"The Vine and Her Elm": Milton's Eve and the Transformation of an Ovidian Motif

Author(s): Mandy Green

Source: The Modern Language Review, Vol. 91, No. 2 (Apr., 1996), pp. 301-316
Published by: Modern Humanities Research Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3735013
Accessed: 06-11-2015 08:25 UTC

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 'THE VINE AND HER ELM': MILTON'S EVE AND THE
TRANSFORMATION OF AN OVIDIAN MOTIF

Recent criticism has disposed of the old truism that Milton was a misogynistic poet
with 'something like a Turkish contempt of females as subordinate beings'.' The
importance Milton evidently attached to Eve's role in Eden is now recognized and
acknowledged. Like Adam, Eve is seen to be an image of God the 'sovereignplanter'
(Iv.69 I)2 who takes a full and active part in the Garden.3Milton's treatment of their
relationship is complex, however, and refuses to be neatly fixed and formulated. It
is too subtle to admit only one line of interpretation. Indeed, we are not allowed to
rest content with any one single formulation. While it is true that Milton may refer
to the couple in terms that seem to indicate their absolute equality, sometimes
stressing their separateness as distinct individuals, at other times suggesting that
they are complementary halves of a single composite whole, this is clearly not the
whole truth.4 He also places them in a hierarchical relationship of greater and
lesser, superior and inferior.
There is no denying the force of the oft-quoted line, 'He for God only, she for
God in him' (Iv.299) or the statement that Adam and Eve were 'not equal, as their
sex not equal seemed' (IV.296). Similarly, the references to Adam's 'absolute rule'
(Iv.30i) and 'superior love' (IV.499) obdurately remain, making their presence felt
as unequivocal statements of the inequality of the sexes.5 Yet they hardly offset the
impact of a number of emotionally charged passages that cast doubt upon Eve's
supposed inferiority and complicate our response to her from the outset.6 There
seems no escaping the conclusion that we are confronted with two very different
attitudes to Eve. The difficulty we may experience in reconciling the derisory
remark that Adam fell 'fondly overcome with female charm' (Ix.999) with the
fascination and delight in Eve's beauty so strongly in evidence elsewhere in the
poem is obvious enough and need not detain me here. These direct effects are,

1 DrJohnson, Livesof thePoets,ed.

by George BirkbeckHill, 3 vols (Oxford:Oxford UniversityPress, 1905),
I, 157. Even in an avowedlyfeminist study of the role of women in Paradise Lost,Marcia Landy has readily
conceded that in his 'treatmentof male and female roles' Milton was a 'representativeseventeenth-century
poet' ('Kinshipand the Role of Women in Paradise Lost',MiltonStudies,4 (1972), 3-20 (p. 5)). However, the
charge of misogyny was revived in Sandra K. Gilbert's essay, 'PatriarchalPoetry and Women Readers:
Reflectionson Milton'sBogey',PMLA,92 (1978), 368-82. But seeJoan MaloryWebber'sreplyin 'The Politics
of Poetry: Feminism and ParadiseLost, Milton Studies,14 (I980), 3-24, and, more recently, William
Shullenberger'schallengingcontributionto the debate, 'Wrestlingwith the Angel: Paradise Lostand Feminist
Criticism',MiltonQuarterly, 20 (I986), 69-85. See also Anna K. Juhnke, 'Remnants of Misogyny', Milton
Quarterl,22 ( 988), 50-58. HenceforthMiltonStudiesis abbreviatedto MS and MiltonQuarterly to MQ:
2 All quotationsfrom Milton'spoeticalworksare takenfrom the edition byJohn Carey and AlastairFowler
(London: Longman, 197 ).
3 Barbara K. Lewalski,'Milton on Women - Yet Once More', MS, 6 (I974), 3-20 (p. 3). Lewalskitakes
issue with Landy'scomplaintsabout the limitationsof the female role in Paradise Lost.See too 'The Hand of
Eve: Ingredientsof Virtue', in Diane K. McColley's importantwork, Milton'sEve (Urbana: University of
Illinois Press, 1983), pp. I 10-39.
4 Kathleen M. Swaim has analysed some of these complexitiesin '"Hee for God only, Shee for God in
Him": StructuralParallelismin Paradise
Lost',MS, Io (1976), I21-49 (p. 124). See also Webber,'The Politics
of Poetry', pp. I3-I5, and Marilyn R. Farrell, 'Eve, the Separation Scene and the Renaissance Idea of
Androgyny', MS, 14 (I982), 3-20 (p. 6).
5
CompareWilliamWhatley'ssimilarlyclear-cutpronouncementsin his advice on how to be 'a good wife':
'Let her set downe this conclusion within her soule: Mine Husband is my superior, my better: he hath
authoritieand rule over me' (BrideBush(London, I619), pp. I89-90).
6 See PeterLindenbaum,
'Lovemakingin Milton'sParadise',MS, 6 (I974), 277-306 (p. 289).

