7. Paradise Lost, by John Milton, pp. 138-163

Book VI

_____

Raphael continues to tell Adam and Eve about Satan's rebellion and the war in Heaven. Abdiel, having defied the rebel angels, returns to tell God what has happened and is applauded for his obedience. He now joins in the effort

                                                                 to subdue
By force, who reason for thir Law refuse,
Right reason for thir Law, and for thir King
Messiah, who by right of merit reigns.

"Right reason," like "Christian humanism," is one of those phrases that have an oxymoronic ring to modern ears, but it goes back to Plato and the Stoics and is the basis of the concept of natural law. "Right" is the operative word: Reason alone is not a moral concept.  Of course, for Adam and Eve, who are supposedly not yet aware of the distinction between good and evil, Raphael is getting a little bit ahead of himself in the lesson.

Milton was a pacifist, and the very concept of war was anathema to him, so he depicts it as anarchy and chaos brought on by the false heroics of Satan, who arrives with his hordes in a vainglorious display:

                                     exalted as a God
Th' Apostate in his Sun-bright Chariot sat
Idol of Majesty divine, enclos'd
With Flaming Cherubim, and golden Shields

The war begins with a verbal contest, just as it does in Homer and Virgil. Abdiel comes forth to denounce Satan as a fool for thinking that God wouldn't meet his challenge. Satan in response taunts the faithful angels for giving up their "Liberty" in serving God, accusing them of servility and sloth, and as "Minist'ring Spirits, train'd up in Feast and Song," not proud warriors. Abdiel counters that Satan "deprav's it with the name / Of Servitude to serve whom God ordains, / Or Nature: God and Nature bid the same, / When he who rules is worthiest, and excels / Them whom he governs." And having said this, "a noble stroke he lifted high ... On the proud Crest of Satan." It rocks Satan back "ten paces huge," amazing Satan's troops. The battle begins.

Abdiel smites Satan, by Gustave Doré, 1866

The battle begins, by Gustave Doré, 1866

The wounded Satan, by Gustave Doré, 1866

Satan and Michael have words in the midst of battle, with Michael promising to send Satan "to the place of evil, Hell," and Satan retorting that "we mean to wind, / Or turn this Heav'n itself into the Hell / Thou fabl'st." And Michael deals Satan a blow that "deep ent'ring shear'd / All his right side; then Satan first knew pain ... but th' Ethereal substance clos'd / Not long divvisible, and from the gash / A stream of Nectarous humor issuing flow'd / Sanguine, such as Celestial Spirits may bleed." He is borne away by his troops

Back to his Chariot, where it stood retir'd
From off the files of war: there they him laid
Gnashing for anguish and despite and shame
To find himself not matchless, and his pride
Humbl'd by such rebuke, so far beneath
His confidence to equal God in power.
Yet soon he heal'd; for Spirits that live throughout
Vital in every part, not as frail man
In Entrails, Heart or Head, Liver or Reins,
Cannot but by annihilating die

It's nice that Raphael explains all this, except that it once again raises the issue of his audience: How could Adam and Eve understand the concepts of things they haven't experienced, like pain and death? In fact, as Milton reminds us, these concepts were new to the angels as well, especially the rebels, "to such evil brought / By sin of disobedience, till that hour / Not liable to fear or flight or pain."

Night comes on after the first day of battle, by Gustave Doré, 1866

Michael and the other angels keep watch, by Gustave Doré, 1866

Night comes on and the armies return to their camps, where Satan suggests that "perhaps more valid Arms, / Weapons more violent, when next we meet, / May serve to better us, and worse our foes." And so he urges them to create the first weapons of mass destruction from materials found

Deep under ground, materials dark and crude,
Of spiritous and fiery spume, till toucht
With Heav'n's ray, and temper'd they shoot forth
So beauteous, op'ning to the ambient light.
These in thir dark Nativity the Deep
Shall yield us, pregnant with infernal flame,
Which into hollow Engines long and round
Thick ramm'd, at th' other bore with touch of fire
Dilated and infuriate shall send forth
From far with thund'ring noise among our foes
Such implements of mischief as shall dash
To pieces, and o'erwhelm whatever stands
Adverse, that they shall fear we have disarm'd
The Thunderer of his only dreaded bolt. 

He even foresees the possibility that in the future, if they triumph, "Some one intent on mischief, or inspir'd / With dev'lish machination might devise / Like instrument to plague the Sons of men / For sin, on war ad mutual slaughter bent."

