From: Subject: James Dougal Fleming - Meanwhile, Medusa in Paradise Lost - ELH 69:4 Date: Mon, 3 May 2004 20:40:45 -0700 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/related; boundary="----=_NextPart_000_0149_01C4314E.E89BC7F0"; type="text/html" X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1409 This is a multi-part message in MIME format. ------=_NextPart_000_0149_01C4314E.E89BC7F0 Content-Type: text/html; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Location: http://0-muse.jhu.edu.opac.sfsu.edu/journals/elh/v069/69.4fleming.html James Dougal Fleming - Meanwhile, Medusa in Paradise = Lost - ELH 69:4
Copyright =A9 2002 The Johns Hopkins = University Press.=20 All rights reserved.

ELH 69.4 = (2002)=20 1009-1028=20
 
[Access=20 article in PDF]=20

Meanwhile, Medusa in Paradise Lost=20

James Dougal Fleming =

Medusa is a character in Paradise Lost. I use the word=20 "character" advisedly: the Gorgon has been studied for her role in = the=20 poem's symbolism, but not (as far as I know) for her moment in its = action.=20 The moment is a confound to that model of the poem in which = meaning is=20 arranged above the level of the story, in the narrator's design of = a dense=20 symbolic discourse. For Medusa is not controlled by such a = discourse; but=20 presents instead the problem of a semiotic radical, hazardously = placed=20 within story itself. 1=20

The episode in question occurs in book 2, Hell. Satan has just = left=20 Pandemonium for the world. Milton is describing the "advent'rous" = fallen=20 angels, and gesturing towards "the damn'd" of an indeterminate = future.=20 2 After three of Hell's rivers, and the = continent of=20 ice, Milton brings his subjects to the river of Lethe. There, they = struggle to reach the water in order to lose "with one small drop" = "all=20 pain and woe" (2.608-9). They are "so near the brink":=20

But Fate withstands, and to oppose = th'attempt=20
Medusa with Gorgonian terror guards
The = Ford, and=20 of itself the water flies
All taste of living wight, as once = it fled=20
The lip of Tantalus.

(2.610-14)=20

This is the only time that a named figure of classical = underworlds=20 appears in the story of Milton's Hell. Medusa is placed between an = allusion (Tantalus) and an abstraction (Fate), but is herself = simply=20 present. She is also quite functional: her job is nothing less = than to=20 "oppose" an escape from Hell, via the back exit of Lethean = oblivion.=20 Ovidian and symbolic, with no obvious connection to the milieu of=20 Paradise Lost, Medusa looks like a member of Milton's = allusive=20 background=97that shadowy domain, full of shadowy types, with = which the poet=20 augments his narrative. She is, however, clearly in the = foreground, inside=20 narrative. What makes her presence so odd is precisely Milton's = skill with=20 allusions that reach out of allusion, that are so striking and = meaningful=20 they can overpower events. Tantalus is [End Page 1009] an = example=20 of this technique, right next to Medusa: his impinging silhouette = might be=20 called significantly indistinct. But Medusa is utterly distinct. = She=20 stands against allusion, and against abstraction. She has in fact = been=20 brought through Milton's iconographic scrim, to take up a position = on the=20 poem's main stage. There she performs a critical function, and = disappears.=20 It is a strange little cameo and, being strange, apotropaic.=20

But if we force ourselves to look we ask: how can Medusa be in = Hell? We=20 were given the impression in book 1 that Milton's underworld was = created,=20 empty and brand-new, to receive the fallen angels. The corollary = should be=20 that fallen angels are Hell's only residents, and indeed we have = seen no=20 sign of other beings there. The chronological vagueness of the = Lethe=20 tableau opens a possibility of the presence of future beings; but = the=20 synthetic subject that is tortured at the river includes the = fallen=20 angels, and Medusa is the final turnstile of their pathetic = wanderings. No=20 question, then, that she is with them, right now. So: is she a = fallen=20 angel?=20

It seems all but impossible. Medusa is not a future pagan or = Canaanite=20 immortal, as are all the named ex-angels in the poem, but is in = fact the=20 only mortal of the three Gorgons. It is hard to imagine what = former child=20 of Heaven would get herself an Earthly name as a raped and = decapitated=20 monster. Within the logic of the scene, moreover, it is hard to = see how=20 Medusa among the fallen could have status and power over the = fallen. For=20 her to be a prison trusty of the Dantean kind would require her to = be=20 tapped by God=97which would make her, in some degree, less fallen = than her=20 comrades. But we have been given to understand that the fallen = angels are=20 irredeemably and equally fallen. They have rebelled against God = and been=20 expelled from Heaven, and all have fallen all the way. = Obedience/rebellion=20 is for Milton a strict binary: it is impossible to be more or less = thrust=20 out from God. For Medusa to rebel and fall=97but then to have her = status=20 altered enough that she can oppose her fallen fellows=97is a very=20 un-Miltonic proposition.=20

Even if Medusa were a unique trusty among the fallen, the = particular=20 job she is given would be hard to understand. For if the fallen = qua=20 fallen want to reach the oblivion of Lethe=97and the passage = explicitly=20 states that they do=97then Medusa, qua fallen, would want = to reach=20 Lethe. She would not be able to guard the river against herself or = anybody=20 else. If a trusty's uniform means that she no longer craves = oblivion,=20 then, ipso facto, she is no longer fallen. To be sure, Sin = and=20 Death later manage to perform this kind of puzzling [End Page = 1010]=20 double function: to be in Hell yet not of it, suffering within the = gates=20 while keeping those gates (2.648-870). But Milton provides a = painstaking=20 explanation for this liminal role of Satan's offspring; theirs is = an=20 exception that proves a cosmic rule, as Satan's self-projections = turn out=20 to be his jailers. They are the physical as well as the = allegorical=20 expression of his wail "myself am Hell" (4.75). No explanation is = made for=20 Medusa. There is certainly no suggestion that she is another of = Satan's=20 headbirths. She is not a prepared or special case among the = fallen. If=20 not, she cannot guard Lethe and be fallen. Since she does guard = Lethe, I=20 conclude that she is not fallen.=20

If Medusa is not a fallen angel, what is she? Some special = creation,=20 placed at Lethe by God? This seems to be what the narrator = suggests: he=20 speaks of a "Universe of Death" (2.622) in this context "which God = by=20 curse / Created evil, for evil only good,"=20

Where all life dies, death lives, and = Nature=20 breeds,
Perverse, all monstrous, all prodigious things,=20
Abominable, inutterable, and worse
Than Fables yet have = feign'd,=20 or fear conceiv'd.

