Can we talk about how Michael literally put Eve to sleep so he could show only Adam the visions lmao

To keep it short and sweet, Michael is telling Adam the story about Abraham and Moses and talks about how the Israelites will continue to sin and how God chose to make their enemies stronger in a way to force the Israelites to repent. He shows how The Son will defeat Sin and Death and punish Satan through his sacrifice. After explaining to Adam what is to come of the world, he Michael takes him and Eve by the hand and escorts them out of paradise.

God forgives Adam and Eve and sends the Son to pay for mankind's sins. God decides to let Adam and Eve live good and moral lives and may, in the end, be reunited with God. Micheal is to go down and escort them out of Paradise, since they can't live in a pure place while they are impure. Michael puts Eve to sleep and shows Adam visions of what is to come one Earth. He shows him Cain and Abel and many forms of death that consumes mankind, which horrifies Adam. Next, Michael shows him happy dancing and laughing people and this makes Adam happy to see some good. Michael, however, says that these people are atheists that don't live for God. He then shows Adam war, and then explains the story of Noah.

In book 10 God and all the other angels know immediately that mankind has fallen and God instructs the Son to go to paradise to punish the couple. The Son punishes the couple and back at the gate, Sin and Death praise Satan for his accomplishment and go to Earth to spread Sin and cause Death. The Son also punishes Satan and his followers by turning them into serpents. God changes the Earth to make season and turns the animals into predators. Adam and Eve argue about who's fault it is but end up begging God for forgiveness.

Book 9 starts off by Milton telling the reader that this poem is about to turn tragic and he calls on his muse to help him because he thinks he's too old to finish. Satan sneaks into the garden of Eden and has another moment of hesitation because he's jealous of Adam and Eve because earth is so beautiful. Nevertheless he inhabits a serpent. The next morning Adam and Eve set off to work/garden and Eve suggests they work alone, (I swear the light Milton paints woman in is so annoying lmao) and Adam is worried that might make them more susceptible to Satan. So the serpent finds Eve and starts flattering her and telling her that he's so smart and can speak because he ate fruit that gave him knowledge. When he says its from the tree of knowledge Eve, at first, says she's not supposed to and that it means death but then she thinks that since the serpent ate it and didn't die, then she wouldn't either so she takes a bite eager for knowledge and she instantly feels the Earth move/shift and knows that mankind has fallen. She quickly convinces Adam to eat it because she doesn't want to be alone in death and doesn't want Adam to be with another woman and Adam eats it because he doesn't want to be without Eve and then they get all lustful and have sinful sex int he woods lol

Raphael continues to tell Adam that he's not supposed to have knowledge of everything because a lot of questions go unanswered or don't have an explanation that he can comprehend (hm like science based facts? sorry I couldn't resist) and tells him he should be happy with the knowledge he already has. Adam tells Raphael what he remembers after first waking up in paradise, describing his thoughts and what he saw. Adam told God he wanted someone like him with whom he can share his experiences and then God created Eve from Adam's rib and then they fell in love. Raphael goes on to say that Adam needs to love her for what's in her mind and not physically and Adam admits his physical attraction towards her, feeling guilty. Raphael explains to Adam that she is vain and not as intellectually inclined as he is and he needs to be careful. (massive eye roll) he warns him one more time to watch out for Satan and his persuasions.

Creating animals on land and sea

So this 7th book is basically Raphael explaining to Adam about the creation of Earth and mankind. He explains how God wanted a distraction from the war between angels and wanted to "move on" in a sense. God sends the Son down to create Earth out of chaos and works for six days and on the seventh day, God declares this a rest day (sabbath).

Milton's new muse...the muse of Astronomy

I mean, they still had the choice to do right things too

so basically using these titles as an excuse to be awful? lol

This is a pretty powerful line

See I'm not a fan of this jumbled up readings. Like...one piece here and another piece here, taken from the same thing it's way too confusing for me! lol It's all out of context and you don't know who's speaking or what they're even talking about (at least I can't) I very much like a story with a beginning middle and end where everything makes sense lmao but ANYWAYS so what I gathered from this was basically that king Charles was on trial and beheaded for crimes that he said he didn't do. He spoke his peace and truth and said a lot about God and how christian he was. The rest was basically what happened after he was beheaded?? Idk, like I said. Very confusing lol the only thing I understand is the politics behind it...King Charles was super disliked and was catholic and most people in England were Puritan Protestants. John Milton was very vocal about his dislike for King Charles.

this is very specific

Ohhhhhh okay I get it more now

Sounds like a good king lolol

Honestly at this time, how could a King be on trial for something like this? I feel like no one had jurisdiction over a King so this whole thing is confusing to me. And what exactly are the details of his charges??

