by John Milton
392. Guiltless *having no experience of (OED 3). Adam discovers fire only after the Fall (x 1070–80), and it is associated with guilt in the Prometheus story (iv 715–19).
393. Pales goddess of flocks and pastures.
Pomona goddess of fruit-trees. The wood-god Vertumnus wooed her, changing his shape in order to seduce her. Ovid makes her a nymph and says that she surrendered with ‘answering passion’ (Met. xiv 623–771).
394. Likeliest] Ed II; Likest Ed I. Likeliest is preferable because ‘likely’ includes ‘seemly, becoming, appropriate’ (OED 6) as well as ‘resembling’ (OED 1). Likeliest might also imply that Eve ‘is likely to get in trouble’ (Adams 84). Cp. ‘where likeliest he might find’ (ix 414).
395. prime prime of youth, springtime, and first age of the world (OED 6b). Autumn and winter were unknown until Ceres lost Proserpina. See iv 269–72n.
404–5. O much… return Direct address of a character is a Homeric formula. Cp. Il. xvi 787: ‘there, Patroklos, the end of your life was shown forth’. Martin Mueller, CLS 6 (1969), 292–316 (302), argues that M. has modelled Adam and Eve’s parting on that of Achilles and Patroclus. Patroclus entreated ‘his own death’ when he asked to enter the battle wearing Achilles’ armour. Achilles prayed in vain for Patroclus’s safe return (Homer, II. xvi 47, 246–52).
405. event perverse unexpected outcome (Latin perversus, ‘turned the wrong way’). Cp. SA 737: ‘perverse event’.
413. Mere entirely and only.
425. *fragrance The older form was ‘fragrancy’.
431. mindless heedless.
432. Herself… flow’r echoing iv 270 (‘Herself a fairer flow’r’). For Eve as Proserpine, see iv 269–72n and below, 838–42n, and cp. ix 395.
436. voluble gliding, undulating (OED 3), with proleptic overtones of ‘glib, fluent’ (OED 5a).
437. arborets shrubs, small trees.
438. hand handiwork.
440. Adonis a hunter loved by Venus. After he was killed by a boar, Jupiter (or Proserpine) revived him at Venus’s request and he spent half the year with Venus and half with Proserpine. Since ancient times, small plots of fast-fading flowers had been called ‘gardens of Adonis’. Spenser’s Garden of Adonis is a paradise of perpetual spring, but even it is subject to mortality (FQ III vi 39–42).
441. Laertes’ son Odysseus, who visits the miraculous gardens of Alcinous in Homer, Od. vii 112–35.
442. mystic allegorical (OED 1), perhaps also ‘mythical’.
sapient king Solomon.
443. Egyptian spouse Solomon married Pharaoh’s daughter (I Kings 3. 1). See Song of Sol. 6. 2 for his garden.
446. annoy *make noisome (not in OED, but ‘annoy’ and ‘noisome’ are etymologically related).
450. *tedded spread out to dry (as hay).
kine cows.
453. for because of.
456. plat plot of ground.
459–66. Her graceful… revenge Cp. the effect of the Lady’s chastity and beauty on Comus (A Masque 244–65).
461. rapine like ‘rapture’ and ‘rape’, from Latin rapere, ‘to seize’. The would-be ravisher (393–411) is ravished.
463. abstracted drawn off, removed from (OED 1).
465. Stupidly *in consequence of stupefaction (OED Ib), but the modern sense existed (cp. xii 116) and M. might play on it to suggest that Satan is incapable of any positive good. When ‘the Arch-Enemy’ is of enmity disarmed he loses the only identity he has.
471. recollects remembers and summons by effort.
472. gratulating greeting (OED 1), with thoughts as object.
474. transported both ‘entranced’ and ‘conveyed’ (hither brought us). Cp. iii 81: ‘what rage / Transports our Adversary’.
480. Occasion opportunity.
481. opportune conveniently exposed to attack (OED 4).
484. haughty of exalted courage (OED 4).
485. mould bodily form (OED sb3 10b) and earth regarded as the material of the human body (OED sb1 4).
486. *informidable Cp. the neologism ‘undesirable’ (ix 824), which also occurs in a litotes.
488. to in comparison with.
490. terror be in love Cp. Song of Sol. 6. 4: ‘Thou art beautiful, O my love… Terrible as an army with banners’. Cp. also PR ii 160.
496. indented zigzagged.
500. carbuncle any red stone, esp. ‘a mythical gem said to emit a light in the dark’ (OED).