(2.622-27)=20

The idea of a special creation of Medusa, however, is extremely = problematic. For it not only contradicts the simplicity of Hell, = positing=20 a class of creatures whose reason for being there is unknown. It = also,=20 more basically and importantly, seems to make God guilty of = creating evil=20 beings, a creation that would contradict all other statements in=20 Paradise Lost about the coming to be of evil. We can accept = God's=20 provision of Hell as an evil place, or as a place to contain evil, = and=20 still maintain that evil per se was created by Satan's = freewill=20 rebellion. (The psychic valence of Milton's Hell, in any case, = tends to=20 align it with Satan's mind.) We will have difficulty, however, in=20 reconciling this indispensable plank of the poem's theology with a = divine=20 creation of a less than good Medusa, who then lives and guards the = river=20 "with Gorgonian terror" just because God made her do it. If this = is what=20 Milton means, then Medusa and her surroundings would seem a crude=20 violation of the cosmology of the poem.=20

The only other possibility is a good Medusa. The permanent = presence of=20 a good representative in Hell would, again, violate the poem's = cosmology:=20 nobody who has not rebelled against God should be in Milton's = Hell.=20 Furthermore, good is hardly the tone of Medusa's "Gorgonian = terror" at=20 Lethe, or the "Universe of Death" with which she is associated. = Goodness=20 is inconsistent with the Gorgon's [End Page 1011] = mythographic=20 signification, which is, going back to Homer, one of = unrepresentable=20 horror. 3 Goodness is also inconsistent with the = language of=20 astonishment that runs through Paradise Lost, from the = angels on=20 the lake of fire, to Adam seeing Eve's gift of fruit. 4 It makes a nonsense of the poem to posit a = good=20 being in Hell. Even if such a being were possible, Medusa is not = good.=20

Now I have been talking about Medusa in isolation, as if she = were the=20 only narratological problem in this part of the poem. In fact she = has some=20 satellites: "Harpy-footed Furies" that drag the damned back and = forth over=20 Lethe, "Gorgons and Hydras, and Chimeras = dire"=20 (2.596, 628). The questions prompted by Medusa apply to all these=20 classical monsters. How did they come to be in Hell? It does not = seem that=20 they can be among the fallen. For how could they have status over = the=20 fallen? On the other hand, if they are not fallen, does that mean = God has=20 created them as especially evil beings? This explanation creates = more=20 difficulties than it resolves. Milton's Hell has been called = classical,=20 and if we want a literary context in which to place these = creatures such a=20 label is clearly right. 5 It names, however, a problem, not a = solution. For=20 the classical or traditional Hell, whether of Homer, Virgil, or = Dante, is=20 theologically and therefore narratively complex: it has levels and = parts,=20 responding to degrees of damnation. Milton's Hell=97except in this = part of=20 book 2=97is radically simple. All who are there have rebelled = against God;=20 rebellion against God is the reason they are there; it is the = reason there=20 is a there there. Appropriately, for the first one and a half = books of the=20 poem there are no levels in Hell, no discrete parts, "no rest," as = the=20 narrator puns on the devils' explorations (2.618). Neither are = there any=20 of the grotesque prison guards, monsters, and spirits who mind the = gradations of traditional Hells. How could there be, when there = are no=20 gradations in this Hell to mind? Milton's Hell becomes = classical=97by which=20 I mean it shows classical effects=97for approximately one hundred = lines:=20 from Satan's leaving Pandemonium, to his meeting with Sin and = Death. These=20 lines contain the rivers of Hell, the episode at Lethe, and the = various=20 monstrous creatures. Before these lines, Milton's Hell excludes = the=20 classical. After these lines, Hell is classical no more. The = hundred=20 lines, in short, constitute an anomaly within the narrative of = Paradise=20 Lost. It is an anomaly built around and signaled by Medusa, = and I will=20 continue to consider her as the representative problem.=20

Many contemporary Miltonists would (I think) shrug their = shoulders=20 here. They would say that Medusa is not a narrative anomaly=97 = [End Page=20 1012] or that it doesn't matter if she is=97because = Paradise Lost=20 is not centrally concerned with narrative. Narrative, the logic of = story,=20 was the province of the great anti-Miltonists: of A. J. A. Waldock = and=20 William Empson, who taught that Milton was a fool. The story of=20 Paradise Lost, these mid-century critics said, is a good = one; but=20 its author does not believe in it, or believes in it too much. He=20 therefore obscures and freights it with a dubious theological = discourse.=20 This attack is part of critical history, and Miltonists long ago = secured=20 the citadel of their author. They did so, however, by abandoning = the=20 ground of story. When Stanley Fish argued in his pivotal = Surprised by=20 Sin that the story of Paradise Lost is not supposed to = make=20 sense, he turned Waldock and Empson on their heads; but he did not = change=20 (to stretch the metaphor somewhat) the way they looked. 6 Fish's move became standard to an = extremely learned=20 Milton discipline that matched a mild postmodernism with a very = old=20 historicism, and that was happy to leave both formalist and = Leavisite=20 moral encounters with the poem in favor of source study, portraits = of a=20 seventeenth-century reader, and rigorous abstractions of Milton's=20 theological intent. (Told that the poem was a monument to dead = ideas,=20 Miltonists conceded the point but gently urged that dead ideas = were more=20 interesting anyway.) So when Waldock says that in the middle of = book 2=20 Milton "recollects his duty" to describe a really hellish Hell, = and that=20 this part of the poem constitutes "a decorative fringe or border, = attended=20 to by Milton when his more pressing preoccupations allow," he is = making a=20 sort of criticism that post-Fish Miltonists are able to recuperate = with=20 words like "classical" because they abjure narrative exegesis in = favor of=20 historicizing description. 7 Yet the charge leveled by Waldock=97that = the narrative=20 of the poem is incoherent=97is serious and relevant in its own = terms.=20 Paradise Lost is a narrative text. To turn, as so many = Miltonists=20 do, from story to discourse=97to argue that Milton's "purpose" is = generally=20 expressed above the level of story, in narratorial comments and = symbolic=20 allusive codes=97is simply to beg the question that the = anti-Miltonists set.=20

Although the above is, I think, an excusable oversimplification = of=20 contemporary Paradise Lost criticism, it is not one that I = can=20 easily connect to accounts of Milton's Medusa. 8 That is because very few critics of whom I = am aware=20 have anything to say about her. Commentators on book 2, Hell, the = episode=20 at Lethe, even the mythographic topic of Milton and Medusa=97all = close their=20 eyes when they come to the Gorgon's cameo. John Mulryan, in his = very=20 thorough study of Milton's mythography, mentions the myth of = Medusa twice=20 for [End Page 1013] explicatory purposes without noting = that she=20 appears in the action of Paradise Lost. 9 Claes Schaar, whose work on vertical = context systems=20 has been admitted to the center of Milton studies by Alastair = Fowler,=20 turns to the myth of the Gorgon repeatedly during his textual = archaeology=20 of the poem, without (as far as I can tell) observing her in plain = view on=20 its surface. 10 Richard DuRocher leaves Medusa out of = his=20 Milton and Ovid. 11 Even Julia Walker, who devotes a chapter = of her=20 Medusa's Mirrors to Eve in Paradise Lost, fails to = mention=20 that the Gorgon appears, as a functional narrative figure, in the = poem.=20 12 Other writers engage in a critical = blindness that=20 seems more willed than the above examples: Fish, Dustin Griffin, = and=20 William Kerrigan quote the passage in which Medusa appears while = editing=20 Medusa out (usually in favor of Tantalus)=97covering our eyes, as = Virgil=20 covers Dante's. 13 (Kerrigan's decision is particularly = odd, since=20 the Gorgon would presumably have offered a charged topos for his=20 psychoanalytic reading of the poem.) In his study of the Gorgon = motif,=20 Tobin Siebers writes that "the remarkable ability of the head of = Medusa to=20 represent what cannot be represented or what should not be = represented=20 constantly surfaces in the history of thought." 14 Miltonists make Medusa by not looking at = Medusa.=20 She cannot, it seems, fit into the version of the poem held by = these=20 commentators; so they turn away from her, reproducing in their = criticism=20 the apotrope at Lethe. 15=20

