Pandemonium II--Clarifying Book I of Paradise Lost

"Mammon led them on,
Mammon, th' least erected Spirit that fell
From Heav'n, for ev'n in Heav'n his looks and thoughts
Were always downward bent, admiring more
The riches of Heav'n's pavement, trodd'n Gold,
Than aught divine or holy else enjoy'd
In vision beatific" (678-84)

Mammon, in the New Testament, is riches. According to Jesus, we cannot serve both God and mammon (Mt. 6:24). By the sixteenth century it signified wealth, profit, possession, etc. But Milton's brilliance here is evident in his imaginative personification of this human desire. In the heavenly realm, before the Fall, where sin was not even a glint in the eye of the (subsequently) most rebellious spirit, even Mammon was a bit too pre-occupied with the gold underfoot ("trodd'n" means "beaten") than the glories celestial. He was bent over, the "least erected Spirit" of those who fell. The "vision beatific" in l. 684 imports a huge conception in medieval Christianity, developed in Dante's Paradiso, of the glory of that heavenly state.

Milton then leaps ahead in time for a few lines, to show how Mammon taught humans to "Ransack the Center" and "Rifle the bowels" of mother Earth, before returning to his task at hand. Mammon's crew "Op'nd into the Hill a spacious wound/ And dig'd out ribs of Gold" (689-90). Then he pauses, as it were, to deal with the potential objection of a hearer. The objection is: what is gold doing in chaos, in Hell, in the infernal regions? Milton leaps on this point: "Let none admire (the original meaning of "admire," from the Latin admirari is "to feel or express surprise, or astonishment; to wonder," OED. s.v. def. 1)/ That riches grow in Hell" (690-91). Indeed, that soil may best "deserve the precious bane" (692). The phrase "precious bane" is a nice oxymoron, capturing in itself the contrary ideas of value and loss, of worth and pain. The word "bane" originally meant "murderer" or "murder" or "death," but was then "softened" in the 16th century to include anything "which causes ruin, or is pernicious to well-being."

Milton's Method

Something of Milton's literary artistry is now becoming evident. He will pursue a fairly straight line to his destination, but he allows himself ample opportunities for various kinds of digressions in getting there. A digression might consist of a simile, much like a Homeric simile. It might be a "leap ahead" in time, it might be an anticipated objection from a clever or alert reader. But, all the time he is pursuing his goal. He will get us to the conclave of the fallen angels, but he has to get us there in an elevated literary form and maximize our knowledge intake along the way. I think this was largely the method I used when I taught students, especially law students, in my final years of teaching (2003-06). I knew where I was going, but I would usually "digress" in many ways--by referring to interesting words in a statute, historical events that gave the text more meaning, humorous takes on things, etc. Most students appreciated this kind of teaching method, though a few criticized me in their reviews because I "got off track." I suppose I feel that I am in good company with John Milton. I will get "off track" when I speak, but the result will be vast and epic knowledge exploration, entertainment, and varied reflection on the human experience.

Another Brief Digression

While pursuing the idea of the building of Pandemonium another thought obtrudes. Not only does he take a detour to tell us that the soil of Hell "may best/ Deserve the precious bane" (691-92), but he then reflects on the rapidity of Pandemonium's construction (though he won't use that word for 50 more lines). Rather than just saying that they built the city really quickly, Milton ransacks ancient history to find examples, secular and sacred, to make his point.

Those humans who "boast in mortal things, and wondering," and who tell "Of Babel, and the works of Memphian Kings" (694--he now speaks of the two greatest human construction achievements--the Tower of Babel (Gen. 11) and the building of the pyramids of Egypt) are now addressed. Mortal appreciators of human achievement ought to learn how human "Strength and Art are easily out-done/ By Spirits reprobate" (696-97). After all, Milton is writing epic. Epic is B-I-G stuff. Even the fallen spirits can make "in an hour/ What in an age they with incessant toil/ And hands innumerable scarce perform" (697-99). We vainly struggle here below to get some work done; the condemned spirits, however, can as it were "snap their fingers" and their tasks are completed. Milton thus has a way of putting us in our place even as he continues his inexorable journey to the description of Pandemonium and the conclave of the spirits.

To the Task

The last 100 lines of Book I are taken up with the effort to build Pandemonium, illumined by carefully-wrought Miltonian similes. The picture of the mining process by three groups of spirits in lines 701-07 is obscure to me. I think that Milton had probably seen mining ventures in England, noted their essential features and then captured them here in these lines. A actual picture here would be worth his words. These task groups prepare the veins of liquid fire "sluc'd from the Lake" (no doubt, the lake of fire; "sluic'd" means to lead or draw off) or cut out the "massy Ore" or fill each hollow nook with the gold. Then, just as he finishes the mining image he moves to a musical one--the way that blasts of wind fill up pipes in an organ to produce music (708-709). The purpose of similes is to get us to stop and use our imagination. The organ picture means that one blast fills many nooks. We see that in order to understand Milton we would need to know not just our Biblical and classical literature in detail, but also be familiar with 17th century technologies.

What is the result? Out of the earth a "Fabric huge" arose (711). The word "fabric" is derived from the Latin "faber" (a worker in metal, stone, wood, etc. We are "homo faber" according to some anthropologists) and meant originally "a product of skilled workmanship" and, specifically, an "edifice, building." But it isn't a disharmonious cacaphonous clash of noise that produces the "Fabric." There was, in contrast, "the sound/ Of Dulcet Symphonies and voices sweet" (711-712). What is remarkable about Milton is his ability to preserve the majesty, beauty and near-divinity of the fallen spirits as they live their lives in frustration in Hell.

What is the more specific result? A Temple, or something "Built like a Temple," with Pilasters set around, and with Doric pillars covered by a "Golden Architrave" (715). For this and the next few lines you need to know something about the construction of ancient Greek temples. Milton and other classically-educated 17th century people knew this in their sleep. Here is a great little picture, portraying the "entablature" (the whole shebang), consisting of architrave, frieze and cornice. As you will note, however, I gave you an Ionic rather than a Doric column. It may appear ironic that I gave you the Ionic, but this should inspire you to be diligent after Doric. Indeed, the word entablature was a new word in Milton's time. From 1664 (Milton's first edition was published in 1667): "The Entablature [orig. Fr. entablement] (that is to say, Architrave, Freeze, and Cornice).." So, he may not yet have known the term, and the threefold reference to the "top" part of the Doric temple was what would have been expected at the time.

Another essay will clarify this yet further.

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