Can a book,
though it be revelation,
be considered scripture,.
If it be not adopted,
by a faith community.
Thus begins his love, and study, of Milton,
and his Paradise Lost, then Regained
Forever then trapped,
shall he remain,
in its stygian pool,
the remainder of his days.
Paradise Lost Book III
Thee I re-visit now with bolder wing,[13]
Escap't the Stygian Pool, though long detain'd
In that obscure sojourn, while in my flight [ 15 ]
Through utter and through middle darkness borne
With other notes then to th' Orphean Lyre
I sung of Chaos and Eternal Night,
Taught by the heav'nly Muse to venture down
The dark descent, and up to reascend, [ 20 ]
Though hard and rare: thee I revisit safe,
And feel thy sovran vital Lamp; but thou
Revisit'st not these eyes, that rowle in vain
To find thy piercing ray, and find no dawn;
John Milton had written, or more likely dictated to his daughter, as an old man who had lost his sight, his epic poems Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained. As a young man, he loved Greek tales and fables. He saught to write an Epic, in the Greek Tradition, at first on the Arthurian Legends.
As an older man who lost two wives in childbirth, and experienced a decade-long separation from his first wife he turns to the story of Adam and Even and the redemption of Christ as the subject of his epic poems.
The Stygian pool refers to the river Styx the river in the Greek Under-World. I have been captured by John Milton and desire to be immersed in his Stygian Pool and to learn of the true myth of Adam and Eve.