There is nothing very shocking here. If insight grows around = blindness=20 (a proposal that is supported by the current discussion), then it = is only=20 proper that the great discourse paradigm of Paradise Lost = criticism=20 (to which all the above critics in one way or another subscribe) = should=20 find (or rather, lose) places in the poem that it can't read. The = blink=20 that critics offer to Medusa simply proves that her cameo is such = a place.=20 It is not hard to see why. As I have already shown, the episode at = Lethe=20 is narratologically problematic. The discourse model of the poem = is not=20 much interested in such problems. Given what the model calls on = story to=20 do=97to sit still, and not be too interesting=97the conundrum at = Lethe may=20 actually derange its functioning. At the same time, Medusa's = symbolic=20 value seems to indicate that hermeneutic wealth is being carefully = placed=20 on the poem's storyline. For a paradigm that aligns meaning with = the=20 poem's discourse, she is therefore best avoided.=20

Indeed, Milton's placement of Medusa in story causes = hermeneutic=20 problems with or without the discourse model. Medusa is defined, = via=20 mythographic intertexts, by her power of petrifaction. This is a = power=20 that she cannot turn on or off: if you see her you are petrified; = [End=20 Page 1014] it is that sudden and that simple. In the = Inferno=20 (to which I have already alluded) Virgil must shield Dante's eyes = because=20 a Gorgonian appearance threatens them. In the Odyssey, = Odysseus's=20 worst fear is that he will see Medusa's head. In Ovid, Perseus = kills the=20 Gorgon in a sculpture garden of her victims, and later brandishes = her head=20 to petrify Atlas, the followers of Phineus, and Phineus himself. = 16 Reading discursively, then, it seems = that when=20 Medusa faces the damned at Lethe she must, willy-nilly, petrify = them=97an=20 impossibly strange result. (If we decide that the damned cannot be = petrified, the question becomes, why Medusa? And her cameo is = gratuitous=20 and absurd.) But petrifaction of the damned is an especially = unacceptable=20 consequence because it means oblivion=97that is clear from the = tradition.=20 But oblivion is precisely what is offered by Lethe. So it appears = that=20 Medusa, by guarding Lethe, provides Lethe. Her effect becomes=20 self-canceling, and the scene utterly incoherent.=20

We need to be able to control Medusa's hermeneutic radiation of = her=20 narrative surroundings. We need, in fact, an intertext for = Medusa=97or=20 perhaps an intratext. Intertext is the tool of discourse, but = Medusa is in=20 Hell as a kind of refugee from discourse, a symbol exiled to the = narrative=20 real. I suspect that she can only make sense=97can only appear in = the story=20 of Hell=97as text: as a framework that has already contained her=20 signification, configuring her in such a way that she can fit into = Hell.=20 The episode at Lethe, if I am right, is like one of those moments = in films=20 when the characters encounter another film, or, more precisely, = when they=20 interact with a version of some recognizable physical text, like = the=20 Statue of Liberty, or the Pirates of the Caribbean. Medusa as = text, text=20 in text: this is my proposal. The right Medusa-text will make her = cameo=20 make sense and will also explain her place in the ontology of = Hell.=20

And Now to the Abyss I Pass

Now when I first became interested in Milton's Medusa I thought = I had=20 found her source-text and was therefore able both to describe a = difficulty=20 in the poem and offer a complete solution. It was this: the = tableau of=20 Medusa at Lethe quite closely resembles the hydraulic automata and = giocchi d'acqua (or water tricks) of the Italian = Renaissance=20 garden. Much has been written on Milton and the Italian garden, = which has=20 usually been taken as the model for his description of Paradise. = 17 Missing from these accounts, however, = have been=20 the classicizing statues and illusionistic water effects that were = such=20 highlights of the Renaissance garden, and the hydraulic automata, = [End=20 Page 1015] combining both water and statuary, that constituted = its=20 most dazzling component. The automata were almost always on = Ovidian=20 themes, and even static garden statuary was associated with Ovid = and=20 water. English observers described these decorative figures with a = vocabulary of living presence: not "a statue of Pan" or "the = figure of=20 Galatea," but "Pan striking up a melodious tune," "Galatea who = comes out=20 of a Dore," and so on. 18 Indeed, the great point for both = observers and=20 practitioners of Italian garden design was that statuary and = especially=20 automata effected that blurring of the line between art and nature = or art=20 and life that was so prized in Renaissance garden theory and = general=20 aesthetics. To say that a garden designer had managed to create a = "third=20 nature" was both high and standard praise. 19 Milton's Medusa is Ovidian; she is on = active duty,=20 if not in fact animated; and she is closely associated with an = Ovidian=20 water-torture whose echo of the giocchi d'acqua seems, in a = word,=20 tantalizing. Meanwhile, her presence at Lethe moots the boundary = between=20 symbol and character, and (to use the terms once more) story and=20 discourse, in a way that both reflects and is incorporated by the=20 ontological duality of Renaissance garden art. The "harpyfooted = Furies"=20 find their place in this picture, as some of the most famous = automata=20 involved stone birds that flew into view and then flew out again. = 20 And the gorgons, hydras, and chimeras, = even the=20 prodigious things that nature seems to breed, can all be explained = as=20 infernal versions of Italianate garden statuary.=20

