2002 November 08 Friday continued ....

Bad Sex - an SF story about Milton and Paradise Lost

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For a rundown of Milton resources on this website, see the
academic essay Milton's Satan

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I had always been under the impression that John Milton's "Paradise Lost" was a poem about the fall of man (Adam and Eve eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge in Paradise and are consequently expelled).

Having always imagined this to be a grimly theological poem, I was surprised, on actually sampling it, to find out just how many references there were in it to sex.

Sample one:-

Peor his other name, when he enticed
Israel in Sittim on their march from Nile
To do him wanton rites, which cost them woe.
Yet thence his lustful orgies he enlarged
Even to that hill of scandal, by the Grove
Of Moloch homicide, lust hard by hate;
Till good Josiah drove them thence to Hell.
With these came they, who from the bordering flood
Of old Euphrates to the brook that parts
Egypt from Syrian ground, had general names
Of Baalim and Ashtaroth, those male,
These feminine. For spirits when they please
Can either sex assume, or both; so soft
And uncompounded is their essence pure,
Not tied or manacled with joint or limb,
Nor founded on the brittle strength of bones,
Like cumbrous flesh; but in what shape they choose
Dilated or condensed, bright or obscure,
Can execute their airy purposes,
And works of love or enmity fulfill.

Sample two:-

Beguiled by fair idolatresses, fell
To idols foul. Thammuz came next behind,
Whose annual wound in Lebanon allured
The Syrian damsels to lament his fate
In amorous ditties all a summers day,
While smooth Adonis from his native rock
Ran purple to the sea, supposed with blood
Of Thammuz yearly wounded: the love-tale
Infected Sions daughters with like heat,
Whose wanton passions in the sacred porch
Ezekiel saw, when by the vision led
His eye surveyed the dark idolatries
Of alienated Judah.

Sample three (sex, horror and rape combined):-

I pleased, and with attractive graces won
The most averse, thee chiefly, who full oft
Thy self in me thy perfect image viewing
Becam'st enamoured, and such joy thou took'st
With me in secret, that my womb conceived
A growing burden. Meanwhile war arose,
And fields were fought in Heaven; wherein remained
(For what could else) to our Almighty Foe
Clear victory, to our part loss and rout
Through all the Empyrean: down they fell
Driven headlong from the pitch of Heaven, down
Into this Deep, and in the general fall
I also; at which time this powerful key
Into my hand was given, with charge to keep
These gates forever shut, which none can pass
Without my opening. Pensive here I sat
Alone, but long I sat not, till my womb
Pregnant by thee, and now excessive grown
Prodigious motion felt and rueful throes.
At last this odious offspring whom thou seest
Thine own begotten, breaking violent way
Tore through my entrails, that with fear and pain
Distorted, all my nether shape thus grew
Transformed: but he my inbred enemy
Forth issued, brandishing his fatal dart
Made to destroy: I fled, and cried out Death;
Hell trembled at the hideous name, and sighed
From all her caves, and back resounded Death.
I fled, but he pursued (though more, it seems,
Inflamed with lust than rage) and swifter far,
Me overtook his mother all dismayed,
And in embraces forcible and foul
Ingendering with me, of that rape begot
These yelling monsters that with ceaseless cry
Surround me, as thou sawst, hourly conceived
And hourly born, with sorrow infinite
To me, for when they list into the womb
That bred them they return, and howl and gnaw
My bowels, their repast; then bursting forth
Afresh with conscious terrors vex me round,
That rest or intermission none I find.
Before mine eyes in opposition sits
Grim Death my Son and foe, who sets them on,
And me his parent would full soon devour
For want of other prey, but that he knows
His end with mine involved; and knows that
Should prove a bitter morsel, and his bane,
When ever that shall be; so Fate pronounced.

The Miltonic vision is a little obscure because of the Miltonic syntax. Milton seems to have liked Latin more than English, much to the detriment of his communicative efficiency; his grammar is not quite that of a native speaker.

Additionally, the Miltonic vocabulary is a little out of date. I have to admit I puzzled over that "list" for a few moments, before remembering that it (probably) means "want" .... The New Oxford Dictionary of English confirms this, giving the example "Let them think what they list".

Decrypt, then, the following Miltonic passage, written in English so hard to comprehend that it is obvious that this guy would benefit from having me as his English teacher:-

These yelling monsters that with ceaseless cry
Surround me, as thou sawst, hourly conceived
And hourly born, with sorrow infinite
To me, for when they list into the womb
That bred them they return, and howl and gnaw
My bowels, their repast

The key sentence seems to be "These yelling monsters ... when they list (when they want to) ... into the womb ... return ... and gnaw my bowels".

Which makes, reorganized, "When they want to, these yelling monsters return into the womb and gnaw my bowels."

The context of this Miltonic vision (Book Two of Paradise Lost) is this: exiting the gates of Hell on a reconnaissance mission, Satan encounters a female monster, who is being gnawed internally by lesser monsters. Near at hand is a huge and fearsome monster of semi-shapeless darkness who threatens to attack Satan, who seems perfectly ready to stand his ground and fight.

The female intervenes, telling Satan that the monster of semi-shapeless darkness is none other than Satan's son:-

O Father, what intends thy hand, she cried,
Against thy only Son? What fury O Son,
Possesses thee to bend that mortal Dart
Against thy Fathers head?

..... Satan is puzzled, and asks why she calls:-

Me Father, and that Fantasm call'st my Son?
I know thee not, nor ever saw till now
Sight more detestable than him and thee.

