The Heroic Context of Book IX of "Paradise Lost"

Author(s): Stella P. Revard

Source: The Journal of English and Germanic Philology, Vol. 87, No. 3 (Jul., 1988), pp. 329-341
Published by: University of Illinois Press
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Journal of English and Germanic Philology?July
? 1988 by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

THE HEROIC CONTEXT OF BOOK IX OF PARADISE LOST

Stella P. Revard, Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville

In Book IX of Paradise Lost Milton must at last come to terms with the
problem he generated when he adopted the form of classical heroic
epic in the line of Homer and Virgil, but eschewed the subject of
heroic battle that had traditionally accompanied that form. He has
made Satan a classical battle hero and he has moulded Adam heroic
a
of limb and mind, fitting protagonist in the old style. But as he
approaches the climax of his poem, he must deny to these two the
"traditional" epic duel that the classical model has led us to expect. In
both the Iliad and the Aeneid the two principal male adversaries, who
have been kept apart for the length of the entire epic, at last meet and
the contest between them resolves the action of the poem. Achilles
catches up with Hector in the Iliad and kills him; Aeneas in the final
book at last faces the challenging Turnus and denies him mercy. As he
prepares to describe Satan's reentry into Eden, Milton alludes to both
of these famous heroic contests and even declares that his subject is
not "less but more Heroic than the wrath /Of stern Achilles on his Foe
pursu'd / Thrice Fugitive about Troy Wall; or rage / Of Turnus for
Lavinia disespous'd" (IX. 14?18). But as he alludes to them he tells us
that he is not eager to "indite / Wars," while he leaves "the better
fortitude /Of Patience and Heroic Martyrdom / Unsung" (IX.27-28,
31?33).1 Hence, Milton would appear to dismiss the very action that
had made up the matter of most heroic poems up to his time, while at
the same moment an action?heroic was
espousing martyrdom?that
unusual, though not completely unprecedented, in epic poems. Yet,
of course, when we examine the action of Book IX, it no more re

1 comments in his note on IX, 29?31: "Milton declares his religious

Merritt Hughes
theme to be unlike that of any previous epic poem" (Complete Poems and Major Press
[New York: Odyssey Press, 1957], p. 379). All quotations of Milton's works are cited
from this edition. Alastair Fowler (Paradise Lost [London: Longman, 1971], p. 437) ar
gues in his note on the same lines that Milton "frequently insists on the authenticity of
his matter, its superiority in this respect to legendary or
implying mythical subjects."
T. J. B. Spencer ("Paradise Lost: The Anti-Epic," in Approaches to Paradise Lost, ed. C. A.
Patrides [Toronto: Univ. of Toronto Press, 1968], pp. 81-98) reviews the subject of
and quoting from the proem to Book IX takes for
epic and anti-epic, extensively
granted that these lines concern the "theme o? Paradise Lost," which, Milton asserts, is "a
better one than those of the Iliad, the Odyssey, or the Aeneid" (p. 84).

