Hello and welcome to Episode 55 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.
Over the last few weeks we’ve been in Paradise, looking, much of the time, through Satan’s eyes, at this magnificent world and its creatures, watching and overhearing, Adam and Eve in conversation. Last week we saw Satan resolve to roam about and look for any spirit he could trick into helping him learn more of this place…
The portion we’ll read this week is 73 lines long, and I’m going to read it all through first, to give you a sense of the movement within this section. Then we’ll go through some of main movements in slower detail.
So saying, his proud step he scornful turn'd,
But with sly circumspection, and began
Through wood, through waste, o're hill, o're dale his roam.
Mean while in utmost Longitude, where Heav'n
With Earth and Ocean meets, the setting Sun [ 540 ]
Slowly descended, and with right aspect
Against the eastern Gate of Paradise
Leveld his eevning Rayes: it was a Rock
Of Alablaster, pil'd up to the Clouds,
Conspicuous farr, winding with one ascent [ 545 ]
Accessible from Earth, one entrance high;
The rest was craggie cliff, that overhung
Still as it rose, impossible to climbe.
Betwixt these rockie Pillars Gabriel sat
Chief of th' Angelic Guards, awaiting night; [ 550 ]
About him exercis'd Heroic Games
Th' unarmed Youth of Heav'n, but nigh at hand
Celestial Armourie, Shields, Helmes, and Speares
Hung high with Diamond flaming, and with Gold.
Thither came Uriel, gliding through the Eeven [ 555 ]
On a Sun beam, swift as a shooting Starr
In Autumn thwarts the night, when vapors fir'd
Impress the Air, and shews the Mariner
From what point of his Compass to beware
Impetuous winds: he thus began in haste. [ 560 ]
Gabriel, to thee thy course by Lot hath giv'n
Charge and strict watch that to this happie place
No evil thing approach or enter in;
This day at highth of Noon came to my Spheare
A Spirit, zealous, as he seem'd, to know [ 565 ]
More of th' Almighties works, and chiefly Man
Gods latest Image: I describ'd his way
Bent all on speed, and markt his Aerie Gate;
But in the Mount that lies from Eden North,
Where he first lighted, soon discernd his looks [ 570 ]
Alien from Heav'n, with passions foul obscur'd:
Mine eye pursu'd him still, but under shade
Lost sight of him; one of the banisht crew
I fear, hath ventur'd from the Deep, to raise
New troubles; him thy care must be to find. [ 575 ]
To whom the winged Warriour thus returnd:
Uriel, no wonder if thy perfet sight,
Amid the Suns bright circle where thou sitst,
See farr and wide: in at this Gate none pass
The vigilance here plac't, but such as come [ 580 ]
Well known from Heav'n; and since Meridian hour
No Creature thence: if Spirit of other sort,
So minded, have oreleapt these earthie bounds
On purpose, hard thou knowst it to exclude
Spiritual substance with corporeal barr. [ 585 ]
But if within the circuit of these walks,
In whatsoever shape he lurk, of whom
Thou tellst, by morrow dawning I shall know.
So promis'd hee, and Uriel to his charge
Returnd on that bright beam, whose point now rais'd [ 590 ]
Bore him slope downward to the Sun now fall'n
Beneath th' Azores; whither the prime Orb,
Incredible how swift, had thither rowl'd
Diurnal, or this less volubil Earth
By shorter flight to th' East, had left him there [ 595 ]
Arraying with reflected Purple and Gold
The Clouds that on his Western Throne attend:
Now came still Eevning on, and Twilight gray
Had in her sober Liverie all things clad;
Silence accompanied, for Beast and Bird, [ 600 ]
They to thir grassie Couch, these to thir Nests
Were slunk, all but the wakeful Nightingale;
She all night long her amorous descant sung;
Silence was pleas'd: now glow'd the Firmament
With living Saphirs: Hesperus that led [ 605 ]
The starrie Host, rode brightest, till the Moon
Rising in clouded Majestie, at length
Apparent Queen unvaild her peerless light,
And o're the dark her Silver Mantle threw.
We begin with three lines which close the previous scene, as Satan leaves the stage:
So saying, his proud step he scornful turn'd,
But with sly circumspection, and began
Through wood, through waste, o're hill, o're dale his roam.
