The Complete Poems

by John Milton

  890. Astonied stunned, paralysed (with a pun on ‘as stone’).

  blank discomfited, deprived of speech, resourceless (OED 5) and pale (OED 1).

  892–3. From his slack hand… dropped Cp. Homer, Il. xxii 448, where Andromache hears the sound of mourning and realizes that Hector is dead: ‘her limbs spun, and the shuttle dropped from her hand to the ground’. Cp. also Statius, Thebaid vii 148–50, where Bacchus, fearing the destruction of Thebes, drops his thyrsus, and unspoiled grapes fall from his garlanded head.

  893. faded roses ‘The first instance of decay in Paradise’ (Fowler), but cp. the ‘show’red roses’ at iv 773.

  901. deflow’red Cp. Eve as ‘unsupported flow’r’ (ix 432). Her temptation has also been presented as a sexual seduction (ix 386–96).

  devote doomed (OED ‘devoted’ 3). Porter (III) compares Dido, pesti devota futurae, ‘doomed to impending ruin’ (Virgil, Aen. i 712).

  905. unknown modifies fraud, not Enemy. Adam knows that Satan beguiled Eve, but he doesn’t yet know how he did it. Cp. ix 1172, where Adam clearly knows who ‘the lurking enemy’ was. Adam has always referred to Satan as ‘the Enemy’.

  906–7. with thee… to die Waldock (52) and Empson (189) applaud Adam’s decision as springing from ‘protectiveness’ and ‘true love’, but Adam chooses to die with Eve, for his own sake. He does not die for her. Cp. Eve’s selfless offer at x 930–36.

  919. what seemed remédiless Lewis (123) takes seemed to imply that Adam might have found a remedy, and Burden (168) infers that ‘the remedy is divorce’. Other critics suggest that Adam, like the Son, might have risked himself to save Eve. See Fish (261–72), Danielson2 (121–4), and Leonard (213–32).

  922. hath] Ed II; hast Ed I. Hast goes better with line 921, but Adam might shift to a more general thought so as not to confront Eve’s particular case.

  923–5. to eye… touch Gen. 3. 3 and PL vii 46 confirm the ban on touch, but Adam’s claim that it was perilous even to look at the fruit is nowhere supported.

  924. sacred *set apart, exclusively appropriated (OED 2b), with overtones of ‘consecrated’, ‘entitled to veneration’ (OED 3b). Adam is making an idol of the fruit.

  928. fact both ‘crime’ (OED 1c) and ‘a thing done’ (OED 1a).

  946–50. loath… next Cp. the Son’s plea at iii 156–64.

  947. Adversary Satan. Adam still refers to him as the Foe (951), but now fails to pursue his earlier insight that serpent and ‘enemy’ are one and the same (see above, 905n).

  953. Certain resolved.

  954. death is to me as life Cp. Satan’s ‘Evil be thou my good’ (iv 110), but Adam (who did not understand death at iv 425) might not see the paradox. He intends a witty play on life as the meaning of Eve’s name: ‘if death consort with you, then death is to me like Eve’. By Consort Adam means ‘associate’, but the sense ‘have sexual commerce with’ (OED 2) is grimly appropriate to the lustful Death of book ii.

  959. to lose thee were to lose myself The Ed I and Ed II spelling ‘loose’ could indicate ‘lose’ or ‘loose’. Bond (956) invites a pun, but the implications are ambiguous. ‘Loose’ could mean ‘set free’ (OED ib), ‘redeem’ (OED 10), or ‘dissolve, do away with’ (OED 7a).

  961. O… love Cp. iii 410 (‘O unexampled love’).

  973. good… good Eve still omits ‘evil’ from the name ‘Tree of Knowledge of good and evil’. Cp. lines 754–9, 864–5.

  980. oblige make liable to a penalty.

  fact crime, deed.

  984. event outcome.

  994–5. recompense… recompense compensation for a loss… retribution for an offence (OED 2, 5). Cp. Adam’s bitter cry at 1163: ‘Is this the love, is this the recompense?’

  994. compliance unworthy submission (OED 6b).

  998. not deceived Cp. I Tim. 2. 14: ‘Adam was not deceived’.

  1000–1001. Earth… second groan Cp. earth’s groan at the ‘fall’ of Dido and Aeneas (Virgil, Aen. iv 165–70). See above, 783n. Cp. also the mournful groan (gemitus lacrimabilis) that comes from beneath the tree plucked by Aeneas at Aen. iii 39.

  1003–4. sin / Original the theological doctrine that all of Adam’s descendants ‘committed sin in Adam’ (CD i 12, YP 6. 395, trans. Carey). Cp. x 729f.

