by Bert Williams

Though the 17^th century poetic form and English vocabulary of “Paradise Lost” can be challenging for the 21^st century reader, Milton’s thought and words still retain their power. One need not know the definition of every vocabulary word to discover that the rhythmic flow of line upon line has power to reach the modern ear (For added impact, try reading aloud the lines that follow. It helps to remember that, in blank-verse poetry, the end of a line is often not the end of the flow of thought, and sometimes a period will stop the flow in the middle of a line). Consider now a few excerpts from a poem that, in complete form, covers much more than 100 pages.

 

Expulsion

We begin with part of Milton’s riveting description of Satan’s challenge to God, and Satan’s resulting expulsion from heaven:

 

He trusted to have equaled the Most High,

If he opposed; and with ambitious aim

Against the throne and monarchy of God

Raised impious war in Heaven and battled proud,

With vain attempt. Him the Almighty Power

Hurled headlong flaming from th’ ethereal sky

With hideous ruin and combustion down

To bottomless perdition . . . ,

Who durst defy th’ Omnipotent to arms.

 

 Milton’s portrayal of Satan’s unrepentant spirit reveals the poet’s deep grasp of the pull of sin upon the carnal human heart:

 

Farewell, happy fields,

Where joy forever dwells! Hail, horrors! Hail,

Infernal world! And thou, profoundest Hell,

Receive thy new possessor, one who brings

A mind not to be changed by place or time.

The mind is its own place, and in itself

Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.

 

Milton grasped well Satan’s self-absorbed character, once described by the prophet Isaiah (Isaiah 14:13-15), as he placed these words in Satan’s mouth:

 

            To reign is worth ambition, though in Hell:

            Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.

 

No Second Chance

And what if God were to forgive and offer a second chance to Satan and his cohort? Listen to Satan’s thoughts, as Milton conceived them:

           

         Suppose he should relent

         And publish grace to all, on promise made

         Of new subjection; with what eyes could we

         Stand in his presence humble, and receive

         Strict laws imposed, to celebrate his throne

         With warbled hymns, and to his Godhead sing

         Forced Halleluiahs; while he lordly sits

         Our envied Sovereign.

 . . . .

Eternity so spent in worship paid

To whom we hate!

 

To those whose hearts are evil, the compulsory “warbled hymns” and “forced halleluiahs” sung to the “envied Sovereign” would, Milton suggests, turn heaven into hell.

 

A Place Exposed

But Milton’s epic is not focused only, or even primarily, upon Satan and his angels. A sudden horrible foreboding sweeps over the reader upon encountering these lines. Satan asks other evil angels:

 

            . . . What if we find

Some easier enterprise? There is a place

(If ancient and prophetic fame in Heaven

Err not), another world, the happy seat

Of some new race called Man

. . . .

Though Heaven be shut,

And Heaven’s high Arbitrator sit secure

In his own strength, this place may lie exposed,

The utmost border of his kingdom. 

 

As Milton alerts the reader to the impending attack on Eden, foreshadowing it long before it actually takes place in the poem, so he also foreshadows the coming of the Savior. In doing this he reflects the apostle Peter’s insistence that “the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect, . . . was chosen before the creation of the world” (1 Peter 1:19-20). Listen as Milton portrays God the Father speaking to the Son before the creation of the planet:

 

. . . And be thyself man among men on Earth,

Made flesh, when time shall be, of virgin seed

By wondrous birth; be thou in Adam’s room

The head of all mankind, though Adam’s son.

As in him perish all men, so in thee,

As from a second root, shall be restored.

 

As the poem continues, Satan finds his way to Eden and observes from a safe distance the two innocents in their garden home. Envious and tormented by their happiness, Satan plots the demise of Adam and Eve:

 

Sight hateful, sight tormenting! Thus these two

Imparadised in one another’s arms,

The happier Eden, shall enjoy their fill

Of bliss on bliss, while I to Hell am thrust,

. . . .

One fatal tree there stands, of knowledge called,

Forbidden them to taste. Knowledge forbidden?