This is the Satan we know from our earliest meetings with him (in Hell we saw him ‘vaunting aloud’, and we have learned that pride is his most compelling characteristic.) But the word ‘sly’ seems altogether new. There it sits alongside ‘circumspection’, telling us that whatever his ‘proud step’ seems to say, there is something base and manipulative, something lowly about him. We regester that and the poem moves on.
The scene has changed, now we are elsewhere;
Mean while in utmost Longitude, where Heav'n
With Earth and Ocean meets, the setting Sun [ 540 ]
Slowly descended, and with right aspect
Against the eastern Gate of Paradise
Leveld his eevning Rayes: it was a Rock
Of Alablaster, pil'd up to the Clouds,
Conspicuous farr, winding with one ascent [ 545 ]
Accessible from Earth, one entrance high;
The rest was craggie cliff, that overhung
Still as it rose, impossible to climbe.
Betwixt these rockie Pillars Gabriel sat
Chief of th' Angelic Guards, awaiting night; [ 550 ]
About him exercis'd Heroic Games
Th' unarmed Youth of Heav'n, but nigh at hand
Celestial Armourie, Shields, Helmes, and Speares
Hung high with Diamond flaming, and with Gold.
Thither came Uriel, gliding through the Eeven [ 555 ]
On a Sun beam, swift as a shooting Starr
In Autumn thwarts the night, when vapors fir'd
Impress the Air, and shews the Mariner
From what point of his Compass to beware
Impetuous winds: he thus began in haste. [ 560 ]
In this week’s reading I was struck by ‘mean while’, and allowed myself to be diverted into a little look at the Concordance to Paradise Lost, and then thought, the internet will know how many ‘mean whiles’ there are in this poem. And sure enough:
I haven’t yet got access to this essay but will track it down. I love the idea that ‘meanwhile’ ‘grounds all times and spans all places in the cosmos of Paradise Lost’.
But we can’t get stuck on ‘mean while’. The scene shifts and instead of the close up on Satan, we now have cosmic geometry, and movement of light around the planet as Milton envisages the limits of Paradise;
Mean while in utmost Longitude, where Heav'n
With Earth and Ocean meets, the setting Sun [ 540 ]
Slowly descended, and with right aspect
Against the eastern Gate of Paradise
Leveld his eevning Rayes: it was a Rock
Of Alablaster, pil'd up to the Clouds,
Conspicuous farr, winding with one ascent [ 545 ]
Accessible from Earth, one entrance high;
The rest was craggie cliff, that overhung
Still as it rose, impossible to climbe.
Here, in this astonishing place, we find exactly those kinds of spirits Satan had hoped to meet:
Betwixt these rockie Pillars Gabriel sat
Chief of th' Angelic Guards, awaiting night; [ 550 ]
About him exercis'd Heroic Games
Th' unarmed Youth of Heav'n, but nigh at hand
Celestial Armourie, Shields, Helmes, and Speares
Hung high with Diamond flaming, and with Gold.
I thought of Hell at this point, remembering how, when Satan left to undertake this journey, the other devils diverted themselves with similar games. Interesting to see here that these spirits are soldiers, Angelic Guards, and yet they have not been able to prevent Satan (presumably they are there to watch for him?) entering Paradise. What was the point then of all that armour, those ‘Shields, Helmes, and Speares’? Is there no protection ? Will trouble always come?
And now, Uriel, whom we met earlier, appears. Previously, stationed high above, we had seen him, the simple disguise of a cherub, tricked by Satan into directing him towards Adam and Eve. We asked then - why can’t Angelic guards see the danger?