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302 'The Vineand Her Elm'

however, useful indicators on the surface level of the narrative of an underlying

tension which lies coiled at the heart of the epic and which is resolved only with the
eating of the apple.
My particular purpose is to trace the way in which this ambivalence is reflected
in Milton's handling of the vine motif. Milton's linking of Eve with the vine has long
been recognized, but this identification proves to be more complex and suggestive
than is commonly noted. The vine is a composite image, an axis that holds together
two opposing aspects of Eve, Janus-like. On the one hand, it proclaims her
weakness, her dependence on Adam, and her vulnerability without his supporting
presence; on the other it becomes a symbol of her active and independent power, a
celebration of her beauty and fruitfulness.7 The reader's dilemma cannot be
resolved by merely rejecting one set of implications in favour of the other; we are
neither invited nor permitted to choose between them until the morning of the Fall.
We must simply accept that the two are placed in dramatic conflict, this very
opposition playing its part in propelling the action to its crisis.
Significantly, the vine motif first appears with our introduction to the human
pair. The passage evolves from visual description into an account of Eve's
relationship to Adam:8her 'golden tresses'
in wantonringletswaved
As thevine curlshertendrils,whichimplied
Subjection,butrequiredwithgentlesway,
Andby heryielded,by himbestreceived.
(Iv.305)
'Each descriptive detail is', as D. P. Harding observes, 'subordinate to one, large,
informing idea- the dominant position of man in the relationship between Adam
and Eve.'9 This emphasis on 'subjection'is in keeping with definitions of the marital
relationship developed by other Reformers.10Daniel Rogers argued uncompro-
misingly that 'the first Dutie of the Wife [is] Subjection'l and William Perkins
hammered the point home with a similar emphasis in his definition of'a couple' as
'that whereby two persons standing in mutuall relationship to each other, are
combined as it were in one. And of these two, the one is alwaies higher, and beareth
rule, the other is lower and yeeldeth subjection'.'2 However, we need not read
Milton's account very searchingly to become aware of certain unresolved tensions
in the passage. Such tensions can be felt in the work of other writers and is
characteristic of an age in which male dominance rested uneasily with mutuality,
'Collateral love, and dearest amity'; as Adam demands, 'Among unequals what
society I Can sort?' (vIII.426, 383-84). It is a difficultyadmitted by William Gouge,

7 I am extendingan interestingobservationby Don ParryNorfordthat 'womanis at once greaterand lesser,

strongerand weaker,than man' ('The Separationof the WorldParentsin Paradise Lost, MS, 12 (1978), 3-24
(P. 3)).
8 CompareMichael Lieb, TheDialectics of Creation: ofBirthandRegeneration
Patterns in 'ParadiseLost'(Amherst:
University of MassachusettsPress, 1970),pp. 7I-72.
9 Davis P. Studiesin theClassicalBackground Lost',Illinois Studies in
Harding, TheClubof Hercules: of 'Paradise
Languageand Literature,50 (Urbana:Universityof IllinoisPress, 1962), p. 69.
10See William and Malleville Haller, 'The PuritanArt of Love', Huntington LibraryQuarterly,5 (I941-42),
235-72; W. Haller, "'Hail WeddedLove"', ELH, 13 (1946), 79-97, repr. in Milton:ModemJudgements, ed. by
Alan Rudrum (London:Macmillan, 1969), pp. 296-312; Alan Sinfield, 'Who Bids Abstain?',in Literature in
Protestant
England:1560o-660 (London:Croom Helm;Totowa,NJ: Barnes& Noble, I983), pp. 49-70.
'1 Daniel Rogers,MatrimoniallHonour(London,I642), p. 253.
12 Christian trans.by T. Pickering(London,I609), p. 130.
Oeconomie,

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 MANDY GREEN 303

for example, who conceded that he found only a 'small inequality [...] betwixt
man and wife', and indeed argued for the interdependence of the sexes thus:
Thoughthe man be as the head,yet is the womanas the hart,whichis the most excellent
part of the body next to the head, farremore excellentthan any othermemberunderthe
hart,and almostequallto the headin manyrespectsandas necessaryas the head.13
So too Godfrey Goodman had stressed the virtual equality of the sexes and argued
that woman had her own particular gifts, explaining that it was only for the sake of
order that 'between man and wife there must be a superior': 'Though she be made
of the ribs, and every way equall as touching her condition, but for her beauty and
comelinesse far excelling man, yet, in government she is inferior and subject to
man.'14 Such a position sounds clear, but builds in conflict, as Alan Sinfield has
demonstrated: 'The wife is to receive the respect due to an equal partner, but also
to be subordinate' (p. 65). So, too, Eve's 'submission', L. W. Hyman remarks, 'does
not remove the impulse towards independence; and we are reminded that the seeds
of conflict are inherent in Paradise'.15
With the first appearance of the vine motif there thus exists some degree of
tension between the image of the vine and the narrative assertion it is supposed to
complement. Moreover, the hierarchical scheme apparently set forth so clearly and
succinctly in our first introduction to the human couple proves to be further
qualified as well as defined by the central image of their marriage, the wedding of
the vine to her elm. 6 I now look more closely at the scene that unfolds as Adam and
Eve set about 'their morning's rural work' in the Garden and are observed by God
employed
whereanyrow
Of fruittreesover-woodyreachedtoo far
Theirpamperedboughs,andneededhandsto check
Fruitlessembraces:or theyled thevine
To wed herelm;shespousedabouthim twines
Her marriageable arms,andwithherbrings
Her dower,the adoptedclusters,to adorn
His barrenleaves.
(V.2 I2)

This passage illustratesMilton's ability to include a symbolic episode and hold it up

as a mirror to reflect certain less-obvious areas of meaning without causing the
narrative to pause unduly. It appears shortly after Eve's account of her disturbing
dream and Adam's comforting explanation of it to her. It is thus, most obviously,
indicative of the newly restored peace and accord between the couple after the
divisive experience of the previous night, expressed through the harmony of their
actions. This interpretation seems confirmed by an analysis of the figurative level:

Duties(London, I626),p. 273.

