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By the early Seventeenth Century, tools such as the cross staff, astrolabe, quadrant, sextant, astronomical clock, telescope, and torquetum had led scientists like Copernicus, Digges, Bruno, Tycho, Kepler, and Galileo to new discoveries about the universe. People were fascinated with astronomy and geography and by maps, globes, and celestial globes. Milton himself visited Galileo in 1638. As Lawrence Babb, Robert H. Cawley, Walter Clyde Curry, Alastair Fowler, Allen H. Gilbert, Grant McColley, Marjorie Nicolson, Howard Schultz, Susan Shibanoff and Elizabeth H. Hageman, Kester Svendsen, and others have amply demonstrated, Milton's interest in and knowledge of geography and astronomy was extensive--too extensive for him to have been unaware of the implications of the details he provides about Satan's orbits in Book IX of Paradise Lost. As Gunnar Qvarnström points out, Milton "stresses the element of time" and directs the reader's attention "to the epic chronometer" (25), and, as Alastair Fowler explains, Milton's cosmology is "an exact reproduction, correct in every geographical detail, of the actual world as it appears from a unique view point" (447). Walter Clyde Curry has delineated the path of Satan and the rebel angels' fall from Heaven to Hell and the path of Satan's first journey to the earth, but he ignores Satan's other journeys (9.48-86). Malabika Sarkar and Harinder Singh Marjara write about the lines in Book Nine which describe Satan's orbits. Sarkar has devoted her attention to the seven orbits described in Book IX, 63-66, a passage she calls "one of the finest examples of Milton's astronomical imagination" (63). Her attention is focused on the path of Satan's orbits with respect to the sun and the earth's shadow; my interest here is in Satan's orbits with respect to geography. And Marjara points out that Milton's images of the cosmos "are drawn from mathematical descriptions of the heavens" (194) rather than visual images (195). He argues that Milton describes night by "using the geometrical figure of the cone of darkness that travels around the earth on the far side from the sun" (185) and explains that on the basis of this geometrical image, Milton portrays "[t]he darkness that descends on the face of the earth after sundown . . . as a slow progression from nightfall through midnight to dawn" (196). Both Sarkar and Marjara are interested in the geometry of the heavens--specifically the path of the cone of darkness in which Satan hides--rather than in the path Satan traces with respect to the earth or in the number of times Satan orbits the earth.
Most critics agree that Satan (1) travels to earth and tempts Eve in a dream, (2) departs from earth, goes beyond the Sun's sphere, and returns to it in one night, and then (3) circles the earth for a week. Although a reader might assume that the place names specified in Book IX, 76-82, recapitulate places Satan crossed in the seven previous orbits, I shall argue that the places specified in these lines delineate two subsequent orbits on two subsequent days, because over the equator and along the colures he would not have seen them.
In his first journey to earth, Satan leaves Hell, travels to (3.70-75 and 86-89) and walks "upon the Globe / Of this round World," i.e., the enclosed universe (3.418-23), and surveys it from a stair of Heaven (3.540-561) in night's "extended shade" (3.556-57). He then flies through the Firmament, pauses on the Sun's sphere, disguises himself as a "stripling Cherub" (3.636), gets directions to Eden from Uriel, flies to earth, leaps Eden's wall, and disguises himself as a cormorant. In this journey, Satan is unfamiliar with the space through which he [End Page 130] travels. He then tempts Eve in her dream and flees from the earth with "the shades of night" (4.1014-15).
In his second journey to earth, Satan departs from and returns to an outer sphere of the world, follows a sequence of three, four, and two orbits, and then tempts Eve.
