Okay, since apparently none of us know this Bible allusion, here it is, the Parable of Talents:
"The parable tells of a master who was leaving his home to travel, and before going gave his three servants different amounts of money. On returning from his travels, the master asked his servants for an account of the money given to them. The first servant reported that he was given five talents, and he had made five talents more. The master praised the servant as being good and faithful, gave him more responsibility because of his faithfulness, and invited the servant to be joyful together with him.
The second servant said that he had received two talents, and he had made two talents more. The master praised this servant in the same way as being good and faithful, giving him more responsibility and inviting the servant to be joyful together with him.
The last servant who had received one talent reported that knowing his master was a hard man, he buried his talent in the ground for safekeeping, and therefore returned the original amount to his master. The master called him a wicked and lazy servant, saying that he should have placed the money in the bank to generate interest. The master commanded that the one talent be taken away from that servant, and given to the servant with ten talents, because everyone that has much will be given more, and whoever that has a little, even the little that he has will be taken away. And the master ordered the servant to be thrown outside into the darkness where there is 'weeping and gnashing of teeth.'"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_Talents
(Okay I know Wikipedia is not a "valid source," but it gets the job done.)
This parable is fitting for Milton's poem. Milton is saying that he must have faith in God's plan and not despair. He originally sees his blindness as a curse and nearly goes over the edge, but he then realizes that God must have taken away his sight for a reason. Milton had two ways of responding to this misfortune. He could be like the servant who only received one talent: bury his talent rather than invest it (in faith) and be cast out by God. Or he could be like the other two servants who invested their talents, strengthened their winnings, and were thus accepted and praised by God. In the turn, Milton decides to follow in the footsteps of the first two talents and accept God's plan.
Also, we can use this post to discuss Paradise Lost... I haven't finished it yet, but go ahead and discuss!
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I'm taking Paradise Lost slowly, merely because it's too hard for me to understand if I don't. Anyway, I found this Dartmouth (Theresa!) website which was really useful.
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~milton/reading_room/pl/book_1/index.shtml
I've been focusing on the first 8 or so lines, and found some comparisons to the Aeneid. I don't know if it's relative in terms of story plot, but because I have an Aeneid test tomorrow, I'm going to kill two birds with one stone and discuss it.
Here are the first couple of lines of the Aeneid:
Arms, and the man I sing, who, forc'd by fate,
And haughty Juno's unrelenting hate,
Expell'd and exil'd, left the Trojan shore.
Long labors, both by sea and land, he bore,
And in the doubtful war, before he won
The Latian realm, and built the destin'd town;
His banish'd gods restor'd to rites divine,
And settled sure succession in his line,
From whence the race of Alban fathers come,
And the long glories of majestic Rome.
O Muse! the causes and the crimes relate;
These lines are very similar to the beginning of Paradise Lost. They both discuss the historical events which are the background to each poem, and kind of set up the backbone for the story within the first couple of lines. There is no guesswork about what the story is about. Also, obviously, they both call on the Muses to help them tell the story.
According to the Dartmouth website, the quote "Death into the World, and all our woe" is similar to part of the Aeneid, as well. In the Aeneid, two of the main charactors come together in a cave and kind of (depending on how you see it) get married. It is the "first day of death" and the "first cause of woe". (They're marriage eventually leads to the female's death). Obviously, Eve's apple eating is a completely different circumstance, but I really like the comparison.
A lot of Paradise Lost's structure is going to be similar to that of the Aeneid because Milton based his poem on Virgil's epic (12 books, calling on the Muses, etc.). Milton wanted to write a great epic in the form of the Greek and Roman ones. Some of the plot of Paradise Lost does seem similar to the Aeneid, mostly the fact that both Aeneas and Satan are kicked out of their homeland after a great war.
This.. might sound like a silly blogpost for most of you, but I did a bit of Bible research. I found a couple of interseting websites about Satan, etc (and a couple of morbin ones), and here's one I basically used for my understanding. I know its not an "official" website, but I don't know how many college websites there are about Understanding Satan, so I picked a religious one and ran with it:
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/199/story_19993_1.html
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