familiar: (1) On a family footing; (2) as a familiar (guardian) angel.
Venial: (1) Permissible; (2) gracious (Latin venialis); unblamed: Irreproachable. See here.
argument: Subject-matter.
wrath … Achilles: Homer’s subject in the Iliad (1.1).
Turnus: Made war on the Trojans when Aeneas married Lavinia, Turnus’s betrothed.
Greek: Odysseus, persecuted (perplexed) by Poseidon (Neptune) in the Odyssey; Cytherea’s son: Aeneas, son of Venus, persecuted by Juno in the Aeneid.
dissect: (1) Examine minutely; (2) cut to pieces.
Impreses quaint, caparisons: heraldic devices and armour for horses.
Bases: Ornamental covering for horses.
sewers, and seneschals: Ushers and stewards.
intended: (1) Purposed; (2) outstretched (wing).
improved: Augmented (in evil).
maugre: Despite.
equinoctial line: The equator.
colure: One of two circles intersecting at right angles at the poles.
Pontus: The Black Sea.
Maeotis: The Sea of Azov. The river Ob is in Siberia.
Orontes: A river in Syria.
Darien: The Isthmus of Panama.
imp: (1) Child of the Devil; (2) grafted scion (implying that evil will grow).
suggestions: Temptations.
gradual: Graduated, in steps.
siege / Of contraries: The Pleasures besiege Satan’s Torment, their contrary.
virtue: Power.
incarnate: Satan’s parody of the Incarnation.
nocent: Harmful (the opposite of innocent).
close: (1) Concealed; (2) confined.
grateful: (1) Pleasing; (2) full of gratitude.
prime: (1) Best; (2) sunrise; (3) springtime; airs: (1) Breezes; (2) melodies.
Or: Whether.
virgin: Innocent. Puritans extended the term ‘virginity’ to marriage.
entire: Unblemished.
diffident: Mistrustful.
Access: Increase.
like: (1) Equal to Satan’s attack; (2) equal to each other.
still: Always.
affronts: (1) Insults; (2) faces defiantly (punning with front, I, 330, which means ‘face’).
integrity: (1) Sinlessness; (2) undivided state (which Eve herself wants to divide).
event: Outcome.
no Eden: Literally ‘no delight’.
still erect: (1) Always alert; (2) always upright.
mind … mind: Remind … pay heed to.
approve: Prove.
securer: Overconfident.
light: (1) light-footed; (2) fickle, ready of belief.
Oread or Dryad: Mountain- or wood-nymph; Delia: Diana, goddess of hunting.
Guiltless of fire: Fire was unknown before the Fall (see X, 1070–80). Milton also alludes to Prometheus, who stole fire from heaven (see IV, 715–19).
Pales: Goddess of flocks and pastures; Pomona: Goddess of fruit-trees. Vertumnus seduced her after accosting her in many disguises.
Likeliest] 1674; Likest 1667: Both words mean ‘most resembling’, but ‘likeliest’ is enhanced by a number of puns: (1) most seemly; (2) most beautiful; (3) most giving promise of success. All of these senses reflect well on Eve.
event perverse: Opposite outcome.
Mere: Entirely.
voluble: Gliding, undulating (with proleptic suggestions of fluent speech).
gardens … revived Adonis: Gardens of Adonis were small plots of fast-fading flowers set around his image.
Laertes’ son: Odysseus. He visits the gardens of Alcinous in Odyssey, 7, 112–35.
mystic … sapient king: mythical … Solomon.
Egyptian spouse: Solomon married Pharaoh’s daughter (I Kings 3: 1).
annoy: Make noisome.
tedded: Spread out to dry (as hay); kine: Cattle.
Stupidly: In a stupor.
recollects: (1) Remembers; (2) summons by effort.
gratulating: Hailing, greeting (his own thoughts).
terrestrial mould: (1) Bodily form pertaining to this world; (2) earthy clay.
carbuncle: A mythical gem said to emit a red light in the dark.
erect: (1) Upright; (2) alert.
spires: Coils.
redundant: (1) In waves; (2) copious.