13 WilliamGouge, OfDomesticall
14 GodfreyGoodman, TheFallofMan(London, I6I6),p. 253.
15Lawrence W.Hyman,TheQuarrel ArtandMorality
Within: inMilton's
Poetry KennikatPress,1972),
(London:
P. 44.
article,'TheVine andthe Elm:NotesTowardsthe Historyof a
16 See PeterDemetz'sthought-provoking
MarriageTopos', PMLA,73 (1958),521-32. In a more recent studyTodd H. Sammonshas carefullyanalysed
how the classicalimagesof 'a vine curlingaroundan elm'andan 'ivyclingingto a tree[.. .] coalesceto
suggestboththespecialnatureof prelapsarian marriage of AdamandEve'ssinning'('"As
andthepossibility
the Vine Curlsher Tendrils": MarriageToposand EroticCountertopos in Paradise
Lost',MQ, 20 (1986),
I I7-27 (p. 17)).

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304 'The Vineand Her Elm'

the passage, with its heavy insistence on 'wedded love' ('wed', 'spoused', 'marriage-
able', 'dower'),17ritually re-enacts their courtship and marriage with remarkable
precision. As the focus shifts from the gardeners to the Garden in line 215, the
human couple are transformed emblematically into the vine and the elm they are
themselves tending.
The emblematic picture of the sturdyelm and the clinging vine underlies Milton's
portrayal of the first marriage,18and is apparently the means by which he would
translate into graphic visual terms the abstract hierarchical conception of a
relationship in which Eve's dependence on Adam is central. That it is employed
primarily to symbolize a relationship of support and dependence would seem to be
confirmed by the more explicit metaphor of the flower and her prop in Book ix
(11.432-33), and this interpretation appears to gain further support from Milton's
own earlier use of the vine-elm figure in his pamphlet Of Reformation in England,
where he argues for the self-sufficiencyof the Church thus:
I am not of the opinionto thinkethe Churcha Vine in thisrespect,because,as theytakeit,
she cannotsubsistwithoutclaspingaboutthe Elmeof worldlystrength,andfelicity,as if the
heavenly City could not support it selfe without the props and buttressesof secular
Authoritie.19
In any case, we are sufficientlyprepared for a more profound layer of suggestiveness
and the way in which the emblem relates Eve to Adam, as vine to elm, by traditional
poetic usage.20
'The vine-prop elm' remained one of the most cherished items of gardening lore
handed down from Roman writers.21Virgil, for example, in a few prefatorylines to
the Georgics,had proclaimed his intention to instruct his reader when to join the vine
to the elm ('ulmis [ . .] adiungere uitis' (I.2).22More pertinently, 'the idea that the
elm is weddedto the vine it supports is', as Fowler observes, 'very ancient: Horace
OdesII.xv.4 [and OdesIv.v.29-30] already take its familiarity for granted' (note to
v.2I5-I9; emphasis added). In his Epithalamium, Catullus seems to have been the
first poet to exploit the inherent potentiality of the image for illustrating human
marital relationships, but the emphasis lies entirely upon the female vine's
insufficiencywithout the masculine elm. The vine's complete dependence upon the
elm is used as an exemplum to further the argument of the chorus of young men:
the Iuvenesare anxious to impress upon the contending chorus of determined virgins

17 See L. D. Lerner,'The MiltonicSimile',Essaysin Criticism,

4 (I954), 297-308 (p. 305).
18 Lost'andtheEmblemTradition
Althoughin OfCostliest Emblem: 'Paradise (Washington,DC: UniversityPressof
America, 1978)ShalhaAnand emphasizes'the emblematiccharacterof many picturesin Paradise Lost'(p. 2 I),
no
surprisinglyshe makes mentionof the vine-elm figure.
19 OfReformation inEngland,in TheWorks I8
ofMilton, vols, ed. by Frank Allen Pattersonand others(New York:
Columbia UniversityPress, I932), III i, 72.
20 In his valuable study, Milton'sImageryand the VisualArts: The Iconographic Traditionin the Epic Poems
(Princeton,NJ: PrincetonUniversityPress, I978), Roland Mushat Fryehas pointed out that 'rathergeneral
associationsof the femininevine with the masculinetree had been directlyconnected,in the visual arts,with
the storyof the firstparentslong before Milton wrote Paradise Lost'(p. 247). See too A. BartlettGiamatti, The
EarthlyParadiseandtheRenaissanceEpic(Princeton,NJ:PrincetonUniversityPress, 1966), p. 323.
21 Edmund Spenser, TheFaerieQueene, I.i.8; see too Kester Svendsen, MiltonandScience(Cambridge,MA:
HarvardUniversityPress, 1956),p. 133.
22 Quotationsfrom the Latin text of Virgil's Georgicon are takenfrom Opera,ed. by R. A. B. Mynors(Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1972), trans. by C. Day Lewis in The Eclogues,Georgicsand Aeneidof Virgil
(London:OxfordUniversityPress, 1966).

