reaction to the pain prefigures his metamorphosis into a serpent (10.511ff).

329.
griding
: slashing, piercing;
discontinuous:
gaping; “in allusion to the old definition of a wound that it separates the continuity of the parts” (Newton).

332–33.
nectarous … bleed:
Celestial spirits
bleed a bodily fluid, or
humor
, whose
sanguine
color owes to the “rubied nectar” they drink (5.633); cp. Homer’s similar treatment of divine bleeding,
Il
. 5.339–42.

335–36.
was run/By angels:
Latinate syntax (
cursum est
) indicating that his troops ran to aid him. Such scenes occur frequently in Homer (e.g.,
Il
. 14.428–32).

345–53.
On the versatile homogeneity of angels, see 1.425n. Kerrigan notes how enviable such a physiology would be for a man with defective eyes (1983, 215–16, 227–28, 257–62; cp.
SA
93–97).

346.
reins
: kidneys.

347.
annihilating
: Whether or not existence is escapable for angels is an open question; see 2.92–93, 151–54. In Milton’s monist theory of creation
ex deo
, certainly no created being can, in the literal sense of annihilation, become “nothing.” The closest to annihiliation a creature can come is dissolution into constituent atoms, or as Belial puts it, “swallowed up and lost/In the wide womb of uncreated Night” (2.149–50).

353.
likes
: pleases; an instance of the ethical dative;
condense or rare:
thick or thin in density.

356.
ensigns
: standards or banners of military units, here also the units themselves.

357.
Moloch
: “The name is not supposed to exist until after man’s Fall (see 1.364–65). Raphael might foreknow the names of future devils (cp. 12.140), but to name them here implies the failure of his mission. He had withheld ‘Beëlzebub’ from Bk. 5 … but now allows many devils’ names to infiltrate Bk. 6” (Leonard). Like the narrator in Books 1 and 2, however, Raphael does not have many options. The original names of the fallen angels have been erased, and fallen humanity has not yet supplied them with new ones. 359–60.
nor … blasphemous:
“Whom hast thou reproached and blasphemed? … the Holy One of Israel” (2 Kings 19.22).

362.
uncouth
: unfamiliar.

363.
Raphael
refers to himself in the third person, which may owe to the historian’s objectivity or indicate that Adam and Eve do not know the name of their guest.

364.
in a rock of diamond
: Cp.
Sonnet 6
, 7–8.

365.
Adramelec and Asmadai
:
Adramelec
was idolized by the Sepharvites in Samaria under Assyrian dominion (2 Kings 17.31). Worshiped as a sun god, he is defeated by Uriel, “regent of that orb” (3, Argument).
Asmadai
(Asmodeus) is vanquished by Raphael, his captor in the apocryphal Book of Tobit (see 4.168–71n).

371–72.
Ariel and Arioch … Ramiel:
The meaning of
Ariel
is uncertain, though it is often glossed as “lion of God.” It is the proper name of a man as well as a poetic name for Jerusalem (e.g., Isa. 29.1–2). Milton would also have remembered Shakespeare’s character (
TMP). Arioch
(lion-like) is the scriptural name of two kings and a captain (Gen. 14.1, 9; Judg. 1.6; Dan. 2.14). More pertinently, Rabbinical sources identify the king from Genesis with Antiochus Epiphanes (176–64
B.C.E.
), King of Syria and perpetrator of “the Abomination of Desolation,” in which a statue of Zeus was erected in the temple and Jews forced to worship it (1 Macc. 1.11–6.16).
Ramiel
, the most obscure reference, means “thunder of God”; Milton may have known the name from an extant fragment of the apocryphal Book of Baruch, which centers on the destruction of Jerusalem. If so, the three angels defeated by Abdiel are associated with apostasy and destruction in the holy city.

373–85.
Content with God’s praise, good angels
seek not the praise of men
(cp.
Lyc
78–84). The rebels, their names
cancelled
from God’s book, cannot win praise in Heaven, though they as creatures desire it instinctively. That they will seek the consolation of humanity’s praise is left implicit. That they will succeed in their quest is presumed by the appearance of their earthly names in Raphael’s narrative (see 357n).

382.
Illaudable
: unworthy of praise.

386.
the battle
: the [rebel] army.

391.
what
: those who.

