Hello and welcome to Episode 65 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.
This week we’re reading a portion of 85 lines, but I’m only going to write about 16 of them. I often feel when writing that I’m only explicating the bare bones of the poem’s content - what happened - partly because I’m writing at speed every week, partly because I think that most of my readers may want or need that (I do myself), and that makes it necessary.
But… but in order to cover this enormous poem, we are flying very fast over the ground. This week, for a change I thought I’d read as slowly and closely and as deeply as I can across a few lines, to show myself, and you, dear readers, just how much one might do with a little bit of Milton.
I’ll read the whole section first, so you get the lie of the land, and then home in on the 16 lines. We’re beginning at book 5, line 358, with Adam welcoming his visitor, the Angel Raphael, to his bower.
Neerer his presence Adam though not awd,
Yet with submiss approach and reverence meek,
As to a superior Nature, bowing low, [ 360 ]
Thus said. Native of Heav'n, for other place
None can then Heav'n such glorious shape contain;
Since by descending from the Thrones above,
Those happie places thou hast deignd a while
To want, and honour these, voutsafe with us [ 365 ]
Two onely, who yet by sov'ran gift possess
This spacious ground, in yonder shadie Bowre
To rest, and what the Garden choicest bears
To sit and taste, till this meridian heat
Be over, and the Sun more coole decline. [ 370 ]
Whom thus the Angelic Vertue answerd milde.
Adam, I therefore came, nor art thou such
Created, or such place hast here to dwell,
As may not oft invite, though Spirits of Heav'n
To visit thee; lead on then where thy Bowre [ 375 ]
Oreshades; for these mid-hours, till Eevning rise
I have at will. So to the Silvan Lodge
They came, that like Pomona's Arbour smil'd
With flourets deck't and fragrant smells; but Eve
Undeckt, save with her self more lovely fair [ 380 ]
Then Wood-Nymph, or the fairest Goddess feign'd
Of three that in Mount Ida naked strove,
Stood to entertain her guest from Heav'n; no vaile
Shee needed, Vertue-proof, no thought infirme
Alterd her cheek. On whom the Angel Haile [ 385 ]
Bestowd, the holy salutation us'd
Long after to blest Marie, second Eve.
Haile Mother of Mankind, whose fruitful Womb
Shall fill the World more numerous with thy Sons
Then with these various fruits the Trees of God [ 390 ]
Have heap'd this Table. Rais'd of grassie terf
Thir Table was, and mossie seats had round,
And on her ample Square from side to side
All Autumn pil'd, though Spring and Autumn here
Danc'd hand in hand. A while discourse they hold; [ 395 ]
No fear lest Dinner coole; when thus began
Our Authour. Heav'nly stranger, please to taste
These bounties which our Nourisher, from whom
All perfet good unmeasur'd out, descends,
To us for food and for delight hath caus'd [ 400 ]
The Earth to yeild; unsavourie food perhaps
To spiritual Natures; only this I know,
That one Celestial Father gives to all.
To whom the Angel. Therefore what he gives
(Whose praise be ever sung) to man in part [ 405 ]
Spiritual, may of purest Spirits be found
No ingrateful food: and food alike those pure
Intelligential substances require
As doth your Rational; and both contain
Within them every lower facultie [ 410 ]
Of sense, whereby they hear, see, smell, touch, taste,
Tasting concoct, digest, assimilate,
And corporeal to incorporeal turn.
For know, whatever was created, needs
To be sustaind and fed; of Elements [ 415 ]
The grosser feeds the purer, Earth the Sea,
Earth and the Sea feed Air, the Air those Fires
Ethereal, and as lowest first the Moon;
Whence in her visage round those spots, unpurg'd
Vapours not yet into her substance turnd. [ 420 ]
Nor doth the Moon no nourishment exhale
From her moist Continent to higher Orbes.
The Sun that light imparts to all, receives
From all his alimental recompence
In humid exhalations, and at Even [ 425 ]
Sups with the Ocean: though in Heav'n the Trees
Of life ambrosial frutage bear, and vines
Yield Nectar, though from off the boughs each Morn
We brush mellifluous Dewes, and find the ground
Cover'd with pearly grain: yet God hath here [ 430 ]
Varied his bounty so with new delights,
As may compare with Heaven; and to taste
Think not I shall be nice. So down they sat,
And to thir viands fell, nor seemingly
The Angel, nor in mist, the common gloss [ 435 ]
Of Theologians, but with keen dispatch
Of real hunger, and concoctive heate
To transubstantiate; what redounds, transpires
Through Spirits with ease; nor wonder; if by fire
Of sooty coal the Empiric Alchimist [ 440 ]
Can turn, or holds it possible to turn
Metals of drossiest Ore to perfet Gold
As from the Mine.
Here Raphael begins his task - you will remember he has been commissioned by God to come to Adam and speak with him, friend to friend, reminding him of his blessings and responsibilities and warning him about the danger posed by Satan. It’s an incredibly political diplomatic task! Warning, friend to friend!
Of this portion, I’m now going to read the following 16 lines (404-420) as fully as I can.
Adam has just asked if human food, though given by God, is good for those, like Raphael, of ‘spiritual natures’. It is worth noting that Adam has posed a question. The question (perhaps you don’t eat as we eat?) arises from hostly concern and seems innocent and generous. But this is a poem about the consequences of the eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge. We’re about to eat and we’re asking questions.
