Paradise Lost from John Milton starts the epic poem with a prologue in which he performs the traditional epic task of invoking the Muse and starting his purpose. He refers to her as the "Heavenly Muse," to explicit the Christian nature of his work. He also talks about the first man's disobedience toward God and the results of that disobedience (the banishment of Adam and Eve from Heaven). Finishing the prologue he concludes talking about how the plot is going to be developed right after the expulsion of Lucifer (now called Satan) and his crew from Heaven.
After being banished from Heaven by God,
Satan is sent to a place in a sea of lightless but torturous flames where only exist
woes, sorrow, “no light, but a darkness visible”*, a place where the torture
never ends and hope never comes, Hell is the name of such place, there, Satan is
locked in a fire chain inside the Pandemonium
(another name of Hell). His has the desire of revenge against God, and while
consulting Beelzebub who was commanding the Hell; he reveals his revengeful
plan to defeat God, after this, he reveals his real form as monstrous and
colossal demon (Milton compares his size with the Titans and Leviathan, mythological
beasts) and opening his burning wings, escapes from the Hell followed by his
mate, travelling all the way of Chaos, and when he finally gets in land, he
call the other demons to come over too. In the middle of these god-demons is
Moloch, most known as Baal, who is a god who requires human (specifically
children) sacrifices. As before, Milton used Mythological references from
others cultures and religions to make the poem even more attractive and
diversified.
On the Earth, Satan discovers the new
creation of God, the man, living on the Garden of Eden. He becomes jealous of
their beauty, and wants to corrupt them to evil to also fall in disgrace (at
this point God already knows Satan plans). Satan transforms himself in very
handsome cherub in order to deceive the guard of the Earth, the angel Uriel,
who becomes impressed with an angel that come all the way from Heaven to see
God’s creation and let him enter on the Garden, a short time later he realize
that he was tricked by Satan and calls another angel, Gabriel, to ban Satan
from there, and Gabriel does it.
God worried with his creation, sends the
angel Raphael to alert Adam and Eve that Satan was trying to corrupt them,
there Raphael explain to them about the great battle against Satan, who was one
of the most powerful angel and did not want to bow down by the Son of God, and
furious joined a council of angels who were beneath him to fight alongside him
to defeat God. The battle lasted three days, in which, the first day, Satan
army was defeated and the had to retreat to regroup, in the second day, they
were better by using strong weapons and regain ground, and finally the last
day, where, God sends his Son to finish the battle, and alone he defeat all the
fallen ones and banish them to Hell. Raphael says that the man was created to
fill the empty space left by the fallen angels in the paradise; he also talks
about how God created them and the entire universe in seven days, and then,
leaves.
In the next day, Satan takes the chance
that Eve is working separately from Adam and disguises himself as a serpent and
starts to flatter her saying that she would become herself a goddess if she
eats the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, then, she disobeys God’s rules and
eats the forbidden fruit, deciding to share with Adam, who becomes really upset
on the situation, but he decides to eat the fruit because he do not know how to
live without her, and after taking idea of what they did, they start to blame
each other the rest of the day. Sad with both, God send his Son to judge them,
He condemns
Eve, and all of womankind, to painful childbirths and the submission to their
husbands. He condemns Adam to a life of hard work in order to getting food from
the ground. He condemns the serpent to always crawl on the ground on its belly,
always at the feet of Eve's sons.
Satan is returning victorious to Hell,
and in the middle of the way he encounters his son’s Death and Sin whom have
constructed a bridge coming from Hell to Earth, where, now they were going to
reign, but when Satan arrives the Hell, he and his crew are not cheering, but hissing,
because all of them were transformed into snakes, including Satan.
After blaming each other all day, Adam
and Eve decides to talk to God and ask for forgiveness, God listen to them and
agrees with his Son that he will not lose the mankind to Satan, but instead of
it, he will send his Son as a man to Earth to sacrifice himself to save them
from the evil trinity. God now sends Michael to guide Adam and Eve out of the
garden, but before, he tells Adam about everything that is going to happen to
mankind before the arriving of the Son (all the events, as Noah and the flood),
Adam is hopeful knowing that the Son will come to forgive them, he takes Eve’s
hand and follow Michael out of heaven.
Sources:
http://www.gradesaver.com/paradise-lost
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