  1016. dalliance amorous toying (OED 2). Contrast the innocent ‘youthful dalliance’ of iv 338.

  1018. sapience wisdom and taste. See above, 797n.

  1019. each meaning savour tastiness (OED 1b) and understanding (OED 5). Cp. v 84.

  we] Ed I; me Ed II.

  1021. purveyed provided food.

  1026. forbidden ten proleptic of the Ten Commandments.

  1027. play have sex (OED 10c).

  1028. meet appropriate, with a pun on ‘meat’ (‘human body regarded as an instrument of sexual pleasure’, OED 3e, cited from 1595). Contrast Eve as a ‘help meet’ (Gen. 2. 21) and unfallen Adam’s judging ‘of fit and meet’ (viii 448).

  1029–32. For never… now echoing Zeus’s amorous invitation to Hera (Homer, Il. xiv 314–16) and Paris’s to Helen (Il. iii 442): ‘Never before as now has passion enmeshed my senses’. Zeus and Hera make love on a bed of flowers (including hyacinth, Il. xiv 346–51), and Zeus falls asleep when wearied.

  1030–31. adorned / With all perfections Flannagan hears a pun on ‘Pandora’, ‘all gifts’. Cp. iv 714–15.

  1034. toy light caress (OED 1).

  1037. a shady bank Before the Fall Adam and Eve had made love in their bower at night-time (see iv 741). Now they do it anywhere, at any time.

  1042–4. their fill… solace Cp. Prov. 7. 18, where a woman ‘with the attire of an harlot’ accosts a youth: ‘Come, let us take our fill of love until the morning: let us solace ourselves with loves’. Contrast the ‘solace’ of marriage before the Fall (iv 486, viii 419, ix 844).

  1043. seal a legal metaphor enlivened by a bawdy pun. Cp. Donne, ‘Elegy 19’: ‘To enter in these bonds, is to be free; / Then where my hand is set, my seal shall be’ (32–3).

  1047. bland *pleasing to the senses (OED 2). Contrast the ‘temperate vapours bland’ that before the Fall bred ‘airy light’, not grosser, sleep (v 5).

  1050. unkindly unnatural.

  conscious guilty (OED 4b).

  1058. he i.e. Shame (who is personified, see line 1097).

  1059. Danite Samson was of the tribe of Dan (Judges 13. 2). See SA 216n on Dalila (Delilah) as a Philistine.

  1062. they M. likens both Adam and Eve to Samson. Eve is not Adam’s Dalila.

  1067. Eve… evil Adam’s pun is constrained (1066), ‘forced as opposed to natural’ (OED 2). ‘Eve’ means ‘life’, and Adam will reaffirm this meaning at xi 159–61.

  1068. of whomsoever taught Having suppressed his recognition of Satan (see above, 905n), Adam is now genuinely ignorant. But recognition is still within his grasp. See ix 1172–3.

  1072. good lost, and evil got M. follows most commentators in deriving the tree’s name from the event. Cp. iv 222, 774–5, xi 84–9 and CD i 10: ‘since it was tasted, not only do we know evil, but also we do not even know good except through evil’ (trans. Carey, YP 6. 352–3).

  1078. evil store evil in abundance.

  1079. the first the evil that caused the shame.

  1083. this earthly earthly nature. Cp. viii 453.

  1087. umbrage shadow, foliage, protective screen (OED 1, 2c, 5) and false show (OED 6), as in ‘Truth will appear from under all the false glosses and umbrages that men may draw over it’ (1693). Notice Hide me.

  1091. plight including ‘offence, sin’ (OED sb1 2) and ‘pleat’, ‘attire’ (OED sb2 1, 8). The pun may be borrowed from Spenser (see below, 1116n).

  1092–3. Following Ed I. Ed II wrongly transposes for and from.

  1094. obnoxious exposed (OED 1a), with possible overtones of the modern sense, which OED cites from 1675.

  1101. fig-tree the banyan (ficus religiosa). In fact it has small leaves, but M. has taken his details from contemporary encyclopedists. The loopholes (1
110) and the Amazon simile (1111) are found in Gerard’s Herbal (1597) 1330.

  1103. Malabar south-west coast of India.

  Deccan southern India.

  1106. mother tree Cp. the feminization of the Tree of Knowledge (ix 581–2, 680).

  1111. Amazonian targe an Amazon’s shield.

  1115. naked glory Cp. Marlowe, Hero and Leander (1598), i 12–13: ‘Venus in her naked glory strove / To please the careless and disdainful eyes / Of proud Adonis’.

  1116. Columbus… girt Cp. Spenser’s simile likening Fancy to a sunburned Indian clad in ‘painted plumes’ and ‘proudest plight’ (FQ III xii 8). American Indians were sometimes seen as untainted by the Fall, but M. associates them with ruined innocence. See Evans3 94f.

