The Thirty-Three Days of Paradise Lost

Sherry Lutz Zivley

Nothing . . . seems so much to endanger the Scriptures, and to submit and render them obnoxious to censure and calumniation, as the appearance of Error in Chronology, or other limbs and numbers of Arithmetick: for, since Error is an approbation of false for true, or incertain for certain, the Author hath erred. (John Donne, Essays in Divinity, 55)

Only a few critics have focused their attention on the chronology of Milton's Paradise Lost. Grant McColley (16-17), Gunnar Qvarnström (10-54), Alastair Fowler (26-28), and Galbraith Miller Crump (181) have suggested chronologies for the daily events of the poem's story, but of these, only Qvarnström devotes more than three and a half pages to substantiating his claim. ¹ Shawcross (Mortal Voice 145 and Pennant 6-7) delineates the order of events in the story without specifying on which day each of the actions occur. Although four of the chronologists describe a single linear chronological plot, John Shawcross points out that Milton's narrative line is tripartite, a reading that must be considered in drawing any conclusions about the chronology. Albert R. Cirillo is interested not in the day-by-day chronology of the poem, but in showing both that the temporal scheme of the poem is a metaphor for the eternal and that the noons and midnights in the poem are important. Neither Shawcross nor Cirillo assigns a number of days to the events of the poem.

Qvarnström and Fowler agree that the story in Paradise Lost spans thirty-three days, which Fowler points out is an "allusion to the years of Christ's life" (Silent Poetry 132), and use their chronologies as a basis for drawing numerological conclusions about the poem's meaning. Crump argues that the story spans only twenty-eight days. ² McColley presents the specific order of some of the major events of the story, but concludes that "[e]xactly how many days, or units of time the action required, the poet failed to [End Page 117] state specifically." Nevertheless, McColley concludes that "on the basis . . . of the days or units implicitly or explicitly enumerated by him, the number stands at thirty-one" (16). McColley, Qvarnström, and Fowler agree that the first four of the thirty-three days include the day on which God begot The Messiah and the three days of war in Heaven. But they disagree about what occurs on the remaining days. And William B. Hunter believes that "there is not really enough information for construction of a rigorous calendar for the poem" (71). That these disagreements remain after decades of Milton scholarship suggests that there is more work to be done on the problem. A much closer examination of the specific indicators of time in the poem of the dawns, evenings, noons, midnights, and other indicators of time on earth can lead to firmer conclusions about the poem's chronology.

The purpose of this paper is not interpretative, but analytical to determine the exact number of days in the plot of the poem and what the major characters did on each day. Milton's presentation of time in the poem is complex. Crump explains that "[b]efore the Elevation there is nothing to suggest a state other than one of atemporal being" (164). Shawcross explains further that, in Paradise Lost, "time is compounded and seemingly confused" (Mortal Voice 7), and explains that "the language is so manipulated that time does not become a consideration as one reads, and even when one returns and ponders the time element, [the reader] has no sense of immediacy of one action after another" (Mortal Voice 141). After charting the sequence of the events of the story, he says, "There is obvious consistency, although it [the narrative] digresses . . . by recounting events of the past and by presenting the future" (Mortal Voice 144).

Beginning in medias res, Milton uses both analepsis and prolepsis. He sometimes summarizes, sometimes uses discourse time that is equal to story time, and sometimes expands discourse time to take longer than story time. Various narrators tell the story. And sometimes, two or more events occur simultaneously. Paradise Lost "certainly presents a complexity of time" (Mortal Voice 144). Nevertheless, the chronology is precisely delineated.

One problem with the conclusions of the four major chronologists is that they count "the dayes of Heav'n" (6.685) ³ as if they were identical in duration to days measured in twenty-four-hour-a-day, earthly time, but there is specific evidence in the poem that shows that these are not earthly days but merely "grateful vicissitude[s], like Day and Night" (6.8, emphasis mine). Heavenly days involve variation in light "for change delectable, not need" (5.629). In heaven night is merely a "grateful Twilight" (5.645) or a "darker veil" (5.646), which would "[s]eem twilight here" on earth (6.12).

