Illustration to Paradise Lost 10

The Judgment of Adam and Eve

From Book 10

from his radiant Seat he rose
Of high collateral glorie: him Thrones and Powers,
Princedoms, and Dominations ministrant
Accompanied to Heaven Gate, from whence
Eden and all the Coast in prospect lay.
⁹⁰Down he descended strait; the speed of Gods
Time counts not, though with swiftest minutes wing'd.
Now was the Sun in Western cadence low
From Noon, and gentle Aires due at thir hour
To fan the Earth now wak'd, and usher in
⁹⁵The Eevning coole, when he from wrauth more coole
Came the mild Judge and Intercessor both
To sentence Man: the voice of God they heard
Now walking in the Garden, by soft windes
Brought to thir Ears, while day declin'd, they heard,
¹⁰⁰And from his presence hid themselves among
The thickest Trees, both Man and Wife, till God
Approaching, thus to Adam call'd aloud.

Where art thou Adam, wont with joy to meet
My coming seen far off? I miss thee here,
¹⁰⁵Not pleas'd, thus entertaind with solitude,
Where obvious dutie erewhile appear'd unsaught:
Or come I less conspicuous, or what change
Absents thee, or what chance detains? Come forth.
He came, and with him Eve, more loth, though first
¹¹⁰To offend, discount'nanc't both, and discompos'd;
Love was not in thir looks, either to God
Or to each other, but apparent guilt,
And shame, and perturbation, and despaire,
Anger, and obstinacie, and hate, and guile.
¹¹⁵Whence Adam faultring long, thus answer'd brief.

I heard thee in the Garden, and of thy voice
Affraid, being naked, hid my self. To whom
The gracious Judge without revile repli'd.

My voice thou oft hast heard, and hast not fear'd,
¹²⁰But still rejoyc't, how is it now become
So dreadful to thee? that thou art naked, who
Hath told thee? hast thou eaten of the Tree
Whereof I gave thee charge thou shouldst not eat?

To whom thus Adam sore beset repli'd.
¹²⁵O Heav'n! in evil strait this day I stand
Before my Judge, either to undergoe
My self the total Crime, or to accuse
My other self, the partner of my life;
Whose failing, while her Faith to me remaines,

¹⁷⁵Because thou hast done this, thou art accurst
Above all Cattle, each Beast of the Field;
Upon thy Belly groveling thou shalt goe,
And dust shalt eat all the dayes of thy Life.
Between Thee and the Woman I will put
¹⁸⁰Enmitie, and between thine and her Seed;
Her Seed shall bruise thy head, thou bruise his heel.
The Judge spoke to the Serpent
So spake this Oracle, then verifi'd
When Jesus son of Mary second Eve,
Saw Satan fall like Lightning down from Heav'n,

The figures at the top of the image are Sin and Death; they have found the Gates of Hell, enabled by the Fall of Adam and Ev.

For another picture Sin and Death are in combat. (Look at Paradise Lost 2)

The central figure is of course a forgiving Christ standing between a penitent Adam and a shame faced Eve.

At the bottom the Serpent slivers in the dust.


As the Bible story goes, after they had sinned, they were ashamed of their nakedness and found nothing but fig leaves for clothing; the snake slithered on a foundation of fig leaves and all the others stood on it.

This idea of the judgment and intercession settles the question (for Blake) of a God of Wrath (OT) and a God of Forgiveness and Mercy (NT)

Illustration to Paradise Lost 9

The Temptation and Fall of Eve

From Book IX

wikisource

Shee fair, divinely fair, fit Love for Gods,

⁴⁹⁰Not terrible, though terrour be in Love

And beautie, not approacht by stronger hate,

Hate stronger, under shew of Love well feign'd,

The way which to her ruin now I tend.

So spake the Enemie of Mankind, enclos'd

⁴⁹⁵In Serpent, Inmate bad, and toward Eve

Address'd his way, not with indented wave,

Prone on the ground, as since, but on his reare,

Circular base of rising foulds, that tour'd

Fould above fould a surging Maze, his Head

⁵⁰⁰Crested aloft, and Carbuncle his Eyes;

With burnisht Neck of verdant Gold, erect

Amidst his circling Spires, that on the grass

Floted redundant: pleasing was his shape,

And lovely, never since of Serpent kind

⁵⁰⁵Lovelier, not those that in Illyria chang'd

Hermione and Cadmus, or the God

In Epidaurus; nor to which transformd

Ammonian Jove, or Capitoline was seen,

Hee with Olympias, this with her who bore

⁵¹⁰Scipio the highth of Rome . With tract oblique

At first, as one who sought access, but feard

To interrupt, side-long he works his way.