Looking from Medusa and her monsters to the Hell that contains = them, we=20 find other possible garden elements. These in turn strengthen the = garden=20 identification for Medusa; the pattern is circular, but = nonetheless=20 apparent. (I argue below that circularity defines Medusa.) The = devils'=20 classicizing games are appropriate to a garden context, as are = their music=20 and philosophizing; the association of gardens with philosophic = discourse=20 goes back to Plato. The "wild uproar" of lines 539-46 may recall = the=20 connection of seventeenth-century garden art to experiments in = creating=20 thunder, lightning, and rain. 21 And the contradictory climates of the = devils'=20 exploration look like an extreme version of varied garden = topographies and=20 accord with humanist ideas of the garden as microcosm. The = "ancient pile"=20 of line 591 seems a suspiciously Romantic element; but Renaissance = gardens=20 were conceived and built among the fragments of ancient = structures, and=20 incorporated ruins both real and fake in their stonework. 22 My argument here is not, let it be = clear, only=20 that we are supposed to read the classical Hell=97or, as it = perhaps should=20 be [End Page 1016] called, the garden Hell=97in this way. = My argument=20 is that the devils literally and narratively encounter it this = way, as=20 they pass through "many a dark and dreary vale" (2.618). This is = what=20 Milton means when he says that God created "by curse" all this = evil=20 (2.622). The evil in question is topographic. It is the creation = of=20 textures=97"Rocks, Caves, Lakes, Fens, Bogs, Dens, and shades of = death"=20 (2.621)=97but not beings. This is God as landscaper, dooming the = fallen to a=20 Satanic Sacro Bosco.=20

To return to Medusa: if in book 2 Hell is an Italian garden, = then her=20 role at Lethe raises no issues for Milton's narrative. Medusa is a = narratological problem only as a being: only if she is one of the = "living=20 wights" who must somehow be placed in Hell. If Medusa is an item = of garden=20 decor the problem does not arise, because she is not alive: she is = a=20 topographic, not a living element, and no more needs a cosmic=20 identification card than does the river or any other part of the=20 landscape. The same goes for all the minor monsters that are = thronging in=20 the background: they are figments of monsters only, hellish = equivalents of=20 Renaissance garden statuary. In short we do not need to worry = about what=20 Medusa is doing in Hell because she is not, strictly speaking, = doing=20 anything at all. She is symbolic: really there, but not real. She = is an=20 animated representation, a hellish garden automaton: a statue.=20

As I have already noted, statuary both moving and still is = missing from=20 studies of Milton and the Italian garden. That is because it is = missing=20 from Paradise. Characteristically Miltonic allusions like = "universal=20 Pan, / knit with the Graces and the Hours in = dance"=20 (4.266-67) may glance at the automata, and the garden historian = John Dixon=20 Hunt goes so far as to wonder whether the "heraldic awkwardness" = of=20 Milton's Edenic animals "is not a legacy of the creations which = frisked=20 and sported, animated by hydraulic machinery, in some Italian = grotto."=20 23 But by omitting statuary from Paradise = and=20 consigning it to Hell, Milton may be making a political comment on = the=20 more architectonic aspects of those luxurious gardens that he = would have=20 seen in Italy, and that were constructed in England in the context = of=20 Stuart absolutism. 24 He is also, I think, cottoning on to a = peculiar=20 quality of the Italian garden that would have been implicit in all = of its=20 statues, explicit in its moving ones. For as the myth of Medusa = makes=20 clear, there is something quite unsettling about human forms in = stone. The=20 perfect sculptural representation achieved in the classical period = and=20 again in the Renaissance creates a weird equipoise between the = apparently=20 living figure and the inanimate material from [End Page = 1017] which=20 (as in Michelangelo's subversive series) life is struggling to get = out.=20 The other side of the delight in "third nature" is the not wholly = pleasant=20 frisson of walking through a mysterious space, neither art nor = nature, to=20 come upon figures who seem to have been frozen in stone. When = those=20 figures are distorted or monstrous, the horror that is latent in=20 astonishment comes out.=20

And this also is part of Italian garden vocabulary. As an = attempt to=20 recreate antique garden spaces for which almost no direct evidence = existed, Italian gardens were modeled on classical literary = topoi=20 in which the natural could be threatening as much as nurturing, = savage as=20 much as luxurious. 25 Garden sculptures included dragons, = harpies, and=20 at least one huge Medusa head, guarding the portal of the Vigna = Carpi in=20 Rome. 26 As Elizabeth MacDougall writes, visitors = who=20 penetrated the labyrinth at the Villa Mattei "may have felt more = than=20 surprise to discover a dragon at its center"; and the infamous = garden at=20 Bomarzo "was certainly intended to provoke feelings of fear and=20 confusion." 27 Indeed, the Sacro Bosco of Bomarzo, to = which I=20 have contrived several allusions, is such a good template for the = garden=20 of Hell that it is tempting to inquire with real persistence = whether=20 Milton went there. In Vicino Orsini's Tuscan wood he would have = found=20 harpies, dragons, Cerberus, a huge Hell mouth, and a large = Gorgonian mask=20 along an artificial lake; in short, "all monstrous, all prodigious = things," in a town whose Etruscan name was, not Pandemonium, but=20 "Polymartium." 28 Vicino's friend Francesco Sansovino = wrote of=20 Bomarzo in various places, including his dedicatory prefaces to = the 1578=20 and 1586 editions of Jacopo Sannazaro's Arcadia. Jackson C. = Boswell=20 puts Sannazaro (though not the Arcadia) in his = reconstruction of=20 Milton's library. 29=20

A final piece of evidence from outside the world of garden = design helps=20 to make my case for Medusa. In 1656 Milton's nephew Edward Philips = published the first Collected Poems of Ben Jonson's = interlocutor=20 William Drummond. The book contains the following epigram:=20

     The Statue of = MEDVSA=20
Of that Medusa strange,
Who those that did her see in = Rockes did=20 change,
None Image caru'd is this;
MEDVSAS self it is, =
For=20 while at Heat of Day,
To quench her Thirst Shee by this = Spring did=20 stay,
Her curling Snakes beholding in this Glasse,
Life = did her=20 leaue, and thus transform'd Shee was. 30 [End Page 1018]=20

Drummond's poem appears to be a transformation of = Amoretti 67,=20 in which the deer comes to the water's edge=97thirsty, according = to=20 iconographic tradition, from snuffling up a meal of snakes. = 31 This growing chain of intertexts helps = to connect=20 Milton's Medusa with his Eve, who is (as Julia Walker points out) = in some=20 ways both a Narcissus and a Medusa analogue. 32 Eve comes to the water and is fascinated = by her=20 own image; if Medusa at the water of Lethe sees her image, then = (according=20 to the logic expressed by Drummond) she must be petrified. Now = Philips, in=20 his preface to the book, calls Drummond "a genius the most polite = and=20 verdant that ever the Scottish nation produced," and compares him = to=20 Tasso. Drummond's Edwardian editor notes Philips's education by = Milton and=20 asks: "May it not then be that Philips, allowing for some = exaggeration on=20 his own part, is recording his uncle's estimate of Drummond's work = as well=20 as his own?" 33 To be sure, Philips has a vested = interest in=20 singing Drummond's praises. Nevertheless, the editor's question = seems to=20 me quite reasonable. The Drummond-Philips connection is, in any = case,=20 evidence for a Medusa-statue text in Milton's immediate milieu. = Drummond's=20 focus on the moment of Medusa's reflection and self-petrifaction = even=20 tends to align his Medusa with a garden automaton, caught between = nature=20 and art, life and stone.=20