501. erect upright and alert (OED 3). Some biblical exegetes argued that the serpent went upright until God cursed it; others argued that it ‘assumed an upright posture only while being used as an instrument by Satan’ (Fowler). As since (497) favours the former view, but Satan’s erectness still implies a novel self-awareness and phallic potency.
502. spires coils of a serpent (OED Ia).
503. redundant *in swelling waves (OED 3a) and *copious, plentiful (OED 2, citing SA 568 as earliest instance).
506. Cadmus the legendary founder of Thebes. He was changed into a serpent when he went to Illyria in his old age. His wife Harmonia (Hermione) became a serpent when she caressed his metamorphosed body (Ovid, Met. iv 563f.).
506–7. god… Epidaurus Aesculapius, god of healing, had a temple in Epidaurus from which he travelled in serpent form to end a plague in Rome (Ovid, Met. xv 622–744). Like Satan, he was erect (674), crested (669), and glided fold above fold (721).
508. Ammonian Jove Plutarch relates that Philip II of Macedon found his wife Olympias in bed with a serpent. The Delphic oracle identifed the serpent as Zeus-Ammon (Alexander 2). The historical Olympias did keep pet snakes in her bed – a hazard ‘calculated to put even the toughest bridegroom off his stroke’ (Peter Green, Alexander of Macedon, 356–323 BC: a Historical Biography, 1991, 30).
508–10. Capitoline… Rome Livy and others relate that Jupiter Capitolinus took serpent form to father Scipio Africanus, who defeated Hannibal.
510–14. Paul J. Klemp (MQ 11, 1977, 91–2) sees a deliberate acrostic S-A-T-A-N working in the same sidelong manner as the hidden tempter. Satan’s name does not appear elsewhere in the temptation. Cp. the possible acrostic M-A-R-S in Virgil, Aen. vii 601–4.
510. tract course.
513–15. a ship… sail Cp. the earlier nautical similes with Satan as tenor (ii 636–42, 1043–4, iv 159–65).
517. wanton sportive (OED 3c), with proleptic overtones of the fallen sense. See Ricks, Milton’s Grand Style, 112.
522. Circean… disguised The witch Circe changed men into animals, who fawned on Odysseus’s crew like dogs on their master (Homer, Od. x 212–19).
525. enamelled variegated in colour.
530. Organic serving as an organ or instrument (OED 1).
impúlse Both ‘impelling’ (of air) and ‘suggestion from an evil spirit’ (OED 3a).
532. Wonder not Satan’s entreaty not to marvel ‘is calculated to produce precisely the opposite effect’ (Steadman 108).
536. I thus single Satan’s apology for coming alone prepares for his dismissal of Adam: one man… what is one? (545–6).
549. glozed fawned, talked smoothly and speciously (OED v1 3).
proem prefatory part of a speech.
553–4. What… expressed? M.’s Eve is shrewder than her biblical counterpart, who shows no surprise at hearing a serpent speak. Some exegetes blamed Eve for her lack of surprise. Fish (254) blames M.’s Eve for being surprised. M. recognizes that Eve’s surprise is only natural, and ethically neutral.
558. demur hesitate about.
563. speakable *able to speak (OED 2).
576. A goodly tree Satan does not at first name the tree and so allows Eve to hope that it might not be the forbidden one.
579. savoury See v 84n.
580. Grateful pleasing.
581. fennel… teats Fennel and milk sucked from animals’ teats were popularly supposed to be the favourite food of serpents.
582. ewe Le Comte (80) hears a pun on ‘you’. Incubi (see PR ii 152n) were thought to suck animals’ t
eats and women’s breasts. See Harry Blamires, Milton’s Creation: a Guide through ‘Paradise Lost’ (1971) 225.
586. defer delay.
584–99. To satisfy… Strange alteration Satan’s most cunning lie (and M.’s most significant addition to Genesis) is to have the serpent claim that it can speak because it ate the fruit. There were rabbinic versions in which the serpent ate the fruit in front of Eve to reassure her that it was safe to do so, but the serpent in these versions did not claim to have acquired knowledge by eating. Evans (276–7) cites Joseph Beaumont’s Psyche (1648) as the sole precedent.
585. apples Satan alone speaks of ‘apples’ in PL. The good characters always refer to ‘fruit’, which includes ‘consequences’.
601. Wanted were lacking.
605. middle the air between.
612. universal dame mistress of the universe.
613. spirited including *possessed by an evil spirit (OED 4).
616. virtue efficacy.
proved tested.
623. their provision what is provided for them.