As Shawcross points out, the four "days" during which God begets The Messiah, Satan rebels, and the war in Heaven is fought are 'not human time,' but occur before the beginning of earth-time (Mortal Voice 141). And, when Raphael uses the word "day" (5.589) to refer to events in Heaven, he immediately qualifies the term by saying:

(For Time, though in Eternitie, appli'd
To motion, measures all things durable
By present, past, and future) on such day
As Heav'ns great Year brings forth. (5.580-83)

"Heav'ns great Year," as Shawcross explains, is "the time it would take the star to complete the equinoctial precession, around 26,000 years" (327, note). ⁴

The Chronology

The chronology of the story of Paradise Lost spans four days measured in heavenly time and 33 days measured in earthly time.

There is general critical agreement about the events of these four heavenly days, even though some analysts measure a day from sunrise to sunrise and others from sunset to sunset. On the first heavenly day, God anoints The Messiah (5.600-15) before "eevning approach'd" (5.627). On the night of the second day, the rebellion and consultation occur, and, on the morning of the second day, the war in heaven begins (6.189-92). On the third day, which begins when "Night began her course" (6.406) the war continues. Milton does not specify when the sunset which begins the fourth day occurs, but he does specify when its "sacred Morn began to shine" (5. 748). On the fourth day, The Messiah defeats the rebels and drives them to the edge of heaven, where "headlong themselves they threw / Down from the verge of Heav'n" and "to the bottomless pit" (6.748-866).

Once they begin to fall , time in the poem is [End Page 118] measured in earthly days. In following the chronology of events on earth, however, it is essential to recognize that, as Harry F. Robins explains, "Milton measures each twenty-four hour day from evening to evening after the manner of Genesis" (67). Milton emphasizes that he is following this Hebrew tradition when he refers to the "evening and morning," rather than to the "morning and evening" of a day. He also uses the phrase "evening and morning" to introduce the first five days of creation, and to indicate the onset of the seventh day of creation, he says:

And now on Earth the Seventh
Eev'ning arose in Eden, for the Sun
Was set, and twilight from the East came on,
Forerunning Night. (7.581-84)

Shawcross and Qvarnström provide information that is useful to a chronologist of the poem. Shawcross also outlines the events in the three main narrative lines (Mortal Voice 145) but does not specify on which days those events occur. ⁵ And Qvarnström not only provides evidence that Milton was measuring the days of the poem from sunset to sunset but also points out many of Milton's indicators of the time of day when particular events occurred.

The story of Paradise Lost spans exactly thirty-three earthly days (as will be demonstrated in the following argument). The first eighteen days of the story are devoted to the rebels' falling and roiling in Hell. On Day Nineteen, Satan and his crew rouse themselves and build Pandaemonium. On Day Twenty, Satan travels to Eden, and Adam and Eve appear for the first time in the plot. Although Milton does not state exactly when Creation began or when Adam and Eve first appeared in Eden, the first day of creation began can be deduced from other specifics of the chronology. Also, Milton does not specify how long Adam and Eve were in Eden before they appear in the story for the first time. The most specific indicator is Eve's reference to "That day I oft remember, when from sleep / I first awak't, and found my self repos'd / Under a shade on flowrs" (4.449-51), which suggests that she has been in Eden at least one and probably more than one day. That she is speaking on Day Twenty can be ascertained by following the chronology of Satan's activities. Then, from the appearance of Adam and Eve until they are banished from Eden, Milton provides clear indicators of their story's chronology. On Day Twenty-one Raphael visits Adam and Eve. During Days Twenty-one to Thirty, Satan orbits the earth. On Day Thirty-one, Adam and Eve fall. On Day Thirty-two, they are judged. (It is clear that Milton does not follow the tradition that Adam sinned and was cast out of Eden on the same day, a tradition based on Genesis 2.17, ⁶ because he specifies that two nights transpire between the day Adam eats the fruit at noon, and is cast out of Eden.) On Day Thirty-three, they are expelled from Eden.