393.
Defensive scarce
: scarcely defending themselves.

399.
cubic phalanx
: Angels aloft, unlike human armies, can assume a cubic formation, both geometrically foursquare and, in the figurative sense, firm and unwavering. Cp. the hollow cube deployed by the rebels (l. 552).

404.
unobnoxious
: not liable (cp. l. 397).

410.
foughten field
: battlefield (cp. Shakespeare,
H5
4.6.18).

411.
prevalent
: prevailing.

413.
Cherubic waving fires
: “flaming Cherubim” (l. 102), regularly assigned guard duty (e.g., 4.778–85).

415.
dislodged
: shifted position (5.669), or was forced to shift position. The active-passive ambiguity seems especially apt because the site of Satan’s relocation is
far in the dark
(5.614).

416.
Tactical councils on the night of a battlefield setback occur in Homer (
Il
. 9) and Vergil (
Aen
. 9.224–313).

421.
mean pretense
: “low aim,” ironically accompanied by “base deception”;
affect:
“strive after,” ironically accompanied by “pretend.”

423.
doubtful fight
: indecisive conflict; cp. “dubious battle” (1.104).

429.
Of future
: Editors generally gloss “in future,” after the idiom “of old.” But Hume’s reading of the phrase as a supposed limit on divine knowledge (“of future events”) is also possible.

430.
Omniscient thought
: Yet Satan called a secret meeting (5.683ff).

432.
known as soon contemned
: no sooner felt than scorned.

440.
worse
: harm.

447.
Nisroch
: Assyrian deity; while worshiping at Nisroch’s temple after a disastrous campaign against Israel, the Assyrian ruler Sennacherib was slain by his own sons (2 Kings 19.37, Isa. 37.38).

449.
to havoc hewn
: cut to pieces.

455.
impassive
: invulnerable to pain.

458.
remiss
: slack.

464.
He who
: What follows is an implicit, conditional threat to Satan’s sole leadership.

465.
offend
: hit, hurt.

467–68.
to me … owe:
“in my view deserves no less than what we owe [Satan] for our deliverance.”

471.
main
: key.

472–81.
For related accounts of light’s productive interaction with potent subterranean matter, see 3.608–12, 8.91–97; cp.
Masque
732–36.

473.
ethereous
: Milton substitutes the Greco-Latin form of the adjective rather than make the tongue-twisting combination
ethereal mold
.

478.
materials dark and crude
: Chaos substantiates Heaven too (MacCaffrey 162–64); cp. ll. 482–83, 510–12, 2.941.

479–80.
The action of light touching potent sulfurous material and causing it to
shoot forth
appears to have suggested Satan’s invention. It is the archetypal instance of Satan’s bent for violating generative processes to accomplish his ends.

479.
spirituous
: highly refined, pure;
spume:
“of the Lat.
spuma
, froth, foam, a word expressing well the crude consistence of sulfur and other subterranean materials, the efficients of fertility” (Hume).

483.
infernal
: Satan uses the word in its classical sense of “underground,” though the ironic association with Hell is unavoidable for Milton’s readers.

484.
engines
: war machines; cp. 4.17–18. Milton was widely anticipated in laying the invention of artillery at the Devil’s door; see, e.g., Spenser, FQ 1.7.13.

485.
bore
: hole bored into the cannon’s barrel and filled with powder (called
touch
) that fired the cannon when lit.

494.
counsel
: judgment, wisdom. Physical prowess and strategic intelligence are classically the two main martial virtues, exemplified by Achilles and Odysseus.

496.
cheer
: mood, spirits.

498.
admired
: wondered at.

507–9.
The abrupt style conveys haste.

510–20.
The rebels’ procedure here bears comparison with the construction of Pandaemonium (1.686ff).

512.
nitrous foam
: potassium nitrate or saltpeter; material of
spiritous and fiery spume
mentioned at line 479 and a basic ingredient of gunpowder.

514.
concocted and adusted
: combined and dried.

515.
blackest grain
: Satan in Book 4 is identified with the
smutty grain
of his invention (816–17 and n).

518.
found
: cast as in a foundry; cp. 1.703;
engines:
cannons.

519.
missive
: sent, delivered from a distance;
incentive reed:
match.

520.
pernicious
: deadly; sudden (meanings with distinct Latin roots).

521.
conscious
: privy to; translates Ovid’s
nox conscia
and to a similar end (
Met
. 13.15). The common observation that Raphael here personifies night as a guiltily aware accomplice is unjustified.