624. her hearth what she bears. The spelling (Ed I, Ed II) was unusual even in M.’s time.
625. adder any serpent (OED 1). Satan was often called ‘the adder’ in medieval times.
629. blowing blooming.
632. made] Ed II; make Ed I.
634–42. wand’ring fire… lost Cp. A Masque 205–9, 433, and the earlier bog similes in PL (ii 592–4, 939–40).
635. Compact… vapour composed of oily gas. Milton gives a scientific explanation for the ignis fatuus, or will-o’-the-wisp, before turning to the supernatural.
637. agitation friction (of gases) and (evil Spirit’s) scheming (OED 6), as in ‘crafty and subtill agitations’ (1606).
640. amazed including ‘led through a maze’. Cp. Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream II i 39: ‘Mislead night-wanderers, laughing at their harm’.
642. swallowed up and lost echoing Belial: ‘swallowed up and lost / In the wide womb of uncreated Night’ (ii 149–50).
643. fraud *state of being defrauded (OED 5) – a passive usage unique to M., from Latin fraus. Cp. vii 143, PR i 372.
644–5. tree / Of prohibition both ‘prohibited tree’ and ‘tree of all prohibition’ (Ricks, Milton’s Grand Style, 76).
645. root the same silent pun as at ii 383.
648. Fruitless… excess See Ricks, Milton’s Grand Style, 73 on the ‘jaunty levity’ of Eve’s pun on Fruitless. M.’s voice behind Eve puns on excess as ‘violation of law’, ‘intemperance in eating’ and ‘unrestrained grief’ (OED 4a, 5b, 2). Cp. xi 111: ‘Bewailing their excess’.
653. daughter of his voice a Hebraism, Bath Kol, ‘daughter of a voice’. Hunter (23) cites sources showing that Bath Kol (or filia vocis) was an inferior form of revelation, lacking real authority. Thus Eve understates the command, which had come from God’s own voice and resounded dreadfully in Adam’s (but not Eve’s) ear (viii 335).
654. Law to ourselves Cp. St Paul on the virtuous Gentiles who ‘are a law unto themselves’ (Rom. 2. 14).
668. Fluctuates moves like a wave (OED 1).
act including Latin actio, an orator’s exterior bearing.
669. Raised both in posture and rhetoric.
673. in himself collected both mentally and physically (the serpent’s coils). part both ‘dramatic role’ and ‘part of the body’
674. Motion gesture, mime, with overtones of ‘puppet show’ (OED 13a). audience attention.
675. in heighth the high, impassioned style usually reserved for the climax of an oration.
677. to heighth *upgrown both ‘standing upright’ and ‘elevated in rhetorical style’.
680. science knowledge.
683–7. highest agents… the Threat’ner The serpent begins to avoid naming ‘God’.
687. To both ‘in addition to’ and ‘eventuating in’.
692. incense excite, kindle (OED v2 2).
694. virtue courage (OED 7), which Satan identifies with moral virtue.
695. denounced threatened.
whatever thing death be Satan had learned about death at ii 781–816. He now feigns innocence. Cp. Adam’s ‘whate’er death is’ (iv 425), but even Adam knew death to be ‘Some dreadful thing’.
698–9. if what is evil / Be real Many theologians had argued that evil is a privation of good, and so has no real existence. Satan perverts this doctrine into the easy inference that evil is nothing to worry about. He also hints that if evil is real, it must have been created by a malevolent God.
701. Not just, not God Satan’s final naming of ‘God’ argues him out of existence. Henceforward he will speak of ‘gods’ (708–25).
713–14. putting off… gods Satan perverts a biblical metaphor. See e.g. Col. 3. 9–10: ‘ye have put off the old man with his deeds; And have put on the new man’.
717. participating partaking of.
722. they all i.e. they produce all.
729–30. can envy dwell / In Heav’nly breasts echoing Virgil on Juno’s anger: tantaene animis caelestibus irae? (Aen. i II). Raphael had echoed the same line when describing the devils’ desperate resistance in battle (vi 788).
732. humane both ‘human’ and ‘benevolent’ (the spellings were not yet distinguished). The oxymoron ‘human goddess’ looks back to ‘human gods’ (712).
739. noon Eve had promised Adam that she would ‘be returned by noon’ (401).
741. savoury See v 84n.
742. Inclinable disposed (modifying desire) and bending down (modifying fruit). Fowler rules out the latter sense, but cp. iv 332 and viii 308. Cp. also Spenser, FQ II xii 54 and Marvell, ‘The Garden’ (printed 1681) 33–40.
