Doped Malice in John Milton's Paradise Lost

Abstract

A curious and enigmatic feature of Milton’s Paradise Lost are those signal moments when Satan and his crew find themselves in the presence of unfallen human, angelic, and divine characters. Their response is, without fail, one of unqualified astonishment, amazement, awe, and stupefaction. When rebuked by the Cherub Zephon, ‘abasht the Devil stood, / And felt how awful goodness is, and saw / Vertue in her shape how lovly, saw, and pin’d / His loss’ (PL IV.846–9).1 During the War in Heaven, the rebel angels stand in the Son’s presence and ‘astonisht all resistance lost, / All courage’ (PL VI.838–9). While beholding Eve, Satan-in-the-serpent reacts in an identical fashion: That space the Evil one abstracted stood From his own evil, and for the time remaind Stupidly good, of enmitie disarmd, Of guile, of hate, of envie, of revenge (PL IX.463–6) Socrates, I used to be told, before I began to meet you, that yours was just a case of being in doubt yourself and making others doubt also; and so now I find you are merely bewitching me with your spells and incantations, which have reduced me to utter perplexity. And if I am indeed to have my jest, I consider that both in your appearance and in other respects you are extremely like the flat torpedo sea-fish []; for it benumbs [ναρκᾶν] anyone who approaches and touches it, and something of the sort is what I find you have done to me now. For in truth I feel my soul and my tongue quite benumbed [ναρκᾶν], and I am at a loss what answer to give you. And yet on countless occasions I have made abundant speeches on virtue to various people—and very good speeches they were, so I thought—but now I cannot say one word as to what it is. (Meno, 80a–80b)3