As when a Ship by skilful Stearsman wrought

Nigh Rivers mouth or Foreland, where the Wind

⁵¹⁵Veres oft, as oft so steers, and shifts her Saile;

So varied hee, and of his tortuous Traine

Curld many a wanton wreath in sight of Eve,

To lure her Eye; shee busied heard the sound

Of rusling Leaves, but minded not, as us'd

⁵²⁰To such disport before her through the Field,

From every Beast, more duteous at her call,

Then at Circean call the Herd disguis'd.

Hee boulder now, uncall'd before her stood;

But as in gaze admiring: Oft he bowd

⁵²⁵His turret Crest, and sleek enamel'd Neck,

Fawning, and lick'd the ground whereon she trod.

His gentle dumb expression turnd at length

The Eye of Eve to mark his play; he glad

Of her attention gaind, with Serpent Tongue

⁵³⁰Organic, or impulse of vocal Air,

His fraudulent temptation thus began.

Eating the Apple
wiki common 

Blake shows Eve, leaning against the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil,  with the Serpent wrapped around her, eating the fruit offered to her by the snake.

In contrast Adam is looking away; the serpent has not bothered with him.

In Blake's myth and value structure the man is contemplative and the woman active, spiritual rather then material; we might suppose that this conforms to what we read in Genesis:
Chapter Two
[15] And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.
[16] And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:
[17] 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.
[18] And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.
[19] And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.
[20] And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him.
[21] And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;
[22] And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.
[23] And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.
[24] Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.
[25] And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.

Illustration to Paradise Lost 7

                                             From Text of Book I
Hurld headlong flaming from th' Ethereal Skie With hideous ruine and combustion down To bottomless perdition, there to dwell In Adamantine Chains and penal Fire, Who durst defie th' Omnipotent to Arms.

From Text of Book VI

 Go then thou Mightiest in thy Fathers might, Ascend my Chariot, guide the rapid Wheeles That shake Heav'ns basis, bring forth all my Warr, My Bow and Thunder, my Almightie Arms Gird on, and Sword upon thy puissant Thigh; Pursue these sons of Darkness, drive them out From all Heav'ns bounds into the utter Deep:

The Route of the Rebel Angels

From the Thomas Set

Wiki Common
Paradise Lost

The central figure right below Christ's arrow is Satan head first, genitals 

prominently showing..

Like many of the falling rebels he's holding his head, an indication

that the fall is mental as well as physical.  Dr. Essick refers us to 

the Book of Milton, Plate 34:

These are the Gods of the Kingdoms of the Earth: in contrarious

And cruel opposition: Element against Element,  opposed in War

Not Mental as the Wars of Eternity but a Corporeal Strife

,   

Paradise Lost 6

From wikipedia
Raphael is an archangel who God sends to warn Adam about Satan's infiltration of Eden and to warn him that Satan is going to try to curse Adam and Eve. He also has a lengthy discussion with the curious Adam regarding creation and events which transpired in Heaven.

Taken from 'William Blake at the Huntington:

(This image depends mainly upon Books IV and V of Milton's Paradise Lost.)

From Text of Book IV

¹⁹⁰So clomb this first grand thief into God's fold;
So since into his church lewd hirelings climb.
Thence up he flew, and on the tree of life,
The middle tree and highest there that grew,
Sat like a cormorant; yet not true life
¹⁹⁵Thereby regained, but sat devising death
To them who lived; nor on the virtue thought
Of that life-giving plant, but only used
For prospect, what well used had been the pledge
Of immortality.

His far more pleasant garden God ordained;
Out of the fertile ground he caused to grow
²¹⁵All trees of noblest kind for sight, smell, taste;
And all amid them stood the tree of life,
High eminent, blooming ambrosial fruit
Of vegetable gold; and next to life,
Our death, the tree of knowledge, grew fast by,
²²⁰Knowledge of good bought dear by knowing ill.