Days One to Eighteen: The first days that are measured in the equivalent of earthly time include Satan's nine-day fall and his nine days in Hell. Milton provides two definitions which indicate that "earthly" time, i.e., time, as human beings calculate it, begins when Satan is defeated and cast out of Heaven. Milton says specifically that the time during which Satan and "his horrid crew / Lay vanquisht, rowling in the fiery Gulf" (1.51-52) was "Nine times the Space that measures Day and Night / To mortal men" (1.50-51) and explains that, in saying "Nine dayes they fell" (6.871), he is "measuring things in Heav'n by things on Earth" (6.893). The story that follows is measured in earthly time.

Only after Satan and his rebels arrived in Hell, after "Heav'n rejoic'd" (6.878), after "Hell . . . / on them clos'd" (6.874-75), after Heaven "repaird / Her mural breach" (6.878-79), and after the "Messiah his triumphal Chariot turnd: / To meet him all his Saints" (6.881-82), is The Messiah free to begin the Creation, which is completed while the gates of Hell are still shut. Raphael explains to Adam and Eve that he did not witness their creation, because on the day they were created, the sixth day of creation, he had gone to the gates of Hell ⁷

For I that Day was absent, as befell,
Bound on a voyage uncouth and obscure,
Farr on excursion toward the Gates of Hell.

(8.229-31)

He had been sent by God
To see that none thence issu'd forth a spie,
Or enemie, while God was in his work.

(8.233-34) [End Page 119]

      and found "fast shut
The dismal Gates, and barricado'd strong"

(8.240-41).

That Raphael returned to heaven "Ere Sabbath Eev'ning" (8.246) shows that he had traveled to Hell on Day Eighteen, which would mean that Creation had begun on Day Thirteen.

Unlike earth, where light and darkness clearly differentiate between day and night, and unlike heaven, where there are subtler contrasts between day and night, Hell remains in eternal darkness. Therefore, until Satan leaves Hell and Chaos on Day Nineteen, there can be no details in the setting to suggest time of day.

Throughout the rest of the story, Milton indicates when daylight dawns and when night falls, and he sometimes specifies in what part of the day an event occurs. However, because the discourse is not narrated chronologically, but includes simultaneously occurring events, analepsis, prolepsis, and both compression and expansion of time, the story time is not obvious. Nevertheless, Milton specifies exactly when all events occur.

Day Nineteen: After Satan rouses himself and his rebels, they build Pandaemonium and hold their council. Satan embarks on his journey, meets Sin and Death, and escapes from Hell. The fact that on this day, the seventh day of creation (Day Nineteen of the plot of Paradise Lost), The Messiah was "rest ing . . . from all his work" (7. 593) could help to explain how Satan managed to escape from Hell. ⁸

Day Twenty: At midnight after the sunset which began Day Twenty "in a cursed hour [Satan] hies" (2.1055) from Chaos. The hour is "cursed," because Satan is leaving for Eden. Also, "cursed" is an appropriate adjective for the witching hour of midnight, which would be an appropriate time for Satan to begin the last leg of his journey ⁹ which will take him to the created universe shortly before dawn of Day Twenty on earth. Here a brief ellipsis occurs in the narration.

In Book III, the scene shifts to Heaven and resumes, not with the word "meanwhile," but with the word "now," which shows that the narrative is continuing from the point in time at which Book II ended. "Now" God sees Satan "Coasting the wall of Heav'n on this side Night" (i. e., this side of Chaos) and winging his way toward "the newly created World" (3.71,89). Only when Satan reaches "th' utmost Orb/ Of this frail World" (2.1029-30) does he finally see light "A glimmering dawn" (2.1037) from the heavens. When he reaches the world, he sees "a gleam / Of dawning light" (3.499-500) on a ladder leading from the Earth to Heaven. In this light, Satan can see and easily descend to the firmament (3.574), where there is no "shade, / But all Sun-shine" (3.615-16). Since Satan is able to see Eden when Uriel informs him, "That spot to which I point is Paradise " (3.733), it must be daytime in Eden. Satan leaves for Eden and arrives on Mt. Niphates at the conclusion of Book Three.

By using phrases associated with dawn, and by com paring Satan's sight of the world to the vision of a traveler who has "Through dark and desart wayes . . . gone / All night" and sees a city "Which now the Rising Sun guilds with his beams" (3.544-51), Milton suggests that Satan alights on the world at morning-the morning of Day Twenty. By noon, Satan has arrived on the sun, met Uriel, and seen Paradise, which is clearly visible in daylight. Satan then arrives in Eden shortly before "the Sun / Declin'd . . . / To th' Ocean Iles, and . . . / the Starrs that usher Evening rose" (4.352-55). Satan has traveled so far so fast, because, like Raphael, he is capable of traveling "up to the coasts of Light" (8.245) in a few hours or less.

