The Speech of Satan

The basic line rests on Satan's insistence that eventide and Adam be entitled, by lawfulness of their dominion everywhere earthly things, to reach divine dominion.

That ye should be as Gods, since I as gentleman,

Internal gay, is and harmonise meet

I, of brute, human; ye, of human, Gods.

So ye sh exclusively die perhaps by putting off

Human, to put on Godsdeath to be wished,

though curseened, which no worse than this can bring!

And what are Gods, that Man may non become

As they, participating godlike regimen?

The Gods are first, and that advantage use

On our belief, that all from them proceeds.

I interrogative sentence it; for this fair state I see,

Warmed by the Sun, producing every(prenominal) kind;

Them nothing. If they all things, who enclosed

Knowledge of good and evil in this tree,

That whoso eats thereof forthwith attains

Wisdom without their leave? and wherein lies

Th' offence, that Man should thus attain to know?

What can your knowledge brook him, or this tree

Impart against his will, if all be his?

Or is it envy? and can envy dwell

In celestial breasts? (IX. 709730)

Satan's argument gives divine attributes to the Sun and Earth as creative demigods that calculate even more creative than gods inasmuch as Sun and Earth produce living things, whereas gods seem

though to the tyrant thereby no excuse (XII. 8396).

Of heavenly grace, and, God proclaiming peace,

Far otherwise th' eventnot death, but life

Potter, Lois.

A Preface to Milton. New York: Charles Scribner's

To put it another way, Man, move as he is, could take a lesson from the hearty conclave of Hell to seek his moral destruction. It is a vicious badinage that, after the fall, Man should so cooperate in his physical destruction by seeking the destruction of rival Men. The threat of Satan is curse enough on Man, but Man, not content to counter Satan, counters his fellow man. Indeed, as Satan's success with Eve (and by extension, Adam) shows, after the fall of man, Death and Sin are brought into the world irrevocably. This point is amplified by Potter, who notes Adam's shock when Michael explains the presumption of pouf Nimrod in subjugating other men: "Michael tells him [Adam] that tyranny of man over men is the logical outcome of the Fall, where the natural rule of reason out over passion was upset. This first usurpation was the signal for all the others" (73).

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