So the next day they wheel out their cannons and blast the unsuspecting angels: "down they fell / By thousands, Angel on Arch-Angel roll'd." Satan mocks them by commenting that it looked like "they would dance, yet for a dance they seem'd / Somewaht extravagant and wild." But as the rebel angels "Stood scoffing, highth'n'd in thir thoughts beyond / All doubt and victory," God's troops

           pluckt the seated Hills with all thir load,
Rocks, Waters, Woods, and by the shaggy tops
Uplifting bore them in thir hands: Amaze,
Be sure, and terror seiz'd the rebel Host,
When coming towards them so dread they saw
The bottom of the Mountains upward turn'd

So the rebels start flinging mountains back, "and now all Heav'n / Had gone to wrack, with ruin overspread," except that God had foreseen all this and let it take place in order "To honor his Anointed Son aveng'd / Upon his enemies, and to declare / All power on him transferr'd." The whole two days of war, it seems, was just to set the stage for the Son's triumph on the third day -- a pattern to be repeated in the crucifixion and resurrection.

So on the third morning, the Son rides forth in a chariot "Flashing thick flames, Wheel within Wheel," accompanied

By four Cherubic shapes, four Faces each
Had wondrous, as with Stars thir bodies all
And Wings were set with Eyes, with Eyes the Wheels
Of Beryl, and careering Fires between;
Over thir heads a crystal Firmament,
Whereon a Sapphire Throne, inlaid with pure
Amber, and colors of the show'ry Arch. 

The destroyed landscape is restored "At his command ... And with fresh Flow'rets Hill and Valley smil'd." Telling the assembled angels to stand aside, the Son bears down on the enemy, and "under his burning Wheels / The steadfast Empyrean shook throughout, / All but the Throne itself of God." (Satan had boasted in Book I that he shook that throne.) The rebel angels retreat,

                                                     for he meant
Not to destroy, but root them out of Heav'n:
The overthrown he rais'd, and as a Herd
Of Goats or timorous flock together throng'd
Drove them before him Thunder-struck, pursu'd
With terrors and with furies to the bounds
And Crystal wall of Heav'n, which op'ning wide,
Roll'd inward, and a spacious Gap isclos'd
Into the wasteful Deep

(Samuel Johnson observed that the flock shouldn't have been described as "timorous" by Raphael before the Fall, but as we've seen, consistency has long been absent from the narrative.) Hell opens up and "Yawning receiv'd them whole, and on them clos'd." And the Son rides in triumph back to "the Courts / And Temple of his mighty Father Thron'd / On high."

Engraving by Francis Hayman, 1749

William Blake, 1808

Gustave Doré, 1866

And Raphael ends his narrative by pointing the moral:

        let it profit thee to have heard
By terrible Example the reward
Of disobedience; firm they might have stood,
Yet fell; remember, and fear to transgress. 

6. Paradise Lost, by John Milton, pp. 113-137

Book V

_____

Morning arrives, and Adam addresses a kind of aubade to Eve. But she's had a troubling dream, presumably caused by Satan's whispering in her ear last night. In it, she heard a voice she thought at first to be Adam's, urging her to go walking in the night. She went to the "Tree / Of interdicted Knowledge," where an angelic figure argued that she should taste of its fruit, and sampled some himself. Though "mee damp horror chill'd / At such bold words voucht with a deed so bold," eventually she yielded to the invitation and "Forthwith up to the Clouds / With him I flew." But she assures Adam that she was "glad ... To find this but a dream!" Adam tells her the "uncouth dream" was "of evil sprung I fear."

Engraving by Francis Hayman, 1749

Adam awakens Eve, by Gustave Doré, 1866

Okay, how does Adam know anything about evil? Isn't the whole point of the Tree of Knowledge that it awakens Adam and Eve to the concept of evil? Yet here we have Adam recognizing it right off, and Eve feeling something like guilt -- a consequence of the ability to know evil when you see it. In Eve's case, the reaction can be likened to a child's fear of the unknown, but Adam specifically identifies the dream as "evil," and questions where it could have come from: "Yet evil whence? in thee can harbor none, / Created pure." He decides that it's a product of "Fancy":

Evil into the mind of God or Man
May come and go, so unapprov'd, and leave
No spot or blame behind: Which gives me hope
That what in sleep thou didst abhor to dream,
Waking thou never wilt consent to do. 

He cheers her up, but nevertheless she weeps "a gentle tear ... From either eye," which he kisses as "the gracious signs of sweet remorse / And pious awe." "So all was clear'd," Milton assures us, though what isn't cleared is the fact that prelapsarian Adam and Eve seem to have a far more sophisticated knowledge of good and evil than they are supposed to have, including a concept of "remorse." How can you have that without the knowledge that you are supposed to feel remorseful for doing something wrong? 

Anyway, they set off to work after their morning prayers, which are "In various style, for neither various style / Nor holy rapture wanted they to praise / Thir Maker" -- in other words, they don't have a liturgy to follow by rote, but their praise of the maker flows out of untrained and spontaneous awe, unlike the scripted prayers of the established church. And in the conclusion of their prayers, the problematic note of awareness of evil arises once again:

                                            and if the night
Have gather'd aught of evil or conceal'd,
Disperse it, as now light dispels the dark.