754. infers implies.
the good Eve omits ‘evil’, yet evil is what the tree will bring. See below, 1072n.
755. communicated See v 72n.
want lack.
758. In plain in plain words.
761. *after-bands subsequent bonds.
770. envies begrudges.
771. author authority, informant (OED 4).
unsuspect above suspicion.
776. cure of all Eve means ‘remedy’, but M. puns on Latin cura, ‘grief’. Cp. ‘all our woe’ (i 3, ix 645).
781. ate] eat Ed I, Ed II (past tense, pronounced ‘et’).
783. signs of woe Porter (112) sees an allusion to Virgil, Aen. iv 165–70, where earth gave a sign (signum) of woe at the moment of Dido’s ‘fall’: ’Primal Earth and nuptial Juno gave the sign; lightning flashed and Heaven was witness to the marriage, and nymphs howled on the mountain-top. That was the first day of death, the first cause of woe.’
792. knew not eating death The syntax includes: ‘she did not experience death while she ate’, ‘she did not know that she was eating death’, ‘she did not acquire knowledge while she ate death’, and ‘she did not know death, which devours’ (Latin mors edax).
793. boon jolly, jovial.
795. virtuous, precious most powerful, most precious (Greek and Latin idiom: the positive for the superlative).
797. sapience both ‘knowledge’ and ‘tasting’ (Latin sapere). Cp. Adam’s pun at ix 1018.
injamed slandered.
800. each morning… due praise Eve now offers the tree the kind of morning hymn she had once offered God (v 153–208).
804. gods Editors infer that Eve means ‘God’ and that she has picked up the plural from Satan (712, 716). But Eve’s gods might be ‘angels’ (cp. v 70), whom she distinguishes from unspecified others (the Father and Son).
810–11. secret… secret uncommunicative (OED 2a)… hidden. Rather than face the disappointing fact that wisdom is still uncommunicative, Eve takes comfort in the thought that her own doings might be hidden from God. Cp. Ps. 10. 11: ‘He [the wicked man] hath said in his heart, God hath forgotten: / He hideth his face; he will never see it’.
815. safe both ‘not endangered’ and ‘not at present dangerous’.
820. odds equalizing allowance (OED 4c), advan
tage (OED 4b).
821. copartner both ‘sharer’ and ‘equal’ (OED 3), as in ‘Without a Co-Partner, or any Parallel’ (1660).
wants is lacking.
824. *undesirable See above, 486n.
827. I shall be no more A new concept for Eve, who had had no notion of death as annihilation at iv 425 or ix 695. The fruit has brought her some kind of knowledge.
832. all deaths Eve is being hyperbolical, but her plural has ominous resonances. The ‘second death’ was a theological term for damnation. M. in CD i 11–13 distinguishes four deaths: guiltiness, spiritual death, extinction of body and soul, and final damnation. Cp. x 770–844.
835. low reverence deep bow.
837. sciential granting knowledge.
sap including a pun on Latin sapere,‘to know’. See above, 797n.
838–42. Adam… harvest queen Cp. Claudian’s Proserpina in Enna: ‘she made a flower crown and put it on her brow, / but she did not see this grim prophecy of marriage’ (De Rapt. Pros, ii 142–3). Cp. also the garland worn by Pandora when she comes to Epimetheus full of ‘Lies and persuasive words and cunning ways’ (Hesiod, WD 79). Bush compares Andromache embroidering flowers for Hector, unaware that he is dead (Homer, Il. xxii 437f.). See below, 892–3n.
845. divine of divining (with proleptic overtones of ‘divinity’, cp. ix 1010). Misgave him with proleptic overtones of ‘bestow amiss’ (OED 3). Cp. ‘She gave him’ (ix 996).
846. falt’ring measure Adam’s heartbeat; also the ‘measured motion’ of ‘unsteady Nature’ (Arcades 70–74), which has just been thrown out of rhythm (782–4). Ed I and Ed II punningly spell ‘fault’ring’.
852. ambrosial *fragrant (OED ic), and recalling ‘nectar, drink of gods’ (line 838).
854. apology justification (not regret).
855. bland mildly coaxing (OED 1), flattering (Latin blandus).
864–5. nor to evil unknown / Op’ning the way i.e. ‘this tree does not open the way to evil, which remains unknown’, but Eve’s syntax admits the opposite meaning: ‘this tree is known to evil, to which it opens the way’.
868. Or… or either… or.
876. erst formerly.
887. distemper disordered state arising from disturbance of bodily humours, intoxication (OED 4, 4d).
