And thou unblemished form of Chastity!
I see ye visibly.”
(ll. 213–216.)
The directness of this vision is like that of the soul in the “Phædrus” when it sees the flashing beauty of the beloved, “which,” says Plato, “when the charioteer [the soul] sees, his memory is carried to the true beauty, whom he beholds in company with Modesty like an image placed upon a holy pedestal.” (“Phædrus,” 254.)
It is in the vision of this holy beauty as a lost possession of the soul that the deadly pang of sin lies. In Milton’s later work there is no reference to the power of the chaste soul to change the body to its own pure essence; but his mind still holds to the power of sin to dim the soul’s lustre. This is strikingly exemplified in the character of Satan’s reflection on his faded glory. The one keen regret that he feels, in spite of his indomitable will, is occasioned by the thought that by reason of sinning his form has lost the beauty of its original goodness. Throughout “Paradise Lost” there is repeated emphasis upon the faded lustre of Satan’s form. The very first words that fall from Satan’s lips, in his speech to Beelzebub, as the two lay rolling in the fiery gulf, draw our attention to the great change in their outward forms.
“To whom the Arch-Enemy,
And thence in Heaven called Satan, with bold words
Breaking the horrid silence, thus began:—
‘If thou beest he—but Oh how fallen! how changed
From him!—who, in the happy realms of light,