Milton Dictating 'Paradise Lost' (after Mihály Munkácsy) Anton von Bojanowski, Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru / The National Library of Wales
Hello and welcome to Episode 20 of Read Paradise Lost with me, Jane Davis, a podcast and Substack newsletter about my project to read all of Paradise Lost by John Milton, aloud, and with a sometimes word-by-word, sometimes line-by-line discussion. This is a one-take recording with no editing, so forgive noise of seagulls, my coughing, or sound of men drilling next door. Rough and ready reading is what you get.
See Episode 1 for an introduction to the project.
Another short portion this week, with only about 50 lines, so I’ll read it and then talk through my thoughts. We’re in Hell, in Book 2, at Satan’s Council, and Beelzebub has just proposed that the fallen angels should seek revenge for their expulsion from Heaven by heading to newly created Earth to wreak havoc with newly created Man.
But thir spite still serves [ 385 ]
His glory to augment. The bold design
Pleas'd highly those infernal States, and joy
Sparkl'd in all thir eyes; with full assent
They vote: whereat his speech he thus renews.
Well have ye judg'd, well ended long debate, [ 390 ]
Synod of Gods, and like to what ye are,
Great things resolv'd; which from the lowest deep
Will once more lift us up, in spight of Fate,
Neerer our ancient Seat; perhaps in view
Of those bright confines, whence with neighbouring Arms [ 395 ]
And opportune excursion we may chance
Re-enter Heav'n; or else in some milde Zone
Dwell not unvisited of Heav'ns fair Light
Secure, and at the brightning Orient beam
Purge off this gloom; the soft delicious Air, [ 400 ]
To heal the scarr of these corrosive Fires
Shall breath her balme. But first whom shall we send
In search of this new world, whom shall we find
Sufficient? who shall tempt with wandring feet
The dark unbottom'd infinite Abyss [ 405 ]
And through the palpable obscure find out
His uncouth way, or spread his aerie flight
Upborn with indefatigable wings
Over the vast abrupt, ere he arrive
The happy Ile; what strength, what art can then [ 410 ]
Suffice, or what evasion bear him safe
Through the strict Senteries and Stations thick
Of Angels watching round? Here he had need
All circumspection, and we now no less
Choice in our suffrage; for on whom we send, [ 415 ]
The weight of all and our last hope relies.
This said, he sat; and expectation held
His look suspence, awaiting who appeer'd
To second, or oppose, or undertake
The perilous attempt; but all sat mute, [ 420 ]
Pondering the danger with deep thoughts; and each
In others count'nance read his own dismay
Astonisht: none among the choice and prime
Of those Heav'n-warring Champions could be found
So hardie as to proffer or accept [ 425 ]
Alone the dreadful voyage; till at last
Satan, whom now transcendent glory rais'd
Above his fellows, with Monarchal pride
Conscious of highest worth, unmov'd thus spake.
Milton is at pains to reassure us that these devils can only lead - eventually - to God’s grace. ‘But thir spite still serves /His glory to augment.’ This is hard to remember when we are in the thick of it, and readers I spoke to this week told me they were finding this time in hell hard going, partly because the world, here, now, is hard going. And the poem seems very much to mirror our situation. See the mob here, eyes a-sparkle, at the idea of wreaking havoc on someone? To get back at someone else? It doesn’t make much rational sense but ‘The bold design/Pleas'd highly those infernal States’, and I guess part of our non-jigsaw life (see last week’s post) is to try to understand why our rioters in the UK and previously in the US, are suffering these ‘infernal States’. But back to the poem. Here follows what feels to me a truly sad moment as Beelzebub continues:
Well have ye judg'd, well ended long debate, [ 390 ]
Synod of Gods, and like to what ye are,
Great things resolv'd; which from the lowest deep
Will once more lift us up, in spight of Fate,
Neerer our ancient Seat; perhaps in view
Of those bright confines, whence with neighbouring Arms [ 395 ]
And opportune excursion we may chance
Re-enter Heav'n; or else in some milde Zone
Dwell not unvisited of Heav'ns fair Light
Secure, and at the brightning Orient beam
Purge off this gloom; the soft delicious Air, [ 400 ]
To heal the scarr of these corrosive Fires
Shall breath her balme.