³³⁵Nor gentle purpose, nor endearing smiles
Wanted, nor youthful dalliance, as beseems
Fair couple, linked in happy nuptial league,
Alone as they. About them frisking played
All beasts of the earth, since wild, and of all chase
³⁴⁰In wood or wilderness, forest or den;
Sporting the lion ramped, and in his paw
Dandled the kid; bears, tigers, ounces, pards,
Gambolled before them; the unwieldy elephant,
To make them mirth, used all his might, and wreathed
³⁴⁵His lithe proboscis; close the serpent sly,
Insinuating, wove with Gordian twine
His braided train, and of his fatal guile
Gave proof unheeded; others on the grass
Couched, and now filled with pasture gazing sat,
³⁵⁰Or bedward ruminating; for the sun,

From Text of Book V

Two onely, who yet by sov'ran gift possess
This spacious ground, in yonder shadie Bowre
To rest, and what the Garden choicest bears
To sit and taste, till this meridian heat
Be over, and the Sun more coole decline. [ 370 ]

Whom thus the Angelic Vertue answerd milde.
Adam, I therefore came, nor art thou such
Created, or such place hast here to dwell,
As may not oft invite, though Spirits of Heav'n
To visit thee; lead on then where thy Bowre [ 375 ]
Oreshades; for these mid-hours, till Eevning rise
I have at will. So to the Silvan Lodge
They came, that like Pomona's Arbour smil'd
With flourets deck't and fragrant smells; but Eve
Undeckt, save with her self more lovely fair [ 380 ]
Then Wood-Nymph, or the fairest Goddess feign'd
Of three that in Mount Ida naked strove,
Stood to entertain her guest from Heav'n; no vaile
Shee needed, Vertue-proof, no thought infirme
Alterd her cheek.

Raphael Warns Adam and Eve
(from the Butts Set)

Illustration of Paradise Lost (Wiki Common)

(the Thomas Set)

The scene is the Garden of Eden.  
Three figures sit in a power enclosed by palms,
(Lilies also, but only in Eden)

Adam is sitting on the left; 

Eve stands in the middle.

Raphael sits on the right and describes to the couple what

the prospects of; happiness he points to the Tree of Life.

The Tree of Life is at the high central image.

Notice the hands of all three; Eve is holding a cluster of

grapes in her right hand and a holding a bowl in her left.

Both of these images display a table, 
the Thomas set is the smaller of the two.

x`

A Symbolic Poet

     Blake was a highly symbolic poet (and painter); to understand much of his thought requires acquaintance with a body of symbols that go back to the dawn of civilization, and up to the 19th century. In an age when only the material seemed to matter Blake was (and continues to be) highly opaque to the pure materialist. Such a person will find most of Blake's ideas meaningless.

       But at the deepest level his ideas are the veritable stuff of life: love and hate, good and evil, life and death, and many ideas with urgent meaning. A high proportion of people prefer to turn aside from these questions, but you can be sure that their unconscious is full of them.

       Above all Blake is about matter and spirit, at the great dividing line: do you see yourself primarily as a body or as spirit?

       Begin with the conclusion, to be supported by an overwhelming body of evidence stretching from Heraclitusin the 6th century BC to the present:

       Our mortal life is a vale of tears to which we have lapsed from Eternity and from which we will (may?) eventually escape back into the Higher Realm. This myth conforms very closely to the Gnostics, the Platonists, and of course most of Eastern Religion. In the Christian tradition one can find vestiges of it in many of the mystics, notably Meister Eckhart, in Mexican folk culture and in fact universally.

       The western mind revolts from this "never-never land" at least on the conscious level, but Freud, Jung, and many other psychologists find strong evidence for it in the unconscious. At this point many readers may dismiss Blake's myth as not worth their attention.
       The select few who remain may rightfully expect an entirely new world of grace and enchantment to open before their minds. The biblically oriented may perceive that all Blake's poetic and artistic work fits into a scheme of cosmic/psychic meaning; closely following the Bible it describes the pattern of Paradise, the Fall, a gradual redemption, and the final Rapture.

