John Milton's magnum opus, Paradise Lost, the greatest epic (arguably!) written so far in the world, has significance of a universal level in more ways than one. First, because it concerns the entire scheme of Creation from its very dawn to the Day of Judgement, and even after. The human element can never be overlooked in this connection, since it is man, primarily, who has had to face the stigma in the form of Fall from Grace (though redeemed afterwards), and who has to encounter rigours of life on this planet earth. Second because the never-failing concept of Sin, Repentance and Redemption is there to stay till the very last. Third, because the stratagem God has in perspective does have to come into effect, come what may be. Moreover, because the ground realities never change in this world of change and decay, and because man has to compromise with these facts, even at the cost of his liberty __ and innocence.
As we proceed with the action narrated at length through the first eight books of the epic we come to the point where the most fundamental _issue_, the _crisis_ so to say, of the heroic poem __ the first created man Adam at the crossroads of duty and love, responsibility and affection __ approaches. In describing the tense situation Man is in, Milton puts before us a very compelling picture of Adam's mind working out a rather unbeknownst scheme of action: his staunch resolve to live and die with, and for, Eve:
"..... some cursed fraud
Of Enemy hath beguil'd thee, yet unknown,
And me with thee hath ruin'd, for with thee
Certain my resolution is to Die;
How can I live without thee, .......
................ : Flesh of Flesh,
Bone of my Bone thou art, and from thy State
Mine never shall be parted, bliss or woe."
(Paradise Lost, Book 9, Lines 904-916)
This is in consonance with the earlier assertion of the Father of Mankind to the Grand Dame, impressing upon her the need to be as vigilant as possible in her bearing:
"......; for thou know'st
What hath been warned us, what malicious foe
Envying our happiness, and of his own
Despairing, seeks to work us woe and shame
By sly assault; ...."
(Ibid, Lines 252-256)
Earlier, Raphael, the angel appointed by God to inform Adam and Eve of their own creation and the danger they're always in, plus the prohibition to go near the fruit of the tree of knowledge, boasts to Adam that he is going to unfold secrets "perhaps / Not lawful to reveal" (Book 5, Lines 569-570), and surely he does not assist the human pair to take the divine instructions very seriously, inevitably arousing their curiosity. It does surely lead onto the seduction of Eve by the Serpent and the later alteration in the thinking power of both her and Adam. In a sense, the inquisitiveness of Eve at finding a snake uttering in human form, or her credulity to accept what he said, regardless of the consequences, may have been the main cause behind the Fall. But as Adam avers, the readiness to believe whatever is said, or the peril of being much too precise in matters of belief and obedience to divine laws, lies within a man's self, and only he has to decide whether he wants to accept or not of any outward influence brought to bear upon him:
"....... best are all things as the will
Of God ordained them: His creating hand
Nothing imperfect or deficient left.
Of all that he created, much less man,
...................................
Secure from outward force; within himself
The danger lies, yet lies within his Power:
Against his will he can receive no harm."
(Ibid, Lines 343-350)
Here we come across the hotly-debated concept of free will: elsewhere we become aware that Adam and Eve were endowed with the free power of choice, "Sufficient to have stood, though free to fall." We may ask in all earnestness what Eve sounds earlier: her sceptic nature questions even the existence of the Garden of Eden:
".... what is faith, love, virtue, unassayed
Alone, without exterior help sustained?
Let us not then suspect our happy state
Left so imperfect by the Maker wise
As not secure to single or combined.
Frail is our happiness, if this be so,
And Eden were no Eden thus exposed."
(Book 9, Lines 335-341)
Nevertheless, to the sentimental, a bit childish question (or assertion!) of Eve, Adam's _cool_ reply is also a testimony to the power of reason, a gift peculiar to Man in all the creation of God, a thing that shows him the crown (though it is once again man who goes against the dictates of reason):
"But God left free the Will, for what obeys
Reason, is free, and Reason he made right,
But bid her well beware, and still erect,
Lest by some fair appearing good surpris'd
She dictate false and misinform the Will
To do what God expressly hath forbid."
