Paradise Lost (Modern Library Classics) (37 page)

268–72.
eternal … world:
Milton presents the seasons as a postlapsarian phenomenon (10.651–91). In classical myth, seasonal change owes to the rape of Proserpine. Ovid describes the Sicilian grove from which
Dis
abducts her (
Enna
) as a place of perpetual spring (
Met
. 5.385–91). While sorrowful
Ceres
, goddess of grain, seeks her daughter, the earth turns barren. Because Proserpine eats of a pomegranate while in Hades, she must return to Dis for part of each year, during which time Ceres mourns, and nothing grows. Cp. 9.395–96 and Milton’s 1637 letter to Diodati.

273–74.
Daphne … spring:
The laurel grove of
Daphne
by the river
Orontes
near Antioch had a spring inspired by Apollo and named for the
Castalian spring
of Parnassus. See Purchas 83. For the myth of Apollo and Daphne, see Ovid,
Met
. 1.450–565.

275–79.
Nyseian … eye:
The third stage of this four-layer simile follows Diodorus’s account of
Ammon
, King of Libya, his affair with
Amalthea
, and their son (
Bacchus
). Mother and son take refuge from
Rhea
, Ammon’s wife, on the island Nysa (3:67–70). Ammon was identified with the Libyan Jupiter and with Ham (
Cham
), Noah’s son.

280–85.
Abassin … garden:
Heylyn describes
Amara
as being “a day’s journey high” and the site of palaces where, to prevent sedition, younger sons of the Abyssinian emperor were secluded and educated (4:64). Like Heylyn, Purchas comments on the identification of this African mount as the “place of our forefather’s paradise” (843).

300.
front
: forehead;
sublime:
lofty.

301.
hyacinthine
: like hyacinth petals, from Homer (
Od
. 6.231).

304–8.
Women’s long hair was on St. Paul’s authority understood to imply subjection (1 Cor. 11.7, 14–15). Like Homer’s Aphrodite and Vergil’s Venus, Milton’s Eve is golden.

306.
wanton
: abundant, luxuriant; like the “mantling vine” of line 258.

310.
coy
: not demonstrative, shy.

311.
reluctant:
“struggling” (Hume). Cp. the fire of divine wrath struggling through “dusky wreaths” of smoke at 6.58. As uncomfortable as some readers may be with the suggestion of erotic struggle, the modern sense of
reluctant
as “unwilling” was not current in the seventeenth century, according to the
OED
.

312.
mysterious
: See 741–43n.

329.
Zephyr
: west wind; “the frolic wind that breathes the spring” (
L’All
18).

331–36.
Adam and Eve’s contented meal reverses the punishment of Tantalus.

332.
Nectarine
: sweet as nectar;
compliant:
yielding.

334.
damasked
: many colored.

337.
gentle purpose
: well-bred conversation.

338.
Wanted
: were lacking.

341.
chase
: unenclosed land, game preserve; also, animals to be hunted.

343.
ramped
: reared, as if climbing.

344.
Dandled
: played with; cp. Isa. 11.6;
ounces, pards:
lynxes, leopards.

348.
Insinuating
: artfully working into company, winding;
Gordian:
like the famously complicated knot.

352.
ruminating
: chewing the cud.

353.
prone career
: downward course, as of a galloping horse.

354.
ocean isles
: identified at line 592 as the Azores;
ascending scale:
ladder, stairway (
OED
n3, I.1.b), or more likely, the rising scale of a figurative cosmic balance “weighing night and day, the one ascending as the other sinks” (Newton). In the equinoctial Garden, day and night are counterpoised. At the vernal equinox, the sun is in Aries, opposite Libra (the Scales), the constellation in which the evening stars would rise (cp. Vergil,
Georg
. 1.208).

356.
as first he stood
: since he initially saw Adam and Eve (l. 288).

360.
mold
: shape, pattern; also, Earth as humanity’s native element.

361–62.
to Heav’nly spirits bright/Little inferior:
“Scarce to be less than gods thou mad’st his lot” (Ps. 8.5, Milton’s translation; cp. Heb. 2.7).

370.
for so happy
: for being as fortunate as you are; cp. “for Heav’n” (l. 372).

376.
strait
: intimate; also constricted.

380–83.
he … kings:
Cp. Matt. 10.8, Isa. 14.9.

382.
her widest gates
: her gates as wide as possible.

387.
for
: instead of.

389.
public reason just
: legitimate concerns of state, such as honor and empire. Cp.
SA
865–70.

402.
lion
: Cp. 1 Pet. 5.8; Euripides,
Bacchae
1015.

410.
Turned him all ear
: Satan turns eagerly to hear human speech. The phrasing also suggests Raphael’s account of spiritual bodily function, 6.350. Cp.
Masque
560. “All ear” is a common expression in Italian (
tutt’ orecchi
).

411.
Sole … sole
: only … peerless. The repetition of
sole
and
part
invites wordplay touching the origin of Eve and paradisial marriage.

425.
whate’er death is
: For unfallen Adam, death has no meaning beyond
pronounced
penalty (l. 427). After the Fall, the concept of death will be gradually fleshed out, culminating in Michael’s gruesome visions of mortality (11.444–47, 462–65).

447.
odds
: amount or ratio by which one thing exceeds or falls short of another; common diction in Shakespeare, where it often concerns characters in competition.

451.
on
: per the first edition; the second reads “of.”

460–69.
Eve’s narration formally echoes and significantly varies Ovid’s tale of Narcissus (
Met
. 3.415ff).

466.
pined
: from the Latin noun
poena
, meaning “penalty in satisfaction for an offense or in consequence of failure to fulfill an obligation.” As an intransitive verb,
pine
means “to languish with intense desire.” As a transitive verb, it means “to cause pain or anguish” or “to grieve.” Cp. Satan at lines 511 and 848.