329

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33? Revard

counts the victory of a heroic martyr than it does that of a battle hero
such as Achilles or Aeneas. Both heroic actions are missing from the
climax of Milton's poem. Satan achieves an unheroic victory through
use of fraud; Adam goes down in defeat, no heroic martyr but
"fondly overcome with Female charm" (IX.999). Why then does
Milton insist, as he leads up to the climax of his epic, on these two
paradigms of heroic action, when his argument truly involves neither?
The critical consensus dictates that we must not apply Milton's state
ment in the proem to Book IX to the action about to take place in this
book, but to the action of the epic at large.2 Milton, say most of the
critics, ismerely telling us that his work, though an epic, is not a tradi
tional war epic like the Iliad and the Aeneid, but a Biblical epic or an
allegorical epic of trial and temptation. We should not, therefore, look
for a battle scene at its climax. Nor should we criticize the or
poem
its subject as inferior in heroic says Milton, ever eager to
regard vigor,
raise his adventurous above the Aonian mount, to outdo Homer
song
and Virgil, while he leaves unattempted the kind of heroic duel for
which they were famous. But, this still leaves the matter of heroic
martyrdom, a subject that seems peculiarly out of place. Critics justify
its mention in Book IX as Milton's justification of his religious theme
or his flexing his sinews for the subject of heroic suffering that will
indeed take center place in Paradise Regained. These are plausible ex
of course, but are true solutions to the
planations, they really prob
lem? May it not be that Milton in alluding to the paradigms of classical
heroic duel and heroic martyrdom wishes us to keep these patterns of
action in mind as we witness the events of the fall? May Satan's en
counter with Eve not be profitably related to the missing heroic duel
of Book IX? May Adam's fall not be examined in terms of a failed
heroic martyrdom? Has Milton not, perhaps, deliberately named
these heroic paradigms for action because he wishes us to examine
how the action in Book IX might, but for different choices made on
the part of first Satan and then Adam and Eve, have exactly con
formed to the "required" action of classical and religious epic?3
2 Scott
Elledge (ed., Paradise Lost [New York: Norton, 1975]) argues that since Books
has concentrated on
IX through XII involve tragic rather than heroic actions, Milton
those concerns proper to the tragic mode. Book IX is a tragic action, which produces
pity and fear in the audience; Books XI and XII celebrate another kind of tragedy, "the
'martyrdom,' the 'fortitude of patience' of heroic mankind" (p. xxviii).
3John Shawcross has several times addressed the problem of heroic action in Para
dise Lost. He notes that Milton's placement of the poem in the heroic tradition has "sent
readers in search of heroic achievement within it; but Adam neither achieves nor shows
heroic action, and Satan corrupts." Alluding to the proem to Book IX, Shawcross says
that Milton there mentions no hero. "This passage alone . . . should direct readers to
the differences from was His task is to tell of
'epic tradition' that Milton developing.

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 The Heroic Context of Book IX of Paradise Lost 331

No reader of Book IX expects Satan and Adam to meet in single

combat to decide the "maistery" of paradise, but such a meeting,
though impossible in terms of the Genesis story Milton has inherited,
is not impossible in terms of the plot of Paradise Lost as classic epic
poem. In fact, Milton has done everything to make such a meeting as
feasible as that between Achilles and Hector or Aeneas and Turnus.
As Hector stands as a major obstacle to the fall of Troy in the Iliad, or
Turnus to Aeneas's goal of marriage with Lavinia and the consolida
tion of Italy, Adam is Satan's major "foe" in Eden, one who must fall
before Satan can claim victory in paradise.4 The major reason why we
expect no duel in Eden between these two is because we as readers are
fully aware that the Genesis myth includes none; Milton has, nonethe
less, made both Satan and Adam into the kinds of adversaries that we
would expect in epic. Both are of heroic mold, Satan experienced as a
soldier and general, Adam formed for valor, as well as contemplation,
manly, majestic, noble, with "shoulders broad" (IV.288-303). Satan,
wielding his giant spear, resembles Achilles and Turnus in expertise
of arms and possesses the kind of heroic wrath that blemishes these
heroes and leads to their tragedies. In Books I, II, V, and VI, Milton
war and council to act the part of classical war hero
permits Satan in
with such flourish that critics, not without cause, have thought that he
was the hero of Paradise Lost. Moreover, in Book IX, as Satan ap
proaches his challenges in Eden, he regrets, descending into the ser
pent, his military past, "that I who erst contended /With Gods to sit
the highest, am now constrain'd / Into a Beast" (IX. 163-65). Further,
both Adam and Satan entertain the idea of possible military encoun
ter between them. Adam envisions the coming attack from Satan as a
. . . first on mee th' assault shall
single assault: "the Enemy daring,
(IX.304?305). Satan clearly regards Adam as a fitting adver
light"
sary, "of courage haughty, and of limb / Heroic built, though of ter
restrial mould, / Foe not informidable, exempt from wound, / I not"
(IX.484?87). In presenting the two as possible opponents in a mili

distrust, disloyalty, revolt, and disobedience" ("The Style and Genre of Paradise Lost," in
New Essays on Paradise Lost, ed. Thomas Kranidas [Berkeley: Univ. of California Press,
19?9]> P- *9)- Also see "The Hero of Paradise Lost One More Time," inMilton and the Art
Patrick and Roger H. Sundell Univ. of Wisconsin
of Sacred Song, ed. J. Max (Madison:
Press, 1979).
4 to these scenes from the Iliad and the Aeneid
Fowler argues that Milton alludes epic
in order to discredit them. Aristotle had criticized the pursuit of Achilles as an episode
that epic admits but that would be ridiculous in another genre. Milton implies that
no recourse to such dubious material." Fowler further notes
"Christian epic need have
that Turnus's claim to Lavinia was strong and that Aeneas "is presented in a somewhat
discreditable light" (Fowler, p. 436n).

