heathen-Goethe himself got some of this irony only into Mephistopheles - and he should not believe so thoroughly as did Milton in the essential freedom of beings. Besides, Milton had not the intellectual agility, nor the perfect tact, nor the deep bitterness of feeling, necessary to paint such a picture. Therefore his traits are heavy and lacking in poetry and depth. He saw the possibilities of the theme, but he could not fully exploit them. Nevertheless, he had the merit of seeing the situation. Thus, he makes God say to his Son when the angels rebel:

Nearly it now concerns us to be sure

Of our omnipotence, and with what arms
We mean to hold what anciently we claim
Of Deity or empire; such a foe

Is rising, who intends to erect his throne
Equal to ours, throughout the spacious north;
Nor so content, hath in his thought to try
In battle what our pow'r is, or our right.

Let us advise, and to this hazard draw
With speed what force is left, and all employ

In our defence, lest unawares we lose

This our high place, our sanctuary, our hill.

To whom the Son, with calm aspect and clear,

Lightning divine, ineffable, serene,

Made answer. Mighty Father, thou thy foes

Justly hast in derision, and, secure,

Laugh'st at their vain designs and tumults vain.38
33

The same irony accompanies man's fruitless efforts towards knowledge:

Or if they list to try

Conjecture, he his fabric of the Heav'ns
Hath left to their disputes, perhaps to move
His laughter at their quaint opinions wide

33 V, 718-34.

Hereafter, when they come to model Heav'n
And calculate the stars, how they will wield
The mighty frame, how build, unbuild, contrive
To save appearances, how gird the sphere
With centric and eccentric scribbled o'er,
Cycle and epicycle, orb in orb.34

And the laughter of Heaven is on men's confusion over the Tower of Babel:

But God, who oft descends to visit men
Unseen, and through their habitations walks
To mark their doings, them beholding soon,
Comes down to see their city, ere the tow'r
Obstruct Heav'n-tow'rs, and in derision sets
Upon their tongues a various spirit to rase
Quite out their native language, and instead
To sow a jangling noise of words unknown.
Great laughter was in Heav'n,

And looking down, to see the hubbub strange,
And hear the din; thus was the building left
Ridiculous, and the work Confusion named.35

On two occasions, however, this divine irony is tempered with compassion - a feeling befitting the Divinity. The first is when Adam asks for a suitable mate,

Whereto th' Almighty answer'd, not displeased:

A nice and subtle happiness I see

Thou to thyself proposest, in the choice

Of thy associates, Adam, and wilt taste

No pleasure, though in pleasure, solitary.

What think'st thou then of me, and this my state?
Seem I to thee sufficiently possess'd

Of happiness, or not, who am alone

From all eternity? 36

And the second is when God allows himself a last remark, quite justified after all, before accepting, as is befitting,

34 VIII, 75-84.

35 XII, 48-62.

36 VIII, 398–406.

Adam and Eve's repentance. He speaks to the faithful

angels:

O Sons, like one of us Man is become

To know both good and evil, since his taste

Of that defended fruit! 37

So that, even in Milton's God, there are traces of the poet's humaneness. Divine reason, with some admixture of irony and pity, is reconciled with human feeling.

37 XI, 84-86.

CHAPTER III

PARADISE REGAINED AND SAMSON AGONISTES

P

ARADISE REGAINED sings Man's Regeneration.

The most remarkable thing about it, from our point of view here, is that such a title should be given to such a work.

The drama remains entirely intellectual. There is no action and no passions come into play. The purely emotional side of Jesus's story, his suffering and crucifixion, has not attracted Milton. Divine love, God's love for the world, which makes him sacrifice his only Son for the salvation of his creatures, Christ's love for men which makes him give his blood as an offering to Eternal Justice, has no appeal for Milton either. Milton was not sentimental; he was not a mystic. He had his strong share of human feelings and passions, but he was simple and natural, and satisfied his desires in the plain normal human way, without refining overmuch. Besides, he wanted to understand things. The incomprehensibility of God is to him an intellectual fact, a perception by the mind of its own limitations. It is not a mystery of love and blind self-forgetfulness.

Therefore, even as the Fall had been an argument in which man had been deceived, so the Restoration is an argument in which man, in the person of Jesus, triumphs. Paradise Regained is a tale of Reason and Passion discussing who shall win in man. It comes as near as it can to being an allegory, and barely escapes being one

through Milton's poetical scheme, which includes the persons of Satan and Christ. Christ is hardly a success artistically. It is agreed that the poet had his own childhood in mind in the lines

When I was yet a child, no childish play
To me was pleasing, all my mind was set
Serious to learn and know, and thence to do
What might be public good.1

Milton has for once made a bad mistake in bringing in his own autobiography. He may have been a child with a passion for learning- there are such children — and an abnormal pride. The fact, transmitted into Jesus's experience, sounds like the worst sort of cant; and the whole of the presentation of Christ in the first book is vitiated by intolerable self-consciousness.

Satan is not the grand Rebel of the first books of Paradise Lost, but the subtle tempter of Eve; and in that part, he is worthy of his glory. He shows true psychological acumen when he decides that the evident temptations of sensuality will be of no avail on Jesus and that only legitimate desires, like hunger, must be made use of. It is curious to point out that this should have driven the theme of sensuality out of the poem, but not at all: the loveliest part of Paradise Regained (and it contains many beautiful passages) is on women. Listen to Belial:

Set women in his eye, and in his walk,
Among daughters of men, the fairest found;
Many are in each region passing fair
As the noon sky: more like to goddesses
Than mortal creatures, graceful and discreet,
Expert in amorous arts, enchanting tongues
Persuasive, virgin majesty with mild

1 I, 201-04.