Where Satan and Jesus Take a Tour

Paradise Regained by John Milton
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Read as a story, as retelling of a myth, as poetry, this is pretty entertaining, and well done. I mean that as a reader separated in time from the author by about 350 years. Dipped into with a little curiosity and a dash of patience, I found this fun and pretty entertaining, even though I'm not the intended audience, and I think many other readers would have a similar response.

As a devotional experience, reading it as a hardcore Puritan might have done three centuries ago, it's probably pretty cool, but I don't think modern Christians can approach it the same way. They might still be charmed by the way Milton approaches matters of theology, even if they don't agree with his take. In any case, that's not my thing now, though I do like that he takes on ambiguities in the language and tries to explain them them for the reader, as he does in Paradise Lost. (In that book, for example, Milton spends some time on the ambiguous phrase "in that day you shall surely die," referring to the day they eat the forbidden fruit. Clearly they don't die that day, so he discusses it, trying to make sense of it. Here, Satan brings up the kingdom Jesus is to inherit, trying to understand what that means: "A kingdom they portend thee, but what kingdom, Real or allegoric, I discern not..." I like it that he anticipates what questions the reader has been wanting to have answered.)

This has received a lot less attention from the average reader over the years than Paradise Lost. It is a much shorter work with a narrower scope and smaller cast, and it's also less "visually" impressive. (There is no scene showing burning demons in hell, no construction of Pandemonium, no description of a war in Heaven, and it's a shame. Those were fun to picture.) It's not entirely lacking, mind you. This part deals only with Jesus getting baptized and then spending forty days fasting in the desert, but that canonically includes Satan tempting Jesus, showing him the great nations of the world and promising to make him king over it all, and those scenes are both awe-inspiring and entertaining. Satan sweeps him magically from one high spot to another, where Milton can describe the amazing scenes all around. It still requires the reader to use their imagination, but it's pretty effective:

With that (such power was given him then), he took
The Son of God up to a mountain high.
It was a mountain at whose verdant feet
A spacious plain outstretched in circuit wide
Lay pleasant; from his side two rivers flowed,
The one winding, the other straight, and left between
Fair champaign, with less rivers interveined,
Then meeting joined their tribute to the sea.
Fertil of corn the glebe, of oil, and wine;
With herds the pasture thronged, with flocks the hills;
Huge cities and high-towered, that well might seem
The seats of mightiest monarchs; and so large
The prospect was that here and there was room
For barren desert, fountainless and dry.

He follows this with a long recitation of the various cities and empires that he could see from that point, which is a chance for Milton to show his erudition:

Here thou behold’st
Assyria, and her empire’s ancient bounds,
Araxes and the Caspian lake; thence on
As far as Indus east, Euphrates west,
And oft beyond; to south the Persian bay,
And, inaccessible, the Arabian drouth:
Here, Nineveh, of length within her wall
Several days’ journey, built by Ninus old,
Of that first golden monarchy the seat,
And seat of Salmanassar, whose success
Israel in long captivity still mourns;
There Babylon, the wonder of all tongues,
As ancient, but rebuilt by him who twice
Judah and all thy father David’s house
Led captive, and Jerusalem laid waste,
Till Cyrus set them free; Persepolis,
His city, there thou seest, and Bactra there;
Ecbatana her structure vast there shews,
And Hecatompylos her hunderd gates;
There Susa by Choaspes, amber stream,
The drink of none but kings; of later fame,
Built by Emathian or by Parthian hands,
The great Seleucia, Nisibis, and there
Artaxata, Teredon, Ctesiphon,
Turning with easy eye, thou may’st behold.
All these the Parthian (now some ages past
By great Arsaces led, who founded first
That empire) under his dominion holds,
From the luxurious kings of Antioch won.

(Spoiler: Jesus says no thanks, we've got a plan already.)

But the huge canvas and the great detail, all delivered in elevated language, is mind-expanding and intellectually invigorating, whether the reader is religious or not. The fact that its only about 2000 lines--about 40 pages--is a plus, too, making it more manageable for uncommitted readers. Overall, it's more impressive and more entertaining than I expected.

I'd like to see this done as an animated feature, with dreamy watercolors. Seeing empires spread across the horizon could be really cool. I wonder if there's a BBC radio show or something we could use for the narration. Hmmm.

Recommended if you already like the series.

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