Cadmus: Legendary founder of Thebes. He and his wife Hermione were changed into serpents in their old age.
Epidaurus: Aesculapius, god of healing, had a temple in Epidaurus from which he travelled in serpent form to end a plague in Rome.
Olympias: Mother of Alexander the Great. Her husband, Philip II, found her in bed with a snake. The Delphic oracle identified the snake as Zeus-Ammon.
Scipio: Roman general who defeated Hannibal. Jupiter Capitolinus was said to have fathered him in the form of a serpent.
Circean: The witch Circe changed men into fawning beasts.
Organic: Serving as an instrument (of speech); impulse: (1) Impelling (of air); (2) suggestion from an evil spirit.
glozed: Flattered.
demur: Hesitate about.
Grateful: Pleasing.
sweetest fennel … milk at ev’n: Snakes were said to be fond of fennel, and of milk sucked from the teat.
Wanted: Were lacking.
middle: The air between heaven and earth.
spirited: (1) Lively; (2) possessed by an evil spirit.
virtue: Efficacy.
provision: What is provided for them.
her bearth: What she bears.
blowing: Blooming.
Compact of unctuous vapour: Composed of oily gas.
agitation: (1) Friction (of gases); (2) scheming (OED 6).
to excess: (1) In abundance; (2) leading to sinful excess.
Fluctuates: Moves like a wave.
science: Knowledge.
To: (1) In addition to; (2) eventuating in.
virtue: Courage (which Satan identifies with moral virtue).
denounced: Threatened.
humane: (1) Benevolent; (2) human.
author unsuspect: Trustworthy informant.
cure: Eve unwittingly puns on Latin cura, ‘grief’.
knew not eating death: (1) Did not die while she ate; (2) did not know she was eating death (a Greek construction); (3) did not know death, which devours (Latin mors edax).
sapience: (1) Knowledge; (2) taste (Latin sapere, ‘to taste,’ ‘to know’).
all deaths: Eve’s plural ominously anticipates damnation, the ‘Second Death’.
sciential sap: Knowledge-producing juice (with another pun on sapere).
divine of: Divining (with a wry pun on the divinity Eve has not got).
falt’ring measure: (1) Of Adam’s heart; (2) of Nature. Early editions spell ‘fault’ring’.
apology: Justification, excuse (not regret).
distemper: (1) Imbalance of humours; (2) intoxication.
Astonied: Stunned (‘as stone’); blank: (1) Speechless; (2) pale.
devote: Doomed.
fact: (1) Deed; (2) crime (the commonest seventeenth-century sense).
Certain: Determined, resolved (Latin certus).
oblige: (1) Morally obligate; (2) make guilty; fact: (1) Deed; (2) crime.
event: Outcome.
recompense … recompense: Compensation for loss … retribution for crime. Adam will soon cry: ‘is this the recompense?’ (IX, 1163).
savour: (1) Tastiness; (2) perception. Like sapience, savour derives from sapere (see here).
purveyed: Provided foodstuffs.
play: Sport amorously, have sex.
meet: (1) Appropriate; (2) sexual ‘meat’. Contrast Eve as a ‘help meet’ (Gen. 2:21).
toy: Caress.
unkindly: Unnatural; conscious: Guilty.
evil store: Evil in abundance.
umbrage: (1) Foliage; (2) protective screen; (3) false show.
plight: (1) Peril; (2) sin, offence; (3) clothing.
obnoxious: (1) Exposed; (2) objectionable.
targe: Shield.
estranged: (1) Unlike himself; (2) alienated (from Eve).
approve: Prove.
owe: (1) Owe; (2) own (and so have no need to prove).
expressed: (1) Declared (Eve’s love for Adam); (2) manifested in action (Adam’s for Eve).
secure: Overconfident, careless.