Yet as helpful as Drummond's poem is for my argument, it is = also=20 somewhat troubling. Indeed, the helpfulness in this case is = precisely the=20 source of the trouble, a bivalent condition of the kind that = always=20 indicates an interpretative fulcrum. For the poem is a conceit (it = is more=20 John Donne than Jonson), and Medusa as statue is the conceit's = enabling=20 paradox. The water and the reflection are the parameters of the = paradox,=20 and the alignment with automatism is, again, an alignment with = paradox (is=20 perhaps only identifiable by an alignment with paradox). The = petrifier is=20 petrified: fair enough, it is a passable piece of wit. But a piece = of wit=20 like this, I argue, appears in Milton's Hell, where it performs = the=20 narrative function of keeping a multitude of quasi-gods from = forgetting=20 who they are. There are some strictly mechanical difficulties to = this=20 picture=97how can a statue keep anybody from doing anything?=97but = these are=20 forestalled by the semi-vivant quality of automata and, in = general, by the=20 less than literal milieu that is a garden in Hell. More serious is = the=20 matter of the integrity of the Medusa-statue itself. For it is = placed, as=20 I insist, in the story of the poem, and must therefore be = interrogated=20 with the same sorts of narratological and semiological questions = that=20 first led to its discovery. Can Medusa be a statue=97does a statue = of Medusa=20 make sense? [End Page 1019]=20

Comparable period pieces indicate that it mainly makes wit. Ben = venuto=20 Cellini's Perseus and Medusa, as Tobin Siebers argues, = makes Medusa=20 her own murderer by copying her face on his (or his on hers). = 34 The bust attributed to Bernini is a = marble beauty=20 with hair just sprouting snakes, as if to become the petrifier is = also to=20 be petrified (and simultaneously decapitated=97Medusa is rarely = more than a=20 head in art). 35 And in the Medusa interpolation of the = Roman de=20 la Rose, the lover is introduced to an image on a tower (like = the face=20 on the wall of the Vigna Carpi?) that has Medusa's face, but the = opposite=20 of her effect. Whereas Medusa kills, the image heals; whereas = Medusa=20 petrifies, her stone image retrieves life from stone. 36 Medusa is always a liminal figure, and = one strain=20 in her mythography has her capable of giving life or taking it, = petrifying=20 or restoring. 37 But the Rose version is = particularly=20 valuable because it makes explicit the specific liminality that is = engaged=20 by representing Medusa in the fabric that she ordinarily creates. = The=20 image on the tower becomes an anti-Medusa, it is transformed out = of Medusa=20 by being transformed into stone.=20

All these texts express the less than surprising insight that a = statue=20 of the Gorgon is semiotically unstable. A contradiction obtains, = in the=20 idea of the Medusa-statue, between the fabric of representation = and the=20 subject who is being represented. For Medusa is defined, as I said = earlier, by petrifaction. Now the major text for Medusa is Ovid.=20 Petrifaction is easily the most common transformation in the=20 Metamorphoses, and counts, I would say, as a working = definition of=20 metamorphosis in the tradition that Ovid records and extends. It = is not=20 too much to say that Medusa's relentless and continuous petrifying = stance=20 places her as a transformative sign over Ovid's entire text = ("La=20 p=E9trification, c'est moi," she might say). Indeed, Medusa's = role as=20 the very icon of petrifaction places her as a transformative sign = over the=20 entire Ovidian tradition=97a tradition that includes the Italian = garden and,=20 for that matter, the whole art-enterprise of the classicizing = Renaissance,=20 filled as it is with the relics of Gorgonian encounters. It is = squarely=20 against this tradition for Medusa to appear in stone (or any 3-D = ossified=20 format=97Cellini's piece is bronze). The viewer's assumption must = inevitably=20 be that she has turned herself to stone, that she has come under = the power=20 that she normally turns on others. A statue of Medusa is at least = a=20 reflexive joke. It is like a tiny Atlas, or a drowning Neptune. = Medusa=20 appears, in art, to have been transformed; but a transformed = Medusa is a=20 contradiction in terms, because Medusa qua Medusa is not=20 transformed, she is transforming. [End Page 1020]=20

It will be objected, rightly, that any contradiction here is of = my own=20 creation. I proposed a garden as the solution to book 2, Hell; I = suggested=20 that Medusa was an automaton in that garden. If my model is = unstable, that=20 militates against the model. Yet it is quite clear that Medusa = cannot be=20 real in Hell. If she is, then (as I said before) she must petrify = the=20 fallen. And even this scenario returns her, dizzied, to stone. For = if the=20 fallen are turned to stone, they become Ovidian statuary. If they = are=20 Ovidian statuary, we are in a Renaissance sculpture garden. But if = we are=20 in a Renaissance sculpture garden, Medusa looks a lot like a stone = automaton with a watertrick at her feet; and so a real Medusa = becomes a=20 stone one in spite of herself. The configuration of her episode = quite=20 simply ensures this result. What is more, a stone Medusa = presumably cannot=20 petrify anything; and so if the fallen are petrified they turn out = not to=20 be petrified, as the Gorgon's power returns onto itself. The = petrified=20 Medusa, meanwhile, remains paradoxical. There is no way out of = this=20 interpretative circle.=20

Indeed, the real problem seems to be that the Gorgon in her = source-text=20 is paradoxical and circular, quite without the added turn of = seeing her in=20 stone. For Medusa, qua Medusa, is not only transforming. = She is=20 also transformed; she in fact transforms herself. In the=20 Metamorphoses, the girl Medusa is turned into a monster by = Minerva.=20 The goddess then takes the Gorgon's transformed visage onto her = aegis or=20 shield, as a signifier of aggressive chastity. Yet Minerva is = defined,=20 before and after this incident, by that Medusan shield, that = "snaky-headed=20 Gorgon shield" as the Elder Brother puts it in = Comus.=20 38 Ovid himself has Minerva hide her eyes = behind the=20 aegis, the aegis that Medusa serves as signifier, before = Medusa's=20 transformation, and apparently as its cause. Minerva hides her = eyes=20 because Medusa is being raped in the goddess's sanctuary; in = response to=20 this unchastity, the goddess transforms the Gorgon. But clearly = Minerva is=20 already acting, through her aegis, on behalf of aggressive = chastity=97is=20 already actuating the prophylaxis that the transformed Medusa=20 expresses=97for unchastity to prompt this instant punishment. = In other=20 words, the story requires that Minerva transform Medusa's visage = through=20 the power of Medusa's visage: Medusa transforms Medusa, and the=20 snaky-headed Gorgon proves to be nothing but a whirlwind of = exchange.=20