The problem perhaps that evil is part of great pattern, but a part of the pattern we can’t often see. You may guard, and sometimes guarding may work, but evil will still be active in the universe. It is not prevention by guards that is required so much as right response once we have seen it. Recognition after the event. And here is Uriel, responding:
Thither came Uriel, gliding through the Eeven [ 555 ]
On a Sun beam, swift as a shooting Starr
In Autumn thwarts the night, when vapors fir'd
Impress the Air, and shews the Mariner
From what point of his Compass to beware
Impetuous winds: he thus began in haste. [ 560 ]
Gabriel, to thee thy course by Lot hath giv'n
Charge and strict watch that to this happie place
No evil thing approach or enter in;
This day at highth of Noon came to my Spheare
A Spirit, zealous, as he seem'd, to know [ 565 ]
More of th' Almighties works, and chiefly Man
Gods latest Image: I describ'd his way
Bent all on speed, and markt his Aerie Gate;
But in the Mount that lies from Eden North,
Where he first lighted, soon discernd his looks [ 570 ]
Alien from Heav'n, with passions foul obscur'd:
Mine eye pursu'd him still, but under shade
Lost sight of him; one of the banisht crew
I fear, hath ventur'd from the Deep, to raise
New troubles; him thy care must be to find. [ 575 ]
After the event, Uriel, like any human, can see with hindsight what went wrong. Before it happened the cherub/Satan seemed a ‘a spirit, zealous, as he seem’d, to know/More of th' Almighties works’. But… ah but, after the event, Uriel
…. soon discernd his looks [ 570 ]
Alien from Heav'n, with passions foul obscur'd:
Now Uriel can see quite clearly that this apparently benign figure was in fact ‘one of the banisht crew’
ventur'd from the Deep, to raise
New troubles; him thy care must be to find. [ 575 ]
The idea of guards that can’t prevent or even see trouble coming is interesting to me because it seems to mirror human experience. We can see some things, if they come dressed in their own clothes, but if they are disguised…it doesn’t seem to matter that we are, however distractedly, on guard. I say distractedly because most of these Angelic guards are playing, like guards at a gate where nothing ever happens.
As Gabriel begins to explain:
To whom the winged Warriour thus returnd:
Uriel, no wonder if thy perfet sight,
Amid the Suns bright circle where thou sitst,
See farr and wide: in at this Gate none pass
The vigilance here plac't, but such as come [ 580 ]
Well known from Heav'n; and since Meridian hour
No Creature thence: if Spirit of other sort,
So minded, have oreleapt these earthie bounds
On purpose, hard thou knowst it to exclude
Spiritual substance with corporeal barr. [ 585 ]
But if within the circuit of these walks,
In whatsoever shape he lurk, of whom
Thou tellst, by morrow dawning I shall know.
If trouble had come through the gate, we’d have spotted it. If a politician arose with ‘Dictator! Murderer!’ or even ‘Liar! Cheat!’ written on his T shirt we might have spotted that. But if he comes waving a flag with ‘National Unity! Our Homeland! The People!’ that is a different gate, and there’s no guard there.
Where we are on guard, no foul thing comes. And the guards sit around playing games to pass the time. Meanwhile, as Gabriel rightly surmises,
Spirit of other sort,
So minded, have oreleapt these earthie bounds
On purpose,
A reader picked up on ‘so minded’ and reminded us that in Book 1 Satan had used the word ‘mind’ to describe a similar movement. He has, he says,
A mind not to be chang’d by Place or Time.
The mind is its own place, and in it self
Can make a Heav’n of Hell, a Hell of Heav’n.
So here is a mind, ‘so minded’ to ‘oreleap’. And there. It is done. because
hard thou knowst it to exclude
Spiritual substance with corporeal barr.
There are two dimensions, realms; the spiritual and the corporeal. These realms coexist and even intermingle and yet remain separate. Gabriel, knowing now that the enemy is within the walls, promises he will find him.
So promis'd hee, and Uriel to his charge
Returnd on that bright beam, whose point now rais'd [ 590 ]
Bore him slope downward to the Sun now fall'n
Beneath th' Azores; whither the prime Orb,
Incredible how swift, had thither rowl'd
Diurnal, or this less volubil Earth
By shorter flight to th' East, had left him there [ 595 ]
Arraying with reflected Purple and Gold
The Clouds that on his Western Throne attend:
Now came still Eevning on, and Twilight gray
Had in her sober Liverie all things clad;
Silence accompanied, for Beast and Bird, [ 600 ]
They to thir grassie Couch, these to thir Nests
Were slunk, all but the wakeful Nightingale;
She all night long her amorous descant sung;
Silence was pleas'd: now glow'd the Firmament
With living Saphirs: Hesperus that led [ 605 ]
The starrie Host, rode brightest, till the Moon
Rising in clouded Majestie, at length
Apparent Queen unvaild her peerless light,
And o're the dark her Silver Mantle threw.
First some more wonderful, filmic supra-planetary action - Uriel returning to his station as the sun sets, ‘Arraying with reflected Purple and Gold/The Clouds that on his Western Throne attend’. Then the final movement of this week’s section returns to the earth we know, sunset and dusk seen from our point of view, as Milton’s wonderfully vivid imagination turns from astronomical views of the sun toimagined earth, to summer evenings we’ve all known.
Beautiful.
And so close to the danger!
More next week.
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