Typical guy: what do you mean, it's my kid? One night stand? What one night stand? I never even saw you before!

But the female reminds him:-

Hast thou forgot me then, and do I seem
Now in thine eye so foul, once deemed so fair
In Heaven, when at the Assembly, and in sight
Of all the Seraphim with thee combined
In bold conspiracy against Heaven's King,
All on a sudden miserable pain
Surprised thee, dim thine eyes, and dizzy swum
In darkness, while thy head flames thick and fast
Threw forth, till on the left side opening wide,
Likest to thee in shape and countenance bright,
Then shining heavenly fair, a Goddess armed
Out of thy head I sprung; amazement seized
All the Host of Heaven; back they recoiled afraid
At first, and called me Sin, and for a Sign
Portentous held me; but familiar grown,
I pleased, and with attractive graces won
The most averse, thee chiefly, who full oft
Thy self in me thy perfect image viewing
Becam'st enamoured, and such joy thou took'st
With me in secret, that my womb conceived
A growing burden.

And this is where we came in.

Milton's story, then, is that Satan gave birth to his own daughter.

This, by the way, is not an original idea. Milton cribbed it from Greek myth, in which the goddess Pallas Athena is born, fully-formed, from the head of the great god Zeus. If you indulge in this kind of borrowing and succeed in winning a literary prize as a consequence, then don't be surprised if you find yourself accused of plagiarism. Literary borrowing, confusingly, tends to be regarded as a sin in a minor writer but a virtue in a major writer; if the writer's reputation is sufficiently grand, then one speaks admiringly of "literary reference" rather than plagiarism.

In fairness to Milton, however, it has to be admitted that Greek mythology does not feature an incestuous relationship between the great god Zeus and his daughter Pallas Athena. This exploration of the seamier side of human possibilities is part of Milton's own original contribution to literature, an act undertaken of his own free will.

To continue with the summary of Milton's plot:-

Having given birth to his own daughter, Satan then had sex with her. The incestuous child of this union then raped the mother, and the result of this incestuous rape was the birth of the lesser monsters who now feed on the mother's flesh. The mother has been transformed since the time when Satan was dating her, and now looks like this:-

The one seemed woman to the waist, and fair,
But ended foul in many a scaly fold
Voluminous and vast, a serpent armed
With mortal sting: about her middle round
A cry of Hell Hounds never ceasing barked
With wide Cerberean mouths full loud, and rung
A hideous peal: yet, when they list, would creep,
If aught disturbed their noise, into her womb,
And kennel there, yet there still barked and howled
Within unseen.

I think if you renamed this poem "Sex Between Angels" and published it in Utah then you could probably get yourself arrested. And if Milton's probation officer found him writing this kind of stuff, then Milton would probably have his parole revoked and find himself locked up for the rest of his natural life.

(And why might Milton be on probation? Well, because he had joined a revolutionary government which had overthrown the ruling order and had cut off a king's head .... and in fact a warrant for his arrest was issued in 1660 .... he hid from the law but was arrested .... and then .... but that's another story.)

While it's an acknowledged fact that "Macbeth" is about murder, it doesn't seem clear why English Literature should not be equally frank about the fact that "Paradise Lost" is about sex. However, for some obscure and mysterious reason, the "sex" part of the "sex and violence" duo has always been less respectable than the "violence" part.

Anyway, that is where the idea for Bad Sex comes from .... from sampling Paradise Lost (I won't pretend to have read the whole thing) and reading bits and pieces about the life of the poet John Milton ....

Bad Sex - an SF story about Milton and Paradise Lost

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Section 4 Entry 0002. Date: 2002 November 09 Saturday.   (diary)   (previous)   (top)   (bottom)   (next)  (topics)  (contents)

I'm still fretting over the fact that the word "incalcitrant" seems to be missing from all my dictionaries, both electronic and print. Experimentally, I fired up my copy of Microsoft Word, which I don't often use. It puts wavy red "you've messed up" underlining under "caat" ("cat") but accepts "recalcitrant". It's a real word, then.

Oops! I've made a mistake! The word I was looking for was "incalcitrant", not "recalcitrant". If you type in "He is incalcitrant" then Microsoft Word puts the wavy red line under the word "incalcitrant".

Similarly, "recalcitrant" is in The New Oxford Dictionary of English, derived apparently from the Latin verb "recalcitrare", but the same dictionary acknowledges no such word as "incalcitrant".

Let's recheck the Internet ....

Okay, on doing an advanced search with AltaVista, hunting for the word "incalcitrant", I get 54 results .... here is Ibrahim Daoud writing about how efforts "to find a peaceful resolution to the conflict" have been "frustrated by the incalcitrant behavior" of (well, it's not my quarrel, so I won't bother inserting the name of the party alleged to be guilty in this case). (Hint: the page is dated 03 February, 1999, and seems to be titled "Welcome to the Ethiopian Government Information Service".)

And here is a message from one Bede W. P. Seymour (dated 20 February, 1992) saying that the arrow keys in vi (a Unix text editor, unless I am mistaken) do work "on all our SUN Workstations and Servers on our network - except for one incalcitrant machine".

And so on.

So, while I was earlier dismayed to think that I might somehow have added a purely imaginary word to my vocabulary, that doesn't seem to be the case. The word plainly exists, even if the world's dictionaries have conspired together in an effort to refute the fact of its existence.

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