So I want to make a mental note that there is already desire for knowledge about things we don’t instinctively know (as Adam does know, apparently instinctively, that everything comes from God);
To whom the Angel. Therefore what he gives
(Whose praise be ever sung) to man in part [ 405 ]
Spiritual, may of purest Spirits be found
No ingrateful food: and food alike those pure
Intelligential substances require
As doth your Rational; and both contain
Within them every lower facultie [ 410 ]
Of sense, whereby they hear, see, smell, touch, taste,
Tasting concoct, digest, assimilate,
And corporeal to incorporeal turn.
For know, whatever was created, needs
To be sustaind and fed; of Elements [ 415 ]
The grosser feeds the purer, Earth the Sea,
Earth and the Sea feed Air, the Air those Fires
Ethereal, and as lowest first the Moon;
Whence in her visage round those spots, unpurg'd
Vapours not yet into her substance turnd. [ 420 ]
Raphael answers in the affirmative;
what he gives
(Whose praise be ever sung) to man in part [ 405 ]
Spiritual, may of purest Spirits be found
No ingrateful food:
and at the same time he reminds or instructs Adam, that man is ‘in part/Spiritual’. The phrase ‘in part’ carries weight here, poised on the end of the line. We are talking about divisions, or perhaps better to call them distinctions, and yet in God there is no division, as even Adam knows: ‘only this I know,/That one Celestial Father gives to all’. Raphael seems to be answering Adam’s question about Angel’s food by pointing to complexity: everything holds together, and you humans are part of it, yet there are distinctions. And even as there are distinctions, there are also crossovers. So, yes, the food God gives for humans will also serve ‘purest Spirits.’ And those spirits do need food (but the food might not be ‘like’ human food). ‘The spirit’ might be said to be ‘fed’ in many ways. For me, the interesting point is that sustenance may be required at every level of being.
and food alike those pure
Intelligential substances require
As doth your Rational;
I look to the notes in the Fowler edition:
It is useful to look at Fowler’s note about Bentley and ask ourselves do the fallen Angels eat? I’ve read back over Book 2 and they don’t, inhabiting a realm of despair, ‘where hope never comes.’ But is despair a kind of (bad) spiritual food? Is pride? Revenge?
They may not eat actual viands (which is perhaps a particularly earthly pleasure, shared here for good guestliness and friendship sake by Raphael?) but we know that Satan had appetite both for power and for sexual pleasure, and we have seen the most obscene eating in Book 2, in the womb of Sin, who explained, her offspring Death raped her and
of that rape begot
These yelling Monsters that with ceasless cry [ 795 ]
Surround me, as thou sawst, hourly conceiv'd
And hourly born, with sorrow infinite
To me, for when they list into the womb
That bred them they return, and howle and gnaw
My Bowels, thir repast; then bursting forth [ 800 ]
A fresh with conscious terrours vex me round,
That rest or intermission none I find.
Here is eating! This is passion, desire, appetite out of control. This is the fallen appetite, eating up she who experiences it from the inside.
Let’s go back to Raphael. Angelic spirits can assume any shape as we have seen, both with Satan and Raphael. They have some sort of materiality, and Raphael explains that whatever substance they are made of, they do require food. Every thing must be fed.
food alike those pure
Intelligential substances require
As doth your Rational; and both contain
Within them every lower facultie [ 410 ]
Of sense, whereby they hear, see, smell, touch, taste,
Tasting concoct, digest, assimilate,
And corporeal to incorporeal turn.
There are three layers here;
pure intelligential substances
your (Adam’s, our) rational
every lower faculty (hear, see, smell, touch, taste,)
In the first of these types of being, it is worth dwelling on each of the three descriptors: ‘pure’ - meaning incorruptible; ‘intelligential’ meaning thoughtful, rational, capable of understanding, and ‘substances’, meaning something substantial, not purely immaterial. So this order of being has a kind of substance but not of the same type that the human world has, it is a substance which is fluid, changeable, often described as radiant. (And thus among the fallen Angels the lost of radiance is felt keenly?) The ‘rational’ beings, come like Hamlet, mid-way between the worms and the angels. Both intelligential and rational beings digest, which seems here a kind of method of transubstantiation:
and food alike those pure
Intelligential substances require
As doth your Rational; and both contain
Within them every lower facultie [ 410 ]
Of sense, whereby they hear, see, smell, touch, taste,
Tasting concoct, digest, assimilate,
And corporeal to incorporeal turn.
Food is digested and assimilated and from corporeal becomes incorporeal. In contemporary language - matter becomes usable energy.
And all other substances feed in other ways, as Raphael goes on to teach (note the verb ‘know’)
For know, whatever was created, needs
To be sustaind and fed; of Elements [ 415 ]
The grosser feeds the purer, Earth the Sea,
Earth and the Sea feed Air, the Air those Fires
Ethereal, and as lowest first the Moon;
Whence in her visage round those spots, unpurg'd
Vapours not yet into her substance turnd. [ 420 ]
This is so interesting. Creation is not a completed process - but all things must be ‘sustained and fed’. In this poem, fed with what is the big question. Raphael teaches a natural order (‘the grosser feeds the purer’).
Looking back over todays writing, the close-up gives me a chance to go more deeply into some complicated background stuff that I would otherwise skip over, and also gave me the chance to think backwards through what we’ve read so far, which I found helpful.
Because the poem is so big (and because my memory is poor) it is hard to keep everything we’ve read to date in mind. Having time to look back and find related moments was helpful.
But I’d be grateful for your thoughts and comments - more like this or continue with the explication of what just happened?
More next week…
