The Demon’s Arguments Part IV

Ahhhh Beelzebub, the second best demon in hell. Satan’s right-hand man. The mouth piece of hell. A wondrous foul beast, who is also a pretty cool-cat. Milton describes Beelzebub as follows:

“Which when Beelzebub perceived—than whom,

Satan except, none higher sat—with grave

Aspect he rose, and in his rising seemed

A pillar of state. Deep on his front engraven

Deliberation sat, and public care;

And princely counsel in his face yet shone,

Majestic, though in ruin. Sage he stood

With Atlantean shoulders, fit to bear

The weight of mightiest monarchies; his look

Drew audience and attention still as night

Or summer's noontide air”

Found on http://classiclit.about.com/library/bl-etexts/jmilton/bl-jmilton_plost_2.htm

Now, I don’t know about you but I was very excited to see what the internet was going to find for me—image-wise—regarding Beelzebub. I hopped for AWESOME, because that’s basically how Milton wants us the readers to visualize him—a big hulk of monstrous, handsome, conniving, perfection.

 

http://www.hauntedamericatours.com/devil/Beelzebub/images/beelzebub.gif

 

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYffkbaqRR3byjWr4Gx1nwt713TaFfXg6ldqm5-vmjQuDQ51n1qNOQgDh67Y6Z0WqDdGjvRMquF9GPngdJuy7wJIeeatClMvrbhcZc9jIFpwEMHK6sAT0rPaCvA0248YmwQEXyAu_NINQ/s400/Lawrence+Satan+and+Beelzebub+1795-1797.jpg

Needless to say I was super disappointed in the available artwork. Apparently there is an anime Beelzebub, but he doesn’t seem very impressive either. I wonder why he isn’t depicted in art more? I even narrowed my searches and even looked specifically for Paradise Lost artwork…nothing impressive. For the other demons I was able to find some pretty interesting artwork, but not for Satan’s right-hand man, it seems odd... Especially since according to Milton, Beelzebub was the mouth piece of Satan. I would think he would be seen more, rousing the other demons to do Satan’s bidding, but somehow making it seem like it was their idea the whole time. The images I was able to find just left me wanting…

The Demons’ Arguments Part III

Now, Mammon is perhaps the demon I most looked forward to reading about. I know of Mammon from the comic-con world as Satan’s son. He was supposed to be the Devil’s response to God and Jesus. The Devil felt that if God was to have a chosen Son, so would he. Basically the response “anything you can do, I can do better” which is pretty fitting to what we’ve read of Satan, in Milton’s world at least.

So reading Mammon in Paradise Lost was actually a bit of a disappointment. I wanted Satan’s son, instead I get a demon content with the realms of hell. Belial and Mammon seem to be on the same page as each other, both content to sit around and not do much…well at least Mammon wants to make hell a little more “homey.”

Mammon is the deity of greed.

In Book One of Paradise Lost, Mammon is described as:

“Mammon, the least erected Spirit that fell

From Heaven; for even in Heaven his looks and thoughts

Were always downward bent, admiring more

The riches of heaven's pavement, trodden gold,

Than aught divine or holy else enjoyed

In vision beatific. By him first

Men also, and by his suggestion taught,

Ransacked the centre, and with impious hands

Rifled the bowels of their mother Earth

For treasures better hid.”

This version is found online at http://classiclit.about.com/library/bl-etexts/jmilton/bl-jmilton_plost_1.htm

I of course wanted to find visual representations of this demon. The Mammon I expected was

http://fc02.deviantart.net/fs28/f/2008/077/8/c/8c1799b4ff8b009a.jpg

The Mammon images that better fit Milton’s ideal are

 

http://static.comicvine.com/uploads/original/4/46347/1441057-mammon.jpg

 

http://th08.deviantart.net/fs71/PRE/i/2010/181/e/4/Mammon_by_palenight.jpg

These images fit what Milton describes because, as he states, Mammon was evil from the get-go. His view was already downcast. He likes hell because he never liked heaven to begin with. I still would’ve liked the Constantine comic version though…

The Demon’s Arguments Part II

The second demon to speak is Belial, which in Hebrew means worthless. He seems to be the deadly sin Sloth personified, or rather demonified. Milton describes Belial as:

“On th' other side up rose

Belial, in act more graceful and humane.

A fairer person lost not Heaven; he seemed

For dignity composed, and high exploit.

