Paradise Lost

New readers of Paradise Lost are often taken with Satan and his strength of will. Certainly, society praises an indomitable spirit but perhaps Milton was not proposing a favored view of the Arch-Enemy?

Indeed, what is Satan but a terrorist? His loyalty is to evil and that is a loyalty we need not praise. To remain neutral as between God and Satan is hardly right.

An unbending will is good only insofar as it is a will to good -- a mere self will to power is nothing better than a dangerous self indulgence.

And yet, the suggestion that God could be praised merely from fear and only by the cowardly does have a disturbing ring to modern ears. Satan's words do sound well to us when he says:

"That glory never shall his wrath or might
Extort from me.
To bow and sue for grace
With suppliant knee, and deify his power ... ".

Perhaps the best we can say is that the ways of God cannot be justified to man. As St. Augustine said, "Si comprehendis, non est Deus" (if you understand him, he is not God).

The reader will judge:

" Arch-Enemy,
And thence in Heaven called Satan, with bold words
Breaking the horrid silence, thus began:-- "If thou beest he--but O how fallen! how changed
From him who, in the happy realms of light
Clothed with transcendent brightness, didst outshine
Myriads, though bright!--if he whom mutual league,
United thoughts and counsels, equal hope
And hazard in the glorious enterprise
Joined with me once, now misery hath joined
In equal ruin; into what pit thou seest
From what height fallen: so much the stronger proved
He with his thunder; and till then who knew
The force of those dire arms? Yet not for those,
Nor what the potent Victor in his rage
Can else inflict, do I repent, or change,
Though changed in outward lustre, that fixed mind,
And high disdain from sense of injured merit,
That with the Mightiest raised me to contend,
And to the fierce contentions brought along
Innumerable force of Spirits armed,
That durst dislike his reign, and, me preferring,
His utmost power with adverse power opposed
In dubious battle on the plains of Heaven,
And shook his throne.
What though the field be lost?
All is not lost--the unconquerable will,
And study of revenge, immortal hate,
And courage never to submit or yield:
And what is else not to be overcome?
That glory never shall his wrath or might
Extort from me.
To bow and sue for grace
With suppliant knee, and deify his power
Who, from the terror of this arm, so late
Doubted his empire--that were low indeed;
That were an ignominy and shame beneath
This downfall; since, by fate, the strength of Gods,
And this empyreal sybstance, cannot fail;
Since, through experience of this great event,
In arms not worse, in foresight much advanced,
We may with more successful hope resolve
To wage by force or guile eternal war,
Irreconcilable to our grand Foe,
Who now triumphs, and in th' excess of joy
Sole reigning holds the tyranny of Heaven."
James Morton
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Toronto, Ontario
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