Paradise Lost

by John Milton

In reason, and is judicious, is the scale591

  By which to Heav’nly love thou may’st ascend,

  Not sunk in carnal pleasure, for which cause

  Among the beasts no mate for thee was found.”

  To whom thus half abashed Adam replied.

  “Neither her outside formed so fair, nor aught

  In procreation common to all kinds

  (Though higher of the genial598 bed by far,

  And with mysterious reverence I deem)

  So much delights me as those graceful acts,

  Those thousand decencies that daily flow

  From all her words and actions mixed with love

  And sweet compliance, which declare unfeigned

  Union of mind, or in us both one soul;

  Harmony to behold in wedded pair

  More grateful than harmonious sound to the ear.

  Yet these subject not; I to thee disclose

  What inward thence I feel, not therefore foiled608,

  Who meet with various objects, from the sense

  Variously representing; yet still free

  Approve the best, and follow what I approve.

  To love thou blam’st me not, for love thou say’st

  Leads up to Heav’n, is both the way and guide;

  Bear with me then, if lawful what I ask;

  Love not the Heav’nly spirits, and how their love

  Express they, by looks only, or do they mix

  Irradiance, virtual617 or immediate touch?”

  To whom618 the angel with a smile that glowed

  Celestial rosy red, love’s proper hue,

  Answered. “Let it suffice thee that thou know’st

  Us happy, and without love no happiness.

  Whatever pure thou in the body enjoy’st

  (And pure thou wert created) we enjoy

  In eminence624, and obstacle find none

  Of membrane, joint, or limb, exclusive625 bars:

  Easier than air with air, if spirits embrace,

  Total they mix, union of pure with pure

  Desiring; nor restrained conveyance628 need

  As flesh to mix with flesh, or soul with soul.

  But I can now no more; the parting sun

  Beyond the Earth’s green cape631 and verdant isles

  Hesperean sets, my signal to depart.

  Be strong, live happy, and love, but first of all

  Him whom to love is to obey, and keep

  His great command; take heed lest passion sway

  Thy judgment to do aught, which else free will

  Would not admit; thine and of all thy sons

  The weal or woe in thee is placed; beware.

  I in thy persevering shall rejoice,

  And all the blest: stand fast; to stand or fall

  Free in thine own arbitrament it lies.

  Perfect within, no outward aid require;

  And all temptation to transgress repel.”

  So saying, he arose; whom Adam thus

  Followed with benediction. “Since to part645,

  Go Heav’nly guest, ethereal messenger,

  Sent from whose sov’reign goodness I adore.

  Gentle to me and affable hath been

  Thy condescension, and shall be honored ever

  With grateful memory: thou to mankind

  Be good and friendly still, and oft return.”

  So parted they, the angel up to Heav’n

  From the thick shade, and Adam to his bow’r.

  1–4. The first three and half lines were added to the second edition of 1674. In the long Book 7 of 1667, the pause after Raphael’s narration was marked by a single line: “To whom thus Adam gratefully replied.”

  9. condescension: courteous disregard of rank.

  15–38. Eve was the first to wonder about the curious abundance of the nighttime sky (4.657–58). Adam tried to answer her query (4.660–88), as did Satan in the dream he created for Eve (5.41–47). Adam now broadens her question to include other celestial instances of apparent wastefulness and favoritism toward earth. Cp. Prolusion 7 (MLM 795–96).

  15. this goodly frame: a phrase used by Hamlet (2.2.316).

  17–18. a spot, a grain,/An atom: The tininess of the earth was apparent to ancient astronomers.

  19. numbered: numerous, as in 7.621.

  22. officiate: supply, minister.

  23. opacous: dark; punctual spot: spot the size of a point (Lat. punctum) in relation to the spaces of the firmament, but also in the sense of “subject to exact timing.”

  25. admire: wonder, but with a sense of perplexity (the something yet of doubt in l. 13).

  30. For aught appears: for all that can be seen.

  32. sedentary: motionless.

  36. sumless: immeasurable (see l. 38).

  62. darts of desire: not sexual desire, as in love poetry, but desire that she remain still in sight (l. 63).