But all was false and hollow; though his tongue

Dropped manna, and could make the worse appear

The better reason, to perplex and dash

Maturest counsels: for his thoughts were low—

To vice industrious, but to nobler deeds

Timorous and slothful. Yet he pleased the ear,

And with persuasive accent”

Again, this version of Paradise Lost comes from the website http://classiclit.about.com/library/bl-etexts/jmilton/bl-jmilton_plost_2.htm (It just makes it easier to cut and paste instead of typing it all out manually).

So, Milton describes Belial as graceful, humane, fair, dignified, false and hollow, noble, slothful, and persuasive. As another classmate had posted, the demon of college students…I might even go so far to add that Belial is the patron demon on English majors specifically.

Two images I found of Belial are

 

http://webzoom.freewebs.com/crimsonheart/Crimsonheart%20Profile%20Pics/BelialMorningstar.jpg

http://i1108.photobucket.com/albums/h411/awean8/Belial.jpg

These depictions of Belial are fitting; he actually looks pretty dang cool if you ask me.

He looks and name (with the Hebrew meaning) are a perfect fit for his argument, which is basically like “Hey guys, we should totally just wait it out here. We shouldn’t listen to Moloch, we’ll just lose again. The best course of action is no action at all. Maybe if we wait around not doing anything long enough God will forgive us maybe…”

Overall, he is a pretty worthless demon.

O yeah, I forgot to add in my last post about how Moloch reminded me of the movie The Time Machine (no I haven’t yet read the book by H.G. Wells). I’m referring to the movie from the 1960s, because I'm cool like that...or something like that...

In the movie the main character travels far into the future where the race of humans are preyed upon and eaten by nefarious under-dwellers called the “Morlocks,” coincidence—I think not.

 

http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20121111085426/non-aliencreatures/images/2/2c/Morlocks.jpg

The Demons’ Arguments Part I

I loved the demons’ and their arguments regarding what their next move should be. I know we talked about them in groups, but I wanted to talk a little more about them.

I was fascinated by Moloch’s vengeful aggression. But it makes sense. The demon himself makes sense and I can see why Milton would choose him to be one of the voices for the war argument. Moloch or Molech means “king” in Hebrew. Moloch was one of the Caananite gods (from the Bible). The followers of Moloch needed to sacrifice their children by throwing them into fire.

“next him Moloch, sceptred king,

Stood up—the strongest and the fiercest Spirit

That fought in Heaven, now fiercer by despair.

His trust was with th' Eternal to be deemed

Equal in strength, and rather than be less

Cared not to be at all; with that care lost

Went all his fear: of God, or Hell, or worse,

He recked not”

This version comes from the website: http://classiclit.about.com/library/bl-etexts/jmilton/bl-jmilton_plost_2.htm

http://cdn.pjmedia.com/lifestyle/files/2012/08/child-sacrifice-to-canaanite-gods1.jpg

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtwHoA6RQ7Muy8K5uyYGbkqOp7MD3i7U0OxFF3K0l4scoQSRAp765igKA2g6ur5GxXpMn06XSOmNrYg-wMu96VNf7mU7NL5w8fG-SqGqOmPEA-WgGqj2tctXwOR3QkjsoummFzMAMYIKMR/s1600/moloch.jpg

The description Milton provides of this demon is fitting to the images I was able to find online. He is “bull-headed” both literally and figuratively. He also appears strong and kingly. His characteristics fit his argument which is to attack Heaven again, because he feels he and the other demons have nothing to lose. They could lose hell and lose the eternal pain they feel or they could gain heaven. To him the only feasible option left for them is to fight. Even though he’s a pretty awful demon, you kind of have to respect his tenacity.  

A Fallen Angel’s Pain

(FYI: my version of the play is on my I Pad and only gives me page numbers and not line numbers)

My favorite part, by far, of the play, Doctor Faustus, is the character Mephistopheles. When Dr. Faustus asks Mephistopheles about hell “First I will question with thee about hell. Tell me where is the place that men call hell?” (31). Mephistopheles responds with “[Hell is] within the bowels of these elements, where we are tortur’d and remain for ever; Hell hath no limits, nor is it circumscrib’d in one self place ; for where we are is hell, and where hell is there must we ever be” (31).

Before this Mephistopheles states how hell pains him, “…I who saw the face of God, and tasted the eternal joys of Heaven, [I am] tormented with ten thousand hells, in being depriv’d of everlasting bliss” (21).

