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PARADISE LOST - Excerpts from Book III
John Milton (1608-1674)
No selection of my favorite poems would be complete without a passage from Paradise Lost. Not only is this book a great favorite of mine, but it has long been considered by many critics and scholars to be one of the greatest poems in the English language.
Choosing a passage has not been easy. I have several copies of the work, including one beautiful, leather bound edition dated 1886, with illustrations by Gustave Dore. But the one I chose to help me make my selection is an old, tattered, paperback copy. I did this because it is the one in which I have dutifully marked my favorite passages, and, in some cases, added notations in the margin. But it turns out that it was of little use, there being so many passages underlined and highlighted that I basically had to reread a good part of the book anyway.
In the end, I chose the wonderful and instructive scene early in Book III in which God is sitting on his throne, with Jesus on his right side, and they are watching Satan flying toward the newly created Earth. God explains to Jesus how Satan is going to be successful in perverting mankind. And then He clears himself from any guilt associated with this pending disaster by explaining that He created man free and able enough to withstand his Tempter; and that it will be man's choice, and his alone, to "transgress the sole command" that he was given by God. And then God declares his purpose of Grace toward man.
This is a powerful passage, addressing as it does the question that Christians in all ages have pondered, namely God's reason for giving man the freedom to choose between good and evil; a freedom that is ultimately responsible for much of the pain and suffering that accompanies the life of every man and woman. As you read this wonderful passage, remember that Milton, being blind, dictated the entire work.
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Excerpts from Book III of Paradise Lost
Only begotten Son, seest thou what rage
Transports our adversary, whom no bounds
Prescribed, no bars of Hell, nor all the chains
Heaped on him there, nor yet the main Abyss
Wide interrupt can hold; so bent he seems
On desperate revenge, that shall redound
Upon his own rebellious head. And now,
Through all restraint broke loose, he wings his way
Not far off heaven, in the precincts of light,
Directly towards the new-created world,
And Man there placed, with purpose to assay
If him by force he can destroy, or worse,
By some false guile pervert; and shall pervert;
For man will hearken to his glozing lies,
And easily transgress the sole command,
Sole pledge of his obedience. So will fall
He and his faithless progeny. Whose fault?
Whose but his own? Ingrate, he had of me
All he could have. I made him just and right,
Sufficient to have stood, though free to fall.
Such I created all the ethereal powers
And spirits, both them who stood, and them who failed;
Freely they stood who stood, and fell who fell.
Not free, what proof could they have given sincere
Of true allegiance, constant faith or love,
Where only what they needs must do, appeared,
Not what they would? What praise could they receive?
What pleasure I from such obedience paid?
When Will and reason--reason also is choice--
Useless and vain, of freedom both despoiled,
Made passive both, had served necessity,
Not me? They therefore as to right belonged,
So were created, nor can justly accuse
Their maker, or their making, or their fate;
As if predestination over-ruled
Their will, disposed by absolute decree
Or high foreknowledge; they themselves decreed
Their own revolt, not I. If I foreknew,
Foreknowledge had no influence on their fault,
Which had no less proved certain unforeknown.
So without least impulse or shadow of Fate,
Or aught by me immutably foreseen,
They trespass, Authors to themselves in all
Both what they judge and what they choose; for so
I formed them free, and free they must remain,
Till they enthrall themselves: I else must change
Their nature, and revoke the high decree
Unchangeable, eternal, which ordained
Their freedom, they themselves ordained their fall.
The first sort by their own suggestion fell,
Self-tempted, self-depraved: Man falls deceived
By the other first: Man therefore shall find grace,
The other none: in mercy and justice both,
Through heaven and earth, so shall my glory excel;
But mercy first and last shall brightest shine.
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