At sunset, Adam says, "let us ever praise him, and extoll / His bountie, following our delightful task / To prune these growing Plants, and tend these Flowers" (4.436-38). At the end of the day, Adam and Eve are shown praising each other. As they are talking, the sun is declining:

Mean while in utmost Longitude, where Heav'n
With Earth and Ocean meets, the setting Sun
Slowly descended, and with right aspect
Against the eastern Gate of Paradise
Leveld his eev'ning Rayes. (4.539-43)

Day Twenty-one: Then, after "still Eevning [came] on, and Twilight gray" (4.598) and "the Moon / [Rose] in clouded Majestie" (4.606-07), Adam and Eve return to "thir blissful Bower" (4.690) and say their prayer of adoration.

Sometime during the night, Satan executes the first temptation in Eve's dream. During the night, Ithuriel [End Page 120] and Zephon discover and lead Satan to Gabriel. Satan then flees from the earth. When he departs at daybreak, "with him fled the shades of night" (4.1015).

After Satan leaves earth just before the dawn of Day Twenty-one, he makes his first orbit of the earth. For him to remain in darkness, this complete journey must have taken at least a full twenty-four hours (a night and a day in Eden). Since he fled just before dawn after midnight of Day Twenty-one and Milton specifies that "By Night he fled, and at Midnight returned" (9.58), he cannot begin his equinoctial orbits until Midnight of Day Twenty-two.

God reports that Satan has escaped from Hell and sends Raphael to warn Adam and Eve (5.224-45). Raphael arrives in Eden at approximately noon, when "the mounted Sun / Shot down direct his fervid Raies" (5.300-01, emphasis mine), talks to Adam, and departs as "the parting Sun / . . . sets" (8. 630-32). Satan continues to orbit until midnight of Day Twenty-two. Adam and Eve are absent from the story until Day Thirty-one.

Days Twenty-two, Twenty-three, and Twenty-four: During the next three twenty-four hour periods, Satan orbits the earth three times: "thrice the Equinoctial Line / He circl'd" (9.64). ¹⁰

Days Twenty-five, Twenty-six, Twenty-seven, and Twenty-eight: Then, for four nights, Satan "four times cross'd the Carr of Night" (9.65) on the colures. ¹¹ These orbits must take twenty-four hours each for Satan to remain in darkness.

Days Twenty-nine and Thirty: During the next two days, Satan orbits the earth two more times, very close to, or on, the earth's surface. He has returned to the earth's surface, "sunk" into the Persian Gulf, and resurfaced in the earth's mist. He remains close enough to the earth's surface to "consider[ ] every Creature," for one in which to disguise himself (9.84-85). The first of the orbits is in a longitudinal path northward over the Black Sea, the Sea of Azov, and the River Ob, then southward across Antarctica, then northward again to Eden (9.77-79). In the second orbit, he travels in a generally westward direction on the equinoctial path (9.80-82). That these orbits are subsequent to the previous seven orbits is indicated by the introductory word "then" and by Milton's use of simple past tense verb forms rather than past perfect verb forms. Also, the north-south orbit cannot be traveled by remaining on a colure. Milton further indicates that these are two different orbits, because, whereas the earlier three easterly (ecliptic) precedes the four northerly (colurian) orbits, here, the northerly orbit, which follows the latitude line, precedes the easterly (ecliptic) orbit. ¹²

Milton does not present these ten days of Satan's flight as a single narrative episode. Instead, the first day of Satan's orbit, which includes a return to the Sun's sphere, completes the three-day sequence during which Satan (1) traveled from the outer reaches of the universe to earth, (2) arrived on earth and discovered Adam and Eve, and (3) tempted Eve during her dream and then fled. Then, Satan spends nine days in a continuous flight, which includes three equinoctial orbits, four colurian orbits, and two orbits near the earth (one longitudinal and one equinoctial). When he returns to earth, there remain only three days of action in Paradise Lost.