This reminded me of the movie Dogma, written and directed by Kevin Smith (director of the Jay and Silent Bob stoner movies). When the fallen angel Bartleby rants to Loki about God’s love and forgiveness of his favorite creation (man) and how as angels they must constantly feel the absence of God. (It’s a great movie, I highly recommend it).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSQYRq8kf4g  (sorry for the advertisement)

In artwork from around the period Doctor Faustus was written, the Devil was commonly depicted as blue or black. The color blue was chosen (as I believe) to represent the coldness the devil and demons feel no longer being warmed by God’s love. Without God there is nothing. According to physics you cannot add cold, you can only remove heat. Without God there is nothing, removing everything from life. Essentially, in the realm of physics, hell could only be darkness and cold, void of everything. Like cold, you cannot add darkness, only remove light. I find this an incredibly interesting concept. Even more so is the transition of the interpretation of the Devil and hell. Here he is blue, later he is half-beast/half-human, then red with fire and brimstone, and then in class we agreed that the Devil would simply be an attractive person. The Bible also supports a blue devil with the hot/cold interpretation in Revelations 3:15-16—I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.

This means (in my understanding) that you are either hot (passionate) for the Lord our God or are cold (uncaring) of Him. Then there are those who feel he exists, but do not love Him or worship Him and to God these people are just as bad and he will spew them from his mouth and cast them aside. Indifference is worse than cold in God’s eyes.

Giotto’s The Last Judgment, painted in 1306, shows this tormenting and tormented blue devil:

 

http://www.julianporterqc.com/images/giotto.jpg

Why aren’t the Utopians Vegetarians?

Reading through Utopia I found a fair few things quite odd. One thing that stuck out to me was their ideas toward meat. It states that they sell it and eat it and it’s made readily available to them, but they dare not taint their hands with the blood of the animals, they have their slaves do it. More states that “Bondsmen do the slaughtering and cleaning [of the animals]…The Utopians feel that slaughtering our fellow creatures gradually destroys the sense of compassion, which is the finest sentiment of which our human nature is capable” (50). If the Utopians truly feel that way, then why subject anyone to do the slaughtering and to the loss of compassion? Aren’t they saying that by killing an animal you slowly kill your soul? That seems a little cruel to do even to a “slave” whom the Utopians still consider human beings, I’m pretty sure at least. I feel the much simpler thing to do, especially since they are so big into farming and big ol' gardens, is to just become vegetarians. 

http://www.nomeatathlete.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/fruits-and-veggies-photo.jpg

Utopia and Euthanasia

I was very intrigued by Thomas More’s ideas of his Utopia. I was particularly drawn to his views (or the Utopian views) of euthanasia. Like the footnotes point out with the root words of Utopia (no-place) and Raphael Hythloday (an archangel / nonsense-peddler), I feel it is important to know a word’s origin. I feel it helps to understand where a word comes from and how it was originally meant before society placed it into a new context. For example, euthanasia has a bad connotation to it because we associate it with death and loss, typically that of a pet: “I had to have my dog euthanized (or put down).” Euthanasia has now become a “bad” word because it is associated with our own bad feelings that we associate with it. Euthanasia’s Greek roots (funny how a lot of More’s vocabulary is rooted in Greek) as found on medterms.com state that “The word "euthanasia" comes straight out of the Greek—"eu", goodly or well + "thanatos" death = the good death—and for 18th-century writers in England that was what euthanasia meant, a "good" death, a welcome way to depart quietly and well from life.” I feel this is exactly what More was trying to relay to the readers, not that the Utopians wanted to go around killing people or convincing people they’d be better off dead, but providing a way to end suffering and escape a painful and drawn out death.

I have witnessed a lot of death and dying and I appreciate the sentiment More is trying to convey. More states the Utopians “tell [the dying person that] he should not let the disease prey on him any longer, but now that life is simply torture, he should not hesitate to die but should rely on hope for something better” (71). The “something better” is likely that person’s perception of the afterlife aka heaven. My Great Grandfather passed away at 88-years-old. He was put on Hospice because he was terminally ill and dying and he knew it as well as everyone did. He prayed every night and day for God to take him Home. He eventually couldn’t eat or drink anymore and because he was on Hospice they didn’t allow IVs or feeding tubes. His body eventually shut down. It was hard for me to watch. I didn’t understand why they deprived him of food and water. But now I do. It was to move along his progression to the other side. He was suffering, crying out to die every day but unable to obtain the release he sought. He prayed for an end to his life on Earth so he could move on to something better, somewhere where he could be pain free. It upsets me now that we don’t provide the “good death” (euthanasia) to those terminally ill. I don’t think it is right to force someone to suffer longer because the idea of something we don’t fully understand makes us too uncomfortable aka dying.