Adam and Eve see Raphael approaching, by Gustave Doré, 1866

Meanwhile, God summons Raphael, "the sociable spirit," and sends him to "Converse with Adam." Milton follows Raphael's flight until he finds Adam sitting at the door of the bower while Eve prepares their dinner. Finding that they have a guest, Adam sends Eve off to get some more food and set another plate, which she does without complaint. This idealized domesticity does get a little heavy-handed, especially when Milton observes, "A while discourse they hold; / No fear lest Dinner cool."

Adam, Eve, and Raphael, by William Blake, 1808

Raphael lectures on cosmology, by Gustave Doré, 1866

Eve, Raphael, and Adam, by William Strang, 1896

Raphael goes on a while about the way all nature nourishes itself, and when Adam observes that Raphael seems to enjoy earthly food even though it must not be comparable to "Heav'n's high feasts," Raphael replies with a lecture on cosmology. All things, he says, proceed from "one first matter," which grows increasingly "more refin'd, more spiritous, and pure" as one ascends the great chain of being. Milton's concept of the chain is dynamic: The universe is a process of perpetual becoming:

                                                         So from the root
Springs lighter the green stalk, from thence the leaves
More aery, last the bright consummate flow'r
Spirits odorous breathes

Matter constantly passes into spirit, which is, Douglas Bush observed,  a kind of "optimistic monism."

And from these corporal nutriments perhaps
Your bodies may at last turn all to spirit,
Improv'd by tract of time, and wing'd ascend
Ethereal, as wee

Adam thanks him for the lesson, but he's bothered -- rightly -- by the command of obedience. Raphael explains that

God made thee perfet, not immutable; 

And good he made thee, but to persevere 

He left it in thy power, ordain'd thy will 

By nature free, not  over-rul'd by Fate 

Inextricable, or strict necessity; 

Our voluntary service he requires, 

Not our necessitated....

....

... freely we serve, 

Because we freely love, as in our will 

To love or not; in this we stand or fall: 

And some are fall'n, to disobedience fall'n, 

And so from Heav'n to deepest Hell; O fall

From what high state of bliss into what woe!

Again, this is knowledge of good and evil. What more can they learn from the fruit of the Tree?

Adam wants to know more, and points out that they have a lot of time for the story, as it's only midday. So Raphael launches into the story of the war in Heaven, though he points out that it was a spiritual conflict, not a physical ones, and that he's only describing it in physical terms because Adam wouldn't understand it otherwise:

                                 yet for thy good
This is dispens't, and what surmounts the reach
Of human sense, I shall delineate so,
By lik'ning spiritual to corporal forms. 

So he tells Adam about the day when God summoned all the "Angels, Progeny of Light, / Thrones, Dominations, Princedoms, Virtues, Powers," to tell them that he has begotten a Son and put him in charge of all of them. There was much jubilation, including a

Mystical dance, which yonder starry Sphere
Of Planets and of fixt in all her Wheels
Resembles nearest, mazes intricate,
Eccentric, intervolv'd, yet regular
Then most, when most irregular they seem:
And in thir motions harmony Divine
So smooths her charming tones, that God's own ear
Listens delighted. 

A dance to the music of the spheres, which is about as mystical as you get. But not everybody was dancing, especially "Satan, so call him now, his former name / Is heard no more in Heav'n." He who must not be named is usually identified as Lucifer, the light-bearer, who was "of the first, / If not the first Arch-Angel, great in Power, / In favor and preëminence, yet fraught with envy against the Son of God." (Again, Raphael is tipping Adam and Eve off about evil: the sin of envy, which presumably they have had no experience of.)

So Satan assembles his followers, which constituted "the third part of Heav'n's Host," to foment rebellion. God warns the Son about the uprising, and the Son assures his Father that he has things under control. In "The Palace of great Lucifer," Satan charges the Son with a power grab, and urges his followers to "cast off this Yoke." The speech goes over well with everyone except the seraph Abdiel (a character invented by Milton, using a biblical name that means "servant of God"), who accuses Satan of blasphemy. God, he says, "made / Thee what thou art, and form'd the Pow'rs of Heav'n / Such as he pleas'd, and circumscrib'd thir being," and who is Satan to challenge that? "Cease this impious rage," he orders, "but his zeal / None seconded." So he departs, "through hostile scorn, which he sustain'd / Superior":

Among the faithless, faithful only hee;
Among innumerable false, unmov'd,
Unshak'n, unseduc'd, unterrifi'd
His Loyalty he kept, his Love, his Zeal.

It's a heroic moment equal or superior to Satan's more familiar heroic moments.