  1117. cincture belt.

  1121. sat them down to weep Cp. Ps. 137. 1: ‘By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion’.

  1131. distempered See above, 887n.

  1132. estranged changed from his normal self (OED 4) and alienated (from Eve).

  1140. approve test.

  1141. owe both ‘own’ and ‘owe’.

  1144. What words… thy lips echoing Homer (Il. xiv 83). Eve is referring specifically to Adam’s word wand’ring (1136) which has now assumed its fallen meaning. See ii 148n and Fish (140).

  severe another tainted word. It had meant ‘austerely simple’ (iv 283–4, 845, v 807), but Eve now means ‘harsh’. Adam laments the new meaning in line 1169.

  1155. the head I Cor 11. 3 (cit. above, viii 574n).

  1164. expressed modifies both (Eve’s) love (1163) and mine for thee. Eve’s love was ‘declared’; Adam’s was ‘manifested in actions’ (OED ‘express’ 7).

  1175. confidence overboldness (OED 4a).

  secure overconfident.

  1183–4. women… her The grammatical inconsistency is ‘in keeping with Adam’s agitation’ (Bush).

  1188. fruitless Cp. Eve’s pun in line 648.

  1189. no end inverting ‘No more’ (ix 1).

  BOOK X

  3. perverted including ‘turned from a true to a false religious belief (OED 3b).

  10. Complete fully equipped (OED 5), as in ‘complete steel’. Notice armed and cp. A Masque 420.

  12. still always.

  16. manifold in sin sinful in many ways.

  19. by this by this time.

  28–30. they… vigilance ‘Accountable for their actions, they (the guards) hasted to the supreme throne to make plain their utmost vigilance with a righteous plea.’

  31. approved confirmed (OED 2). Cp. Argument, ‘approve their vigilance, and are approved’.

  40. speed be successful.

  45. moment slightest weight sufficient to tip a scale.

  48. rests remains.

  49. denounced formally proclaimed.

  49–52. that day… immediate stroke God had told Adam that he would die ‘in the day’ he ate (Gen. 2. 17). See viii 331n.

  53. Forbearance no acquittance ‘abstinence from enforcing a debt is not release from the debt’ (proverbial expression, OED ‘forbearance’ 3).

  54. Justice… scorned ‘My justice must not be scorned as my generosity has been’.

  56–7. to thee… All judgement John 5. 22.

  58. might] Ed II; may Ed I.

  70–71. in me… well pleased Matt. 3. 17.

  77. derived diverted (OED 2) and passed on by descent (OED 4).

  78. illústrate set in the best light.

  79. Them justice and mercy.

  80. Attendance none shall need no retinue will be necessary.

  train attendants.

  82. the third Satan.

  83. Convict proved guilty (OED a 2).

  rebel to all law M. had called Charles I a ‘rebell to Law’ (YP 3. 230).

  84. Conviction both ‘proof of guilt’ and *’condition of being convinced of sin’ (OED 8). OED cites the latter sense only from 1675, but it was well established in the verb. See John 8. 9 and PR iv 308.

  86. collateral side by side.

  87. *ministrant Cp. Heb. 1. 14: ‘Are they not all ministering spirits?’

  89. coast region of the earth (OED 6).

  90–91. the speed… winged The Son’s descent is timeless. Raphael had taken most of the morning to travel from Heaven to earth (viii 110–15).

  92. cadence sinking, with a musical pun taken up by airs (Ricks). Cp. iv 264–6.

  106. obvious coming in the way (OED 3), thus ‘coming out to meet’. Cp. viii 504.

  107–8. what change… what chance Cp. ii. 222–3 (‘what chance, what change / Worth waiting’).

  112. apparent manifest.

  120. still always.

  128. other self See viii 450n.

  135. Devolved caused to fall upon.

  137–43. This woman… did eat Cp. Gen. 3. 12: ‘The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.’ Biblical commentators detected a hint of resentment in ‘thou gavest’. To this M. adds irony (so good, / So fit), tactlessness (so divine) and self-exculpation (I could suspect no ill). Contrast Eve’s humble directness in lines 159–62.

  147. or but equal or even equal. Cp. viii 568–75.

  151. real both ‘true’ and ‘royal’ (OED a1).

  155–6. part / And person role and character (theatrical terms).

  157. few few words.

  165. unable modifies serpent.

  167. end purpose.

  171. at last including ‘on the last day’ (see line 190).

  173. mysterious mystical (see x 1030–40).

  183 second Eve a common patristic idea. Cp. v 385–7.