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 MANDY GREEN 305

the essential benefits of marriage for a woman. Without the sustaining presence of the
elm, the vine sprawls in the dust, neglected, blighted, and fruitless:
ut vidua in nudo vitis quae nascitur arvo
numquam se extollit, numquam mitem educat uvam
sed tenerum prono deflectens pondere corpus
iam iam contingit summum radice flagellum;
hanc nulli agricolae, nulli coluere iuvenci.
at si forte eademst ulmo coniuncta marita,
multi illam agricolae, multi coluere iuvenci:
sic virgo dum intacta manet, dum inculta senescit;
cum par conubium maturo tempore adeptast,
cara viro magis et minus est invisa parenti.
(LXII.48)

(As an unwedded vine which grows up in a bare field never raises itself aloft, never brings
forth a mellow grape, but bending its tender form with downward weight, even now touches
the root with topmost shoot; no farmers, no oxen tend it: but if it chance to be joined in
marriage to the elm, many farmers, many oxen tend it: so a maiden, whilst she remains
untouched, so long is she aging untended; but when in ripe season she is matched in equal
wedlock, she is more dear to her husband and less distastefulto her father.)23
It is interesting to note in passing that in The Comedyof Errors,Shakespeare's only
use of the vine-elm topos, the figure is similarly employed to illustrate the vine's
utter dependence upon the elm. Again, significantly, no indication is given that the
reverse might in some sense be true, or even that the vine herself may have valuable
gifts to offer in exchange for support. Adriana, mistaking Antipholus of Syracuse for
his twin brother, her husband, addresses him as the sturdy tree to which she, the
weak vine, must cling for support:
Come, I will fasten on this sleeve of thine;
Thou art an elm, my husband, I a vine,
Whose weakness, married to thy stronger state,
Makes me with thy strength to communicate.
(II.2.173)

The vine-elm figure would seem, then, the natural emblem to crystallize a
hierarchical relationship between the first man and woman. In Book iv, in spite of
the undercurrent of tension noted in the passage, the vine-like Eve, once joined to
her elm, is seen to be charmingly compliant, all that is submissive, soft, and
yielding,24 but in Book v Milton is presenting a relationship that is subtly different.
The hierarchical conception is now substantially qualified as well as defined by the
image.
Milton's lines in Book v, with their emphasis upon an exchange of gifts (the vine
needing support but giving beauty and fruit in return)25 are closer in feeling,
thought, and expression to Ovid's use of the vine-elm figure as it appears in his
account of Vertumnus's wooing of the fair gardener and goddess of fruit trees,

23 Text and translation F. W. Cornishin the Loeb Classical

by Library(Cambridge,MA: HarvardUniversity
Press, 1913).I have used the revisededitionof I962.
24
John Halkettemphasizes'the associationof the "female"vine with dependenceand submissionon the one
hand, and with the idea of frailtyrequiringgentlenessof treatmenton the other'(MiltonandtheIdeaofMatrimony:
A StudyoftheDivorceTractsand'Paradise Lost'(New Haven, CT: Yale UniversityPress, 1970),p. 104).
25 See
Joseph H. Summers, TheMuse'sMethod: An Introduction
to 'Paradise
Lost'(London:Chatto & Windus,
1962), p. 84.

11

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306 'The VineandHerElm'

Pomona, to whom, of course, Eve herself is explicitly likened later in Book v

(11.377-8I) and again in Book ix (11.391-95). Experiencing some initial resistance
to the idea of marriage from this self-reliant and independent young woman,
Vertumnus uses the example of the fruitfulwedding of the vine and elm to advance
his suit:
ulmuseratcontraspeciosanitentibusuvis:
quamsociapostquamparitercumviteprobavit,
'atsi staret'ait 'caelebssinepalmitetruncus,
nil praeterfrondes,quarepeteretur,haberet;
haecquoque,quaeiunctaest,vitisrequiescitin ulmo:
si non nuptaforet,terraeacclinataiaceret;
tu tamenexemplonon tangerisarborishuius
concubitusque fugisnec te coniungerecuras.'
xiv.66 )
(Metamorphoses
(Therewas a shapelyelm-treeopposite,coveredwith gleamingbunchesof grapes.Afterhe
had lookedapprovinglyat thisawhile,togetherwithits vine companion,he said:'Butif that
treestoodthereunmatedto thevine,it wouldhaveno valuesaveforitsleavesalone;andthis
vine, which clingsto and restssafelyon the elm, if it were not thus wedded,it would lie
languishing,flat upon the ground.But you are not touchedby the vine'sexampleand you
shunwedlockanddo not desireto bejoined to another.')26
Instead of merely emphasizing the vine's dependence upon the elm as Catullus had
done, Ovid's usage seems designed to stressthe reciprocal nature of the relationship.
It is intimated that a man and woman should, like their fruitful counterparts in
nature, use complementary gifts to mutual advantage. Ovid goes even further than
this by suggesting implicitly the elm's incompleteness without the vine. By
emphatically referringto the elm 'sine palmite' as a 'truncus'rather than an 'arbor',
he is able to draw subtly on the connotations of the adjective, which is used to
describe something imperfect in itself, lacking in, or being deprived of something
essential. So Adam clearly feels himself incomplete without Eve, 'in unity defective'
(vIII .425).27
While Ovid does concede that without his female companion the elm's shady
leaves would still be of intrinsic worth, Milton, as if deliberately answering him on
this point, denies even this attribute to be of any value by disparaginglyreferringto
the elm's leaves as 'barren' (v.2I9), an epithet particularly damning in a world in
which fruitfulnessis the summum bonum.Regarded in this way, the lines reflect rather
badly upon Adam; the elm's height and strength are not even commended and,
though emblematically a tree, he is rendered here, by implication, little more than a
lifeless stake.
This is not a tangential complexity. It may be timely to recall that Adam is first
glimpsed by Eve 'under a platan' (Iv.478). Fowler claims that this is because 'the
plane was a symbol of Christ', and he continues: 'This association seems more
probable than those who made the platan tree a symbol of erotic love.' However,
Milton is almost certainly mining another vein of association here:28 Horace

26 All
quotationsfrom the Metamorphoses are taken from the text and translationby F. J. Miller in the Loeb
ClassicalLibrary(Cambridge,MA: HarvardUniversityPress, 19 6). I have used the reprintededitionof 1976.
27 See PurvisE.
Boyette, 'SomethingMore about the EroticMotive in Paradise Lost', TulaneStudiesin English,
15 (1967), 19-30 (p. 28). On this point, see also A. G. George,MiltonandtheNatureofMan:A Descriptive Studyof
'ParadiseLost' in Termsof the ConceptofMan as theImageof God(London: Asia Publishing House, I974), pp. 65-74.
28 Fora differentview, see McColley,Milton'sEve,p. 8 .