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332 Revard

tary duel, Milton deliberately lets us dally with false surmise, for both
he and his readers know that these heroes will never meet on a battle
field or any field at all. Satan wins over Adam without a blow, with
out meeting him face to face; Adam never knows the enemy who
defeats him.5
Why then does Milton allude to a single combat between Adam and
Satan? It must be important to our view of his encounter with Eve that
Satan has shunned the kind of heroic encounter that traditional epic
so often leads to. Even as Satan seeks out Eve, Milton tells us that he
dares not face Adam. As a "failed" battle hero, he avoids the heroic
adversary and seeks out the "weaker" to corrupt by fraud and guile,
and he does so not by chance but by design. Eve does not expect "a
Foe so proud will first the weaker seek" (IX.383), but Satan hopes "his
?
hap might find / Eve separate" (IX.421 22). We have been led to this
duel, moreover, careful where Satan more
"non-military" by stages,
and more avoids single duel with a male adversary. In the war in
Heaven he is twice bested in single encounters, first recoiling on
bended knee (VI. 194) as the inferior angel Abdiel lays a noble stroke
on his proud crest, next in pain (VI.327?28) as the arch
writhing
angel Michael wounds him with his magnificent sword. Afterwards,
we never see Satan in
single combat. He flees collectively with his an
gels, avoiding the meeting with Messiah in single combat, and in Book
IV, reading his fate in the sky, he dares not pursue the single duel
with the armed Gabriel. Hence, his decision not to lead his armies to
paradise or to advance himself as an opponent to try in arms the con
test for paradise is based clearly on his failure to achieve heroic emi
nence in the war in Heaven. It is significant that Milton both before
and after the encounter with Eve reminds us of that failure. The se
duction of Eve was meant to contrast with the shunned military duel.
Throughout the encounter with Eve, Milton makes us aware of
Satan's unwarlike demeanor. He seeks Eve, as he would a male
oppo
nent, with "malice"; but her sweet attractive overawes him, be
grace
reaves him of the "fierceness of the fierce intent," and disarms him of
emnity (IX.459?65). The warrior for a moment becomes the wooer
("Much hee the Place admir'd, the Person more" [IX.444]), and be
fore he commences his seduction, is himself almost seduced: "Shee
fair, divinely fair, fit Love for Gods" (IX.489). Recovering his pur
pose, however, he redoubles his hate "under show of Love well feign'd"
(IX.492). Milton makes us constantly aware of the difference between

5For
further discussion of Satan's heroic stances, see Stella Revard, The War in
Heaven (Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press, 1980), pp. 265?73.

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 The Heroic Context of Book IX of Paradise Lost 333

Satan's motive and manner, his stance as a soldier and his

previous
gesture as seducer and spy. He licks the ground and fawns servilely
before Eve. His words echo those he used to seduce the angels in
Book V, but in the form of the serpent he is unctuous and insinuating.
The manner of the orator is still there, and in purpose he is un
changed. His polemics, however, have altered, for he no longer as
brave soldier and leader of armies war. He dares not risk
urges open
confrontation, even with a woman. The he achieves
open victory
comes not from courage and direct zeal in battle, but from cowardice
and indirection. How different is he from the angel who encountered
Michael on the first day. Milton underlines this fact as he tells how
Satan, immediate success, retires unobserved: "back to the
upon
Thicket slunk / The guilty Serpent" (IX.784?85). Further, when the
Son descends to man, Satan, once more a male adver
judge evading
sary, flees terrified, "not hoping to escape but shun / The present,
fearing guilty what his wrath / Might suddenly inflict" (X.339?41).
Ironically, in fleeing the Son, from whom he had also fled at the end
of the war in Heaven, Satan misses hearing firsthand the prophecy of
a duel from which he cannot flee, the duel from which he will receive
his fatal bruise (X. 175?92). The time will come, as Satan soon learns,
when he will not be able to avoid single combat, when the second
Adam will in the place of the first meet him and conquer. Yet, though
he leaves paradise aware that he has won a cowardly fight, he does not
refrain from boasting, both when he meets Sin and Death in Chaos
and when he resumes his throne in Hell, that he has been victorious in
battle. Assuming the dignities of a winning warrior, he does not men
tion that he met Eve alone and merely refers to his victory over "man."
Milton soon strips both him and his angels of their warlike pride,
when metamorphosed into serpents they drop their arms and armor:
"down thir arms, / Down fell both Spear and Shield" (X.541-42).
Milton does not let us forget that the warrior Satan avoided the heroic
duel that even Turnus and Hector at last came to.

