Book X: The Judgment, the Bridge, and the Reconciliation explained

What happens

Themes in this chapter

• Obedience and Disobedience

  The chapter centers on the consequences of Adam and Eve's disobedience, the judgment passed, and the path to repentance.

• Redemption and Grace

  God's mercy is shown through the Son's judgment and clothing of the pair, and Adam's hope in the promised seed.

• Good Versus Evil

  Sin and Death's bridge symbolizes the spread of evil, while God's foretelling of the Son's victory affirms the ultimate triumph of good.

Characters to notice

• God the Father

  Approves the angels' vigilance, declares Satan's entrance unpreventable, and sends the Son to judge the transgressors.

• Michael

  Referred to as the Son, who descends to judge Adam and Eve, clothes them, and reascends.

• Sin

  Senses Satan's success and, with Death, builds a bridge from Hell to Earth over Chaos.

• Death

  Accompanies Sin in building the bridge, using his mace to solidify the path.

• Satan

  Returns to Hell boasting of his success, but is transformed into a serpent along with his audience.

• Adam

  Bewails his fallen condition, rejects Eve's comfort, but later reconciles and rejects her proposal of suicide, exhorting repentance.

• Eve

  Persists in appeasing Adam, proposes suicide or childlessness to avoid the curse, but is redirected by Adam to hope in the promise.

Key passages

• “For still they knew, and ought to have still remembered, The high injunction not to taste that fruit, Whoever tempted; which they not obeying Incurred (what could they less?) the penalty, And, manifold in sin, deserved to fall.”

  Adam and Eve were fully aware of God's command not to eat the fruit, regardless of who tempted them; by disobeying, they brought the penalty upon themselves and justly fell.

  God's voice explains that the fall was a consequence of their free will, not divine decree.

• “But whom send I to judge them? whom but thee, Vicegerent Son? to thee I have transferred All judgment, whether in Heaven, or Earth, or Hell. Easy it may be seen that I intend Mercy colleague with justice, sending thee, Man’s friend, his Mediator, his designed Both ransom and Redeemer voluntary, And destined Man himself to judge Man fallen.”

  God appoints the Son as judge, showing that mercy accompanies justice, since the Son is both man's friend and redeemer, and will judge fallen humanity.

  This passage highlights the theme of redemption and grace through the Son's role as mediator.

• “So saying, with delight he snuffed the smell Of mortal change on Earth. As when a flock Of ravenous fowl, though many a league remote, Against the day of battle, to a field, Where armies lie encamped, come flying, lured With scent of living carcases designed For death the following day in bloody fight: So scented the grim Feature, and upturned His nostril wide into the murky air, Sagacious of his quarry from so far.”

  Death eagerly smells the mortality now present on Earth, like birds of prey scenting carrion from afar before a battle.

  This simile emphasizes Death's predatory nature and the corruption introduced by sin.

• “Eve, thy contempt of life and pleasure seems To argue in thee something more sublime And excellent than what”

  Adam tells Eve that her disdain for life and pleasure suggests a nobler quality within her.

  Adam's response begins to redirect Eve from despair toward a more hopeful perspective.