Book XI

” ……….. Now, therefore, bend thine ear
To supplication; hear his sighs, though mute;
Unskilful with what words to pray, let me
Interpret for him, me his advocate
And propitiation; all his works on me,
Good or not good, ingraft; my merit those
Shall perfect, and for these my death shall pay.” (30 – 36)

God accepts His Son’s sacrifice but divulges that they must leave Paradise as they are tainted with sin.  They have lost Happiness and Immortality which are replaced by the “final remedy,” Death.

” …………….. so Death becomes
His final remedy, and after life
Tried in sharp tribulation, and refined
By faith and faithful works, to second life.”  (61 – 64)

Sadly, man now knows both good and evil when he should have been content to know good only.

God commissions the angel Michael to take from among the Cherubim “flaming warriors” and return to to the Garden to evict the luckless couple, yet if they are obedient, he will reveal a new covenant to them.

As Michael prepares to descend, Adam tells Eve he anticipates that God will hear their prayers and that they will live instead of perish.  Though she feels herself unworthy of forgiveness, she is grateful for the pardon and suggests they live in the Garden “though in fallen state, content.”  Yet Adam anticipates that they have not understood all the changes that will arise from their fall and with his assumption, down comes Michael “from a sky of jasper,” “a glorious apparition.”  He indeed confirms that their humble prayers were heard and that “one bad act with many good deeds well-done may’st cover.”  However he cannot allow them to remain in Paradise.

Adam laments, “heart-struck, with chilling gripe of sorrow stood, that all his senses bound”; and Eve cries her protest.  But Michael gives her a response that is at once wise and universal:

“Lament not, Eve, but patiently resign
What justly thou hast lost, nor set thy heart
Thus overfond, on that which is not thine.”  (287 – 289)

Adam shares his fear that he will no longer be able to be close to God, yet Michael comforts him.

“Yet doubt not but in valley and in plain
God is as here, and will be found alike
Present, and of his presence many a sign
Still following thee, still compassing thee round
With goodness and paternal love …..”  (349 – 353)

Michael then takes Adam up the hill of Paradise to show him all the torment, tragedy, hatred, violence, misery and disease that will be a result of their sin. He sees Cain and Abel; death and sorrow.  Adam despairs, whereupon Michael gives him advice for living:  “the rule of not too much, by temperance taught,” “nor love thy life nor hate, but what thou liv’st live well; how long or short permit to Heaven.”  He relates the story of Noah and how God promises never to destroy the Earth again by flood.

Adam, Eve and the archangel Michael by Gustave Doré

Book XII

Still revealing the future, Michael discourses on how the “second source of men” will have the judgement fresh in their minds and therefore will exist peacefully for a long time until Nimrod builds the Tower of Babel to reach to Heaven and God punishes him, visiting on the people a confusion of language and cacophonous din.  Appalled, Adam censures the attempt of man to dominate man, as it was never in God’s plan; birds, beasts, fish and fowl were to be in subjection of man, yet “man over men he made not lord” instead intending “human left from human free.”  Michael agrees, stating:

“……….. Justly though abhorr’st
That son, who on the quiet state of men
Such trouble brought, affecting to subdue
Rational liberty; yet know withal,
Since thy original lapse, true liberty
Is lost, which always with right reason dwells
Twinned, and from her hath no dividual being
Reason in Man obscured, or not obeyed,
Immediately inordinate desires
And upstart passions catch the government
From Reason, and to servitude reduce
Man, till then free.  Therefore, since he permits 
Within himself unworthy owers to reign
Over free reason, God, in judgement just,
Subjects him from without to violent lords,
Who oft as undeservedly enthral
His outward freedom.  Tyranny must be,
Though to the tyrant thereby no excuse.
Yet sometimes nations will decline so low
From virtue, which is reason, that no wrong,
But justice, and some fatal curse annexed,
Their inward lost …………..”  (79 – 101)

