9 - Euphrasy, Rue, Polysemy, and Repairing the Ruins

Summary

but to nobler sights

Michael from Adam's eyes the Film remov’d

Which that false Fruit that promis’d clearer sight

Had bred; then purg’d with Euphrasie and Rue

The visual Nerve, for he had much to see;

And from the Well of Life three drops instill’d.

So deep the power of these Ingredients pierc’d,

Ev’n to the inmost seat of mental sight,

That Adam now enforc't to close his eyes,

Sunk down and all his Spirits became intranst:

But him the gentle Angel by the hand

Soon rais’d, and his attention thus recall’d.

(Paradise Lost 11.411–22)

In book 11 of Paradise Lost, the angel Michael must remove a film from the eyes of Adam, preparing him for great sights. The film is the hazy residue of forbidden food eaten with the ironic expectation of clearer sight. Upon its removal, Michael administers euphrasy, rue, and three drops from the Well of Life. The compound purges the optic nerve, and even works “to the inmost seat of mental sight” so powerfully that Adam, entranced, perforce must close his eyes until Michael gently awakens him and begins his revelation from the Mount of Speculation. What follows is a guided tour of biblical history, crescendoing to eschatological fervor. At its conclusion, Adam summarizes what he has learned, upon which Michael assures him that he has “attain’d the sum / Of wisdom,” and that, with the addition of “Deeds … Faith, / …Virtue, Patience, Temperance, [and] Love,” he will achieve a “paradise within” him, “happier far” than Eden and its pleasures (12.575–76, 582–83, 587). Such a prospect might well direct the reader's interest to the purging of vision as preliminary to this interior Eden. Accordingly, this essay will consider how vision and imagery cooperate with narrative and diction in Paradise Lost, particularly with respect to the last two books of the poem, and will entertain various possibilities for signification held in the poem by those modest ingredients of such acute ocular purgation, euphrasy and rue.

“Eyes how op’n’d”: Fallen Vision and the Film of False Fruit

The first point to make is that the introduction of sin never improves vision in Paradise Lost.