EMPSON
AND
BENTLEY
Or in behalf of man or to inv4de
Vacant possession,
183
both Bentley and Empson see "in behalf of' as implying Satan's
good
will
toward man; but Pearce and the
N.E.D.
point out that the
meaning of "with regard to" or "in the matter of" was common in
Milton's time. Quoting IV 268
ff.,
lines which compare Paradise
with Proserpina's Enna and the grove of Daphne, Empson under–
takes to read the passage as a slap against Eve. Proserpina became
queen of Hell-"became Sin, then, on Milton's scheme; Eve, we are
to remember, becomes an ally of Satan when she tempts Adam to
eat with her." Eve does, of course, help Satan to overcome Adam;
created out of Adam, as Sin out of Satan, she has almost-incestuous
relations with her progenitor. So that there are Eve-Sin parallels; and
the background holds a forbidden pomegranate to provide a direct
Eve-Proserpina parallel. But Proserpina didn't become Sin in any
sense Milton would have recognized, because she could still come
back to earth for six of the twelve months, and when she came she
brought summertime and the flowering of the earth; because she is
never associated with the active seduction or punishment of sinners
but only with alleviating their misfortunes as a fellow-victim; and
because if she became Sin, there would be no reason for Ceres to
look for her so long and so hard. Parenthetically, if Milton really
intended to suggest sexual relations between Eve and Satan, it'ii odd
that there's no least suggestion of snakiness about Adam after the
Fall.
As
for the parallel with Daphne, Empson suggests that because
she resisted Apollo Milton introduces her to the detriment of Eve, who
fell to Satan. But note how this argument trips over the previous one,
regarding Proserpina. Eve is like Proserpina, to whom something ter–
rible happened; she is worse than Daphne, who came off fairly well.
The interpretations could just as easily be reversed. Eve is better than
Proserpina because at least she never had to marry Satan, and she's
like Daphne in that, saved by divine favor, she wasn't really, irrevo–
cably seduced. Of course Milton is really comparing groves, not
people; aside from lesser inexactitudes like the lack of parallels for
Ceres and Adam, neither the Daphne nor the Proserpina fable repre–
sents exactly what happened to Eve, according to Milton's theology.
She didn't tum into a tree or marry Satan; and there's no more