Illustrations of Paradise Lost 2

Paradise Lost Book One includes:

1. At last appear
2. Hell-bounds, high reaching to the horrid roof,
3. And thrice threefold the gates; three folds were brass,
4. Three iron, three of adamantine rock,
5. Impenetrable, impaled with circling fire,
6. Yet unconsumed. Before the gates there sat
7. On either side a formidable shape.
8. The one seemed woman to the waist, and fair,
9. But ended foul in many a scaly fold,
10. Voluminous and vast, a serpent armed
11. With mortal sting. About her middle round
12. A cry of Hell-hounds never-ceasing barked
13. With wide Cerberean mouths full loud, and rung

.Butts 2

Satan, Sin, and Death: Satan Comes to the Gates of Hell

From Works:

This Plate shows a contest between Satan and Death in the midst of Sin.

The lady retween them is Sin; she seems to be trying to separate the others.

On the left is Satan; on the right is a transparent Death.
Each on has a fiery spear pointed at the other.

Under their feet are two Serpents,their mouths coming up at each border.

In the bottom center, whenever the coils of the serpent is a frightful creature, invocative of the Great Red Dragon of Revelation.  But Works reports:
 Below her loins are two coiled serpent's tails and the heads of four hell hounds. 

We can imagine a large hall open on the left and a large gate on the right, the gates of hell.

Four links of a large chain emerge from the upper center and is said to
 dangle to the right of Death's left calf. A chain hangs from the upper edge of the design. Fire fills the passage on the left and appears along the lower edge of the design below the figures.

Satan and Death stand fighting with Sin between them. Satan, on the left, strides to the right with his arms bent upward. He holds a spear in his raised right hand and an oval shield in his left. Death's body is transparent. He stands with his back to the viewer and leans slightly to the right; with both hands he holds a fiery spear or dart which is pointed at Satan. Sin kneels between the two figures with her arms raised as if to separate them. Her right hand touches the left side of Satan's torso. Below her loins are two coiled serpent's tails and the heads of four hell hounds. A key attached to a chain dangles to the right of Death's left calf. The scene takes place in a chamber or hall with an open passage on the left and a large gate, with a lowered portcullis, on the right. These are the gates of hell. A chain hangs from the upper edge of the design. Fire fills the passage on the left and appears along the lower edge of the design below the figures.

Satan and Death stand fighting with This from Works Sin between them. Satan, on the left, strides to the right with his arms bent upward. He holds a spear in his raised right hand and an oval shield in his left. Death's body is transparent. He stands with his back to the viewer and leans slightly to the right; with both hands he holds a fiery spear or dart which is pointed at Satan. Sin kneels between the two figures with her arms raised as if to separate them. Her right hand touches the left side of Satan's torso. Below her loins are two coiled serpent's tails and the heads of four hell hounds. A key attached to a chain dangles to the right of Death's left calf. The scene takes place in a chamber or hall with an open passage on the left and a large gate, with a lowered portcullis, on the right. These are the gates of hell. A chain hangs from the upper edge of the design. Fire fills the passage on the left and appears along the lower edge of the design below the figures.

Satan, Sin, and Death:
Satan Comes to the Gates of Hell

Blake pics covering cherub

When Blake and Milton lived, the social, economic, and political moments showed close similarities (the present moment emulates the above as well).




MHH has a lot of congruence with Paradise Lost:




The Marriage of Heaven and Hell came in 1790, soon after the end of the American Revolution and before the beginning of the French Revolution.




Milton lived while a British King was beheaded and replaced by the Commonwealth, an alternative form of of government; he published Paradise Lost in 1667, a few years after the Restoration.




Blake and Milton were both dissenters and had republican feelings. They both lived in perilous times and might well have been branded as traitors.


Blake's overt use of Paradise Lost is in the two sets of Illustrations:


The Rev. Joseph Thomas set was dated 1807 and the larger Butts set in 1808:









Satan Arousing the Rebel Angels

http://commons.wikimedia.org



Butts 1


Hell is a rocky place!


Standing on a 'rock in Hell' Satan streches out his arms exhorting his rebel band, who seem pretty well 'played out' after what has happened to them; four at the bottom resemble other pictures Blake did for the four zoas, but these four are in chains.




Adam lies on a couch behind Satan's knees.