The Sun was sunk, and after him the Starr
Of Hesperus, whose Office is to bring
Twilight upon the Earth, short Arbiter
Twixt Day and Night, and now from end to end
Nights Hemisphere had veild th' Horizon round;
When Satan who late fled before the threats
Of Gabriel out of Eden, now improv'd
In mediated fraud and malice, bent
On mans destruction, maugre what might hap
Of heavier on himself, fearless return'd
From compassing the Earth, cautious of day
Since Uriel Regent of the Sun descri'd
His entrance, and forewarnd the Cherubim
That kept thir watch; thence full of anguish driv'n,
The space of seven continu'd Nights he rode
With darkness, thrice the Equinoctial Line
He circl'd, four times cross'd the Carr of Night
From Pole to Pole, traversing each Colure;
On th' eighth return'd, and on the Coast averse
From entrance or Cherubic Watch, by stealth
Found unsuspected way. There was a place,
Not now, though Sin, not Time, first wraught the Change,
Where Tigris at the foot of Paradise
Into the Gulf shot under ground, till part
Rose up a Fountain by the Tree of Life;
In with the River sunk, and with it rose
Satan involv'd in rising Mist, then sought
Where to lie hid; Sea he had searcht and Land
From Eden over Pontus , and the Pool
Maeotis, up beyond the River Ob ;
Downward as farr Antarctic; and in length
West from Orontes to the Ocean barr'd
At Darien , thence to the Land where flows
Ganges and Indus : thus the Orb he roam'd
With narrow search; and with inspection deep
Consider'd every Creature, which of all
Most opportune might serve his Wiles, and found
The Serpent suttlest Beast of all the Field.
(48-86)
After successfully tempting Eve he leaves briefly, returns, and then makes a final journey in which he returns to Hell.
Three sentences summarize Satan's second journey to earth. The first sentence says that "Satan ... return'd" (53-57). The second sentence elaborates on that first orbit: "he fled, ... and ... return'd from compassing Earth" (58-59). It also summarizes his seven nights of orbits which conclude with his finding an entry to Paradise: "He circl'd," "cross'd" (1. 65), "return'd ... and found unsuspected way" (1.67-69). The third sentence describes Satan's last two circuits of the earth and his discovery of the Serpent: Satan "sunk [underground at the mouth of the Tigris River], ... and rose ... by the Tree of Life[in Eden, to the earth's surface], ... then sought / Where to lie hid; ... Sea he had searched and Land: / ... thus the Orb he roam'd / Considered every Creature, ... and found The Serpent" (9.74- 82). Milton's refrain-like repetition of the verb "return'd" suggests the relentlessness with which Satan seeks Eden.
Orbit #1: After being evicted from Paradise by Gabriel at the end of Book IV, Satan
fearless return'd.
By Night he fled, and at Midnight returned
From compassing the Earth.
(9.57-59)
In "compassing the Earth," Satan orbits the earth and remains hidden in darkness for a period of one night and day (between Books IV and IX).
Then, Satan "rode / With darkness" (9. 64), orbiting the earth nine more times, as I shall show, in nine 24-hour periods and ends where he began. 1
Orbits #2, #3, and #4: Malibika Sarkar provides convincing evidence that when Satan makes his three equinoctial orbits, Milton is thinking of the equinoctial line and the equator as being on the same plane (419). On these three nights Satan makes his second, third, and fourth complete orbits: "full of anguish driven, ... thrice the Equinoctial Line / He circl'd" (9.62, 64-65).
Orbits #5, #6, #7, and #8: Satan then makes four more orbits. For the next four nights, 2 he completes his fifth through eighth orbits. He
four times cross'd the Car of Night
From Pole to Pole, traversing each Colure;
On th'eighth return'd, and on the Coast averse
From entrance or Cherubic Watch, by stealth
Found unsuspected way.
(9.66-70)
Going "from Pole to Pole" four times, Satan orbits the earth four times. On the eight night he "found [his] unsuspected way" into Paradise.
Colures are defined as two circles, separated by a [End Page 131] 90° angle, which intersect each other at the celestial poles and which intersect the plane of the ecliptic at the fixed points of the solstice and equinox. Sarkar's thorough and specific explanation of the colures and of Satan's four colurean orbits, she shows Satan's paths on the colures and the relationship between those paths and the shadow of the earth (419-21). According to Sarkar, Satan makes two orbits on each of the two colures (420).