In terms of the Ovidian story, then, Drummond's conceit is = quite=20 myopic. Medusa seeing Medusa does not, as Drummond claims, = transform=20 herself into stone. Medusa seeing Medusa transforms [End Page = 1021]=20 Medusa into Medusa; this absurd and circular formula seems to be = her=20 definition. 39 The aegis of the goddess is her head = nailed on a=20 board and called a mirror. Re: Minerva, Medusa on the shield sees = Medusa=20 in the temple. Re: Perseus, Medusa on the shield mirrors Medusa = among her=20 victims. On neither occasion is the Gorgon petrified. On the = contrary: it=20 is the mirroring, the self-seeing of aegis and aegis, that = produces the=20 Gorgon as petrifier. Given that Medusa is "the" petrifier=97given = that she=20 is inseparable from the process she denotes=97it is fair to say = that the=20 metamorphic loop of aegis and aegis produces petrifaction as a = process,=20 and that "Medusa" is nothing other than the name of this process.=20

For Medusa to be petrified then, would end the change that = constitutes=20 her. The result is no Medusa. Since Medusa =3D petrifaction, the = further=20 result is no petrifaction; so that if Medusa is petrified then = she, like=20 the fallen at Lethe, turns out not to be petrified, because there = is no=20 petrifaction to do the job (I do not think that I am making this = up). But=20 if Medusa cannot be petrified, she must be real at Lethe. But if = she is=20 real, the fallen will be petrified. But if the fallen are = petrified,=20 Medusa looks like a stone garden object. But a Medusa in stone = appears to=20 record the petrifaction of Medusa, which cancels both Medusa and = the=20 possibility of petrifaction. We go round and round and round and = round.=20

In the end we can say with certainty that Medusa at Lethe is a=20 self-canceling sign. If she is real, she provides what she is = guarding=20 (oblivion). In providing it (via petrifaction), she reinforces the = presence of a decorative intertext that indicates she is not real = (she=20 looks like a garden automaton surrounded by statuary). This = intertext,=20 however, is very paradoxical; a semiotic reflux which reveals the = central=20 self-canceling. The garden of Medusa solves the initial problems = of book=20 2, Hell, only to reveal new problems that appear to be insoluble. = It is an=20 eddy in the stream of the story, apparently, and truly anomalous = and=20 weird. This is the only solution I can offer.=20

Of That Unfathomable Grass

It is useful to recall at this point that the garden of Medusa = sits in=20 a larger narrative park. In book 2, line 506, the council in = Pandemonium=20 dissolves. "Forth / In order," the narrator tells us, "came the = grand=20 infernal Peers":=20

Midst came their mighty Paramount, and = seem'd=20
Alone th'Antagonist of Heaven, nor less [End Page = 1022]=20
Than Hell's dread Emperor with pomp Supreme,
And = God-like=20 imitated State; him round
A Globe of fiery Seraphim inclos'd =
With bright imblazonry, and horrent Arms.
Then of thir = Session=20 ended they bid cry
With Trumpet's regal sound the great = result:=20
Toward the four winds four speedy Cherubim
Put to thir = mouths=20 the sounding Alchymy
By Herald's voice explain'd: the hollow = Abyss=20
Heard far and wide, and all the host of Hell
With = deaf'ning=20 shout, return'd them loud acclaim.
Thence more at ease thir = minds=20 and somewhat rais'd
By false presumptuous hope, the ranged = powers=20
Disband, and wand'ring, each his several way
Pursues, as = inclination or sad choice
Leads him perplext, where he may = likeliest=20 find
Truce to his restless thoughts, and entertain
The = irksome=20 hours, till this great Chief return. =

(2.507-27)=20

But the great chief has not left. In point of fact he never = leaves; his=20 leaving is never recounted. Satan goes AWOL from the passage I = have=20 quoted: he has left it by "then of thir session ended" but has not = been=20 narrated out. He emerges from Pandemonium, from the "midst came = their=20 mighty Paramount"; and holds our attention with "a Globe of fiery = Seraphim=20 inclos'd," an image that bids fair to keep him there forever; but = then he=20 is suddenly, and unaccountably, gone. Our focus slips sideways = onto the=20 "they" of the anomalous Hell, and we are quickly involved in its = classical=20 morbidities. Satan does not reappear until line 629, "meanwhile = the=20 adversary of God and Man," the line that concludes the strange = effects of=20 the anomalous section and leads to the encounter with Sin and = Death.=20 Structurally speaking, the key to this section of the poem is = here: the=20 entire anomalous section of book 2, Hell occurs between "midst" = and=20 "meanwhile"=97words which signal betweenness=97and in lieu of a = continuous=20 narrative account of Satan's movement toward the world. This is an = interim=20 space in the poem, marked off explicitly as a separate narrative = segment.=20 Satan's unexplained absence=97the absence of his absence, so to=20 speak=97symbolically diffuses him through the bracketed segment. = He is=20 present in the anomalous Hell because he has not been ruled = absent, and=20 because he has no other way to get from Pandemonium to Sin. In his = departure for the garden of the world, he enters by proxy the = garden of=20 Hell. [End Page 1023]=20

At the bottom of that garden he finds Medusa=97he, the fallen = angels, and=20 the damned of future times. "They" find a figure who cannot be = there,=20 doing something she cannot do=97the center and summation of the=20 between-space of Hell. Medusa concludes the tortures of this = photogenic=20 interim and prompts the narrator to begin winding it up: "Thus = roving on /=20 In confus'd march forlorn" (2.614-15). In a marked narrative = segment that=20 violates the poem's narrative logic, she is the critical = violation: the=20 gap at which all the fallen gape. And she, with the entire anomaly = around=20 her, is framed by Satan's leap across the gap, from midst to = meanwhile.=20

Now the words "midst" and "meanwhile" frame another passage, = this time=20 of about sixty lines, in book 10. This is at the other end of the = story of=20 the world, after the completion of the Hell-bridge begun in book 2 = (which=20 Death fixes "with Gorgonian rigor" [10.297]). After = describing to=20 the devils his triumph in Paradise, Satan comes out of = Pandemonium, again=20 in the "midst" of his crew. But again, he does not really come = out.=20 "Midst" again introduces a narrative between-space of = extraordinary=20 effects, leading, again, to Sin and Death after the "meanwhile." = There is=20 a garden in the middle of the bracketed segment; and at the bottom = of that=20 garden is Medusa.=20

still greatest hee the midst,
Now = Dragon=20 grown, larger than whom the Sun
Ingender'd in the = Pythian=20 vale on slime,
Huge Python, and his Power no less he = seem'd=20
Above the rest still to retain; they all
Him follow'd = issuing=20 forth to th'open Field=20 =
.....................................................................= ..........=20
There stood
A Grove hard by, sprung up with this thir = change,=20
His will who reigns above, to aggravate
Thir penance, = laden with=20 fair Fruit, like that
Which grew in Paradise=20 =
.....................................................................= ...........=20
But on they roll'd in heaps, and up the Trees
Climbing, = sat=20 thicker than the snaky locks
That curl'd Megaera: = greedily=20 they pluck'd
That fruitage fair to sight, like that which = grew=20
Near that bituminous Lake where Sodom flam'd... =
Meanwhile in=20 Paradise the hellish pair
Too soon arriv'd, Sin there = in=20 power before.