  65. facile: affable. Raphael does not deem Adam’s doubt about the wisdom of the celestial design malignant or accusatory.

  67. Is as the book of God: Cp. 3.47.

  70. whether heav’n move or Earth: a difference between the Ptolemaic and Copernican systems; but there were many compromise positions between the two (see G. McColley 217–44; Babb 78–94).

  75. admire: behold with wonder.

  78. His laughter: Psalm 2.4: “He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh.” A. O. Lovejoy considered Milton’s God a “singularly detestable being” for devising cosmic riddles so that he could laugh at the false solutions (1962, 140). However, God will laugh not primarily at the falseness of astronomical theories but at the way astronomers play God in modeling the heavens. quaint: ingenious; wide: wide of the truth.

  80. calculate: predict the motions of; wield: direct, guide.

  82. save appearances: a scholastic term for fitting hypothesis to observation, a process particularly evident in the history of astronomy, where theories were modified repeatedly to account for local observations inconsistent with general assumptions.

  83. centric and eccentric: spheres centered on, and not centered on, the earth. Kepler’s teacher, Tycho Brahe, proposed that the sun was the center of the planetary orbits, while the fixed stars were centered on the earth. scribbled o’er: Raphael is making fun of complex astrological diagrams; cp. Donne, “An Anatomy of the World”: “Man hath weaved out a net, and this net thrown/Upon the heavens, and now they are his own” (279–80).

  84. In the Ptolemaic system planets traverse a circular orb, or orbit, but turn smaller circles (epicycles) within this larger cycle. Meant to account for observed differences of orbital velocity among the planets, the theory of epicycles is a notable example of “saving the appearances” (see 82n).

  85–90. Already … benefit: Raphael maintains that he has been able to guess from Adam’s thinking some of the forthcoming perplexity in the astronomy to be developed by his offspring. In particular, Adam mistakes brightness for excellence and on that ground supposes that the opacous earth (l. 23) should not be served by more resplendent heavenly bodies, such as the sun.

  99. Officious: attentive, dutiful.

  109–10. That … spiritual: The corporeal planets are almost as swift as spiritual angels, which is a sign of God’s omnipotence in molding matter.

  117. Not that I so affirm: Raphael makes it clear that he is not delivering true, once-and-for-all knowledge of the heavens but confounding Adam’s assumption that he had, or could in principle attain, such knowledge.

  124. attractive virtue: Kepler supposed that the planets were held in their orbits by the sun’s magnetism.

  128. The six are the moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn.

  129. The planet Earth: The most striking result of the Copernican theory was the idea that the earth was simply another planet (the seventh).

  130. three different motions: “The three different motions, which the Copernicans attribute to the earth, are the diural round her own axis, the annual round the sun, and the m
otion of libration as it is called, whereby the earth so proceeds in her orbit, as that her axis is constantly parallel to the axis of the world [universe]” (Newton).

  131–32. “Even if you do not posit a moving earth, you will have to posit spheres moving in contrary and awkward directions.”

  133–40. Or save … ray: Copernicus was able to make the sun responsible for astronomical effects earlier attributed to the swift … rhomb, or primum mobile, the great wheel turning rapidly beyond the fixed stars and imparting orbital motions to the planets. But this earlier picture of things needs not thy belief, need not be believed by Adam, if he assumes that the earth of its own power revolves on a daily basis, thus creating the alternation of day and night.

  145. inhabitants: Cp. 3.460–62.

  148–49. other suns … moons: Advocates of an infinite universe, such as Giordano Bruno and Henry More, believed that the so-called fixed stars were suns with their own planetary systems; Galileo observed the attendant moons of Jupiter and Saturn. Cp. 1.650, 3.566–71, 7.621–22; also Spenser, FQ 2.1.3.

  150. male and female light: original and reflected light.

  151. No one has found a convincing source for this striking line, with its absolute confidence in the universality of gender and the conjunction of gender and life.

  162. He: the sun.

  163–66. These fine lines are sufficient to dispel the old idea that Milton found the Ptolemaic system inherently more poetic than the Copernican one.

  163. she: the earth.

  167. Solicit not: trouble not.

  175. what creatures: That other planets might harbor life was a common speculation in Milton’s day.