But what about Adam and Eve? How does each fare, denied the
challenge of a heroic encounter but placed in situations where each,
clearly, could exercise virtue and through patience achieve the better
fortitude. Certainly, their trials have been prefigured in Paradise Lost
by Abdiel's, for the humble angel stood firm against Satan, fought
"the better fight" in maintaining the cause of truth, and was com
mended by God as a faithful servant, "in word mightier than they in
Arms" (VI.29?32). Both Adam and Eve have the opportunity to be
heroic in the trial of Patience, Eve against the very same adversary
that Abdiel faced. When Milton alludes to "the better fortitude / Of

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 334 Revard

Patience," he sets up a challenge for Adam and Eve that they just as
surely shun as Satan the fortitude of combat. For Adam, too, there is
the additional challenge of "Heroic Martyrdom," for he, not Eve, is
called on, not only to suffer but to die.
As the classical hero, such as Achilles or Aeneas, is the pattern for
the battle hero, so Christ is the pattern for the martyr. In Book III
Milton shows us how the Son, hearing that man will be lost unless "for
him / Some other able, and as willing, pay / The rigid satisfaction,
answers
death for death" (III.210?12), the challenge, obeys the con
ditions laid down by God, and offers to die in man's place. Adam,
encountering the fallen Eve in Book IX, faces a similar challenge;
parodying true heroic sacrifice by sidestepping the conditions God
has laid down and disobeying, Adam chooses to die with Eve, not for
her, thereby shunning effectual sacrifice and choosing in effect a kind
of suicide.6 Adam's choice, of course, appears heroic, is commended
by Eve as heroic, and is even so regarded by many readers and critics,
even though it involves mortal sin and completes the fall. Only when
placed side by side the Son's act does Adam's become, as Milton
wished us to see, unheroic. In order to show the difference between
the kind of "Heroic Martyrdom" that he praises at the beginning of
Book IX and the pseudo-act of sacrifice that Adam performs, Milton
has chosen the vocabulary of Book III to describe Adam's choice.
Adam's concern on the fallen Eve?"O fairest
loving encountering
of Creation, last and best /Of all God's Works . . . /How art thou lost,
how on a sudden lost" (IX.896?97, 900)?echoes that expressed by
the Son when God in Book III predicts man's fall: "should Man finally
be lost, should Man / Thy creature late so lov'd, thy youngest Son"
(III.150?51). Adam's anguish that "some cursed fraud / Of Enemy
hath beguil'd thee" (IX.904?905) surely recalls the Son's distress that
man will fall "circumvented thus by fraud" (III. 152). Yet, even while
we notice these resemblances, there are clear differences in Adam's
and the Son's perception of the fall; the Son does not overvalue man
as the best of creation, as Adam does Eve, nor does he fail to note that

folly joins with fraud to cause the fall. While the Son resolves to die
for mankind as quickly as Adam announces his resolution to die with
Eve, he does so for different reasons. Adam's is the egocentric and
unreasoning reaction of grief: "How can I live without thee" (IX.908);
6
Irene Samuel has suggested that Adam might have volunteered, as the Son did, to
sacrifice himself to redeem Eve. See "The Dialogue in Heaven: A Reconsideration of
Paradise Lost, III, 1-417," PMLA, 72 (1957), 601-11; in Milton: Modern
reprinted
Essays in Criticism, ed. Arthur E. Barker (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1965),
PP- 233-45