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 MANDY GREEN 307

contrasts the bachelor plane, 'platanus caelebs', to the married elm (Odes,II. 15.4-5);
while in the Georgics, Virgil more damagingly refers to the barren planes, 'steriles
platani' (II.70), and Quintilian, apparently echoing Horace and Virgil, similarly
contraststhe 'steril[is]platan[us]' with the elm that weds the vine, 'marit[a] ulm[us]'
in his InstitutioOratoria(III.3.8). On the other hand, attention is drawn to the vine's
fruitfulself-sufficiencyin our firstview of Paradise, as 'the mantling vine j Lays forth
her purple grape, and gently creeps ILuxuriant'(IV.258-60), a very differentpicture
from the fruitless,unwedded vines of Catullus and Ovid that languish in the dust.
Whether or not much importance should be assigned to this detail, the picture of
the vine's ripe and active fruitfulnesscertainly takes its place amongst a significant
constellation of images substantially linking the feminine principle, and Eve in
particular, to abundance, vitality, and life. It has been observed how references to
the couple's expected fruitfulnesstend to cluster around Eve rather to the exclusion
of Adam.29Again there are recurrent intimations of an underlying affinitybetween
the abundance and fertility of Eden and Eve herself.30Subsuming the roles of Flora,
Ovid's MaterFlorum,and Pomona, 'the Goddesse of Hortyards and their fruitful
productions',31Eve becomes the geniusloci,maintaining its fertility and infusing life
into the plants.32Witness the impressive description of her first departure to garden
alone where Milton celebrates her nurturingpower:
[Eve]Rose, andwentforthamongherfruitsandflowers
To visithow theyprospered,budandbloom,
Her nursery;theyat hercomingsprung
Andtouchedby herfairtendancegladliergrew[.. ]
Withgoddess-likedemeanourforthshewent;
Not unattended,for on heras queen
A pompof winninggraceswaitedstill,
Andfromabouthershotdartsof desire,
Intoall eyesto wishherstillin sight.
(VIII.44, 59)
Confronted with such an account of Eve's powerful influence, the reader is more
than inclined to agree with Adam that deprived of her informing presence, the
fertile Garden would rapidly become a dark, desolate wasteland of 'wild woods
forlorn' (I.9io0).33
The hierarchical scheme apparently set forth so clearly and precisely in the first
introduction to the human couple gradually dissolves before our eyes, blurred by

29 One of the most

strikingexamplesof this tendencyoccursat the startof Raphael'svisitwhen, as C. S. Lewis
ratherperplexedlyremarks,'the angel hails [Eve] more ceremoniouslythan Adam' (APrefaceto 'Paradise Lost'
(Oxford:Oxford UniversityPress, 1971), p. 73). D. F. Rauber notes that while Eve is regularlylikened to a
Roman fertilitygoddess, Adam is rarely assigneda mythical role ('The Metamorphosesof Eve', LockHaven
Review,12 (I97 ), 54-70 (p. 60)). See also Dudley R. Hutcherson,'Milton'sEve and the other Eves', University
ofMississippiStudies
inEnglish,2 (1960), I2-31 (p. I6).
30 S. A. Demetrakopoulos,'Eve as a Circeanand CourtlyFatalWoman',MQ, 9 (I975), 99-I06 (p. 103).
31George Sandys, Ovid'sMetamorphosis: Englished, andRepresented
Mythologiz'd in Figures,ed. by Karl K. Hulley
and StanleyT. Vandersall(Lincoln:Universityof NebraskaPress, 1970),p. 66i.
32 See R. Milton's
Pastoral Vision:
An to 'Paradise
Lost'
John Knott, Approach (Chicago:Chicago UniversityPress,
197I), p. 114.
33 As David Aers and Bob Hodge have pointed out, the discussionon astronomyitselfmakesan indirectbut
complex comment on Eve's position.Adam asksabout hierarchiesin Heaven (VIII.5-38); in Raphael'sreply
(vIII.90-97) 'the parallelwith sexualityis explicit[... ]. The apparentexcellenceof the active male principleis
illusory:withoutthe earth it is barren[... ]. So man, in spite of doctrineto the contrary,existsfor woman?As
instrumentalto herfruitfulness?'("'Rational Burning":Milton on Sex and Marriage',MS, 13 (i979), 3-33
(pp. 19-20)).