(10.528-86) [End Page = 1024]

Megaera is not Medusa, but Megaera is not in the story. She is=20 discourse: an allusion that textures and modulates the narrative. = Megaera=20 is one of the Furies, snaky-haired Gorgon-alternates who call on = Medusa in=20 Dante's City of Dis. 40 She is the third of the Furies, as = Medusa is third=20 of the Gorgons. 41 She thus provides instructive shape to = the snaky=20 locks in the tree, which actually are in the story. And this is = the second=20 coming of Medusa. The snakes of lines 524-48 are copied from = Lucan's=20 account of the Libyan serpents, engendered by the drippings of = Medusa's=20 severed head. 42 Milton is careful to point out this = reference: the=20 Libyan sand was, he says, "Bedropt with blood of Gorgon" (10.527). =

Medusa, then, appears twice in the story of Paradise = Lost. Both=20 times the context of her appearance is fantastic, a cosmic = anomaly. Both=20 anomalies take as their content an aspect of gardens. Between the = two=20 anomalies comes the main part of the poem, with its focus on the = garden=20 from which all others derive. There, the constitutive elements of = the=20 Gorgon=97snake and woman=97are of course present and arranged in = other=20 combinations; "this fair Tree amidst" (9.661).=20

I conclude that Milton's Medusa is a metanarrative sign. Her = first=20 appearance, which violates the logic of story and draws attention = to her=20 own semiotic instability, looks forward to her second, which is = less=20 troubling narratologically (we are told that God intervenes to = produce the=20 weird effects) and more salient semiotically: for here the fallen = angels=20 become Medusa and are themselves included in this sign of what = can't be=20 shown. After they are incorporated into Medusa=97after they = manifest, like a=20 Hellish tumbling crew, the self-canceling sign=97they disappear = completely=20 from the poem. Medusa, placed in story, severs story, like a hole = in the=20 road.=20

Between Medusa and Medusa, the main action of the poem is = segmented. As=20 Satan leaps the first gap from midst to meanwhile, so he, on one = level,=20 leaps the gap from Medusa to Medusa. It is not clear to me that he = ever=20 fully leaves Pandemonium, or in what sense his adventure away from = it=20 actually "happens." When he re-enters the palace, we do not see = him come=20 in: he ascends his throne invisibly and fades into view (10.449). = It is a=20 real narrative question=97mooted by this invisible-man act, by its = matching=20 to the disappearing-act of book 2, and by the presence of Medusa = at both=20 episodes=97whether he has really been away.=20

The story, that is, contradicts itself as story: it moots its = own=20 integrity with Medusa's irresolvable confounds. And this is very=20 appropriate. For the narrative form of Paradise Lost is = story=20 maugre [End Page 1025] story. Satan forces story = into God's=20 symbolic world, by creating the evil that conflicts with good and = renders=20 the universe tellable. These events are narrated, but within a = lament for=20 the necessity of narration. Story is central to Paradise = Lost,=20 because the poem's central story both fascinates and appalls. In = this it=20 is like its signal character of Medusa.

 


Simon Fraser University =

Notes

1. By "story" I mean, with low-grade = structuralism, what=20 happens in the narrative; by "discourse," all interpretative = comments that=20 the narrator makes about what happens.=20

2. John Milton, Paradise Lost, in John = Milton:=20 Complete Poems and Major Prose, ed. Merritt Y. Hughes (New = York:=20 Macmillan, 1957), 2.615, 597; hereafter cited parenthetically by = book and=20 line number.=20

3. See Judith Suther, "The Gorgon Medusa," in = Mythical=20 and Fabulous Creatures: A Source Book and Research Guide, ed. = Malcolm=20 South (New York: Bedrick, 1988). Suther shows that the = prophylactic Gorgon=20 is one of the most ancient and ubiquitous of Greek symbols, and = that=20 already for Homer "the Gorgon has become so much a symbol that he=20 introduces her only as a detail, calling up but never retelling = the full=20 biography which listeners are presumed to know" (164).=20

4. Paradise Lost, 1.266, 9.890.=20

5. David Loewenstein, for example, suggests in = his study=20 guide to the poem that Milton's Hell "competes with and outdoes = classical=20 representations." See Loewenstein, Milton: Paradise Lost=20 (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1993), 72. The designation of a = classical Hell in book 2 of Paradise Lost seems to = originate with=20 Dustin Griffin, "Milton's Hell: Perspectives on the Fallen," = Milton=20 Studies 13 (1979): 237-53.=20

6. Stanley Fish, Surprised by Sin (London: = Macmillan, 1967).=20

7. Waldock, Paradise Lost and its Critics=20 (Gloucester, Mass.: Peter Smith, 1959), 95. William Empson's = account of=20 Paradise Lost is in his Milton's God, rev. ed. = (London:=20 Chatto and Windus, 1965).=20

8. For a proper account, to which I am very = obviously=20 indebted, the reader should see John P. Rumrich, Milton = Unbound:=20 Controversy and Reinterpretation (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. = Press,=20 1996).=20

9. John Mulryan, "Through a Glass Darkly": = Milton's=20 Reinvention of the Mythological Tradition (Pittsburgh: = Duquesne Univ.=20 Press, 1996), 156, 163.=20

10. See Alastair Fowler's preface to his = Paradise=20 Lost, 2nd ed. (London: Longman, 1998), 11. Claes Schaar, = The Full=20 Voic'd Quire Below: Vertical Context Systems in Paradise Lost, = vol.=20 60, Lind Studies in English (Berlings, Arl=F6v: CWK Gleerup, = 1982).=20

11. Richard DuRocher, Milton and Ovid = (Ithaca:=20 Cornell Univ. Press, 1985).=20

12. Julia M. Walker, Medusa's Mirrors: = Spenser,=20 Shakespeare, Milton and the Metamorphosis of the Female Self = (London:=20 Associated Univ. Press, 1998).=20

13. See Fish, 35; Griffin, 249; William = Kerrigan, The=20 Sacred Complex: On the Psychogenesis of Paradise Lost = (Cambridge:=20 Harvard Univ. Press, 1983), 171. Virgil [End Page 1026] = covers=20 Dante's eyes to shield him from the Medusa in Inferno = (Dante=20 Alighieri, Inferno, trans. Allen Mandelbaum [New York: = Bantam,=20 1980], 9.60).=20

14. Tobin Siebers, The Mirror of Medusa = (Berkeley:=20 Univ. of California Press, 1983), 8.=20

15. Rumrich does mention Medusa. However, he=20 interpretatively displaces her in favor of Tantalus, in the manner = of=20 Fish, Kerrigan, and Griffin. See Rumrich, 87. I cannot claim that = only=20 Miltonists fail to read Medusa: The Oxford Encyclopedia of = Classical=20 Mythology in the Arts gives an entry for Milton's evocation of = the=20 Gorgon in Comus, but not for his placement of her in the = action of=20 Paradise Lost.=20