After Noah, men begin to worship idols and slavery ensues, yet God calls Abraham, the blessed patriarch, and through his line a “Great Deliverer” will come who will “bruise the Serpent’s head.”  Michael’s speech continues through Moses.  When Adam asks why “so many laws and so many sins among them; how can God with such reside?”, the angel explains “law was given them, to evince their natural pravity”.  His narrative progresses through the Old Testament to the Messiah whereupon Adam rejoices at the coming conqueror yet Michael corrects his misconception.  Salvation will not be obtained by battle but by “obedience and by love, through love alone fulfil the Law”; Christ will defeat Sin and Death, then Earth “shall all be Paradise, far happier place than this of Eden, and far happier days.”  Adam asks if he should repent of his sin or rejoice at the good that will spring from it and who will be the guide for God’s people.  Michael says God will send His Spirit and also there is the Church but he goes on to warn about false teachers full of ambition, superstitions and traditions that will “taint”, using the Church to gain wealth and secular power.  Corruption will reign:

“……….. Yet many will presume,
Whence heavy persecution shall arise
Of all who in the worship persevere
Of Spirit and Truth; the rest, far greater part,
Will deem in outward rites and specious forms
Religion satisfied; Truth shall retire
Bestuck with slanderous darts, and works of Faith
Rarely be found; so shall the World go on,
To good malignant, to bad men benign,
Under her own weight groaning ……”  (530 – 538)

…. until the return of the Lord.  Michael instructs Adam to:

“………………… Only add
Deeds to thy knowledge answerable; add faith;
Add virtue, patience, temperance; add love,
By name to come called Charity, the soul 
Of all the rest: then wilt thou not be loth
To leave this Paradise, but shalt possess
A Paradise within thee, happier far.”  (581 – 587)

Adam wakes Eve who has been consoled in her dream by the hope of her seed to come.  Michael takes one of their hands in each of his and then leads them from the Garden of Paradise:

“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.”  (645 – 649)

The Explusion of Adam & Eve from Paradise by Benjamin West (1791) source Wikipaintings

Thoughts:

Wow, what a marathon ending!  These last two books appeared rushed to me; Milton packed nearly the whole Old Testament teachings into these two books/chapters.  Again, I’m not an expert in poetry, but the sound, tone and pacing of the poem did not feel as grand, as beautiful or as skilfully woven, when compared to the rest.  There were certainly brilliant moments, but only snacks here and there instead of the smorgasbord to which we’ve become accustomed.  In fact, it is certainly ironic that these two chapters were so packed with information, yet I’m having to think harder to find areas of the poem to comment on.

When Michael showed Adam the future, he gave him images in book XI but only narrative in Book XII. Was this because Adam would be overwhelmed by the visual evidence of the results of their sin?  Or is it simply the structure Milton chose for the poem?

For the first time, I noted a commentary on his own times inserted into the text, and his push for a “rational liberty.” (see above, Book XII, lines 79 – 101) However as interesting as it was, again I felt it was rushed or inserted before the poem end, a pet topic that Milton felt the need to bring to the forefront.

Historically, there are so many Paradise Lost paintings/engravings of stern angels pointing the way out of Heaven, and Adam and Eve running like stricken and tragic sinners, yet actually the angel gave them hope and then gently led them out of the Garden.  Within a destructive, disastrous, heartbreaking circumstance, Milton did a spectacular job of revealing hope and restoration without altering their condition, a lovely combination of encouragement, pathos and reality.

Not only can I not believe that I’ve come to the end of this read, I can’t believe that I waited so long to read it.  Milton’s verse is so grand and beautiful!  I will definitely read this again in the very near future. Final review to come ………….

Milton dictated to his daughters the (Paradise Lost) Eugene Delacroix source Wikipaintings

Meanwhile Satan rises with the mist in the Garden and finds the perfect creature to inhabit for his deception;  the snake, who is crafty and can easily move around without arousing suspicion.  Again he railing his discontent and spewing evil:

“………. and the more I see
Pleasures about me, so much more I feel
Torment within me, as from the hateful siege
Of contraries; all good to me becomes
Bane, and in Heaven much worse would be my state.” (119 – 123)

“For only in destroying do I find ease
To my relentless thoughts……..” (129 – 130)

Still he wishes to best God in any way possible, boasting that he will tarnish creation in less time than it took the Almighty to create it:

“In woe then, that destruction wide may range:
To me shall be the glory sole among
The Infernal Powers, in one day to have marred
What he, Almighty styled, six nights and days
Continued making, and who knows how long 
Before had been contriving? …….”  (134 – 139)

Then “in at his mouth The Devil entered” the serpent and waited until morning.

Adam and Eve wake, but when it is time to perform their duties in the garden, curiously Eve suggests that they part and each work separately, thus accomplishing more work.