In the Ptolemaic system which Milton used for Paradise Lost, Satan can travel around a colure and remain in the shadow of the earth most of the time. Milton seems to have been aware that Satan, on such a journey, would appear in minimal light as he nears a pole, because, although he describes Satan as remaining in "darkness" on his other orbits, he qualifies "darkness" here by saying that Satan was "compassing the Earth, cautious of day" (9.59; emphasis mine). Satan did "r[i]de / With darkness" (9. 63-64); i.e., travel in the direction of and in tandem with darkness on earth.
In order to enter Paradise where the Tigris River enters the Persian Gulf at Latitude 30oN and approxi mately Longitude, 48o, Satan must begin and end his orbits on the colures at that point. Since Satan completes exactly four polar orbits and ends where he began, he must begin his traverses with a partial orbit from a point above Paradise to one of the poles (either 1/6 of an orbit if he travels toward the North Pole or 1/3 of an orbit if he travels toward the South Pole). In order to remain on the colures, he can change directions only at the poles. Next he must make three complete colurian orbits. Then he must complete the remaining portion of his first polar orbit (5/6 of an orbit if he travels north or 2/3 of an orbit if he travels south). In either a Ptolemaic or a Copernican universe, the earth would be at the center of the colures , and the distance and angular and orbital relationships between the earth and the sun would be identical. Therefore, Satan's path would be the same in either system.
By definition colures exist on the celestial globe. To remain on a colure, Satan must always travel in space either due north or due south with respect to the celestial poles. Since the plane of the ecliptic is constant with respect to the earth, the latitudes at which the colures intersect the ecliptic remains constant. And, since there would be, within a 24-hour day, a 360o rotation of the earth with respect to the celestial sphere, Satan would have had to orbit the earth or traverse the globe in a generally westerly direction in order to remain in the greatest darkness. If he remains on the colures, Satan will trace either a northwesterly or southwesterly path on the earth. (Since he must follow the same procedure whether he travels northwesterly or southwesterly, I will describe only the northwesterly orbits.) 3
Satan must trace two paths at 90o from one an other in order to "travers[e] each Colure" (emphasis mine). To travel in a path which will provide him with maximum darkness during these orbits, he must repeat the same two paths twice (either Paths A and B or Paths A and C) because only by beginning on two adjacent path sides of the colures can he take optimum advantage of the shadow of the earth.
In order to pursue his "midnight search" (9.181) for the serpent and to enter Eden before "th' approach of Morn, / . . . [when] sacred Light beg[ins] to dawn / In Eden" (9.191-93), Satan must begin and end this orbit at the latitude and longitude of Eden. To do so, he must follow Path A in a northwesterly direction 4 for the first and last parts of his journey. His other path must be on Path B or Path C. The following map shows Path A as a solid line , Path B as a double line, and Path C as a dotted line.
On a seventeenth century, two-dimensional Mercator projection of
the world, a map on which the Eastern and Western hemispheres are depicted as
two circles, each half orbit of Satan's flight would appear as an S-shaped curve
on one hemisphere. On a seventeenth-century globe, Satan's path will trace a
rhumb line (loxodromic curve, i.e., the path of a ship or plane that maintains a
fixed compass direction). A rhumb line is a line which crosses all meridians
(lines of latitudes) at the same angle. On a rectangular Mercator projection map
of the world (which would not have existed in Milton's lifetime, the path Satan
traces will appear as straight lines which change directions at the poles. (One
colurian path is depicted by a straight line; the other by a dotted line.)
[End Page 132]
"On the eighth night" of his orbiting, Satan finds a back entry
into Eden: "on the Coast averse / From [the] entrance" (9.67-68) to a place
"Where Tigris at the foot of Paradise / Into a Gulf shot under ground"
(9.71-72)--apparently where the mouth of the Tigris River flows into the Persian
Gulf. To enter Paradise, Satan must first sink underground.