Day Thirty-one: During the morning, noon, and early afternoon, Satan "return'd" to earth, arriving at midnight of Day Thirty-one. Satan enters the serpent, at some point finds Eve, then persuades her to eat the forbidden fruit as "the hour of Noon drew on" (9.739). At that "evil hour / Forth reaching to the Fruit, she pluck'd, she eat" (9.780-81). She then deliberates and decides to persuade Adam to eat the fruit. Then, shortly after noon, in Book Nine, "fondly overcome with Femal charm" (9.999), Adam, too, eats the forbidden fruit. As he does so, the

Earth trembl'd from her entrails, as again
In pangs, and Nature gave a second groan
Skie lowr'd and muttering Thunder, som sad drops
Wept at compleating of the mortal Sin (9.1000-03),

in meteorological and seismological conditions analogous to those which occurred during Jesus's last three hours on the cross.

In the late afternoon, Adam and Eve begin to experience the results of their sin; God sends The Messiah to earth to judge them (10.1-62); and Satan loiters in Eden (10.332-39) to observe Adam and Eve. In the afternoon, Adam and Eve have lustful sexual intercourse, sleep, and experience bad dreams (9.1029-1052). When they awake, they seek to cover their nakedness, weep, and discover "High Passions, Anger, Hate, / Mistrust, Suspicion, [and] Discord" (9.1123-24), and "in mutual accusation spent / The [End Page 121] fruitless hours" blaming each other, but not condemning themselves (9.1187-88). At the same time "Meanwhile" (10.1) although God in His omniscience already knows that Adam and Eve have fallen, the Angelic Guards report what has happened in Eden. God then directs The Messiah to judge Adam and Eve, and The Messiah departs for and enters Eden with "the Sun in Western cadence low" (10.92). "Meanwhile" (10.229), during this same afternoon, Sin and Death talk "Within the Gates of Hell" (10.230) and then depart for earth. During this time Satan "slunk / Into the Wood fast by . . . / T' observe" Eve's seduction of Adam (10.332-346) and loiters in Eden to observe Adam and Eve's experiencing "thir shame that sought / Vain covertures" (10.336-37). When "the Sun [was] in Western cadence low" (10.92) to "usher in / The Eevening cool" (10.94-95), the Messiah arrives on earth "To sentence Man" (10.95-97) at nightfall--a symbolically appropriate moment for judgment. Satan flees when he sees The Messiah "descend" (10.348). After judging Adam and Eve The Messiah returns to Heaven (10.224).

Day Thirty-two: During the night, several things occur. Satan first returns to Earth, then meets Sin and Death in Chaos, and travels on to Hell. Sin and Death complete their journey to earth. ¹³ The orientation of the earth with respect to the heavens is shifted. And Adam and Eve spend a sleepless night in suffering and repentance.

After The Messiah departed, Satan "return'd / By night" and eavesdropped on "the hapless pair" (10.341-42; summary analepsis) in order further to enjoy Adam and Eve's suffering. Satan then leaves earth that evening and "return'd" (10.346) to "the brink of Chaos " (10.347), where he meets Sin and Death (10.349). They converse (10.354-409) and then resume their respective journeys. Sin and Death travel to earth (10.410-14 and 585-613), and Satan "Descend[s] through Darkness" (10.394) to Hell, to report to the other rebels.

God observes the arrival of Sin and Death on earth (10.613), addresses the angels, and orders some of them to reorient the earth from its perfect to its imperfect, postlapsarian state (10.613-719). Although earthly events thunder and earthquakes had accompanied Adam's fall (9.1000), God now directs "His mightie Angels" to make certain changes in the heavens, and, as a consequence,

      The Sun
Had first his precept so to move, so shine,
As might affect the Earth with cold and heat
Scarce tollerable, and from the North to call
Decrepit Winter, from the South to bring
Solstitial summers heat. (10.651-56)

To create an "influence malignant" that would "prove tempestuous," the angels either reorient "The Poles of Earth twice ten degrees and more / From the Suns Axle" (10.669-70) or reorient the path of the sun in order to create inhospitable seasons on earth (10.671-87). That "These changes in the Heavns, though slow, produc'd / Like change on Sea and Land" (10.692-93) suggests that the changes in the relationship between the earth and the rest of the world are gradual. These changes continue until they culminate in the premature darkness of Day Thirty-two. ¹⁴

