The Complete Poems (Penguin Classics)

  511. lucre Cp. I Pet. 5. 2: ‘Feed the flock of God… not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind’. M. was opposed to a stipendiary clergy.

  511–14. the truth… understood a typical Protestant assertion of the Christian’s right to interpret scripture guided solely by the inner light.

  515. names titles of rank or dignity (OED 2b).

  520. pretence assertion of a right or title (OED 1), with overtones of the modern sense.

  523. enrolled written (in the Bible).

  525. force the Spirit M. in CD i 30 denounces the forcing of conscience as ‘a yoke not only upon man but upon the Holy Spirit itself’ (trans. Carey, YP 6. 590).

  526. His consort Liberty II Cor. 3. 17.

  527. living temples Cp. I Cor. 3. 16: ‘Know ye not that ye are the temple of God?’

  529–30. Who… Infallible M. attacks papal claims to ‘infallibilitie over both the conscience and the scripture’ in A Treatise of Civil Power (YP 7. 248). The doctrine of papal infallibility was not instituted until 1870.

  532–3. worship… truth John 4. 23.

  534. Will] Ed I; well Ed II.

  536. works of faith See CD i 22 for M.’s view that faith is a work and ‘not merely infused’ (trans. Carey, YP 6. 489). Cp. also ‘faith not void of works’ (xii 427).

  539. groaning Cp. Rom. 8. 22: ‘For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now’.

  540. respiration respite, breathing space (OED 3).

  546. dissolve not ‘annihilate’ (as Fowler) but ‘destroy the binding power of (OED 11). Annihilation would be a mercy to the devils (ii 155–9), whom God had said that he would punish ‘without end’ (v 615). M. in CD i 33 confirms that Hell is a place of ‘endless punishment’ and rejects the view that Hell might be destroyed in the final conflagration: ‘If this were to happen it would be very nice for the damned, no doubt!’ (trans. Carey, YP 6. 630). Michael had earlier said that the Son would destroy Satan by destroying his works. See xii 394–5.

  547. *perverted turned from the right way. OED’s earliest participial instance.

  548–9. conflagrant… earth See II Pet. 3. 6–13 on the destruction by fire. See Rev. 21. 1 on the New heavens, new earth.

  551. fruits playing on Latin fruitio, meaning joy or bliss.

  555. Till time stand fixed At Rev. 10. 5–6 an angel swears ‘that there should be time no longer’. Cp. On Time 1.

  559. this vessel the entire human nature (mind and body).

  565. Merciful… works Cp. Ps. 145. 9: ‘his tender mercies are over all his works’.

  566. overcoming evil Cp. Rom. 12. 21: ‘overcome evil with good’.

  567–8. weak… strong Cp. I Cor. 1. 27: ‘God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty’. See also vi 137–9n.

  576–7. all the stars… by name Cp. Ps. 147. 4: ‘He telleth the number of the stars; he calleth them all by their names’.

  581–4. only add… charity II Pet. 1. 5–7.

  587. paradise within Cp. Satan’s ‘Hell within’ (iv 20).

  588–9. top / Of speculation both ‘hill of extensive view’ and ‘summit of theological speculation’.

  592. motion military deployment (OED 5).

  593. remove signal for departure (OED 5b).

  602. many days Adam lived to be 930 (Gen. 5. 5).

  608. found her waked The Argument to book xii says that Adam ‘wakens Eve’.

  611. God is also in sleep Cp. Num. 12. 6: ‘If there be a prophet among you, I the Lord will make myself known unto him in a vision, and will speak unto him in a dream’.

  615–18. with thee… all places thou Cp. Ruth 1. 16: ‘And Ruth said, Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people will be my people, and thy God my God’. See also Eve’s love poem at iv 641–56.

  629. *metéorous raised on high (OED). A ‘meteor’ was any atmospheric phenomenon (OED 1) and ‘meteoric’ meant ‘pertaining to the region of mid-air’ (OED 1a). Richardson contrasts the good angels’ lofty, luminous mist with Satan as a ‘black mist low creeping’ (ix 180).

  630. marish marsh.

  631. the labourer’s heel Adam is now a labourer, and his heel is vulnerable to the serpent (Flannagan).

  635. adust scorched. Patristic tradition interpreted the ‘flaming sword’ of Gen. 3. 24 as the heat of the uninhabitable torrid zone (hence Libyan).