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308 'The Vineand Her Elm'

ambiguity. In Book v (11.2 I 2-I 9) the vine easily overpowers the elm, which appears
curiously colourless in contrast. All the poetic energy in the description centres upon
the vine; once led to herelm (the proprietorial note of the possessive adjective is
emphatic), she takes the initiative by actively insinuating the passive elm into her
entwining arms and clasping him in a close, amorous embrace. Again the possibility
that Milton is expressing more serious misgivings at this mysterious female force at
once yielding and overwhelming cannot be overlooked. D. P. Harding is among
those critics who consider the vine image ambivalent. He concludes: 'The curled
tendrils imply subjection it is true, but also the kind of encroachment which may
ensnare and destroy as well.'34 Is there a more sinister connection between the
luxuriance of Eve's hair and the 'mantling vine'? It seems at least worth
remembering that the natural attributes of the 'vine-prop elm' (firmness, strength,
durability)were passed over in silence. In the event, the prop itself will yield to the
pressure of the vine it was supposed to have held erect.
It would seem possible, then, that at a subterranean level of the action, both
instances of the vine motif may have some bearing upon the moment of crisis. It is
interesting to speculate upon the possible significance of the parallel progression of
events surroundingboth examples. The way in which the wedding of the vine to the
elm prompts recollection of the similar tableau in Book iv, when Eve is discovered
half embracing Adam as she leaned upon him (1.494), cannot be ascribed to mere
chance. As the scene Eve has conjured up of her initial reluctance to be led to Adam
fades, she discloses her dependence on and adherence to him, and, as a token of
this, rests upon him as 'vitis requiescit in ulmo' (Metamorphoses, xiv.665). The
vine-elm sequence could be said to re-enact emblematically the action in this
passage.
Eve has just finished recounting to Adam how she had been found lying beside a
pool, vainly engaged in offering 'soft embraces' (Iv.47 I)35 to her own insubstantial
reflection. Her Guide had then raised her from this recumbent pose and led her to
where she could descry the 'fair [...] and tall' (Iv.477) figure of Adam who was,
henceforth, to be her 'guide' and 'best prop'. God's 're-dressing' of Eve to an
upright stance seems of especial significance in a poem in which there is so much
play upon the wider moral implications of physical posture.36
In both the classical and Christian traditions, humanity's erect stature was held
to be the differentiating external attribute that not only set human beings apart
from the animal kingdom they were to rule but also linked them with their Creator,
being in some way expressive of His 'image, not imparted to the brute' (vIII.44I).
Indeed, in our first introduction to Adam and Eve, they are distinguished from the

34 TheClub p. 72. Fryealso notes a similarlydisturbingambivalencein treatmentsof the vine motif

ofHercules,
in the Medici tapestriesand in the 'Creationof Eve' by AndreaPisano. See too Giamatti,TheEarthlyParadise,
p. 324, and EdwardLe Comte, MiltonandSex(New York:Columbia UniversityPress;London:Macmillan,
I978), p. 7. See also ChristopherRicks's discussionof the significanceof Eve's 'wanton ringlets' and 'the
"wantonness"of Eden' (Milton'sGrandStyle(Oxford:Oxford UniversityPress, 1963),p. I I 2). But see Stanley
Fish'sview of the reader'sinterpretativedilemmahere in SurprisedbySin:TheReader Lost'(New York:
in 'Paradise
St Martin'sPress, 1967),pp. 92-103.
35 Eve also resemblesthe untendedvine in needing someone to 'check'her 'fruitlessembraces'.This is made
clear at Iv.477-8o, when she turns backfrom Adam to the 'smooth watery image' in the pool (J. M. Evans,
'ParadiseLost'andtheGenesisTradition(Oxford:ClarendonPress, 1968),p. 253).
36 See
NicholasJ.Jones,' "Stand"and "Fall"as Imagesof Posturein Paradise Lost,MS, 8 (1976), 221-46, and
Ricks'sdiscussionof the significanceof 'redress'at IX.2I9 (Milton'sGrandStyle,p. 146) and also Sammons's
commentsin '"Asthe Vine Curls"', p. 122.

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 MANDY GREEN 309

other living creatures surrounding them with telling emphasis as being 'two of far
nobler shape erectand tall, I Godlike erect,'who 'in naked majesty seemed lords of
all' (IV.288-90; my italics).
That the upright stance of human beings elevated them above the other creatures
was a commonplace of hexaemeral writings that had the authority of a number of
classical authors, but Milton's lines are remarkablyclose to the Ovidian account in
Metamorphoses (I.76-86). Since Sandys in his commentary on the passage emphasizes
'how man [. . ] only of all that hath life erects his looks into heaven' (p. 58), it is
interesting to ponder the significance of Milton's curiously ambiguous expression
that man 'mighterect I His stature' (vII.5o8-09). Bentley's abrupt expostulation, 'as
if his Erection were superadded to his Form by his own Contrivance; not originally
made so by his Creator',37draws attention to the possible ambiguity in these lines.
Milton's choice of words here allows the reader to interprethumanity's erect stature
as conditional upon a proper response to their creation, thus exemplifying the wider
freedom of moral action ascribed to human beings by a God who expressly created
them 'sufficientto have stood, though free to fall' (III.99).
The significance of this line of interpretation becomes apparent if we recall that
when describing her initial reaction to life and the world about her as she found
herself 'reposed I Under a shade of flowers' (IV.450-5 I), Eve outlines a setting that
seems to demand comparison with the corresponding section in Book viii, where
Adam in turn gives an account of his first moments of consciousness: 'Asnew waked
from soundest sleep I Soft on the flowery herb I found me laid' (vIII.253-54). The
underlying artisticdesign seems evident: Milton compels us to compare and contrast
their respective responses.38Adam's first impulse is to look up 'straight toward
heaven', and then, 'as thitherward endeavouring', 'up [he] sprung', and 'upright I
Stood' (11.257-6I) like a fair, tall tree. Eve, like Adam, contemplates the sky, but
the sky reflected down into a pool beside which she has lain to gaze into its waters.
The effect of this line of suggestion must be to trouble the reader with as yet half-
formed doubts about Eve's sufficiency to stand alone. This is supported by Janet
Adelman's perceptive observation that 'the newly created Eve finds herself lying
down and presumably must stand up to get to the pool, but Milton suppresses the
movement: we see her lying down, then lying down again',39 while S. A.
Demetrakopoulos's comment, 'the naturally erect male posture is not so naturally
[Eve's]' (p. I04), plainly spells out the significance of the episode. Before being led
to her elm, Eve is like the vine, which unless it is held erect displays its natural