After finally accepting his own responsibility, Adam lies down on ground which is "cold" (10.851) one of many indications of climatic changes caused by shifting the earth's axis. The coldness leaves the pair's "Limbs benumm'd" (10.1069), and Adam indicates his awareness of these climatic changes by describing "Th' inclement Seasons, Rain, Ice, Hail and Snow, / Which now the Skie with various Face begins / To shew us in this Mountain" (10.1063-65, emphasis mine). Here, the verb "begins" suggests that the "changes . . . slow" are still in process. Unable to sleep (11.173) and realizing they need to find a way to keep warm, Adam and Eve return to the place where The Messiah had judged them. They continue to talk, beg each other's forgiveness, weep, pray, confess their sins, and repent: "both confess'd / Humbly thir faults, and pardon beg'd" (10.1100-01).

The next morning Adam and Eve say their "Orisons," at dawn:

      Mean while
To resalute the World with sacred Light
Leucothea wak'd, and with fresh dews imbalmd
The Earth, when Adam and first Matron Eve
Had ended now thir Orisons.

(11.133-137, emphasis mine) [End Page 122]

Hearing Adam and Eve's prayers, The Messiah intercedes, and God sends Michael to expel them from Eden (11.1-126).

Then Eve says, "[S]ee the Morn / All unconcern'd with our unrest, begins/ Her rosie progress" (11.173-75).This is the dawn of the first new day after they broke God's commandment. Then the garden is "suddenly eclips'd / After short blush of Morn" (11.183-84). Here, Milton is probably using "suddenly" to mean "after a comparatively short time" or "soon" meanings that were current in the seventeenth century (according to the OED) and which Milton himself employed elsewhere. ¹⁵

One of the best explanations of this premature darkness is that it results from the heavens' having been reoriented with respect to the earth, in a sequence of "changes in the Heav'ns" which "though slow, produc'd / Like change on Sea and Land" (10.692). The premature darkness on Day Thirty-two is the final event in the causal sequence of changes which result from the shifting of the earth's axis. With the premature darkness, Day Thirty-two comes to a close. Little has happened since dawn, because this day has been considerably shortened. Here, the darkness of the day is symbolically appropriate to the despair experienced by Adam and Eve. The shortening of this day is also useful for Milton dramatically because he has little action to present on this day.

Day Thirty-three: After darkness has fallen, Adam says that he fears that "some furder change awaits us nigh, / Which Heav'n by these mute signs in Nature shews / Forerunners of his purpose" (11.193-95). At this point, Michael and the "heavn'ly Bands" appear (11.225-50). Michael "drencht" Eve's eyes to make her sleep (11.367-68)--and puts drops into Adam's eyes to force him to 'close his eyes" and become "intranst" (11.419-20) in order to see the final sequence of visions. Michael then tells Adam to "ope thine eyes, and first behold / Th' effects which thy original crime hath wrought' (11.423-24) and throughout the night shows Adam visions of the future.

Finally, Michael says to Adam:

Let us descend now therefore from this top
Of Speculation; for the hour precise
Exacts our parting hence. (12.588-90)

The most easily identifiable "hour precise" would be either the moment of sunset or the moment of sunrise. Sunrise is the more logical hour, first, because Michael has been showing Adam visions and talking with him throughout the night; second, because they go to wake Eve, an action appropriate to morning; and, third, because they return to the bower in which Eve had been sleeping and "found her wak't" (12.608), after her night's sleep. Adam and Eve's last three days in Eden are, therefore, analogous to the three days which include Christ's crucifixion and resurrection, and Adam and Eve are expelled from their earthly Paradise at approximately the same time of day at which Christ will rise into paradise.