  637–8. In either hand… ling’ring parents Michael’s conduct of Adam and Eve recalls the angels’ conduct of Lot’s family from Sodom: ‘And while he lingered, the men laid hold upon his hand, and upon the hand of his wife, and upon the hand of his two daughters; the Lord being merciful unto him: and they brought him forth, and set him without the city’ (Gen. 19. 16).

  640. subjected lying below.

  643. brand sword (OED 8b) or lightning (OED 3d). Cp. Gen. 3. 24: ‘a flaming sword which turned every way’.

  644. dreadful faces thronged Martindale (134) compares ‘the supreme moment of terror’ in Virgil’s Aeneid, when Venus clears Aeneas’s sight and he sees the gods’ ‘dreadful forms’ (dirae fades) menacing Troy (ii 622).

  648. hand in hand See iv 321n.

  648–9. wand’ring… way Cp. Ps. 107.4: ‘They wandered in the wilderness in a solitary way; they found no city to dwell in.’ But the psalm continues: ‘Then they cried unto the Lord… and he delivered them out of their distresses. / And he led them forth by the right way’ (6–7).

  PARADISE REGAINED

  Date: 1667–70. PR was printed in 1671 in a volume that included SA. The precise date of composition is not known, but Edward Phillips records that it ‘was begun and finisht and Printed after the other [PL] was publisht, and that in a wonderful short space considering the sublimeness of it’ (Darbishire 75). Thomas Ellwood, who was M.’s pupil in the early 1660s, claims to have played some part in the engendering of PR. M. lent Ellwood the completed manuscript of PL, which Ellwood read and returned, commenting: ‘Thou hast said much here of Paradise lost; but what hast thou to say of Paradise found?’ M. did not reply, ‘but sate some time in a Muse’. Some time later he presented Ellwood with the completed PR, saying: ‘This is owing to you; for you put it into my head by the question you put to me at Chalfont; which before I had not thought of (History of the Life of Thomas Ellwood, 1714, 233–4).

  The plot of PR is based upon the Gospels account of Christ’s temptation in the wilderness. M. follows Luke 4. 1–13 in the order of temptations, but he follows Matt. 4. I–II in placing the temptations after Christ’s forty-day fast. In Luke Christ is tempted for forty days. Biblical commentators had long discussed the question of what Satan was trying to accomplish by tempting Christ. One view was that he was trying to discover Christ’s identity, and that the temptations were designed to make Christ acknowledge his divinity. Critics disagree about the motives of M.’s Satan and Jesus (who is never called ‘Christ’ in the poem). Pope argued that Jesus knows his own identity, and deliberately withholds evidence of it from Satan. Allen argued that Satan merely pretends not to know who Jesus is. Lewalski believes that both Jesus and Satan are ignorant of Jesus’s true identity until the very end of the poem, when Jesus discovers and reveals his divinity with the words ‘Tempt not the Lord thy God’ (meaning ‘do not tempt me’), and Satan, understanding him, falls in despair. Ashraf H. A. Rushdy, in ‘Standing Alone on the Pinnacle: Milton in 1752’, MS (1990), 193–218, has recently argued that the action of PR ‘does not constitute an identity test’. Most critics agree that the Satan of PR is less impressive than his namesake in PL. Ricks describes him as ‘shabby and transparent’. Shabby he may be, but the diversity of interpretations as to his motives suggests that he is anything but transparent.

  THE FIRST BOOK

  1. I who erewhile Cp. Virgil, Aen. 1a-1d: ‘I am he who once piped my song on a slender reed, then, leaving the woods, compelled the neighbouring fields to serve the gr
eedy farmer… but now I sing of Mars’ bristling’. This opening (rejected by Virgil or his executors) appeared in most Renaissance editions, and biblical epics imitated it (Lewalski 116–17). Cp. also Spenser, proem to FQ. Virgil and Spenser look back from mature epic to pastoral or georgic; M. looks back to his earlier epic as if it were apprentice work for ‘the true epic subject’ (Lewalski 6).

  2–4. one man’s… obedience Cp. Rom. 5. 19: ‘For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous’.

  5. foiled including ‘trodden underfoot’ (OED v1 1). Cp. God’s curse on the serpent (Gen. 3. 15, PL x 175–81, 1030–36).

  7. Eden… waste wilderness Cp. Isa. 51.3: ‘the Lord shall comfort Zion: he will comfort all her waste places; and he will make her wilderness like Eden’.

  8. Spirit who led’st Cp. Matt. 4. 1 (‘Then was Jesus led up of the spirit into the wilderness’) and Luke 4. 1. M. in CD i 6 argues that ‘spirit’ can mean the inner light or ‘the actual person of the Holy Spirit’ (trans. Carey, YP 6. 285).

  eremite *desert-dweller (OED 1b) – the Greek meaning.

