12:9). In Milton's poem, the rebels who fall with Lucifer amount to one-third of the angels in Heaven.
Greek myths about fallen deities are much fuller. Several versions of such tales exist, and Milton seems to have been familiar with them all. In his poem, for example, when Christ routs the devils from Heaven, forcing them into the abyss, they fall "Nine times the Space that measures Day and Night / to mortal men" before they find themselves in Hell (Milton, Paradise Lost, 1.50- 51). In Greek myth, a nine-day fall is the fate of the Titans, who attempted to oust Zeus and his younger group of gods, the Olympians, who had seized control of the heavens. Hundred-armed giants come to Zeus's aid, hurling hundreds of boulders at the enemy Titans and driving them beneath the earth; the fall down to the depths takes nine days and nine nights. Milton almost certainly had this scene in mind when he described enemy angels throwing mountains at each other in Paradise Lest.
Adam, Eve, and the Garden of Eden. Milton's poem is based on the Judeo-Christian Book of Genesis, in which God creates the entire universe in six days.
This is a free page. This page contains 189 words. This
article contains 3,867 words (approx. 13 pages at 300
words per page).
Read the rest of this Article with our Paradise Lost Access Pass.