From PL Book One:



The infernal Serpent; he it was whose guile,




Stirred up with envy and revenge, deceived





The mother of mankind, what time his pride




Had cast him out from Heaven, with all his host




Of rebel Angels, by whose aid, aspiring




To set himself in glory above his peers,




He trusted to have equalled the Most High,





If he opposed, and, with ambitious aim




Against the throne and monarchy of God,




Raised impious war in Heaven and battle proud,




With vain attempt. Him the Almighty Power




Hurled headlong flaming from the ethereal sky,





With hideous ruin and combustion, down




To bottomless perdition,







Whereto with speedy words the Arch-Fiend replied:—




“Fallen Cherub, to be weak is miserable,




Doing or suffering: but of this be sure—




To do aught good never will be our task,




But ever to do ill our sole delight,




As being the contrary to His high will




Whom we resist. If then His providence




Out of our evil seek to bring forth good,




Our labour must be to pervert that end,




And out of good still to find means of evil;





Blake chose the cherubims of Genesis 3:24 to relate to a passage in Ezekiel 28:

"14] Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire.

[15] Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee.

[16] By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned: therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God: and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire.






Blake's illustration of Satan here resembles markedly his picture of the covering cherub:

This may be the Arch-Fiend mentioned earlier; Blake called him Lucifer.









Lucifer


This entity has many names:

the serpent

Satan

Lucifer

my Spectre

the Selfhood, etc.













Some more links:

Blake and Covering Cherub

Milton and Blake

John Milton biography

John Milton (9 December 1608 – 8 November 1674) was an English poet, polemicist, man of letters, and a civil servant for the Commonwealth of England under Oliver Cromwell. He wrote at a time of religious flux and political upheaval, and is best known for his epic poem Paradise Lost (1667), written in blank verse.

Milton's poetry and prose reflect deep personal convictions, a passion for freedom and self-determination, and the urgent issues and political turbulence of his day. 

Here are a few things Blake wrote about Milton:

In a Letter to Flaxman in 1800 Blake wrote:
Now my lot in the Heavens is this; Milton lovd me in childhood & shewd me his face
Ezra came with Isaiah the Prophet, but Shakespeare in riper years gave me his hand
Paracelsus & Behmen appeard to me. terrors appeard in the Heavens above
(Erdman 707)

In Plate 5  of The Marriage of Heaven and Hell he wrote: 
But in the Book of Job Miltons Messiah is call'd Satan. For this history has been adopted by both parties It indeed appear'd to Reason as if Desire was cast out. but the Devils account is, that the Messi[PL 6]ah fell. & formed a heaven of what he stole from the Abyss This is shewn in the Gospel, where he prays to the Father to send the comforter or Desire that Reason may have Ideas to build on, the Jehovah of the Bible being no other than he, who dwells in flaming fire.  Know that after Christs death, he became Jehovah. But in Milton; the Father is Destiny, the Son, a Ratio of the five senses. & the Holy-ghost, Vacuum! 

 Note. The reason Milton wrote in fetters when he wrote of Angels & God, and at liberty when of Devils & Hell, is because he was a true Poet and of the Devils party without knowing it (Erdman 34)


[Prospectus]</!WB> t TO THE PUBLIC October 10, 1793.
The Labours of the Artist, the Poet, the Musician, have been
proverbially attended by poverty and obscurity; this was never
the fault of the Public, but was owing to a neglect of means to
propagate such works as have wholly absorbed the Man of Genius.
Even Milton and Shakespeare could not publish their own works.

I hope that none of my Designs will be destitute of Infinite Particulars which will present themselves to the Contemplator.
And tho I call them Mine I know that they are not Mine being of
the same opinion with Milton when he says That 
the Muse visits his Slumbers & awakes & governs his Song when Morn 
purples The East. 
& being also in the predicament of that prophet who says I
cannot go beyond the command of the Lord to speak good or bad
Vision of Fancy or Imagination 
& I feel Flatterd when I am told So. What is it sets Homer Virgil & 
Milton in so high a rank of Art. Why is the Bible more Entertaining 
& Instructive than any other book.  
Is it not because they are addressed to the Imagination which is 
Spiritual Sensation & but mediately to the Understanding or Reason
(Erdman 702-3)

In a letter to Dr. Trusler in 1799:
.........................To Me This World is all One continued
other book. Is it not because they are addressed to the Imagination 
which is Spiritual Sensation & but mediately to the Understanding 
or Reason 
(Erdman 702)

The Book of Milton

Frontspiece of Milton
Rosenwald LC

An earlier post with this title is found here and includes this portrait of Milton:

Wikipedia Commons
for William Hayley