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 The Heroic Context of Book IX of Paradise Lost 335

the Son's is the objective and calm resolution that through him God's
will shall be done: "shall grace not find means" (III.228).7 Adam cries
out that the link of nature draws him on, urging him to share Eve's
state, "bliss or woe." While on the highest level this connatural sympa
thy of heart and mind, this link of nature, resembles the bond that
unites the Father and the Son, it also suggests, of course, the force
that first drew Satan to Sin and looks forward to the "sympathy, or
some connatural force" (X.246) that in Book X will draw Sin to Satan,
and with her by virtue of "secret amity" Death, her inseparable com
panion, cleaving to her in wedlock, like Adam to the fallen Eve. The
allegory makes clear how far from messianic sacrifice is Adam's des
perate desire to die with his wife.
Yet, even after Adam has determined to disobey God and to fix his
lot with Eve's, Milton permits Adam's language to echo the Son's. In
attempting to justify Eve's act and to equivocate over its consequences,
Adam raises two issues first raised by the Son in Book III: whether
God really will destroy man and whether in yielding to death life may
somehow still triumph.8 Questioning whether God "will in earnest so
destroy / Us his prime Creatures" and therefore "Be frustrate, do,
undo, and labor lose," Adam of course?that
concludes?rightly,
God would / Us to abolish,
be "loath lest the Adversary / Triumph"
(IX.938?48). Although these speculations only hasten Adam's ruin,
he is not mistaken. With fervor the Son had argued in Book III that
mercy was not only necessary but just in order to prevent Satan's vic
tory and vindicate God's goodness.
Or shall the Adversary thus obtain
His end, and frustrate thine, shall be fulfil
His malice, and to
thy goodness bring naught,
Or return to his heavier doom,
proud though
.or wilt thou thyself
Abolish thy Creation, and unmake,
For him, what for thy glory thou hast made?
(III. 156-59, 161-64)

7See Irene Samuel, "Paradise Lost as Mimesis" (Approaches to Paradise Lost, ed. Pa
trides, pp. 15?29): "And yet was 'How can I live without thee?' a helpful question to
he not instead have asked, What can I do see
ask? Might for her?" (p. 28). Also Stanley
Fish's discussion of Adam's dilemma (Surprised by Sin [New York: St. Martin's Press,
i967LPP- 269-71).
8Balachandra Rajan comments (The Lofty Rhyme [Coral Gables, Fla.: Univ. of Miami
Press, 1970], p. 72): "Later when Adam begins to rationalize his decision, he uses in IX,
943?48 precisely the argument that Christ uses in the dialogue in heaven. Adam hopes
his sin will be excused. We know that it will be redeemed. The sacrificial gestures of
romantic love are set firmly in the context of the true sacrifice."

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 336 Revard

Although Adam has come close to foreseeing that God will be mer
ciful and save mankind, he does not, like the Son, see himself as the
means by which God's mercy may be extended. Unlike the martyr
Christ, he undertakes a romantic but purposeless death, declaring
that life without Eve is death, but death with her is life: "If Death /
Consort with thee, Death is to mee as Life" (IX.953?54). His para
doxical declaration once more links him to the Son, while also serving
to differentiate love's martyr from God's. The Son willingly embraces
death, "now to Death I yield" (III.245), but he does so in order to
vanquish it and to bring life out of death for himself and for man.
Adam merely yields.
In a rather than a true one, Adam em
becoming pseudomartyr,
braces a tragic rather than a heroic role, a point Milton alludes to
implicitly when he states at the beginning of Book IX, "I now must
change /Those Notes to Tragic" (11.5?6), and one which critics since
have Adam's however, is
Dryden recognized.9 tragic counterpart,
probably more the hapless lover, Vergil's Orpheus of the Georgics,10
who in losing Eurydice loses the will to live, than the fatally doomed
hero of a Hector or a Turnus, whom Aristotelian critics are wont
epic,
to identify with the flawed hero of tragedy. Ironically, it is not Adam
but Eve who resembles the epic hero and behaves as though in en
countering the serpent and disobeying God she has bested an oppo
nent in contest. to follow her example,
Urging Adam she boasts of her
deed, and Adam, as Dennis Burden has observed, does not miss the
recklessness and "epic quality" of her claims, as his use of the terms,
"Bold," "advent'rous," and "dar'd"
"peril," imply.11
In congratulating one another, Adam praises his wife's valor, while
she in turn commends his love, echoing, without knowing it, the an
gels' praise of the Son, "O unexampl'd love / Love no where to be
found less than Divine" (III.410? 11), as she praises Adam's love and