  184. Satan… lightning When the disciples told Jesus how they had subjected devils, he replied: ‘I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven. Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy’ (Luke 10. 18–19).

  185. Prince of the Air Satan is ‘prince of the power of the air’ in Eph. 2. 2. Cp. PR i 39–47.

  186–7. Spoiled… show Col. 2. 14–15.

  188. Captivity led captive Ps. 68. 18, Eph. 4. 8.

  190. tread… under our feet Cp. Rom. 16. 20: ‘the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly’.

  195–6. thy husband’s… rule Cp. Gen. 3. 16: ‘thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee’. Adam has always ruled over Eve in PL. See iv 441–8, viii 561–75, x 145–56, etc. M. in CD i 10 argues that Adam’s authority became ‘still greater after the Fall’ (trans. Carey, YP 6. 355).

  210. denounced announced as a calamitous event about to take place (OED 1b)

  214. the form of servant Phil. 2. 7.

  215. he washed his servants’ feet John 13. 5.

  217. or… Or either… or. If the beasts were slain, the Son is ‘the immediate cause’ of ‘the first instance of actual death’ (Fowler).

  222. robe of righteousness Cp. Isa. 61. 10: ‘he hath covered me with the robe of righteousness’. Notice the pun Opprobrious… robe.

  236. author father (OED 2a) and prompter, instigator (OED id).

  241. avengers] Ed II; avenger Ed I.

  like so well as.

  243–4. Methinks… Wings growing Cp. PL ix 1009–10, where the fallen and intoxicated Adam and Eve ‘fancy that they feel / Divinity within them breeding wings’. Fowler notes that Sin’s wings may grow ‘simultaneously’ with Adam and Eve’s, for M. has just taken us back in time. See line 229. M. thus presents us with the Fall ‘twice in the poem, and this second time it is horrific’ (Rushdy 130).

  246. sympathy affinity drawing two things together.

  connatural force innate force linking us.

  249. conveyance communication.

  253–323. Prodigies of building or engineering are traditional in epic. In PL we have seen Pandaemonium and the Creation. Examples in earlier epics include the wall around the Greek ships (Homer, Il. vii 433f.), Carthage (Virgil, Aen. i 423f.), Caesar’s causeway over the port of Brindisi (Luc
an, Pharsalia ii 660–79), and Goffredo’s siege engines (Tasso, Gerus. Lib. xviii).

  254. impervious through which there is no way (OED 1).

  257. main ocean (of Chaos).

  260. intercourse passing back and forth.

  261. transmigration permanent emigration (to earth), but suggesting also ‘passage from this life, by death’ (OED 3). Sin and Death’s bridge opens our way to Hell as readily as it opens Hell’s way to us.

  264. meagre emaciated (OED 1).

  272. snuffed *detected by inhaling an odour (OED v2 4). OED’s earliest instance (from Dryden, 1697) is an obvious imitation of Milton.

  274–8. ravenous fowl… bloody fight Cp. Satan as vulture at iii 431–9. Cp. also Lucan’s description of vultures following the Roman armies to Pharsalia (Pharsalia vii 831–7).

  275. Against in anticipation of.

  277. designed set apart, destined.

  279. feature form, shape (OED 1c).

  281. Sagacious acute in sense of smell (OED 1), with a play on ‘wise’. Cp. Adam and Eve’s puns on ‘savour’ and ‘sapience’ (ix 797, 1018–10).

  284. diverse in different directions.

  285. Hovering upon the waters Sin and Death travesty the dove-like Spirit of God at Creation. See i 21–2, vii 235–40.

  288. shoaling crowding together (OED v3 2).

  290. Cronian Sea the Arctic Ocean (solid with ice).

  291. th’ imagined way the north-east passage to Cathay. Hudson had tried to find it in 1608, but his way was blocked by ice.

  292. Petsora Pechora, a river in Siberia.

  293. Cathayan Milton distinguished Cathay (North China) from China proper. See xi 386–8.

  294. *petrific that turns things to stone.

  cold and dry See ii 898n for the four contraries: Hot, Cold, Moist, and Dry. Death employs the qualities productive of melancholy and associated with decay. Fowler contrasts the Son’s use of Hot and Moist in Creation (vii 236–9).

  296. Delos floating once Pregnant by Jupiter (and persecuted by Juno) Latona could find no place in which to give birth to Apollo and Diana until Neptune fixed the floating island of Delos with his trident (Callimachus, Hymns, iv, Hyginus, Fables, cxl). Cp. v 262–6.

  297. Gorgonian rigor The Gorgon Medusa turned anything she looked at into stone. See ii 611.

  Rigor both ‘stiffness’ and ‘harshness’, with overtones of ‘straight course’ and ‘coldness’ (Latin rigor).