16. The Odyssey, trans. Robert Fitzgerald = (New=20 York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 1998), 11.582-92. The = Metamorphoses=20 of Ovid, trans. Mandelbaum (San Diego: Harcourt Brace and Co., = 1993),=20 books 4 and 5.=20

17. Hannah Disinger Demaray, "Milton's 'Perfect' = Paradise=20 and the Landscapes of Italy," Milton Quarterly 8.2 (1974): = 33-40;=20 G. Stanley Koehler, "Milton and the Art of Landscape," Milton=20 Studies 8 (1975): 3-40; and John Dixon Hunt, "Milton and the = Making of=20 the English Landscape Garden," Milton Studies 15 (1981): = 81-105.=20

18. Hunt, Garden and Grove: The Italian = Renaissance=20 Garden in the English Imagination: 1600-1750 (London: J. M. = Dent and=20 Sons, 1986), 55, travel diaries quoted on 54.=20

19. David R. Coffin, Gardens and Gardening in = Papal=20 Rome (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1991), 103-5; and = Hunt,=20 Garden and Grove, 6-7, 45-48, 54-56, and 90-99.=20

20. Hunt, Garden and Grove, 44.=20

21. Eugenio Battisti, "Natura Artificiosa = to=20 Natura Artificialis," in The Italian Garden, ed. = Coffin=20 (Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Trustees for Harvard Univ., = 1972), 8.=20

22. Coffin, 119, 65-66; Hunt, Garden and = Grove, 7,=20 11-29.=20

23. Hunt, "Milton," 93.=20

24. Roy Strong, The Renaissance Garden in = England=20 (London: Thames and Hudson, 1977), 73-112, 199-203; Hunt, = Garden and=20 Grove, 112-26; and Graham Parry, The Seventeenth Century: = The=20 Intellectual and Cultural Context of English Literature, = 1603-1700=20 (London: Longman, 1989), 55-59.=20

25. Hunt, Garden and Grove, 49.=20

26. Coffin, 66-67.=20

27. Elizabeth MacDougall, "Ars = Hortulorum:=20 Sixteenth Century Garden Iconography and Literary Theory In = Italy," in=20 The Italian Garden, 44.=20

28. See Margaretta J. Darnall and Mark S. Weill, = "Il Sacro=20 Bosco di Bomarzo: Its Sixteenth Century Literary and Antiquarian = Context,"=20 Journal of Garden History 4.1 (1984): 2. This entire number = of the=20 journal is devoted to Bomarzo. North of Rome, "where = th'Etrurian=20 shades / High over-arch't embow'r" (1.303-4), Bomarzo could have = found its=20 way onto Milton's itinerary in 1638. Vicino was a soldier and = minor poet=20 whose garden may have inspired, according to Darnell and Weill, = the=20 enchanted wood of Tasso's Gerusalemme Liberata, book 18. He = was=20 also a highly independent spirit who received the visits of few = prominent=20 people because he refused to treat them as anything more than his = equals.=20 All of this would have interested Milton. Further information on = Bomarzo=20 may be found in Horst Bredekamp, Vicino Orsini und der heilige = Wald von=20 Bomarzo: ein F=FCrst als K=FCnstler und Anarchist (Worms: = Werner, 1985);=20 and in Coffin, 105-25. For literary references to Bomarzo, = including that=20 by Francesco Sansovino in Sannazaro's Arcadia, [End Page = 1027] see J. B. Bury, "The Reputation of Bomarzo," Journal = of=20 Garden History 3.2 (1983): 108-12; and an earlier article by = Bury,=20 "Some Early Literary References to Italian Gardens," Journal of = Garden=20 History 2.1 (1982): 17-24. One of Bury's references is = Sansovino's=20 Ritratto delle citta d'Italia=97the sort of guide that a = bookish=20 multilingual traveller might have relied on?=20

29. See Jackson C. Boswell, Milton's Library: = A=20 Catalogue of the Remains of John Milton's Library and an Annotated = Reconstruction of Milton's Library and Ancillary Readings (New = York:=20 Garland, 1975).=20

30. Drummond's epigram may be found in The = Poetical=20 Works of William Drummond of Hawthornden, with "A Cypress = Grove," vol.=20 1, ed. L. E. Kastner (Manchester: Manchester Univ. Press, 1913), = 99.=20

31. See Anne Lake Prescott, "The Thirsty Deer = and the Lord=20 of Life: Some Contexts for Amoretti 67-70," Spenser = Studies=20 6 (1985): 33-76.=20

32. See Walker, 158-87.=20

33. Poetical Works, xxxii. See also the = Maitland=20 Club's 1832 edition of The Poems of William Drummond (New = York:=20 Johnson Reprint Corp, 1971), xi. The idea that Milton taught = Philips to=20 like Drummond goes back to William Goodwin's Lives of Edward = and John=20 Philips (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1815). =

34. See Siebers, 12.=20

35. A full-page photograph of the Bernini bust = may be=20 found in Rudolf Wittkower, Gian Lorenzo Bernini: The Sculptor = of the=20 Roman Baroque, 2nd edition (London: The Phaidon Press, 1966).=20

36. Walker, 182. Walker works from an article by = Sylvia=20 Huot, "The Medusa Interpolation in the Romance of the Rose: = Mythographic Program and Ovidian Intertext," Speculum 62 = (1987):=20 865-77.=20

37. See Siebers, 13-14, 19.=20

38. Milton, Comus, in John Milton: = Complete=20 Poems and Major Prose, 447-48.=20

39. For the circularity of the Medusa-Minerva=20 relationship, see Siebers, 14-16; and Hazel E. Barnes, The = Meddling=20 Gods: Four Essays On Classical Themes (Lincoln: Univ. of = Nebraska=20 Press, 1974), 1-52.=20

40. It is worth recording that after Virgil, not = content=20 with Dante's own shielding hands, covers the mortal's eyes with = his own in=20 order to ward off any sight of Medusa, Dante delivers himself of = the=20 following exemplum:=20

     O voi = ch'avete li=20 'ntelletti sani,
mirate la dottrina che s'asconde =
sotto 'l velame de li versi strani.=20
    [O you possessed of sturdy = intellects,=20
observe the teaching that is hidden here
beneath the = veil of=20 verses so obscure.]

(Inferno, 9.61-63) =


41. According to, among others, Fabius = Planciades=20 Fulgentius. See Fulgentius, Fulgentius the Mythographer, = trans.=20 Leslie George Whitbread (Columbus: Ohio State Univ. Press, 1971), = 52.=20
42. In Lucan, Lucan's Civil War, trans. = P. F.=20 Widdows (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1988), 9.737-50. =

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