Critics who believe that Satan orbits the earth either seven (Qvarnström 3 and Fowler, "Introduction," 444) or three-and-a-half times (Crump 167) must be assuming that lines 77-82 simply recapitulate his earlier orbits. However, this theory is not supportable because the four polar orbits and, probably, the three equatorial orbits occur on the Sun's sphere, but the two orbits specified by place names occur within the earth's atmosphere and are made after Satan has entered Eden via the underground river to begin his "narrow search" (9.83)--a phrase by which Milton distinguishes the next two orbits from his previous wider search. Also, in his earlier orbits, his purpose has been to find Eden, but his purpose in his last two orbits is to find a creature in which to disguise himself. Milton introduces these last two orbits by saying,
There was a place,
Where Tigris at the foot of Paradise
Into a gulf shot under ground, till part
Rose up a fountain by the tree of life
In with the river sunk, and with it rose
Satan involved in rising mist, then sought
Where to lie hid.
[9.69 and 61-76, emphasis mine]
In this statement the "then" clearly indicates action subsequent to Satan's entering Eden, which is subse quent to the four polar and three equatorial orbits. Although the verb form "had searched" (IX, 76) presents a problem to this reading, it is easier to imagine that one verb form is not parallel with the others in the sequence than it is to neglect the fact that "then" indicates a subsequent action rather than a restatement of a previous act. Also, if Milton had intended these lines to be a recapitulation, he would have used past perfect verb forms for the entire sequence of actions listed here. But he presents this sequence in simple past tense, saying Satan "roam'd" (9.82), "consider'd" (9.84), and "found" (9.85). That these are two different orbits is also suggested by the fact that in the earlier seven orbits, the three easterly orbits (equinoctial) precede the four northerly (colurian orbits), but here the northerly orbit precedes the easterly (ecliptic) orbit.
Although, as Robert R. Cawley says, Milton is "apt to localize" geographical places in Paradise Lost, he does not localize the places covered in Satan's previous orbits. Instead he uses what Marjorie Nicolson has pointed out to be "one of the peculiarities of Milton's technique[,] ... his sense of perspec tive." Like Satan's first view of the world, a "telescopic scene" in the poem (Nicholson 96) (which places him at great distance from the earth), Satan's equinoctial and polar orbits (which contain no specific reference to places on earth) imply that in these orbits Satan sees the earth from astronomical distances. But the specific localizations of the last two orbits suggest that they take place within the earth's atmosphere, and that he moves among fountains and mist suggests he is very near if not upon the earth's surface, where seeking a creature in which "to lie hid" (9.76) could be done most effectively.
His ninth circuit then is a polar orbit which begins in Syria in the Upper Tigris-Euphrates Valley. Since he travels "up" (9.78) and passes over "Pontus" (The Black Sea), "the pool / Maeotis" (9.77-78; The Sea of Azov), and "the River Ob" (9.78; a Russian river which flows into the Arctic Ocean at the Arctic Circle), his northerly path must be on or near Longitude 48o. Maintaining this path, he then heads south, "downward" (9.79) beyond the pole on the other side of the globe to the Antarctic, on Longitude 132o. From Antarctica he again travels north on Longitude 48o to complete this orbit in "Orontes" (Syria), where he began. This journey, which remains on longitudes 48% and 132% cannot retrace the same path as any of Satan's journeys on the colures.
Orbit #10: In his tenth circuit, Satan travels "West from
Orontes to the Ocean barr'd / At Darian" [End Page 133]
(9.80-81; Panama) 5
and then on around the earth and across India on his return to Eden. 6
Satan's westward circuit of the earth, like his polar circuit, begins at
approximately the longitude of 48o. Milton seems to assume that Eden
lies on the Tropic of Cancer (which after the fall will be the most
northerly point of the ecliptic). If, on a globe one begins at the upper
Tigris-Euphrates Valley 7
and circumscribes the earth at the angle of the equinox (23o27' from
the lati tudes), that line will pass through Panama and through southern New
Zealand and Australia, at which point the orbit will grdually turn toward a
west-northwesterly direction, then intersect southern India, "the Land where
flows the Ganges and Indus" (9.82), and end near the point at
which the Tigris River enters the Persian Gulf. 8
In this journey, which Milton identifies only by place names, Satan does follow
the path on which the equinoctial line will fall after the tilting of the earth.