“For, while so near each other thus all day
Our task we choose, what wonder if so near
Looks intervene and smiles, or object new
Casual discourse draw on, which intermits
Our day’s work, brought to little, though begun
Early, and the hour of supper comes unearned.” (220 – 225)

Adam cautions his spouse that they have been warned that there is evil lurking in the Garden and they would be safer if they remained united, but Eve relates her hurt at his mistrust of her judgement.  Yet still Adam persists:

“But God left free the Will; for what obeys,
Reason is free, and Reason he made right,
But bid her well beware, and still erect,
Lest, by some fair appearing good surprised,
She dictate false, and misinform the Will
To do what God expressly hath forbid.
Not then mistrust, but tender love, enjoins
That I should mind thee oft; and mind thou me.” (351 – 358)

Stubbornly resistant, Eve states that she is going alone with his permission and warning, confident that a proud foe would not seek the weaker victim, and “thus saying, from her husband’s hand her hand soft she withdrew …..”

Satan in the guise of the Serpent, finds Eve and is initially disarmed:

“Her graceful innocence, her every air
Of gesture or least action, overawed
His malice, and with rapine sweet bereaved
His fierceness of the fierce intent is brought.
That pace the Evil One abstracted stood
From his own evil, and for the time remained
Stupidly good, of enmity disarmed,
Of guile, of hate, of envy, of revenge.” (459 – 466)

But not for long:

“But the hot hell that always in him burns,
Though in mid Heaven, soon ended his delight,
And tortures him now more the more he sees
Of pleasure not for him ordained: then soon
Fierce hate he recollects, and all this thoughts
Of mischief, gratulating, thus excites: …….” (467 – 472)

Astounded at the Serpent’s ability of speech, Eve ponders what this could mean, but when Satan commends her beauty and appeals to her vanity, she readily accepts his story that he gained speech and wisdom by eating from the Forbidden Tree.  Immediately she sees herself gaining stature until she is above Adam.  Of course, she would not actually die, but simply die to being Human, while becoming a god herself.  And the Serpent ate of the tree and he still retains life.  And so:

“Forth-reaching to the fruit, she plucked, she eat;
Earth felt the wound, and Nature from her seat;
Sighing through all her works, gave signs of woe
That all was lost …………”  (781 – 784)

Immediately she wonders if she should share the knowledge/fruit with Adam or keep it all to herself.  But thinking that she may actually die for her transgression and jealous of the possibility of Adam marrying again, she chooses to take it to her partner so he will share her same fate, whatever that might be.

Adam, when she tells him of her actions, is horrified:

“………. 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.”  (888 – 893)

What an effective image!  Adam had brought a wreath of flowers to Eve, expecting to crown his Queen and he is met by a creature “defaced, deflowered and now to death devote!”. Distraught, he contemplates the implications of obeying God’s command, but decides he cannot live without his partner.  With Eve’s coaxing, he eats of the fruit.  Immediately inflamed and drunk with lustful desire, they retire into the woods for sexual play and later sleep overcomes them.  Yet they wake:

“As from unrest, and, each the other viewing,
Soon found their eyes how opened, and their minds
How darkened; innocence, that as a veil
Had shadowed them from knowing ill, was gone;
Just confidence, and native righteousness,
And honour, from about them, naked left
To guilty shame ……” (1051 – 1057)

They have gained knowledge, but it is the knowledge of the good they have lost and the evil that they have gained.  Each blames the other for their transgression, bickering for hours on end as to who is culpable.

Satan finds snake to inhabit by Gustave Doré (1866)

Book X

The Angels hear of Adam and Eve’s grievous sin, and are filled with sorrow and compassion.  Returning to Heaven, God holds them blameless:

“I told ye then he should prevail, and speed
On his bad errand —- Man should be seduced
And flattered out of all, believing lies
Against his Maker, no decree of mine
Concurring to necessitate his fall,
Or touch with lightest moment of impulse
His free will, to her own inclining left
In even scale………”  (40 – 47)

God visits Adam and Eve in the Garden, where they confess their sin and he asks Adam, “was she thy God, that her thou didst obey before his voice?”  He pronounces judgement on the pair, yet with judgement comes mercy as the Son:

” …… pitying how they stood 
Before him naked to the air, that now
Must suffer change, disdained not to begin
Thenceforth the form of servant to assume,
As when he washed his servants’ feet so now,
As father of his family, he clad
Their nakedness  ……….” (211 – 217)