Michael then leads Adam and Eve out of Eden, and as they are "looking back" (12.641), they "all th' Eastern Side beheld / Of Paradise" (12.641-42); that is, as they look back, they see the Eastern side of Eden illuminated by the rising sun. That "all th' Eastern side . . . of Paradise" (emphasis mine) is lit suggests that the light source is the sun, not just the light of God's sword, which would probably produce a more localized light. This imagery of light on the Eastern (external) side of the Eastern gates of Eden mirrors the imagery of the sunlight at sunset, which Gabriel observes on the western (internal) side of these same Eastern gates of Eden in Book Four, when

      in utmost Longitude, where Heav'n
With Earth and Ocean meets, the setting Sun
Slowly descended, and with right aspect
Against the eastern Gate of Paradise
Leveld his eevning Rayes. (4.539-43)

As Adam and Eve leave Eden, "The World was all before them" (12.646), a clause which implies that they are looking at that world in the light of a new day. They leave "hand in hand with wandring steps and slow" (12.648). They are wandering slowly ¹⁶ as if they have a full day (and more) ahead of them in which to find a new "place of rest" (12.647), rather than needing to seek shelter immediately, which would be the case if they had been expelled at nightfall. And, on this morning of Day Thirty-three in Milton's story, they would both be fresh, rested, and ready to wander, because Eve has slept, and [End Page 123] Adam has been "intranst" (11.420) throughout the night.

Conclusion

Perhaps the chronology presented in this paper will provide a foundation on which future typological and numerological interpretations can be constructed. (The events span thirty-three days and there are analogues between Adam and Eve's last three days in Eden and Christ's last three days on earth).

This chronology provides further evidence of the typological relationship between Adam and Christ. Eve falls at noon and Adam in the afternoon, times of day analogous to the times of day of Christ's crucifixion and death. After this day, there is the one day of the first temptation and ten days in which Satan orbits. Consequently, the day on which Adam and Eve fall is on the same day of the week on which Christ was crucified, and their expulsion from Eden is on the subsequent Sabbath. These details of time emphasize what Crump refers to as the "significant temporal parallels" (168) between the fall of Adam and Eve and the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ.

This chronology also emphasizes the numbers one (the number of days The Messiah comes to earth), two (the number of temptations, the male and the female, and the number of falls), three (a specific subdivision of Satan's orbits and the number of days Adam and Eve remain in the garden after their sin), four (another subdivision of Satan's orbits), seven (a specified division of Satan's orbits), and nine (the number of Satan's orbits which Milton foregrounds in Book Nine).

University of Houston

Notes

1. McColley, in presenting an outline of a thirty-one day chronology for the plot, does so merely to provide a general guide for his discussion of Milton's sources and literary structures. Consequently he does not provide evidence or arguments to support his chronology. And Crump provides his one-page chronology as a similar guide for his discussion of the design of Paradise Lost.

2. Crump prefers a twenty-eight day chronology, in order to stay within the classical epic limit of a month, but he does not offer evidence to support his conclusion (163-69).

3. All quotations are from John Milton, The Complete Poems of John Milton. Ed. John T. Shawcross.

4. Shawcross's assertion that time does not begin until "the creation of Sun and Moon have taken place" (Mortal Voice 142) is correct with respect to the order of events of creation, but in the fictional Paradise Lost Milton delineates time in terms of twenty-four-hour days from the moment the rebel angels are expelled from heaven. There is an enormous difference in the length of a twenty-four-hour day, which Milton indicates by the phrases "the space that measures Day and Night / To mortal men" (1.150-51) and "measuring . . . by things on Earth" (6.893) and a day measured by heavenly time.

5. In his Pennant Key Indexed Study Guide to John Milton's "Paradise Lost," Shawcross specifies in which books and lines of the poem each of the major incidents of the plot is presented (7).

6. "But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die" (King James Version).

7. Qvarnström observes that Raphael is "an eye- witness on all of the days [of Creation]," but in fact, Raphael was checking to make sure the gates of Hell were still closed on the sixth day of creation.

8. When Raphael tells Adam that God said "Satan from hell scap't through the darksome Gulf" (5.225), his verb "scap't" suggests that Satan had temporarily eluded God's detection, even though God had fore- and post-knowledge of the event.