Wait King Charles IS the prisoner?? lol why am I so confused about this

I'm so confused about who he's talking to, who's the prisoner??

Wow they are really mentioning this sword and mace thing a lot lol maybe as a pretty clear warning to the prisoner?

sounds ugly, but okay

Tell me why my dumbass was like "Oh is this his trial or something?" WHEN "TRIAL" IS LITERALLY IN THE TITLE I can't y'all, it's too early for this lmao

That's a weird way of saying 15 minutes but alright lol

Naturally

So book 6 is basically about Raphael further explaining Abdiel and how he was forgiven and rewarded for his loyalty and obedience. He continues to tell Adam about the battle between the good and bad angels and how they each had different strategies (including the cannons and moving mountains) and they fought for two full days before God sent the Son on the third day to throw them in a hole down to hell. Raphael is pretty much warning Adam about Satan's evil nature and that he should fear him and not listen to him.

Ya'll fun fact, it's getting real tiring having to re read this whole thing and put in depth annotations so I decided to just do a brief summary of each book so ya'll get the gist lol So the 5th book starts off with Eve telling Adam all about the unsettling dreams she had about sinning and eating the fruit but Adam assures her that she is able to reason and make her own choices so it doesn't make the dreams true necessarily. Then God instructs Raphael to go down to paradise and explain to Adam the importance of obedience. Raphael explains all about Satan and how he fell and brought followers with him. He told him how abdiel is one of Satan's followers that changed his mind and asked God for forgiveness, even though it was hard to be scorned by the other angels who fell.

So the angels challenge Satan and he challenges them but God puts a pair of golden scales in the sky and shows on one side of the scale, Satan's chances of winning and the other side was Gods chances of winning and the side with God's chance was heavier (more likely/destined to happen) so it went down and Satan's side flew up so he knew he would lose.

Satan takes his own shape and the angels are surprised it's him

Satan is disguised as a toad and is whispering things into Eves ear as she sleeps, trying to convince her to eat the fruit.

So now they're on the hunt to find the intruder

So Adam and Eve are planting and working in the garden. They give thanks to God and make love- the argument here is that sex was not sinful until Adam and Eve let it taint their natures

They both suspect it's one of the fallen and Uriel promised to find the creature by morning

So now we're up in heaven where Uriel is about to tell the other angles of the shape shifting creature in the garden of Eden.

Satan leaves them alone and decides to explore more

God spoke to her and explained why she was there and what she will be

Eve is talking about how when she first woke up she was confused and became transfixed with her reflection in the lake

Adam is reminding Eve to not complain and to be grateful that God put them in this perfect place and said the only thing they can't do is eat from the tree of knowledge or death will follow. He says all his OH SO CONVENIENTLY in ear shot of Satan lolol

He talks about how man is such a beautiful creation and that he could have loved them, but now his duty is to take them down.

They were naked without shame

Adam and Eve

He disguised himself as a large sea bird, sitting up in the trees to observe everything.

He lept over the huge, and thick wall around Paradise like a wolf. Satan is constantly compared to/transformed into animals in this epic.

So this is saying that cherubs (which is what Satan is disguised as) have a permanent look of joy on their faces but while Satan is going through all these things in his mind, his face goes through different emotions and Uriel is observing this and concludes that it cannot be a real cherub and suspects it is Satan

I love this line. Satan seems so saddened and jealous like a little boy. "Dad created something he likes more than me, so wah I'm gonna be evil" lol

So this whole thought process of Satan is basically him having doubts about who he is and what he does. He think momentarily that he can just stop this and ask God for forgiveness but what would happen after that? He knows that he still does not agree with God and his ways so asking for forgiveness would land him right where he is. He talks about how he enjoys doing all the things he does, he likes sinning. He briefly talks about how he cannot escape sin and death because he is sin and death himself, he is the embodiment of Hell.