Suspicious, reasonless. Why should their lord

Envy them that? Can it be sin to know,

Can it be death? . . .

O fair foundation laid whereon to build

Their ruin!

 

Serpent

Having conceived his strategy for deception, Satan, by night, enters a serpent. The next day, Eve, having wandered from Adam’s side, encounters the serpent. Rather than fleeing at first sight, she is captivated by the serpent’s ability to speak and to reason. The reader, though already knowing the fateful story’s outcome, feels compelled to shout, “No! Stop! Eve, think what you are doing!” But the Serpent engages Eve in a long conversation, in the course of which it says,

 

Why then was this forbid? Why but to awe,

Why but to keep ye low and ignorant,

His worshipers? He knows that in the day

Ye eat thereof, your eyes that seem so clear,

Yet are but dim, shall perfectly be then

Opened and cleared, and ye shall be as gods.

 

More conversation ensues, in the course of which, Eve says to herself,

 

How dies the serpent? He hath eaten and lives,

And knows, and speaks, and reasons, and discerns,

Irrational till then. For us alone

Was death invented? Or to us denied

This intellectual food, for beasts reserved?

For beasts it seems: yet that one beast which first

Hath tasted, envies not, but brings with joy

The good befallen him, author unsuspect,

Friendly to man, far from deceit or guile.

 

Deceit

The reasoning seems impeccable, and thus Eve concludes:

 

Here grows the cure of all, this fruit divine,

Fair to the eye, inviting to the taste,

Of virtue to make wise: what hinders then

To reach and feed at once both body and mind?

 

Much more than can be portrayed in these brief excerpts, Milton—in page after page—demonstrates the tantalizing web of deceit that Satan wove. The reasoning seems so clear. How could this be wrong? Only Eve’s willingness to accept God’s clear statement to the contrary could have saved her from what seemed unassailable logic.

 

So Eve returns to Adam and, “with countenance blithe” explains her admiration for the serpent and how his generosity has opened the way for her enlightenment. Milton then portrays Adam’s reaction:

 

. . . Adam, soon as he heard

The fatal trespass done by Eve, amazed,

Astonied stood and blank, while horror chill

Ran through his veins, and all his joints relaxed;

From his slack hand the garland wreathed for Eve

Down dropped, and all the faded roses shed.

Speechless he stood and pale, till thus at length

First to himself he inward silence broke:

“Oh fairest of creation, last and best

Of all God’s works, creature in whom excelled

Whatever can to sight or thought be formed,

Holy, divine, good, amiable, or sweet!

How art though lost, how on a sudden lost?

 

At this, Adam is faced with a choice: Loyalty to God or love for Eve—and he chooses Eve. Eventually, when the extent of their sin has become clear, Adam says to Eve,

 

What better can we do than to the place

Repairing where he judged us, prostrate fall

Before him reverent, and there confess

Humbly our faults, and pardon beg, with tears

Watering the ground, and with our sighs the air

Frequenting, sent from hearts contrite, in sign

Of sorrow unfeigned, and humiliation meek?

 

Their Solitary Way

After more of the story unfolds, the angel Michael offers to Adam a preview of the future, including God’s plan of salvation through the gift of His son. Adam replies,

 

Henceforth I learn that to obey is best,

And love with fear the only God, to walk

As in his presence, ever to observe

His providence, and on him sole depend,

Merciful over all his works, with good

Still overcoming evil, and by small

Accomplishing great things.

 

Adam, having been apart from Eve as he was receiving instruction from Michael, now rejoins her in the garden, and discovers that she has received much the same instruction in a dream. And then . . .

 

In either hand the hastening angel caught

Our lingering parents, and to th’ eastern gate

Led them direct, and down the cliff as fast

To the subjected plain; then disappeared.

They, looking back, all th’ eastern side beheld

Of Paradise, so late their happy seat,

Waved over by that flaming brand; the gate

With dreadful faces thronged and fiery arms.

Some natural tears they dropped, but wiped them soon;

The world was all before them, where to choose

Their place of rest, and Providence their guide.

They, hand in hand, with wandering steps and slow,

Through Eden took their solitary way.