The narrowness of Eve's experience makes it difficult distinguish what
she remembers from what Satan observes, but the dream itself--as
recounted to Adam--clearly trades on what she will find familiar and
explicitly works on her fancy. The voice she hears not only sounds like
Adam, but paraphrases a number of thinks he has previously said.
But of offense and trouble, which my mind
Knew never till this irksom night; methought [ 35 ]
Close at mine ear one call'd me forth to walk
With gentle voice, I thought it thine; it said,
Why sleepst thou Eve? now is the pleasant
time,
The cool, the silent, save where silence yields
To the night-warbling
Bird, that now awake [ 40 ]
Tunes sweetest his love-labor'd song; now reignes
Full Orb'd the Moon, and with more pleasing light
Shadowie sets off the face of things; in
vain,
If none regard; Heav'n wakes with all his eyes,
Whom to behold but
thee, Natures desire, [ 45 ]
In whose sight all things joy, with ravishment
Attracted by thy beauty still to gaze.
I rose as at thy call, but found thee not;
To find thee I directed then my walk;
And on, methought, alone I pass'd through ways [ 50 ]
That brought me on a sudden to the Tree
Of interdicted Knowledge: fair it seem'd,
Much fairer to my Fancie then by day:
At 10:51 AM 3/13/2003 -0800, Genevieve Guenther wrote:
>At least in theory, human magicians were taken to be able to bind
demons
>to do whatever they willed, so it's well within Spenser's
cultural
>parameters that Archimago's demons affect RC's imagination at
his
>direction.
>What does seem a bit idiosyncratic, however, is Spenser's emphasis
on
>Archimago's instructing the demons in their work -- on the fact that
the
>magician tells the demons not only *what* to do but *how* to do
it.
>
>At any rate, here is the passage from PL, when the angels find Satan
at
>Eve's bed (Book 4, ll. 800 and on):
>
>Him there they found
>Squat like a toad, close at the ear of Eve;
>Assaying by his devilish art to reach
>The organs of her fancy, and with them forge
>Illusions as he list, phantasms and dreams;
>Of if, inspiring venom, he might taint
>Th'animal spirits that from pure blood arise
>Like gentle breaths from rivers pure, thence raise
>At least distempered, discontented thoughts,
>Vain hopes, vain aims, inordinate desires
>Blown up with high conceits engend'ring Pride.
>
>So, Satan does use some of Eve's resources ("the organs of her
fancy") to
>forge his demonic dream, but its not clear that those organs involve
her
>memory...
>
>GG
>
>
>On Thu, 13 Mar 2003, James W. Broaddus wrote:
>
>> I should leave comments about the dream and demons to those who
know
>> something about demons, but here goes:
>>
>> Jon Quitslund wrote:
>>
>> Certainly, anyone postulating the existence of demons could also
postulate
>> their influence upon the human mind. A scientific explanation
for how,
>> exactly, a demon might affect changes in a human's psyche
seems
>> extraneous...especially for a 16th century writer. Demonic
influence, by
>> definition, is supernatural...preternatural.
>>
>> Wouldn't Quitslund's comment have more force if Redcrosse's
dream had been
>> prompted by a demon working on his/her own? But the sprights in
this
>> instance do Archimago's bidding seem able to do so only as
Archimago enables
>> them to do so. He shapes them and schools them.
>>
>> Is Archimago also understood to be a demon? In that case I
suppose he can be
>> considered to have simply empowered the spright or the dream to
instill the
>> dream apart from any psychological shenanigans. But, especially
in this
>> episode, he seems to be much more the magician.
>>
>> Also, when Milton had the chief demon instill a dream into Eve's
fantasy,
>> didn't he use images already in her memory?
>>
>
Marshall Grossman
Professor
Department of English
University of Maryland
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