9. Satan begins or ends most of the other legs of his journey at midnight.

10. The equinoctial line exists, by definition, at the ce lestial sphere, which is, by definition, "an imaginary sphere of infinite extent" on which "[t]he stars, planets, and other heavenly bodies appear to be located" (American Heritage Dictionary). In The Cosmographical Glass: Renaissance Diagrams of the Universe (San Marino, California: Huntington Library, 1977), S. K. Heninger explains more fully: "The equator of the [celestial] sphere provides one great circle; and two other great circles, known as 'colures' are at right angles to the equator and at right angles to one another."

The celestial sphere is (and was in the seventeenth century) depicted on a globe (on which all of the planets were, by necessity, depicted on the same sphere) or on an armillary sphere (on which all of the planets were depicted on the outermost circular frame). Neither depiction on a celestial globe or on an armillary sphere presents a heliocentric universe, and cannot, therefore, represent a Copernican universe. And, although geocentric, neither depiction represents the multiple concentric spheres of a Ptolemaic universe depicted in Peter Apian's Cosmographia (1539) and reproduced in Hughes, p. 188. Since Satan makes his next four orbits on the sphere of the sun, it is reasonable to assume that these three equinoctial orbits are either farther away from the earth than the sphere of the sun or on the sphere of the sun.

11. By definition, a colure is an imaginary line which passes through the ecliptic which is "[t]he great circle of the celestial sphere which is the apparent orbit of the sun" (OED).

12. For a fuller description of these orbits and the argu ments on which they are based, see my "Satan in Orbit: Paradise Lost 9: 48-86" in Milton Quarterly 31.4 (December 1997), 130-36. In determining the structure of the cosmology in which those orbits took place, I relied on various studies of Milton's cosmology , including Robert R. Cawley, "Geography and Milton"; Walter Clyde Curry, Milton's Ontology, Cosmogony, and Physics; Allan H. Gilbert, "Milton and Galileo"; Grant McColley, "The Astronomy of Paradise Lost and Paradise Lost: An Account of Its Growth; Marjorie Nicolson, The Breaking of the Circle; Malabika Sarkar, "Satan's Astronomical Journey" and "'The Visible 'Diurnal Sphere'"; John T. Shawcross, With Mortal Voice, and Susan Shibanoff and Elizabeth H. Hageman, " Cosmology," and Kester Svendsen, Milton and Science.

13. Although the influence of Sin and Death are present in Eden as soon as Adam and Eve fall, they do not appear in Eden as characters until after Satan leaves earth and they meet with him in Chaos. Sin, who had been "there in power before, / Once actual" (10.586), was there "now in body" (10.587), with Death "Close following" (10.589).

14. Although Milton asserts that some thinkers believe that the earth was reoriented and other thinkers believe that the heavens were reoriented (10.668-87), what he actually portrays in Paradise Lost shows the heavens being reoriented with respect to the earth. He says, first, that "The Sun . . . turn'd / His course" (10.688-89) and, next, that "These changes in the Heav'ns, though slow, produc'd / Like changes on Sea and Land" (10.692-93). In this dramatizing, Milton retains the theological importance of a geocentric earth by showing that the earth is fixed in space and that any changes in the relationships between earth and the stars and planets must occur as a result of changes in the stars and planets. Likewise, the subsequent, gradual changes that Milton describes as beginning in the heavens and gradually causing changes on the earth also show that he is assuming that it is the heavens which are reoriented with respect to the earth.

15. See Samson Agonistes, "I refrain too suddenly / To utter what will come at last too soon" (1565-66).

16. Here "Ev'ning Mist" (629), with its "La bourers . . . / Homeward returning" (631-32) is not an indicator of time of day but a simile which suggests the solemn and funereal movement of the cherubim. In an analogous simile in Book IV, Uriel's flight is described as "swift as a shooting Star / In Autumn " (556-57). This is not a literal indicator of seasons (which do not yet exist in Eden), but a simile which is applied to Uriel's speed of descent to earth. The simile in Book XII is used to describe the way the cherubim descend to earth from a hill, "Gliding" and moving "on the ground" in the same way that the evening mists roll slowly as they do in the evening. This simile describes the pace and nature of the cherubim's movement to earth--not the time of day. The cherubim, like Adam and Eve, are moving at a pace which is in keeping with the sadness, magnitude, and formality of the events, solemn actions which conclude Adam and Eve's tragedy and bring Paradise Lost to a close.

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