Here’s the old nostalgia for the loss again. The fallen angels love Heaven, their original home, and want to go back there, to ‘our ancient seat’ or even somewhere closer to it, ‘perhaps in view/Of those bright confines’. I’m thinking of people exiled from their home countries because of war or because their beliefs don’t fit the current regime. The home country is still beloved, perhaps even more for not being in it.
But there’s more to this, and I’m wondering if it comes from Milton himself. He had in a sense ‘lost’ his country, in the loss (for republicans) of the restoration of the monarchy. And personally, he’s lost his job, his status as an international statesman, a man who sat in on councils like this one. He’s lost friends and colleagues, some of them to death. But he is also a man, primarily a reader and a writer, who has lost his sight. So when Beelzebub hopes to come
perhaps in view
Of those bright confines,
I think of Milton, longing for sight or mourning its loss. Beelzebub goes on;
whence with neighbouring Arms [ 395 ]
And opportune excursion we may chance
Re-enter Heav'n; or else in some milde Zone
Dwell not unvisited of Heav'ns fair Light
Secure, and at the brightning Orient beam
Purge off this gloom; the soft delicious Air, [ 400 ]
To heal the scarr of these corrosive Fires
Shall breath her balme.
‘Dwell not unvisited of Heav'ns fair Light’, oh dear, what a hell this sightlessness is. Can you imagine longing for it not to be like this? Every morning waking to dark and waiting to dictate your poetry to a scribe, working your way back and forth, up and down the lines, editing, asking for it to be read again. Depressed? Oh yes. Longing for light? Yes.
and at the brightning Orient beam
Purge off this gloom; the soft delicious Air, [ 400 ]
To heal the scarr of these corrosive Fires
I imagine Milton did not agree that God was punishing him by imposing this blindness upon him .Yet, yet… who among us has not cursed Heaven for some terrible blow? And longed for the ‘balme’ of relief from suffering? I do say that Milton’s experience of such feelings perhaps made him capable of imagining the pain of those who have lost much. Even if they are bad. And bad they are. Beelzebub now asks for volunteers to make the perilous journey towards ruining Man;
But first whom shall we send
In search of this new world, whom shall we find
Sufficient? who shall tempt with wandring feet
The dark unbottom'd infinite Abyss [ 405 ]
And through the palpable obscure find out
His uncouth way, or spread his aerie flight
Upborn with indefatigable wings
Over the vast abrupt, ere he arrive
The happy Ile; what strength, what art can then [ 410 ]
Suffice, or what evasion bear him safe
Through the strict Senteries and Stations thick
Of Angels watching round? Here he had need
All circumspection, and we now no less
Choice in our suffrage; for on whom we send, [ 415 ]
The weight of all and our last hope relies.
Though the task is evil, yet the way is terrible and a brave, even heroic, spirit is wanted for such work - taking on the utter unknowns of ‘the dark unbottom'd infinite Abyss…’ the ‘palpable obscure’, ‘the vast abrupt’. Everything depends on, he who can find a way through ‘the strict Senteries and Stations thick/Of Angels watching round.’
Of course there is only one answer. We’re watching a staged, a scripted event. The election result is already settled.
This said, he sat; and expectation held
His look suspence, awaiting who appeer'd
To second, or oppose, or undertake
The perilous attempt; but all sat mute, [ 420 ]
Pondering the danger with deep thoughts; and each
In others count'nance read his own dismay
Astonisht: none among the choice and prime
Of those Heav'n-warring Champions could be found
So hardie as to proffer or accept [ 425 ]
Alone the dreadful voyage; till at last
Satan, whom now transcendent glory rais'd
Above his fellows, with Monarchal pride
Conscious of highest worth, unmov'd thus spake.
And we’ll see what he has to say about his undertaking next week.
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