Having negotiated with the demons and schmoozed his magnificently horrible relatives, his daughter Sin and their incestuous offspring Death, Satan passes through the gates of Hell. He’s visited Pandaemonium (rich parallels with Milton’s political landscape, and ours) and won the parliamentary vote allowing him to bring mayhem to God’s favoured new creation, the human race. Satan, a consummate politician, has already established himself. The passage chosen here comes at the close of the poem’s second book.
I laced up my trainers, and prepared for some Miltonic weightlifting. Everyone loves Milton’s Satan, and I’m no exception. A space-travel pioneer, being interviewed, mentioned seeing the world for the first time, “like Milton’s Satan”. Too often parochial, patronising and predictable, the programme recovered its form in the New Horizons edition on New Year’s Day. It started with a comment on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. This week I’ve been revisiting Paradise Lost. Though it may be a return visit, I’m guaranteed to find all sorts of new treasure. There’s no pressure any more: I can read as slowly as I like, and replace the bookmark guiltlessly if I fancy a snooze.
#William blake paradise lost full#
Thither full fraught with mischievous revenge,Įvery so often I put on my sports bra, flex a few surprised muscles and head to the literary gym of some major classic. Of living sapphire, once his native seat In circuit, undetermined square or round, Weighs his spread wings, at leisure to beholdįar off the empyreal heaven, extended wide
Gladly the port, though shrouds and tackle torn Wafts on the calmer wave by dubious light That Satan with less toil, and now with ease With tumult less and with less hostile din, Of light appears, and from the walls of heavenĪ glimmering dawn here nature first begins God and good angels guard by special grace. Of this frail world by which the spirits perverse Tamely endured a bridge of wondrous lengthįrom Hell continued reaching the utmost orb Through Bosporus, betwixt the jostling Rocks:Ĭharybdis, and by the other whirlpool steered.īut he once past, soon after when man fell,įollowing his track, such was the will of heaven,
Into the wild expanse, and through the shockĪnd more endangered, than when Argo pass’d He ceased and Satan stayed not to reply,īut glad that now his sea should find a shore,
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