  183. easiest way: Milton entitled a prose work The Ready and Easy Way (1660). Way, which here means “course of action” (OED 12), is a key word in the poem. Paradise Lost intends to “justify the ways of God” (1.26) and ends with “way” (12.649). It should be borne in mind that in Acts 9.2, 19.9, 24.14, 24.22, et cetera, way signifies Christianity.

  194. fume: literally “vapor” or “smoke,” figuratively “something unsubstantial, transient, imaginary”; see Apology (Yale 1:193): “the pride of a metaphysical fume.”

  195. fond: foolish.

  197. still to seek: without a clue.

  202. sufferance: permission; wonted: customary.

  209. Fond: foolish.

  225. fellow servant: As the angel told a worshipful St. John, “I am thy fellow servant” (Rev. 22.9).

  226. ways of God with man: See 183n, 1.26n.

  229. that day: the sixth day of Creation? Presumably Raphael witnessed the other days, whose events he has just narrated.

  230. uncouth: strange, desolate.

  239. state: ceremony.

  243–44. Cp. Aeneas hearing the groans and cries behind the gate to Tartarus (Vergil, Aen. 6.557–59), Astolfo listening at the gates of Hell (Ariosto, OF 34.4), and Dante greeted by wailings and lamentations upon entering Hell (Inf. 3.22–29).

  246. Sabbath evening: the beginning of the seventh day of Creation. Milton here adopts the Hebrew custom of measuring the day from sunset to sunset.

  255. balmy sweat: In one of the first postmodern essays on Paradise Lost, Hartman declares that balmy sweat mingles “the balm of fruitfulness and the sweat of the curse, the labor to come and the regeneration to come from that” (147). But Edwards suggests that this reading spoils Paradise with the consequences of the Fall: “Adam’s balmy sweat is, simply, sweet-scented sweat” (197).

  256. reeking: steaming.

  263. lapse: flow.

  273–74. Thou sun … earth: In his very first words, Adam articulates in nascent form the ideas that lead to his puzzlement about the heavens (see 85–90n).

  281. Acts 17.28: “For in him we live, and move, and have our being.”

  282. happier than I know: Cp. 4.774–75.

  287. Pensive: The combination of happiness and pensiveness in this passage suggests that Milton, returning imaginatively to the themes of his youthful poetry, is blending elements of L’Allegro and Il Penseroso. The pensive man also goes to sleep during the daytime, and dreams (142–50), and the happy man speaks of “Such sights as youthful poets dream/On summer eves by haunted stream” (129–30).

  288. oppression: weighing down.

  302. Smooth … led: The l- sounds slide smoothly through the s- sounds.

  331. From that day mortal: the usual interpretation of Gen. 2.17: “For in the day you eat of it you shall die.”

  350. two and two: There is no indication in Gen. 2.19–20 that the animals parade by Adam in pairs, as they will again when entering Noah’s ark “two and two” (Gen. 7.9). Milton’s Adam seems intended to think about companionship, which he does (Gallagher 1990, 36).

  373. Their language: Since animals do not speak (9.557), Leonard must be right in asserting that language here means “inarticulate sounds used by the lower animals” (OED 1c).

  379. See Abraham’s similar preface when negotiating with God (Gen. 18.30).

  383. unequals: Adam is here referring to the gap between himself and animals.

  384. sort: fit.

  387. intense: taut; remiss: slack.

  399. nice: refined, difficult to please (OED 7, the “good sense”).

  405–7. Who … less: These lines are central to a debate over the identity of the divine presence speaking to Adam. Since Milton’s Son is not coeternal with the Father, the claim to be alone/From all eternity suggests that the Father speaks.

  417. But in degree: Man is perfect only in his station (which is of a kind to require a partner).

  419. solace: alleviate.

  419–21. No need … one: Adam, who began his religious life with the intuition of a Maker (ll. 278–79), here takes a leap forward in sophistication. Through all numbers absolute Englishes the Latin omnibus numeris absolutus, meaning “complete in every part,” as in a well-written book (Pliny the Younger, Letters 9.38). Yet God is infinite—hence the completeness of his parts must be an innate idea, not an empirical observation. And God, despite his complete and infinite parts, is paradoxically one.