This is a large sea bird

Satan considers not even doing what he's about to do. He even thinks about asking God for forgiveness.

Okay this one made so much more sense and I'm so grateful hahaha you can see more of what King Charles did and what he was accused of. You get to also see the perspective of his beliefs from other people which is cool

Ohhhh okay things are starting to make more sense

Gross, what a terrible guy. So, my history for this country isn't that great but I'm assuming this was the reason he was put on trial right?? The details were a little fuzzy, so I'm confused. But all this imprisonment and enslavement based on religion were all the charges he was beheaded for, correct?

Which was most of the English population. And I'm pretty sure this was around the time John Milton went into hiding because he was going against the church with his political beliefs/writings. Might not be the same time, but it's the same gist.

Roman Catholic

So this was so random, I feel like lol but also it's one of those pieces that has ENDLESS symbols and metaphors...this girl being taken down and then brought back up because she never lost faith/positivity is pretty cool. And to go from someone so high up in one world to even higher up in another is crazy...I feel a lot of woman empowerment from this lol

I love love love this. More people should live by this.

Um what a cool accident. Definitely beats being killed by the Emperor.

Literally me when I sign up for any class at ACC lmao

What a cool line! It paints a perfect picture.

I just...I wanna see what this looks like lol

Um dope, I wanna live in a world with half human half animals

DANG. Serves you right.

Wow he was serious about stealing her away, this fool straight up kidnapped her what the hell lolol

Naturally

Slow down

Well supplied, particularly with food.

nevermind, turns out random words at capitalized.

Is the capitalization just an "S" thing orrrrr

Why is this capitalized though

showing strong feeling

Well damn, just laying it all out there. YOU'RE POOR. lmao

So these first three books are the events that happen after Satan and his followers are banished to Hell and right before the creation of Adam and Eve. Satan and the devils create pandemonium in hell and discuss how they should proceed, and eventually decide to take down mankind. God sees his plans and already knows that mankind will fall and the Son already decides to take the blame for all the sin. Satan disguises himself as a cherub who wants to explore paradise and Uriel believes him (because he thinks there's no way this could be Satan) and points him in the direction of paradise.

Uriel is guarding heaven

Satan has disguised himself as a cherub so Uriel won't know that he has escaped Hell

God created man to have freewill so he doesn't blame them and intends to forgive them

Satan is basically convincing them to let him through the gates. He wants them to build a bridge from heaven to Earth so they can better tempt mankind. He promises that when he's done with his plan, they can live at ease.

This is death, he is the incestuous offspring of Sin and Satan. Death rapes Sin and she produces the hell hounds that live near and in her womb.

This is Sin, she guards the gates of hell. She is both beautiful and disgusting because she's part human, part serpent and was made from Satans head. She has hell hounds going in and out of her womb and gnawing at her entrails, which isn't disturbing at all lol

Satan is all for taking down Man

He suggests that they find Man's weakness and tempt them

Paradise/Garden of Eden

Beelzebub is suggesting an easier way to bring down God

Moloc is one of the most evil devils and he's all for starting another war against God

Because there is a hierarchy there isn't any room for higher success. You are whatever your position is.

Satan and his followers are basically trying to decide whether they should battle against God once again or. just stay in hell and some of the followers are scared that God would do worse to them if they attack him again.

Milton is basically saying that his muse its the Holy Ghost and that his poem is going to be better than all other poems because no one has done what he's doing and it's coming from God himself so it's more important/accurate.

Sooooo not gonna lie, I kind of understood what was happening but for the most part nahhh lol some of the lines were understandable and I think I got the gist of it but for some reason, idk, the wording or word choice was confusing for me but what I gathered was that it was basically talking about how we worship the wrong things sometimes and we need to focus on God more and how He's really the highest of all powers. Also this poem touched on sexism and gender roles again, which I thought was interesting. Especially how the example that is always used goes way back to Adam and Eve which makes sense because those were the first "records" I guess you could say, of real gender roles and how it started.

Accurate

Not gonna lie, this poem lost me after the last couple paragraphs lol

This is a cool line. Like, yeah the kings are high up and rich and all but who gave them all that?? Interesting concept.