  9. field battlefield (though the agricultural sense plays against desert).

  14. full-summed in full plumage (a term from falconry).

  16. unrecorded Many critics have objected that Christ’s temptation is recorded (albeit summarily) in the Gospels. M. might be using ‘record’ in the sense ‘render in song’ (OED 2b). OED’s instances all describe birdsong, but cp. SA 983–4. The metaphor of birdsong would in any case be appropriate after wing full-summed (14).

  18–32. Now… beloved Son See Matt. 3, Mark 1. 2–11, Luke 3. 1–22, John 1. 6–34.

  18. great proclaimer John the Baptist.

  23. son of Joseph deemed Cp. Luke 3. 23: ‘being (as was supposed) the son of Joseph’.

  24. as then as yet.

  obscure Cp. John 1. 26: ‘there standeth one among you, whom ye know not’.

  26. divinely warned Cp. John 1. 33: ‘And I knew him not; but he that sent me to baptize with water, the same said unto me, Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending, and remaining on him, the same is he which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost’.

  30–32. Heaven… beloved Son Cp. Matt. 3. 16–17: ‘and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him: And lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased’. Cp. Mark 1. 10–11, Luke 3. 21–2, John 1. 32–4.

  33. Adversary Satan, whose name literally means ‘enemy’ (cp. PL, i 82), ‘antagonist’ (cp. PL x 386), or ‘adversary’ (cp. PL ii 629). ‘Adversary’ has legal overtones suggesting that Satan is to bring an adversary suit.

  still continually.

  33–4. roving… the world Cp. Job 1. 7: ‘And the Lord said unto Satan, Whence comest thou? Then Satan answered the Lord and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it’; also I Pet. 5. 8: ‘your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour’.

  37. attest testimony, attestation.

  39. his place… mid air Satan’s place had been Hell (PL vii 135, etc.). Now it is the cold middle air, extending to the mountain-tops (PL i 516n). Satan was ‘prince of the power of the air’ (Eph. 2. 2). Cp. PL iv 940, x 189.

  40. peers nobles.

  41. involved enfolded (modifying clouds) and underhand, crooked (modifying peers).

  42. A gloomy cónsistory Cp. Virgil, Aen. iii 679: concilium horrendum. The Virgilian analogue bodes ill for the devils, for Aeneas is describing the thwarted Cyclopes who gather on the shore and ‘stand impotent with glaring eyes’ as the Trojans sail away. Cónsistory means ‘council’, but has satirical overtones of ‘ecclesiastical senate of Pope and Cardinals’ (OED 6) and ‘ecclesiastical court’ of a Bishop (OED 7) or Presbyters (OED 9). Cp. the puns on ‘conclave’, ‘synod’, ‘pontifical’ (PL i 795, ii 391, x 313).

  44. Powers rulers (OED 6a), pagan deities (OED 7), angelic Powers.

  48. as as reckoned by.

  49. universe the earth as abode of mankind (OED 3a). Satan rules earth and air (63), but not the stellar heavens.

  possessed inhabited. English law distinguished possession from ownership.

  50. In manner in some degree (OED ‘manner’ sb1 10).

  51. facile easily led (OED 5).

  51–2. Eve… deceived including ‘dis-Eved’ (‘deprived of immortality’). Cp. PL i 35–6. Eve’s name means ‘life’ and M. relates it to immortality at PL xi 161–71.

  53. attending awaiting (qualifies me).

  fatal wound the ‘bruise’ foretold at Gen. 3. 15 (cp. PL x 175–92).

  56. longest time to him is short Cp. Ps. 90. 4: ‘a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday’.

  57. the circling hours Cp. ‘the circling Hours’ (PL vi 3). M. again alludes to the Horae, but Satan’s dread is greater for his having waited hour by hour. Cp. Virgil’s Venus waiting through the circling years, volventibus annis (Aen. i 234).

  58. compassed completed a circuit (OED 5), attained (OED 11).

  59. bide endure (OED 9) and await (OED 6).

  60. At least if so we can ‘If, that is, we are able to endure (and so survive) the stroke’.

  62. infringed broken, shattered, invalidated (OED 1).

  64–5. ill news… woman born Jesus’s birth is not news to Satan. He knew of it ‘with the first’ and has kept watch ever since (iv 504–12). It is unclear whether the other devils knew of it. If they didn’t, Satan has kept them in the dark for thirty years.