(Book 9, Lines 351-356)
A prominent modern day critic, C. S. Lewis describes Adam's (may we call it _toeing_?) association of Eve as *_uxoriousness_*, while another one, namely B. A. Wright declared it to be "the compulsion of his love", a love "untouched by sensuality". However, as C. Williams puts the whole matter in a generalisation that "obedience is the proper order of the universe in relation to universal law", ought we to say that when Satan-in-the-Serpent's words have "too easy entrance won" into Eve's heart, is it obedience? Or when Milton, in the narration of Adam's condition __ or decision __ to sin with fallen Eve he rather than desert her, makes it obvious that
"..... he scrupl'd not to eat
Against his better knowledge, not deceived,
But fondly overcome with Female charm."
should we term it a fine case of submission to God's will? The answers are, and will be, as many as there are tongues to word their sentiments, better left alone.
Subsequent to the graded and gradual actions of 1. Eve's finding excuses for separation, owing to some degree of inversion (as some critics suggest), 2. the separation itself,
"Thus saying, from her husband's hand her hand
Soft she withdrew ....."
(Book 9, 385-386)
3. the Seduction, 4. Adam's wilfulness to stand by her in "bliss or woe", and 5. Adam's eating the fruit of the forbidden tree, the first visible effects appear (though metaphorically) in Nature associated with Man:
"Earth trembled from her entrails .....
........................................
Sky loured and muttering thunder, some sad drops
Wept at completing of the Mortal Sin Original: ..."
(Book 9, Lines 1000-1004)
Immediately afterwards, Adam gives in to his love for Eve. The cause of the fall may be, and must be, his preferring the love of Eve to the love of God. The tragedy is that he does it "Against his better knowledge, not deceived," that is as Eve was by Satan; Adam knows what he is doing, sins with his eyes open. This is his tragic situation, and as C. M. Bowra puts it,
"Like other tragic heroes, he has been faced by choice between two conflicting desires, and he follows the wrong one."
After the act is complete they feel "dewy sleep" overtaking them:
"As with new wine intoxicated both
They swim in mirth, and fancy that they feel
Divinity within them breathing wings
Wherewith to scorn the Earth."
(Book 9, Lines 1008-1011)
The promise that Satan had made with Eve, and then Eve with Adam, that after eating the fruit,
"....... your eyes that seem so clear,
Yet are but dim, shall perfectly be then
Opened and cleared, and ye shall be as gods,
Knowing both good and evil."
(Book 9, Lines 706-709)
does come true forcefully, demanding li poignantly agitating li in the realisation that both the humans are stark naked:
"......; innocence, that as a veil
Had shadowed them from knowing ill was gone;"
(Book 9, Lines 1054-1055)
Doctor Rajan has made a very just and befitting comment regarding the whole episode of the Fall as we see it in this book. He says:
"Eve sins because her faculty of reason is deceived, while Adam sins by surrendering his reason to his passion .... though we may upload such sacrifice as a romantic gesture, we have to condemn it as a responsible act."
In summing up the still undecided and rather indigestible facts (we are, after all, humans ourselves!), we may quote here Douglas Bush, the greatest authority yet on John Milton (and particularly on the unforgettably, indelibly, immortal *Paradise Lost*), who articulates the entire scheme of the epic in these beautiful words:
"Paradise Lost is neither a fundamentalist tract for Sunday reading nor a metaphysical inquiry into the origin and nature of evil but a _myth_ about the actual and perpetual war between good and evil and in the soul of man. In its total scheme it is a divine comedy, a tragic vision of human experience and history which end with a measure of happiness and hope. It depicts the results of disobedience, of secular pride rebelling against the divine order, the order of love in harmony with law. Satan is the archetype of loveless pride, the egocentric lust for power; his reason and will are both corrupt. Adam and Eve endowed with the free power of choice. .... Eve sins through weakness of reason, Adam through weakness of will; both violate higher claims upon their love and conscience. But although they and their posterity cannot, in a fallen and infected world, regain their primal innocence and felicity, they can, through grace, through love, through earnest effort, set their feet again upon the right path, now with full knowledge of the conditions of human life."
................................................
Comments
Post a Comment