37 Noted William SomeVersions (London:EdinburghPress, 1935), p. 178.

ofthePastoral
38See by W. Empson,
Murray Bundy, 'Milton'sPrelapsarianAdam', Research
Studiesof theStateCollegeof Washington,
13
(I945),I63-84, repr. in Milton: ModemJudgements,pp. I51-72 (p. 159), and Don Parry Norford, 'My Other
Half: The Coincidence of Opposites in ParadiseLost', MLQ, 36 (I975), 21-53 (pp. 26-27). Don Cameron
Allen, quotingJohn Donne, Sermons, has arguedpersuasivelythat Eve's attractionto her reflectionis designed
not only to recall the unhappyfate of Ovid's Narcissusbut also to suggestthe destructiveself-lovethat led to
the fall of the rebel angels ('Milton's Eve and the Evening Angels', MLN, 75 ( I960), I08-09 (p. Io9)). It seems
significanttoo that Sandys invites just such a comparisonbetween Narcissus and the fallen angels in his
commentaryon the Ovidian tale, a point noted by both CharlesMartindale,JohnMiltonandtheTransformation
of AncientEpic (London: Croom Helm, I986), p. i86, and Kenneth J. Knoespel, 'The Limits of Allegory:
Textual Expansion of Narcissus in ParadiseLost',MS, 22 (1989), 79- 00 (p. 8 ).
39 'Creationand the Place of the Poet in Paradise
Lost, in TheAuthorin his Work:Essaysona Problem
in Creation,
ed. by Louis L. Martz and Aubrey Williams (New Haven, CT, and London:Yale UniversityPress, I978),
pp. 5I-69 (p. 6I).

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3Io 'The Vineand Her Elm'

propensity to trail upon the ground, to 'creep' (iv.259) or 'crawl' (Comus,1. 294),
'terrae acclinata iaceret' (Metamorphoses,xiv.666).
So, too, it does not seem solely due to chance that the wedding of the vine to the
elm follows Eve's dalliance with Satan, whom she allows (albeit only in a dream) to
supplant the position Adam now holds as her 'guide' (v.9i) and to draw her away
from his protection and support. The likely result of such a substitution is made
sufficientlyclear by the ensuing events of the dream itself. Having isolated Eve from
Adam's supportingpresence, Satan encourages the growth of discontent within her.
'Taste this', he urges, 'and be henceforth among the gods IThyself a goddess, not to
earth confined' (v.77-78). She, aspiring upwards, apparently overreaches herself
and, when deprived of her false guide, sinks down again to earth. As Eve herself
describing the experience relates: 'up to the clouds IWith him I flew' (v.86-87),
wonderingat my flightand change
To thishighexaltation;suddenly
My guidewasgone,andI, me thought,sunkdown,
Andfell
(v.89)
Eve falls, but only into sleep; next time her separation from her true 'guide' and
'prop' may effect a complete ruin. Eve, as yet sinless, wakes in fear and, recoiling
from the 'offence' of her dream, instinctively clings to Adam. Her innocence is thus
symbolically reaffirmed by this embrace and also by the fruitful embrace that the
vine bestows upon her elm.
Of course, as is commonly noted, the satanicallyinspired dream enacts the actual
circumstances of Eve's fall more nearly than the earlier incident of Narcissistic self-
indulgence,40 for man was not to fall 'self-tempted, self depraved', like the devil
himself, but 'deceived' by Satan (III.I30). Even so, despite the professed moral of
the episode that 'beauty is excelled by manly grace I And wisdom, which alone is
truly fair' (Iv.490-9i), Eve's account of her experience by the pool, with its
intimation of her preference for the 'fairest resemblance of [their] maker fair'
(Ix.538), furnishesSatan with an invaluable insight into how best to frame his dream
temptation, and at the same time reminds us that Eve's beauty may tend to blind
both Adam and Eve to ajust appraisalof her human limitations.
It seems of especial significance, therefore, that Adam and Eve not only are
observed leading the vine to the elm but are first discovered engaged in the other
important task of the vine-dresser,pampinatio,the lopping or trimming of superfluous
growth. By describing the boughs or 'arms'41of the fruit-treesas 'pampered', Milton
seems to introduce simultaneously two mutually supportive chains of connotation.
On the one hand, since 'pamper' was an accredited derivation from the Latin
pampinus,a tendril or vine-shoot, it would seem that Milton already has in mind the

40 For a differentreading of both episodes, see Fish, Surprised

by Sin,pp. 217-25, and Diane K. McColley,
'Eve's Dream', MS, I2 (1978), 25-46.
41 James Brown notes how the 'seriesof muted ambiguities'that 'precedethe pun on "embraces"'has the
effect 'that "trees"or "boughes"acceptablypossessthe mobility,the motivation,the moral responsibilityof
sexually driven creatures;Adam and Eve [... ] have become guardiansof morality in a world ominously
prefiguringtheirown weaknesses'('EightTypes of Puns',PMLA,7 1 (1956), 4-26 (pp. 6- I 7)).