  73. Pretends claims (with overtones of the modern sense).

  74. Purified… pure I John 3.3.

  80. on him rising as he arose.

  83. dove Cp. Matt. 3.16: ‘he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove’. M. in CD i 6 identifies this Spirit with ‘the actual person of the Holy Spirit’ (trans. Carey, YP 6. 285). Cp. PR 1 31.

  87. He who As in PL, Satan avoids naming ‘God’. See PL i 93n.

  obtains holds, possesses (OED 6).

  89. first-begot Messiah as Satan knew him in Heaven. See PL v 603 and note.

  91. Who this is we must learn Pope (36) and Lewalski (159) take Satan at his word, and assume that he genuinely sets out to discover Jesus’s identity. Allen (III) believes that Satan merely feigns ignorance. Woodhouse (171–3) argues that Satan knows ‘in his heart’ that Jesus is the first-begot, but clings to his ‘assiduously fostered doubt’ with ‘diminishing conviction and mounting despair’. In PL, after his fall from Heaven, Satan had never named the Son or acknowledged his existence (see PL iv 36–7n). He would not mention him now unless he suspected the truth. See below, 356n.

  93. glimpses momentary flashes, traces (OED 1, 2).

  94–5. utmost edge / Of hazard Cp. Shakespeare, All’s Well that Ends Well III iii 6: ‘th’ extreme edge of hazard’; also PL i 276–7.

  96. sudden impromptu, extempore (OED 7).

  97. well-couched well-hidden (OED 13), well-expressed (OED 15).

  100. sole undertook See PL ii 430–66.

  103. calmer voyage Satan had travelled through Chaos to reach Adam and Eve; now he descends from ‘mid air’.

  105. success result (OED 1). Satan will meet with ‘bad success’ (iv 1).

  107. amazement overwhelming fear, alarm (OED 3).

  112. main momentous (OED 5a).

  113. dictator the Roman term for a chief magistrate invested with absolute but temporary power in times of crisis.

  117. gods M. identifies fallen angels with heathen gods. See PL i 373n.

  119. coast district (OED 6).

  120. easy steps Cp. Satan’s ‘uneasy steps’ in Hell (PL i 295).

  girded… wiles Cp. Isa. 11. 5: ‘righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins’.

  122. This man of men combining awe (cp. ‘King of kings’) and contempt (cp. ‘this man of clay’ PL ix 176).

  124. subvert corrupt, pervert (OED 5).

&
nbsp; 128. frequence assembly.

  129. Gabriel the angel of the Annunciation. See lines 134–40 and Luke 1. 26–38.

  130. proof act of testing (OED 4a).

  143. assay either ‘practise by way of trial’ (OED 8) or ‘try the mettle of’, ‘accost with arguments’, ‘tempt’ (OED 14, 15, 13). The former reading credits Satan, the latter the Son, with utmost subtlety.

  146. apostasy the apostate angels.

  147. overweening presumption.

  Job M. in RCG calls the book of Job a ‘brief epic’, and many critics have seen Job as a model for PR. Lewalski (112) traces the comparison between Jesus and Job to Gregory’s Moralia in Job. Cp. i 369, 425, iii 64–7,95.

  149. invent plan, plot (OED 2a).

  152–3. at length… to Hell Satan falls to Hell at iv 576, but God may be referring to the Last Judgement.

  155. fallacy deception, trickery, a lie (OED 1).

  156. exercise tax the powers of, subject to ascetic discipline (OED 4a, 3a). M. in CD i 8 states that a ‘good temptation’ can ‘exercise’ (exercendam) the faith or patience of the righteous (YP 6. 338). Cp. also Areopagitica (1644): ‘I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed’ (YP 2. 515).

  157–8. rudiments… warfare Cp. Virgil, Aen. xi 156–7; but Lewalski (117) finds a closer analogue in Jacobus Strasburgus’s Oratorio Prima (1565) – a ‘brief epic’ which depicts the tempted Christ as a young warrior learning the rudimentum of his warfare with Satan. Cp. ii 245.

  161. His weakness… strength Cp. I Cor. 1. 27: ‘God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty’.

  165. virtue from Latin vir, ‘man’ (perfect man).

  169. Admiring regarding with loving wonder (OED 1).

  171. the hand instrumental music.

  172. argument subject-matter, theme (OED 6).

  176. The Father knows the Son Cp. John 10. 15: ‘As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father’.

  secure free from anxiety (OED 1).

  180. frustrate frustrated.

  182. vigils nocturnal prayers (OED 2d).

  184. Bethabara the place of the baptism (John 1. 28).