Meanwhile, Sin and Death are at the gates of Hell and “found a path over this main from Hell to that new World where Satan now prevails ….”.  Meeting Satan on their way their congratulate him on his victory, and he tells them:

“All yours, right down to Paradise descend;
There dwell, and reign in bliss; thence on the Earth
Dominion exercise and in the air
Chiefly on Man, sole lord of all declared;
Him first make sure your thrall, and lastly kill ….” (398 – 403)

When Satan arrives in Pandemonium and relates his Triumph, he expects “their universal shout and high applause to fill his ear, when contrary, he hears, on all sides, from innumerable tongues a dismal universal hiss, the sound of public scorn ……”, then “His visage drawn he felt to sharp and spare, his arms clung to his ribs, his legs entwining each other, till supplanted, down he fell, a monstrous serpent on his belly prone …..”  His followers experience the same phenomenon and, “thus was the applause they meant turned to exploding hiss, triumph to shame…”  A tree grows in Hell similar to the Tree of Knowledge but when they try to eat the fruit, it turns to ash in their mouths.

Sin and Death begin to move through the world.  In Heaven, God instructs the angels to change the universe, causing cold and hot climates, producing winds, thunder and snow and various other effects that alter the paradisiacal conditions of the Earth.  Adam, hiding in the gloomy shade, laments his miseries and when Eve comes to comfort him he replies:

“Out of my sight, thou serpent; that name best
Befits thee with him leagued thyself as false 
And hateful: nothing wants, but that thy shape
Like his, and colour serpentine, may show
Thy inward fraud, to warn all creatures from thee.”  (866 – 871)

He berates her, laying all the blame for their condition at her feet but, instead of acting with like animosity, she responds with a wonderful contriteness, asking for his forgiveness and fully accepting blame.  She suggests that if Death does not find them, they should seek him out themselves.  Her humbleness and lack of pride have a surprising affect on Adam. Claiming God’s punishment just, he encourages her to accept their fate and go forward with hope.  Some of the punishments they have so far experienced (ie. childbirth) have brought forth joy as well as pain and that is a comfort.

“No more mentioned, then, of violence 
Against ourselves, and wilful barrenness,
That cuts us off from hope, and savours only
Rancour and pride, impatience and despite,
Reluctance against God and his just yoke
Laid on our necks……..”  (1041 – 1046)


“What better can we do than, to 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?
Undoubtedly he will relent, and turn
From his displeasure, in whose look serene
When angry most he seemed and most severe
What else but favour, grace, and mercy shone?” (1086 – 1096)

Thoughts:

Wow!  There was so much information, action and images packed into these two books, particularly book IX.

At the beginning of book IX, Milton mentions his celestial patroness or Muse, telling of her impartations of inspired verse and that he is not skilled enough on his own to create such poetic display.  There are certain scholars who feel that Milton’s brilliance is not as apparent in the latter parts of the poem as the beginning (I am not noticing this, but, of course, I’m not a scholar), so I wondered if he is setting up this humble claim as a reason for a decrease in poetical ability……??

Again Satan’s torment is palpable and his personification of deception alarming.  Occasionally he still feels joy, peace, happiness and knows what they mean, yet with any positive emotion felt, his rage, self-loathing and malice return at even greater strength.

I had to wonder while I was reading this, whether Adam and Eve were familiar with deception.  They would have had no exposure to it, but God did mention that they were completely equipped to meet their deceiver.  I imagine, that while Adam and Eve had a certain sense of wonder and innocence, that they were not created as children.  They were created as full-grown beings with sense and reason.  It was their free-will that gave them the right to choose, and they made an horrendous mistake.

I had to shudder at the speech Satan gave his minions.  Once again, he is only concerned with power and prestige: “Thrones, Dominations, Princedoms, Virtues, Powers —“.  He gives the image of an army: “a broad way is now paved, to expedite your glorious march” and says that man’s disgrace is “worth their laughter”.  Chilling.

The most poignant lines of the poem:

“O much deceived, much failing, hapless Eve,
Of thy presumed return!  event perverse!
Thou never from that hour in Paradise
Found’st either sweet repast or sound repose;
Such ambush, hid among sweet flowers and shades,
Waited, with hellish rancour imminent,
To intercept thy way, or send thee back
Despoiled of innocence, of faith, of bliss.”  (404 – 411)

And whomever has read through this whole post, deserves some type of award!!! 🙂