Season 3 Podcast 163 Milton's Paradise Lost Bk V, Pt X, The First Temptation

Milton’s Paradise Lost Bk V, Pt X, The First Temptation Sir Arthur-Quiller Couch said, a writer to reach the high points resorts to poetry, to reach the low points resorts to prose. With Milton there are no low points. One cannot be distracted while reading Paradise Lost or one will get lost in Paradise Lost, and having a good dictionary nearby is useful. Book V of Paradise Lost opens with Adam and Eve waking up to a new day. What is different about this day, however, is that Eve was troubled during the night with nightmares of some strange being tempting her to eat the forbidden fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Adam tries to comfort her. The arch angel Raphael, however, whose job it is to protect Adam and Eve comes to warn them of Satan’s approach. In the opening scene Eve expresses her fear to Adam. Close at mine ear one called me forth to walkWith gentle voice; I thought it thine: It said,“Why sleepest thou, Eve? now is the pleasant time,The cool, the silent, save where silence yieldsTo the night-warbling bird, that now awakeTunes sweetest his love-laboured song; now reignsFull-orbed the moon, and with more pleasing lightShadowy sets off the face of things; in vain,If none regard; Heaven wakes with all his eyes,Whom to behold but thee, Nature’s desire?In whose sight all things joy, with ravishmentAttracted by thy beauty still to gaze.”I rose as at thy call, but found thee not;To find thee I directed then my walk;And on, methought, alone I passed through waysThat brought me on a sudden to the treeOf interdicted knowledge: fair it seemed,Much fairer to my fancy than by day: In her dream Eve sees Satan as an angel of light. He uses logic to persuade Eve to eat of the forbidden fruit. And, as I wondering looked, beside it stoodOne shaped and winged like one of those from HeavenBy us oft seen; his dewy locks distilledAmbrosia; on that tree he also gazed;And “O fair plant,” said he, “with fruit surcharged,Deigns none to ease thy load, and taste thy sweet,Nor God, nor Man? Is knowledge so despised?Or envy, or what reserve forbids to taste?Forbid who will, none shall from me withholdLonger thy offered good; why else set here?” This is the first time that Eve has experienced temptation, and it frightens her, but all she knows is that she is not supposed to eat the forbidden fruit for it will bring death into the world. Until now it had not occurred to her to question God. Her silence gives Satan more courage. He tries to make evil look good by persuading her that if she eats the forbidden fruit, she can serve God better. This said, he paused not, but with venturous armHe plucked, he tasted; me damp horrour chilledAt such bold words vouched with a deed so bold:But he thus, overjoyed; “O fruit divine,Sweet of thyself, but much more sweet thus cropt,Forbidden here, it seems, as only fitFor Gods, yet able to make Gods of Men:And why not Gods of Men; since good, the moreCommunicated, more abundant grows,The author not impaired, but honoured more? Nothing happens when Satan eats the fruit. He offers the fruit to her promising her that she can become like the Gods. He appeals to her vanity and says she can ascend into heaven by her own merit, which, of course, is a lie. The only way she can ascend into heaven is by not eating the forbidden fruit because she would still be protected by the law of justice. If she eats of the forbidden fruit, she will have to rely upon the merits of Jesus Christ the Son of God whom Satan hates.