So she puts up a wall but it also really honest?

She lights up the darkness

I've seen this word now a few times and felt the need to annotate it lol Vouchsafe: give or grant (something) to (someone) in a gracious or condescending manner.

Soooooooo I can't with these readings y'all hahaha they drove me crazy and YES I know it was a very specific time in history where this was considered the "norm" but it still irks me to the core! Like wow sorry we exist, might as well have control over us for no reason whatsoever. Like literally, without women, you sour men wouldn't even be here so suck on that. And now I'm done lol

Or or OR.... How about (and I can't stress this enough) WE ALL JUST RESPECT EACH OTHER NO MATTER WHAT okay cool, glad we had this talk.

I just...I can't with this, my head literally hurst trying to read this stuff lmao

Wow dude he freaking ruined it, he was onto something at first lol

So this dude's playing Devil's advocate (pun entirely intended)

Um okay, I freaking love this line. Genius!

See, and in "Paradise Lost" she gets him to eat the fruit because she doesn't want to be punished alone but that's a whole other story from another misogynistic author lol

Yes. What she said. All of it.

This

I LOVE THIS YAS GIRL GET IT

These spellings though lol

A muzzle for the evil mouth

Jesus, just be gay then.

I kinda, sorta, LOVE this.

"hell hath no fury like a woman scorned"

Are we just pretending that the ribs don't protect our organs?! Likeeee RIBS ARE IMPORTANT OKAY lolol

Probably true

I just LOVE being compared to dogs

Too late, but cool lmao

Hey look, a kenning right out the bat. Bear-baiting: a form of entertainment which involved setting dogs to attack a captive bear. So is this saying we're dramatic because truuuuuu

Wow, already know how this is gonna go lol

Says "sir" five thousand times

Nothing like a good horse for wooing, amirite ladies??

Truuuu. Just kidding.

...or am I.

First thing I thought of was professor mcgonagall from Harry Potter

hahaha all women

Like, ugly? or lol

This is a cool line

dang, rude lol

I thought this play was pretty funny...kind of all over the place, and twisted and all that. Also, there were SO MANY NAMES. I couldn't really keep up with much, but I do know that this was basically just a play full of trickery lol someone pretending to be one person, another person pretending to be another person. Stuff got crazy y'all lol and this "obedience/taming" thing is rubbing me the wrong way but eh. Overall, pretty good.

Well, shakespeare has once again lived up tp his reputation of being a fantastic writer. I swear he can make the dumbest most plain things sound romantic lol he has such way with words! He also makes everything flow perfectly together, and it fits just like a puzzle.

Even beautiful and luxurious things have flaws/faults.

The sun or the sunshine?

I like the way this line is written...he regrets some choices he made, or, rather, didn't make.

Such a beautiful line.

I LOVE this word. It means to charm or enchant.

"Niggardly" (noun: "niggard") is an adjective meaning "stingy" or "miserly". It can be traced back at least to the Middle English word nigon, which has the same meaning, and is related to the Old Norse verb nigla, which means "to fuss about small matters".- wikapedia

Is this basically saying that we're our own worst critics?

This line reminded me of beauty and the beast.

He is against war, he thinks that they can recreate hell to be something amazing, something they can all rule and be happy there in sin

Belial is the embodiment of the sloth and inactivity

Belial is against Satan and the rest of the fallen getting revenge on God...he fears that there is much worse things that God could do to them

Corrupting mankind is how they planned on getting revenge on God

Satan's second in command

This is my absolute favorite line in this entire poem. It rings so true.... He's basically saying that he'd rather be free and in charge of such a hellish place, than to be a servant in such an amazing place like heaven.

This is basically talking about how Satan is the embodiment of hell and that wherever he may go, hell will follow. It is also him saying that he can make a heaven out of hell and it won't be as bad as it is now.

God had them chained onto a lake that was on fire

They will only do bad, and sin

They underestimated God's strength....This is probably Milton commenting on the sinners that question God's words and don't trust him.

The complete opposite of heaven

Terrible place of unhappiness, the best punishment I guess

Represents the path that Satan had chosen instead of God's path...instead of light.

Satan is even more pissed now

They fell for 9 days on the way to hell

The language in this is super hard to understand you guys, spark notes was my best friend while I was reading it.