(See Map
III.)
In so doing, Satan traces a path which is appropriate to his already fallen state. And by delineating this path, Milton foreshadows 9 the position of the post lapsarian earth. Milton would be familiar with the ecliptic because in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries it was depicted on globes and on two-dimensional maps, such as those of Gerhardus Mercator in the 1500's, of Ortelius in 1606, and of Gerhardus's son, Hondias Mercator, in 1635. 10 The description of Satan's orbits in Book IX demonstrates both the enormous size and the remarkable complexity and precision of God's creation. Also, Milton reaffirms traditional theological views about the centrality of Eden on the earth and of the earth within the universe. Even the decreasing gyre of Satan's return to the earth emphasizes the centrality of the earth and Eden. There are sound theological reasons for Milton to emphasize this centrality. But why he chooses to associate this depiction of the universe with Satan requires explanation.
In Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained, Milton de scribes no other traveler's route with such specificity. But there is no need to do so elsewhere because all other trips travelers make between Heaven and Hell or between Heaven and earth are direct flights. Other visitors to earth apparently have a clear sense of their destination and no difficulty in finding their way. Hurrying to warn Gabriel of an evil spirit escaped from Hell, Uriel "glid[es] ... / On a Sunbeam, swift as a shooting Star" (4.555-556). Likewise, Raphael "prone ... speeds" (5.265-66) directly to earth and "Sails between worlds and worlds with steady wing" (5.268). Going "in haste" (10.17) to report of Satan's success on earth, "The Angelic Guards ascend[ ]" (10.18) in a direct path. Going to confront Adam and Eve with their sins, the Messiah "descend[s] straight" (10.90) to Eden and returns "with swift ascent" (10.224). Michael makes "swift descent" (11.127) to earth. Even the rebel angels fall "headlong" (7.864) from Heaven to Hell. And, when cast out of Heaven, Satan falls straightforwardly "Into his place" (6.134-35). These other traveler's routes are not specified, probably because they are simple and direct.
But Satan, trying to hide, remains in literal, perceptual, and spiritual darkness. Traveling in darkness with his vision clouded by sin, Satan can no longer see his destination. On his first trip to Eden, he gets only as far as "the bare outside of this World" (3.74); then only by tricking Uriel can he learn the way "Down from th' Ecliptic" (3.740 ), where the sight of the beauty of Eden produces in him an agonizing envy, which makes him "much revolv[e]" (4.31) emotionally. Even with Uriel's directions, Satan is incapable of taking a direct path in his first descent to Eden, but "Throws his steep flight in many an Aery wheel" (3.741). On his next trip, without the benefit of directions, Satan must make ten orbits in order to find Paradise.
Having determined to rebel against God, Satan is no longer capable of being straightforward--not even in his travels. He cannot move with clear direction. Instead, he is driven with an careening frenzy. Although God and the angels can travel between Heaven and earth with lightning speed without assistance, Satan needs longer to find his way to Eden than God needed to create the earth. Yet the analogy with the seven days of creation is significant. In seven days God created the world and rested. But in the [End Page 134] seven days of Satan's equinoctial and colurian orbits, he accomplishes nothing. He ends up at exactly the spot in the universe from which he began. And he certainly finds no rest. In this sequence of ten orbits, Satan remains in the darkness of night. To a reader conceptualizing the earth as if it were on a map or globe, Satan's leftward path is indeed sinister. And the end result of his journeys is that Satan must descend to Hell's permanent darkness--in contrast to Christ's ascension to Heaven's light.
Thus, Satan's orbits in Book IX emphasize his deterioration. 11 In his descent--from Heaven, to the universe, to the globe of the world, and to the earth--he reenacts his fall from Heaven to Hell on a smaller scale. His velocity decreases from the first double helix orbit to the circular orbits to the atmospheric orbits as the distance he travels each day (the circumference of his path) diminishes. Although Sarkar argues that Satan grows in "assurance and power" (421) in his three journeys, his later, more specific, paths do not demonstrate increased assurance and power but merely an increased knowledge gleaned from his previous trips. Everything indicates that the already fallen Satan is further diminished by his determination to destroy Adam and Eve.
