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John Milton’s Proem to Paradise Lost · The Daily Poem

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  [music]
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  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to The Daily Poem, a podcast from Goldberry Studios.
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  SPEAKER_00: I'm Sean Johnson, and today is Monday, August 24th, 2026.
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  SPEAKER_00: Today's poem is by John Milton.
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  SPEAKER_00: It is the proeme, or opening lines, to his great epic, Paradise Lost.
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  SPEAKER_00: It is in the vein of the great Greek and Roman epics like the Proem to the Iliad.
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  SPEAKER_00: It summarizes the events that are going to be narrated.
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  SPEAKER_00: It spoils all of the major plot developments.
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  SPEAKER_00: It introduces the major characters who are at the heart of the conflict.
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  SPEAKER_00: It invokes heavenly inspiration.
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  SPEAKER_00: And in the same way that the events of the Trojan War or of the fall
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  SPEAKER_00: of Troy would have been well known to the original audiences of Homer or Virgil,
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  SPEAKER_00: so too he is telling a story that is already well known,
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  SPEAKER_00: the biblical story of the fall of man.
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  SPEAKER_00: Accordingly, his characters and allusions are biblical in nature.
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  SPEAKER_00: Moses making an appearance as that shepherd who was inspired by God on Mount Sinai
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  SPEAKER_00: to tell the story of creation and the fall to the Israelites.
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  SPEAKER_00: Notably, though they are implicated, Adam and Eve are not explicitly named.
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  SPEAKER_00: The more concrete reference is made to Christ,
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  SPEAKER_00: the greater man who will come to restore what was lost in Eden.
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  SPEAKER_00: We also have Milton and Claiming a great task for himself,
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  SPEAKER_00: he invokes not one of the nine muses,
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  SPEAKER_00: but the heavenly muse, who he later identifies as the Holy Spirit.
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  SPEAKER_00: And he claims that his song will soar higher than the Ionian Mount,
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  SPEAKER_00: higher than Mount Parnassus, to the Mountain of God.
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  SPEAKER_00: And then he closes...
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  SPEAKER_00: With what have become probably the most famous lines in his poem and such
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  SPEAKER_00: an ambitious mission statement that some might ask whether or not he succeeds
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  SPEAKER_00: in accomplishing it.
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  SPEAKER_00: Others might ask if it's the kind of thing a person should try and accomplish at all.
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  SPEAKER_00: But for good or for ill, here it is, The Proem to Paradise Lost.
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  SPEAKER_00: Of man's first disobedience,
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  SPEAKER_00: And the fruit of that forbidden tree,
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  SPEAKER_00: Whose mortal taste brought death into the world,
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  SPEAKER_00: And all our woe with loss of Eden,
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  SPEAKER_00: Till one greater man restore us,
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  SPEAKER_00: And regain the blissful seat Sing,
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  SPEAKER_00: heavenly muse,
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  SPEAKER_00: that on the secret top of Horeb or of Sinai didst inspire that shepherd
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  SPEAKER_00: who first taught the chosen seed in the beginning how the heavens and earth rose out
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  SPEAKER_00: of chaos.
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  SPEAKER_00: Or if Zion hill delight thee more,
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  SPEAKER_00: and Zillawah's brook that flowed fast by the oracle of God,
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  SPEAKER_00: I thence invoke thy aid to my adventurous song.
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  SPEAKER_00: That with no middle flight intends to soar above the Ionian Mount,
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  SPEAKER_00: while it pursues things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme.
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  SPEAKER_00: And chiefly, thou,
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  SPEAKER_00: O Spirit,
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  SPEAKER_00: that dost prefer before all temples the upright heart and pure,
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  SPEAKER_00: instruct me,
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  SPEAKER_00: for thou knowest,
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  SPEAKER_00: thou from the first was present,
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  SPEAKER_00: and with mighty wings outspread,
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  SPEAKER_00: dove-like, sat'st brooding on the vast abyss, and made'st it pregnant.
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  SPEAKER_00: What in me is dark illumine,
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  SPEAKER_00: I should have said a word about that final extended image that he offers to.
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  SPEAKER_00: He draws this parallel between the Holy Spirit hovering over the waters of chaos,
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  SPEAKER_00: ready to give them shape and form and order in the moment of creation.
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  SPEAKER_00: He compares that to his own task and asks in his invocation of the spirit to come
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  SPEAKER_00: and order and give shape and form to the chaotic waters of his own heart
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  SPEAKER_00: or imagination.
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  SPEAKER_00: What poet couldn't wish as much?
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  SPEAKER_00: This has been The Daily Poem.
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  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening.
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  SPEAKER_00: We'll be back tomorrow with more poetry for you.
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  SPEAKER_00: Till then,
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  SPEAKER_00: And you can always share these poems with your friends or your enemies or complete strangers.
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  SPEAKER_00: For all of us at Goldberry Studios, I'm Sean Johnson wishing you happy reading.