We extend this gratitude easily to our beloved pets. Two years ago I lost my golden retriever to lymphoma. His lymph nodes on his neck swelled to the size of mangos and labored his breathing. He couldn't keep any food down. He could barely walk. His quality of life was gone. He was suffering. I took him to the vet and held him close as they injected him with medication that made him fall asleep. I held him as he died. It was the best I could offer him at that point, the good death, and I prayed he was taken off to something better.

If we do this for our pets, whom we cherish (sometimes more than people), why don’t we offer the same treatment to friends and family?

My sweet Brodie Bruce. He was diagnosed with lymphoma when he was almost 4yrs old. With chemo treatment he was able to stay with me for an additional 11 months before he passed. He was 2 months shy of his 5th birthday.

Lysistrata and the Wife of Bath

So there is this Greek play called Lysistrata, written about 400 BC by Aristophanes. The play is about a strong female character, named Lysistrata who is so upset by the Peloponnesian War she tries to find a way for the women of Greece to end the war since the men seem unable. And what do men love more than anything else??? SEX, of course. Lysistrata convinces the Greek women to withhold sex from their husbands until the war has ended. This is a comedy, so of course hilarity ensues. The one thing Lysistrata fails to realize is that women crave and need sex just as bad as their husbands.

This play has been critically thought of as a feminist war, a first of its kind for that time period, since like Chaucer’s era women were things and not really people to have any kind of influence.  

So is Aristophanes just making fun of woman? Is Chaucer just making fun of women with his tale of the Wife of Bath? Are these authors’ pioneers of women’s rights by writing about strong, influential, and smart female characters?

Personally, I feel both authors wrote their respective strong willed female characters to amp up the hilarity of their writings. Unintentionally, I feel they also pioneered feminist thoughts. I’m sure educated females heard about these characters and realized the strength women can have, even when all she has is her body.  

Lysistrata: http://www.lysistrataunleashed.com/LysistrataSilhouette2sm.jpg

Wife of Bath: http://www.luminarium.org/medlit/wife.gif

What Makes a Man??

Ok, so I’m still on the Beowulf kick, I can’t help it. The Canterbury Tales may have their moments, but my mind is more intensely drawn to fighting and monsters and dragons…I can’t help it. Beowulf is just way cooler than any of the Canter-characters, it’s a fact.  

My last blog post was about what made a monster. After dwelling on that idea for a while, I realized we never really discussed what made a man. Surely the natural assumption is that a man is the opposite of a monster (or at least one should hope). But men can be monsters, can’t they?

The trusty ol’ Oxford English Dictionary (OED) describes a man as:

Man 1: A human being; to have or assume human nature

Man 2: Wickedness; a lie

Man 4: An ostentatiously virile or manly man; a man engaged in or excelling in activities considered to be typically masculine.

These definitions, for lack of a better term, are extremely bland. Is it that difficult to define what makes a man? Is there no real definition because it is not a term, but a label generated by society? In Beowulf’s society, a man fears nothing; he fights his demons to their death or his own. No fear is allowed. A man he boasts his accomplishments. Other men follow a real man. But, even in Beowulf’s society men are allowed their faults it seems. King Hrothgar is still considered a great king even though he fails to kill Grendel himself.

Given today’s time, I feel there are probably different expectations of what makes a man, or a woman for that matter. Each of us in this class probably has varying ideals on what a true man/woman is. Maybe that’s what makes it so difficult to define. 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d5/David_von_Michelangelo.jpg

Sculpture David by Michelangelo

Monsters and Beowulf

I’m very intrigued by the definition of a monster. The Oxford Dictionary describes a monster as:

Something extraordinary or unnatural; a malformed animal or plant; a fetus, neonate, or individual with a gross congenital malformation, usually of a degree incompatible with life; a person of repulsively unnatural character, or exhibiting such extreme cruelty or wickedness as to appear inhuman; a monstrous example of evil, a vice, etc.; an ugly or deformed person, animal, or thing.

In the epic poem Beowulf, Grendel easily fits this definition. Grendel is described as “a powerful demon” (86), “a fiend out of hell” (100), and “[dwells] in misery among the banished monsters, Cain’s Clan, whom the Creator had outlawed and condemned as outcasts” (106-107).  

Every description in Beowulf seems to focus on Grendel’s character, not his appearance. There is no description of what he looks like, only how he acts. He acts a fiend, he is God-cursed, and he is a miserable wretch. Not once does it say if he is covered in hair, lumpy or bumpy, or a creepy creature. He is a monster to these people because of his inhuman actions. Because he dwells in the bogs and murders and eats people he is a monster; which fits the Oxford definition “exhibiting extreme cruelty or wickedness.”

http://universaltruths.weebly.com/uploads/4/2/8/3/4283311/8592088_orig.jpeg