9See John Steadman, Epic and Tragic Structure in "Paradise Lost" (Chicago: Univ. of
Chicago Press, 1976), pp. 29-37. At this point I would like to quote a comment on the
tragic that Balachandra Rajan made when he read this essay in manuscript: "Milton's
heavily dismissive treatment of not simply the heroic but the chivalric, reviews and casts
off the content of a once impressive simile (I, 571 ?87), making evident what we are not
to expect. Yet the true heroic cannot its glittering but inauthen
immediately supersede
tic predecessor. Before the true heroic can be understood, we must pass through its
warped reflection in the tragic as we did in the movement from the infernal to the
celestial council." Adam's embracing of the tragic role at this moment the kind
provides
of "warped reflection" of the heroic that Professor to.
10 Rajan alludes
See my discussion of Orpheus and Adam in "Vergil's Georgics and Paradise Lost:
Nature and Human Nature in a Landscape," in Vergil at 2000, ed. John Bernard (New
York: AMS, 1986), pp. 272-75.
11
Dennis H. Burden, The Logical Epic Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press,
(Cambridge,
1967), p. 146.

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 The Heroic Context of Book IX of Paradise Lost 337

sacrifice: "O glorious trial of exceeding Love / Illustrious evidence,

example high!" (IX.961?62). Her words, of course, bring the Son's
"unexampl'd" love down to earth as mere high example. Yet, ironically,
Eve's esteem of deeds of heroic sacrifice over those of daring demon
strates that she subscribes to the same scale of merit that Milton as
narrator had applied at the beginning of Book IX.
Eve's comments on Adam's sacrifice not only look back to Book III,
but also forward to Book XII. Like the angels in Book III who heard
God propose mercy for man and were filled with a "sense of new joy
ineffable" (III. 137), Eve experiences "new Hopes, new Joys" (IX.985).
She declares that Adam's act will join her to him in an even closer
union, "One Heart, one Soul in both . . . linkt in Love so dear"
(IX.967, 970), a union that on one level the link of
parodies coming
God and man in the incarnation, but also resembles on another the
"connexion sweet" that joins Sin's "Heart" to Satan's (X.359). Finally,
in an outburst that foreshadows, though perversely, Adam's cry of joy
in Book XII at the greater good that will come from the Son's sacri
fice, Eve rejoices at the good that proceeds from her act, proposing
that had she not sinned, "the happy trial" of Adam's love "So emi
nently never had been known" (IX.975?76). Her words would be
pathetic gestures only, had not God assured us in Book III that the
Son's "Heav'nly love shall outdo Hellish hate" (III.298) and redeem
through a happier trial what Adam's love cannot.
Ultimately the hero, be he martial or martyrlike, strives for trophies
greater than personal glory; aiming at public good, his final goal is the
extension of kingdom. As she commends the good of Adam's sacri
fice, Eve reminds the reader that a quite different sort of good will be
achieved when the Son brings his kingdom to earth. Her words of
congratulations to her husband also look forward to the words of an
other wife, Satan's consort Sin, and her exultant praise in
welcoming
Satan on his return from Eden. Once more martyr and battle hero are
contrasted. Like Eve, Sin is all too happy to abrogate the divine voice
and predict the great good that will result from her husband's deed.
She declares that his victory has already brought about an extension
of his kingdom; commenting on the works of empire that she and
Death have begun, Sin tells Satan, "Thy Trophies, which thou view'st
as not thine own, / Thou art thir Author and prime Architect"
(X.355?56). Like the epic hero, Satan has achieved through a single
act the topping of one empire and the establishment of another. Be
cause Achilles kills Hector, Troy falls to the Achaeans; because Aeneas
denies mercy to Turnus, Rome rises. Like them, Satan has effected a
in the course of Yet, as we shall see, the act
change history. martyr's

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33 8 Revard

also influences history and builds and unbuilds empires. In laying

down his life, the Son will defeat an adversary and with his victory on
the cross establish a kingdom of a different sort?God's kingdom.
In Book IX the roles of battle hero and heroic martyr stand apart,
as Satan parodies the one, Adam the other; in Book XII, however, the
roles will be rejoined, as the Son, dying on the cross, enacts both,
teaching Adam as the representative of mankind just what true hero
ism is. Christian tradition had long held that Christ's death on the
cross was not but active combat with man's mortal
passive martyrdom,
enemies: Satan, Sin, and Death.12 Throughout Paradise Lost Milton
has cast the Son in the active heroic role: overcoming his enemies in
Book VI at the conclusion of the war in Heaven, ascending the chariot
to create earth in Book VII, descending for judgment in Book X. At
the conclusion of Paradise Lost he no less presents the Son as an active
heroic figure. He must, it is true, make Michael point out to Adam
that the Son will not fight a duel with Satan that requires conventional
weapons and procedures: "Dream not of thir fight, / As of a Duel, or
the local wounds / Of head or heel" (XII.386-88). Yet Milton's lan
guage throughout the succeeding passage is drawn from the martial
vocabulary. As much as possible, he suggests that the Son indeed is
finally meeting Satan in arms and fighting with him not only the battle
that Satan shunned at the end of the war in Heaven, but also the duel
that Satan avoided with Adam in the garden. Paradise Lost closes with
the greatest of all warriors, Christ, exacting revenge for the defeat of
Eve and Adam in Book IX.
While disclaiming that his intention was to indite wars, Milton has