470.
stays
: awaits. This line is echoed by Satan at
PR
3.244.

478.
platan
: plane; a favorite shade tree of the Greeks and Romans, commonly described as barren (Vergil,
Georg
. 2.70, 4.146). Plato presents Socrates as reclining beneath a spreading plane tree (
Phaedrus
230a). Horace calls it
caelebs
, which used of men means “unmarried” and of trees “without vines” (
Odes
2.15.4). Despite the conjugal arc of Eve’s narrative, Fowler maintains that Adam’s association with the plane tree owes not to its classical association with “erotic love” but to a “well-known allegory” that made it a symbol of Christ, Adam’s “head.”

480–89.
Than … yielded:
Eve flees Adam as Daphne flees Apollo (
Met
. 1.502ff). As with preceding situational references to Tantalus (ll. 331–36) and Narcissus (ll. 460–69), another classical myth of frustration is undone.

486.
individual
: inseparable, distinctive.

487–88.
Part … half:
Cp. Horace,
Odes
1.3.8, 2.17.5.

493.
unreproved
: not subject to rebuke. Eve’s eyes work differently at 9.1036.

499–501.
Smiled … flowers:
The simile recalls Vergil’s account of Aether embracing his wife and of showers quickening seed in the earth (
Georg
. 2.325–28).

500.
impregns
: impregnates.

505–35.
Satan’s third soliloquy of the book. Like Shakespeare in
Othello
, Milton insists that his audience share the development of his villain’s strategy.

508–11.
thrust … pines:
Satan’s account of torment by
unfulfilled … longing
continues the epic’s extensive correlation of the spiritual with the erotic (cp. 10.992–98).

511.
Still
: always; cp. 53–56;
pines:
torments (transitive, with Satan as the understood object); cp. 466n.

515–22.
knowledge … ruin:
Critics debate the sincerity of Satan’s sentiments: whether his indignation is genuine (Empson 1965, 69) or a rehearsal of his rhetorical strategy (Broadbent 151). But Satan is capable neither of sincerity nor of being merely strategic.

530.
A chance but chance
: “Perhaps luck …”

539.
utmost longitude
: farthest west.

541.
right aspect
: square attitude; the setting sun is perpendicular to the vertical gate.

548.
Still
: continually.

549.
Gabriel
: “God is my strength” (Hebr.); see lines 1006–10. Widely deemed one of the four archangels (with Uriel, Raphael, and Michael), Gabriel appears in Scripture to aid Daniel and foretell the birth of John the Baptist and Jesus (Dan. 8.16, 9.21; Luke 1.19, 26). Jewish traditions identify him as one of the three angels (with Michael and Raphael) who share a peaceful meal with Abraham (Gen. 18). He is also accounted the guardian of Paradise and the angel responsible for ripening fruit.

555.
even
: Newton was the first to explain the play on
even:
“His coming upon a sunbeam was the most direct and level course that he could take; for the sun’s rays were now pointed right against the eastern gate … where Gabriel was sitting.” Homer similarly compares Athena’s descent to a shooting star, a sign portentous to mariners (
Il
. 4.74–79).

557.
thwarts
: crosses. Aristotle explains shooting stars as combustible exhalations drawn from the earth and ignited aloft either through compression and condensation or by their own quickening motion. The natural motion of fire is upward, but strong winds, thought to originate at high altitude, propel the ignited vapors downward. Their oblique (
thwart
) path results from the combination of their natural motion and the wind’s downward compulsion (
Meteorology
1.4). Cp. Vergil,
Georg
. 1.365–67.

558.
Impress
: mark by exerting pressure.

561.
The practice of establishing orders or divisions (
courses
) by lot is common in Scripture, especially in accounts of temple duties (1 Chron. 23.6–26; Luke 1.8).

567.
described
: observed, spied (per a seventeenth-century confusion of
describe
and
descry
).

568.
airy gait
: flight path as well as comportment in flight (cp. 3.741).

580.
vigilance
: guard or watch; metonymy is an apt figure for designating angels, whose entire subjectivity is perfectly aligned with function (cp. l. 410, 6.350–51).

591.
slope downward
: Because the sun has continued to sink, Uriel no longer follows a flat trajectory. The moment thus occurs just after the balance point of equinoctial day and night.

592.
whether
: First and second editions have “whither.”

592–97.
whether … attend:
Milton will not choose between the Copernican cosmos and the Ptolemaic, which requires the sun to revolve around the earth at unbelievable velocity.

594.
Diurnal
: daily;
voluble:
rolling (Lat.
volúbilis
).

603.
descant
: counterpointed song.

605.
Hesperus
: the evening star, Venus.

606–9.
Milton plays on clothing as a vehicle for light, here culminating in the moon’s paradoxical disrobing (cp.
L’All
60–62,
Il Pens
122–25,
Masque
188–89).

608.
Apparent
: “readily seen,” but also “heir” (to Hesperus, the brightest light in the night sky until the moon’s appearance).

628.
manuring
: cultivation by hand (Lat.
manus:
hand).

635.
author and disposer
: source and ruler.

640.
seasons
: periods of time, occasions.

642.
charm
: delightful harmony.

648.
solemn bird
: nightingale; cp. 7.435.

661.
These
: Early editions have “Those.” Citing lines 657 and 674, Newton substituted “These.”

665–67.
Lest … things:
Previously, Satan persuaded Chaos and Night of his intention to return the newly created world “to her original darkness” and the
possession
of Night (2.982–86; cp. 10.415–18). It is axiomatic in this epic that, without light, chaos would come again.