[2] This is one of the occasions in which Zicari appears, at first sight, to have stretched a point in order to improve his case, because, in the reference he gives, it is Behemoth, and not Belial, who speaks of himself as cowardly (imbelle). But in another place Lucifer applies this designation to Belial as well,
The words of Milton’s Beelzebub (ii, 368):
Seduce them to our party, that their god
May prove their foe . . .
are copied from those of the Italian Lucifero (p. 52):
. . . Facciam
Acciò, che l’ huom divenga
A Dio nemico . . .
Regarding the creation of the world, Salandra asks (p. 11):
Qual lingua può di Dio,
Benchè da Dio formato
Lodar di Dio le meraviglie estreme?
which is thus echoed by Milton (vii, 112):
... to recount almighty works
What words or tongue of Seraph can suffice?
There is a considerable resemblance between the two poets in their descriptions of Paradise and of its joys. In both poems, too, Adam warns his spouse of her frailty, and in the episode of Eve’s meeting with the serpent there are no less than four verbal coincidences. Thus Salandra writes (p. 68):