and
A dungeon horrible on all sides round.
But as Satan was to be the great actor, Milton was soon compelled to find some excuse for freeing the evil spirit from the chains which Heaven had forged, and this he does—
| Chain’d on the burning lake, nor ever thence Had ris’n or heaved his head, but that the will And high permission of all-ruling Heaven Left him at large to his own dark designs, That with reiterated crimes he might Heap on himself damnation, while he sought Evil to others. |
The Saxon monk had not the dexterity to elude the difficult position in which the arch-fiend was for ever fixed; he was indissolubly chained, and yet much was required to be done. It is not, therefore, Satan himself who goes on the subdolous design of wreaking his revenge on the innocent pair in Paradise; for this he despatches one of his associates, who is thus described: “Prompt in arms, he had a crafty soul; this chief set his helmet on his head; he many speeches knew of guileful words: wheeled up from thence, he departed through the doors of hell.” We are reminded of
| The infernal doors, that on their hinges grate Harsh thunder. |
The emissary of Satan in Cædmon had “a strong mind, lion-like in air, in hostile mood he dashed the fire aside with a fiend’s power.”[8] That demon flings aside the flames of hell with the bravery of his sovereign, as we see in Milton—
| Forthwith upright he rears from off the pool His mighty stature; on each hand the flames Driv’n backward, slope their pointing spires, and roll’d In billows, leave in the midst a horrid vale.[9] |
Cædmon thus represents Satan:—“Then spoke the haughty king, who of angels erst was brightest, fairest in heaven—beloved of his master—so beauteous was his form, he was like to the light stars.”
Milton’s conception of the form of Satan is the same.