12
The description of Christ as a warrior-hero mounting the cross and fighting there
had precedent in English tradition from the Old English poem The Dream of the Rood
onward. Seventeenth-century preachers regularly described Christ's battle on the cross
with full military detail. See, for example, the following sermon Hall:
by Joseph
". . . the Lord of life, having and powers, hath made a show of
spoiled principalities
them openly, over them on his cross. Col. ii: 15. All the powers of hell were
triumphing
dragged after this glorious Conqueror, when he was advanced upon that triumphant
chariot" ("The Balm of Gilead," Select Pieces, from the Practical and Devotional Writings
[London, 1846], p. 106). Also see Thomas Goodwin's comment in Christ Set Forth in his
Death, Resurrection, Ascension, at Gods Right Hand, Intercession (London, 1642):
Sitting
Now, Christ tooke away all his [Satan's] power, and spoiled him of all his ensignes,
weapons, and colours; which he did on the place where the battail was fought,
on the Crosse; and nailed our bond thereto, and having
namely, paid the debt, left
the bond canceld, ere he stirred off the Crosse. But then having thus spoiled these
enemies on the Crosse; he further makes a show of them in his
publique triumphal
own person, which is a second Act; as the manner of the Roman was, in
Emperors
their great . . . Now, behold is like a entred
triumphs. your Surety Conqueror
Heaven-(pp. 95, 97)
Also see Roger The Bruising
Ley, of the Serpents Head (London, 1622), p. 39.

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 The Heroic Context of Book IX of Paradise Lost 339

exploited the heroic context in narrating the birth of the Son and his
victory over Satan. He keeps in mind that his epic is different from
the epics of Homer and Virgil, but he constantly draws attention to
the curious likeness between his godly hero, the Son, and the goddess
sons, Achilles and Aeneas. For Milton's Son, like the exemplary hero
of battle epic, is the child of one mortal and one supernatural parent.
Jesus has as Sire "the Power of the Most High"; he is promised a
"Throne hereditary" and a reign over "earth's wide bound" and a
glory "with the Heav'ns" (XII.368?71), kingdoms that far exceed the
Roman realms Aeneas is to found. Like the battle hero, he joins
"Manhood to Godhead" (XII.389) and is given superhuman strength
to foil his enemy. He even acts, as do Aeneas and Achilles, in behalf of
another, for his greatest duel is fought to avenge the "death's wound"
of a friend. As Aeneas for Pallas or Achilles for Patroclus, the Son
fights for Adam. Milton could compare the infant Jesus in the "Nativity
Ode" to the greatest of classical heroes, Hercules, a comparison he
was to return to in Paradise Regained; in Paradise Lost he keeps in mind
the pagan battle champion as he describes the Son's final duel with
Satan.
Adam has assumed, in welcoming the seed of Woman, that he will
engage with the Serpent in fight, and that he will bruise the Serpent's
head, as the Serpent his heel. Although Michael dismisses the notion
of duel with local wounds of head and heel, he describes the Son as a
victorious soldier. Up to the moment of his death, however, the Son is
passive, is the slain rather then the slayer. But dying, he immediately
assumes the active role and "nails" his enemies to the cross. His ene

mies are both Sin and Death as well as Satan, and Milton creates for us
a battle scene in which the Son engages with all three:

this act
Shall bruise the head of Satan, crush his strength
Sin and Death, his two main arms,
Defeating
And fix far deeper in his head thir stings
Than death shall bruise the Victor's heel.
temporal
(XII. 429-33)

We have
the impression of a champion encountering a single warrior

supported by two attendants. He "crushes" first the opponent's

and then takes on the other two and defeats them. Far from
strength
mention of local wounds, Milton insists on them and even
avoiding
tells how the Son has fixed the stings deep into Satan's head. Further,
a few lines later on, he is still giving us a military rendition of the Son's
encounter now with Satan in the air. He surprises the Serpent, Prince
of the air, and drags him "in Chains / Through all his Realm, and

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 340 Revard

there confounded leavefs]; /Then enter[s] into glory" (XII.454?56).