Satan's orbits in Book IX offer further evidence of Milton's conviction that evil distorts a mind. Satan's circumscription of such a variety of paths shows his eccentricity--the direct result of losing his natural center, God. That his orbits follow postlapsarian paths indicates his fallen state. Satan's orbits show him to be a creature who--driven by rebellion and evil--lives in confusion, moves in counter motions to his own goals, and exists in darkness. And if, as Howard Schultz asserts, astronomy was "a favorite symbol of idle curiosity" (5) during the seventeenth century, then the specificity of Satan's orbits suggests that increased capacity for doing evil is one potential danger of excessive or misdirected curiosity.
University of Houston
1. Obviously, the introduction of three more nights of orbits presents problems with respect to previous conclusions about the chronology of Paradise Lost. But in those chronologies, critics have based some of their conclusions on inadequate or irrelevant evidence. Because I have offered a solution to some of the problems of chronology in a separate paper, which was presented at the Milton Symposium in Bangor in July, 1995, here I will simply suggest that Satan's orbiting for ten nights does not necessarily undermine a 33-day chronology for the events of Paradise Lost.
2. Although by interpreting "Night" to mean one-half a day/night period one could argue that in his seven orbits Satan only orbits the earth three and a half times, such a trip would leave Satan on the opposite side of the earth from where he began. But "return'd" (IX, 67) suggests that he ended those orbits where he began them.
Of the fifteen nouns Milton uses to describe Satan's flight from and return to earth, none is repeated except "return'd" which is used three times. The usage emphasizes Satan's determination to find his way back to Eden.
3. As this 16th-century armillary sphere demonstrates, the ecliptic is the celestial equator. It lies on a plane which intersects the terrestial globe at an angle of approximately 23 degrees 27 feet the equator, but that intersection can take place at any longtude. The longitudes at which that intersection occur change constantly as the earth turns with respect to the celestial globe.
4. Satan could, of course, begin each of these orbits in a southeasterly direction. If he did, the paths he followed would be a mirror of those presented here.
5. Milton seems to have envisioned the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans as a single ocean "barred," a word which the OED shows to have meant "of harbors" or "obstructed by a harbor" from 1552 until the 1800's and which suggests "barriered."
6. Longitude 48 degrees is intersected by a point which many Europeans had come to think of as the "front door" of Eden. On the Mercator Map, Syria, The Black Sea, The Sea of Azov, and the River Ob fall on the same longitude.
7. Milton's geography makes sense when considered on a T in O map, on the Ptolemaic map, and Mercator maps.
8. This sequence (constructed of smaller sequences of three, four, and two circular orbits) is the third nine-day sequence of Paradise Lost in which Satan accomplishes nothing.
9. Although Gerard Ginette defines "prolepsis" as "any narrative that consists of narrating or evoking in advance an event that will take place later" (40), I prefer to reserve the term "prolepsis" for the narration of future events and will use the term "foreshadowing" for the evocation of future events.
10. Milton's use of the word "colure" is anachronistic to the chronology of his narrative. Because they are intersections of the equator and equinoctial line, colures would only exist after earth tilts at the time of the fall. Even if there were no symbolic or preleptic significance in placing the orbits on the colures and on the equinoctial, Milton would have selected the colures, the equinoctial, and/or the equator to designate as paths, because he would have seen through these circles on armillary spheres.
11. From soaring through sky on "Sail-broad Vans" (2.927), Satan, in continuing to rebel, reduces himself to slithering on his belly. From once having "stood like a Towr" (1.591), Satan's body has diminished and coiled in upon itself. From huge-winged giant, he is sequentially reduced to a slumping cormorant (4.196; a bird known for its voracity), to a squat toad (4.88), and finally to a serpent "[in] labyrinth ... rolled" (9.183).
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http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/milton_quarterly/v031/31.4zivley.html