Literally the entire theme of the poem, get ready kids lol

This reading was actually pretty cool, I enjoyed seeing all the different descriptions of places all over the world. I loved how at first that person describing the Arabians was talking them up so much and then it all of sudden just kept getting worse and worse about their faults. Which, is true for everyone I suppose. No one is perfect and everyone has faults....so I guess it wouldn't be realistic if all we read was how great they were.

Welp, I'm saying this phrase from now on.

Okay so remember when I said the author must really love them? Nah, turns out homeboy is just describing every part of them as honestly as he can....VERY honestly hahaha

same

Credulous meaning having or showing too great a readiness to believe things. So basically they're gullible...which, I don't see as a bad thing. I think it's good to believe in people and always see the best in them. Whether or not the other person takes advantage of that by lying, shows a lot about THEIR character while being "gullible" makes you trusting.

So this dude, John Leo I guess, hella looked up to the Arabians or something because he is painting them in the best light right now

concealment of one's thoughts, feelings, or character; pretense.

I've never heard this word before, or at least noticed it, but I really love the meaning!

oh snappppp

It's very clear that they don't like to break promises, and they take them very serioulsy

They sound dope. They're smart, strong, hard working, and honest.

I like this term, idk why.

Wait what, they couldn't bathe their entire bodies?

I honestly could not understand most of this passage, not gonna lie. The language was insane and yeah lol

I'm guessing this is saying that these territories are widely wanted because of the access for goods and to sell things

The spelling is freaking me out so far lol

a general description of the world or of the universe

These poems were actually pretty cool and really understandable for me. I think that had to do with how it flowed and rhymed and it pretty much was written as if it could roll off your tongue. I thought the love being a lie one was pretty depressing though, like who hurt you Walter lol It was really great, though, I love the way he wrote it with all the comparisons and how he paints a picture.

It's bad to hope but good to be sad, hm lol

oh okay

Oh this is kind of cool, almost bordering on being cocky

Closer and closer to death each day

a monarch or ruler, especially an autocratic one.

I really love the flow and the patterns of these poems

He's like "peace out, love! You ain't worth it." lol

Cool, I love this line! Insinuating that love is a trap covered with all the beautiful things and desires you want to lure you in and then hurt you.

lol dangggg Walter WHO HURT YOU

YES WOMAN IN POWER lol it just cool cause today's international women's day so it totally fits. Anyways, so this was kind of hard for me to understand because it was all over the place and from different perspectives. Also the context was a little confusing for me to understand but overall I like the contrast between Mary and Elizabeth and how differently they rule and how they each have a very drastically different tone in how they speak/feel. It's also good to get a change from all the manly men who rule in the stories we've been reading so far lol I think it's interesting that these are letter's too, different kind of layout while reading is always cool.

Accurate

cancel or refrain from exacting or inflicting (a debt or punishment).

an ornamented staff carried by rulers on ceremonial occasions as a symbol of sovereignty.

the worship of idols.

Thieves and gossips lol

What up with this shoulder thing

Wow that's not degrading or anything

Here we go again with this word

What happens if people say no lol

Gifts?

a rich fabric woven with a raised pattern, typically with gold or silver thread.

Isn't that kind of contradictory lol

I like the way this is worded

Wow jeez okay

This story was hella dramatic, SHE was hella dramatic lol she was all over the place, freaking out about her sins and becoming crazy and then doing a completely 180 when homeboy Jesus shows up and changes her entire life. After that it got super weird, her connection to christ was almost too close and her visions were a little much. Overall though this story was so easy to understand compared to all the others so that's good.

See, all she needed was a little light and faith to lift her spirits up

Dang so she's literally going crazy with guilt and fear, I wonder what she did that was so bad that she didn't want to confess

So is this the Devil's way of getting her to hold onto her sins so she can't be forgiven? Why else would he care if she confessed

Oh okay, I see. The Devil was like "Don't confess or you'll go to hell" but I thought if you confess and repent then you're "forgiven" or whatever? Does that not happen/did people not believe this back then? I guess it was a known thing but people still feared the off chance that they would still be damned...don't mind me y'all, just having a conversation with myself lol

be of the opinion; think or suppose.

Pretty much saying it was the "norm" to be married and have children at this age