Hence we have a surprisingly graphic account of a duel that was said
to be no duel and a victory that has all the traditional classical trap
a or
pings of heroic triumph. No Achilles Aeneas more gloriously won
over an
opponent.
We need not suspect Milton of merely "enhancing" the Son's image
by making him a battle hero. There was no need to do that here since
he had already shown in Book VI what the Son could do in arms.
Moreover, many times in Paradise Lost, whether by allusion to Aeneas
or Achilles or by ironic comments on Satan's battle heroism, Milton
has told us that battle strength is not the absolute standard for cour
age. No, itmust be that in describing the Son's duel with Satan, Milton
has decided to fulfill in the last book of his
epic the unfulfilled duel of
Book IX. As the last moments of the Aeneid are devoted to Aeneas's
ascendance over Turnus, Book XII gives us finally the military defeat
of Satan that we have been expecting from the beginning. The
shunned duel of Book IX takes place with the second Adam seeking
and conquering his adversary. It is, after all, the only kind of defeat
Satan can appreciate. Milton, who said there was better heroism than
"battle" heroism to celebrate, has nonetheless crowned the Son with
military victory.
What then of "Patience" and "Heroic Martyrdom"? These, as
Milton tells us in the passage that precedes the scene of the Son's vic
tory, are precisely the qualities that have made the "conventional"
military victory meaningful. To adopt a line from Milton's sequel,
Paradise Regained, "who best / Can suffer, best can do" (III. 194?95);
the Son can win the victor's duel over Satan, and Milton can celebrate
itwithout fear that itwill compromise the ethic of his epic, because the
more
meaningful victory of the martyr has preceded that of the sol
dier. It requires greater courage to lay down one's life than to take up
arms to defend it, greater fortitude to fulfill one's obedience
dying
than to seal one's disobedience with death. Michael's words to Adam
concerning the Son's martyrdom directly define the difference be
tween Adam's and the Son's sacrificial acts. Michael tells Adam that
the Son will fulfill "that which thou didst want, /Obedience to the Law
of God, impos'd / On penalty of death" (XIII.396?98). Guiltless of
crime, rather than joining in crime, he will suffer death for another
(for Adam and all mankind); he will pay the penalty for transgression
and not merely share in that transgression. Further, by undergoing
death, he will proclaim "Life to all who shall believe" (XII.407);
hence, rather than merely accepting death with another or for an
other, he will bring life to others.

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 The Heroic Context of Book IX of Paradise Lost 341

Throughout Books XI and XII Michael has educated Adam in the

consequences of his sin; now by showing him how the Son's true sacri
fice differs from his unwitting imitation, he makes Adam come to
terms with that sin. Both Adam and the Son are required to obey a
"Law of God"; Adam failed to obey, choosing love for Eve rather than
obedience to God. The Son, reuniting love and law, fulfils the "Law of
God ... by obedience and by love, though love /Alone fulfil the Law"
(XI1.402?404). Adam now understands how he fell short of the kind
of love that brings redemption, acknowledging in his final words in
Paradise Lost how far above his own "illustrious evidence, example
high" is the "example" of his "Redeemer ever blest" (XII. 572). Adam
also comes to understand the meaning of "Patience" in the face of
trial, for at the end of Book XII he declares that "suffering for Truth's
sake / Is fortitude" (11. 569?70), which can "by small" accomplish
"great things, by things deem'd weak / Subverting worldly strong"
(11. 566-68). When Milton in Book IX praised the "fortitude / Of
Patience and Heroic Martyrdom," he was not only foretelling what
the human protagonists of the poem would not do but the Son would;
he was also preparing for this moment of heroic and not tragic anag
norisis, when Adam would see the Son achieve the better fortitude.
Milton's words are no random poetic commentary but a specific guide.
If heroic achievements of the Classic and Christian standard are es
chewed at the climax of Paradise Lost, both are attained at its close. Not
in Satan, not in Adam, but in the Son is the Classic and Christian hero
made one, a hero who both endures the trials of patience and heroic
martyrdom and triumphs over his foe in single contest.

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