  422–26. Man has a single imperfection, his unity is defective, because unlike God he requires another being to multiply his image.

  426. Collateral: etymologically “side by side,” accompanying.

  435. Permissive: allowed.

  445. From Gen. 2.18: “God said, ‘It is not good that man should be alone.’ ”

  450. thy other self: an addition to Gen. 2.18 that Milton thought intended in the Hebrew (MLM 1000–1001). The Latin alter ego means “friend,” which suggests that Milton is giving biblical sanction to the seventeenth-century ideal of “companionate marriage” (see Stone 361–74).

  453. Earthly: earthly nature.

  454. stood under: been exposed to.

  462–82. Cp. Sonnet 23.

  466. cordial spirits: vital spirits residing in the heart’s blood.

  481. When out of hope: when I had ceased to hope.

  494. nor enviest: nor given reluctantly, begrudgingly.

  499. one heart, one soul: an addition to Gen. 2.23–24, again suggesting companionate marriage (see 450n).

  502. conscience: internal awareness. Cp. Eve’s account of her initial turning away at 4.477–80.

  509. obsequious: acquiescent (not servile).

  511. blushing: Most blushes in the fallen world indicate shame. But there are innocent blushes, too, compounded of shyness and a sense of awe at participating in a great thing. The syntax leaves open the possibility that Adam is also blushing.

  513. influence: emanation from the heavens, here entirely favorable; cp. 10.661–64.

  519. ev’ning star: Hesperus or Venus, whose appearance in the sky is a signal in the epithalamium tradition to light the bridal lamps and torches and bring the bride to the bride-groom. See Spenser, Epithalamion 286–95; DDD in MLM 873–74.

  532–33. Cp. SA 1003–1007.

  536. subducting: subtracting.

  537–39. Cp. SA 1
025–30.

  547. absolute: complete, perfect; Adam earlier used the word of God (ll. 419–21n).

  553. Looses: goes to pieces.

  555. As one intended first: Adam sees Eve as himself.

  556. Occasionally: on the occasion of Adam’s request.

  559. guard angelic placed: “Adam has just used, by ironic anticipation, the image of Paradise after he has been excluded from it,” Frye wrote (1965, 64), thinking of 12.641–44.

  562. diffident: mistrustful.

  572. self-esteem: Milton may well have coined the term in Apology; see MLM 850 (Leonard).

  574. head: “The head of the woman is the man” (1 Cor. 11.3).

  575. shows: appearances. Turner finds the passage “particularly appalling” (280) because he takes shows to mean “pretenses, wiles,” as if Eve were deliberately nurturing her husband’s uxoriousness.

  576. adorn: adorned.

  577. awful: awe-inspiring.

  583. divulged: done openly.

  591–92. the scale … ascend: Earthly love as the scale or ladder by which we may ascend to Heav’nly love is a central feature of Neoplatonic works such as Marsilio Ficino’s Commentary on Plato’s Symposium and Spenser’s Four Hymns.

  598. genial: nuptial. As before he demonstrated his freedom in disputing with God (ll. 379–97, 412–33), so here Adam rejects Raphael’s insistence that marital sexuality is no more than what animals do. He rather values it with the reverence appropriate to religious mysteries. Cp. Tetrachordon (MLM 1004).

  608. foiled: overcome.

  617. virtual: in effect, not actually (modifies touch). Adam imagines three ways in which angels might express love (if they do): by looks, by mingling their radiance, or by actual (immediate) touch. Cp. his earlier interest in whether angels eat what humans eat (5.401–403, 466–67).

  618–19. Todd: “Does not Milton here mean that the Angel both smiled and blushed at Adam’s curiosity?” He does, and goes on to say that a red blush is love’s proper, correct or natural, hue. Cp. 511n.

  624–25. The passage has in mind the criticism of sexual intercourse voiced at the opening of Book 4 of Lucretius’ On the Nature of Things. Human lovers desire full union, such as that enjoyed by Milton’s angels, but are repeatedly frustrated in having to make do with the friction of surfaces: “Again they in each other would be lost,/But still by adamantine bars are crossed” (trans. John Dryden).