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 MANDY GREEN 3II

vine (which he mentions explicitly in the line that directly follows) as one of the fruit-
trees in need of pruning.42On the other hand, the verb 'pamper' signifies 'to over-
indulge (a person) in his tastes and likings generally' (OED).I have already observed
how, in the first use of the vine motif in Book iv, Eve's hair is likened to tendrils
which 'in wanton ringlets waved' requiring 'subjection' (11.306, 308) just as the
'wanton growth' of the plants 'tending to wild' (IX.2 II-I2) requires continuous
cultivation.43The very first description of Eve thus becomes immediately enmeshed
with Adam's role as gardener in Eden.
Adam's task, then, demands vigilance and discipline; it must include the pruning
of any ambitious desire for pre-eminence on Eve's part and the guidance of her
back to his side should she attempt to reach beyond him. The application of this line
of suggestion is not fully disclosed until after the event, when it becomes apparent
that Adam has proved remiss in his conduct towards Eve by allowing her to
overreach herself, fatally withdrawing from his protection and support. In
connection with this, it is interesting to note how Adam, in his attempt to persuade
Eve not to stray from his side (IX.265-69), argues that his presence 'shades'and
'protects' her (my italics).44Significantly,Milton now seems to be attributinga more
positive function to the elm's 'barren leaves' (V.2I9). So, too, remembering the
earlier allusion to the platan (Iv.478), it is interesting to note PatrickHume's remark
that it was 'so named from the breadth of its Leaves, n)ocova Gr. broad, a Tree
useful for its extraordinary Shade: JamqueMinistrantem Platanumpotentibusumbram.
Geor.4' ('Paradise Lost'withExplanatory Notes Upon each Book (London, 1695)).
If horticulturallore may be applied to human affairs,Virgil gives the best advice
in that part of his farming manual devoted, significantly,to viniculture:
Ac dumprimanouisadolescitfrondibusaetas,
parcendumteneris,et dumse laetusad auras
palmesagitlaxisperpurumimmissushabenis,
ipsaacie nondumfalcistemptanda,seduncis
carpendaemanibusfrondesinterquelegendae.
indeubi iamualidusamplexaestiripibusulmos
exierint,tumstringecomas,tumbracchiatonde
(antereformidantferrum),tumdeniquedura
exerceimperiaet ramoscompescefluentis.
11.362)
(Georgicon,
(As long as your vines are growing in first and infant leaf,
They'redelicate,needindulgence.Andwhilethe gayshootsventure
Heavenward, given their head and allowed to roam the sky,
Don't use a knife upon them yet- a fingernail
Is enough for pruning their leaves and thinning them out in places.

42 As Thomas Newton
explains,'the proprietyof this expressionwill best be seen by whatJunius says of the
etymologyof the wordpamper.The Frenchwordpampre,of the Latinpampinus, is a vine-branchfull of leaves:
and pamprer, he says, is a vineyardovergrownwith superfluousleaves and branches';see his variorumedition
of ParadiseLost(London, 1794).Fowleralso commentson this secondaryplay firstnoted by Newton.
43See Lewalski, 'Miltonon Women',p. 7, and 'Innocenceand Experiencein Milton'sEden', in NewEssayson
'ParadiseLost',ed. by Thomas Kranidas(Berkeley:Universityof CaliforniaPress, 1969),pp. 86- I 7, where she
drawsout still furtherthe implicationsof the correspondencebetween the growthof the externalgardenand
the maintenanceof the 'paradisewithin'to demonstratethat Milton did not conceive of prelapsarianlife as an
easy and effortlessstate of frozenperfection.
44
CompareJane Eyre's comfortingwords to Rochester: 'Plants will [.. .] take delight in your bountiful
shadow;and as they grow they will lean towardsyou, and wind roundyou, becauseyour strengthoffersthem
so safe a prop' (CharlotteBronte,JaneEyre,ed. by Q. D. Leavis(Harmondsworth:Penguin, 1985),p. 469.

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312 'The Vineand Her Elm'

But when they've shot up and are holding the elms in strong embrace,
Dock the leaves, lop the branches:
Till now they could not bear the steel; now you must show them
Greater severity, curbing their friskywanton growth.)
The moral is plain: Adam can afford to be lenient towards the pliant, submissive
Eve 'that feared to have offended' (v.I35), but when she displays increasing
assertiveness in the gardening debate, he should have checked this unruly growth
more forcefully: 'tum stringe comas [...] tum denique dura I exerce imperia et
ramos compesce fluentis'.45 It is interesting to note too in passing that the primary
meaning of coma is 'the hair of the head', and only by poetic transference does it
come to mean 'leaves' or 'foliage'. This seems especially suggestive in view of the
implied connection between the luxuriance of Eve's hair and the 'mantling vine'
and the significance this comes to assume during the course of the epic.
In addition, when Eve takes her leave of Adam to garden alone, the passage
follows the structural patterning of Ovid's portrait of Pomona, to whom, moreover,
she is explicitly likened:
[Eve] Delia's self
In gait surpassedand goddess-like deport,
Though not as she with bow and quiver armed,
But with such gardening tools as art yet rude,
Guiltless of fire had formed, or angels brought.
To Pales, or Pomona thus adorned,
Likeliest she seemed, Pomona when she fled
Vertumnus,
(Ix.388)
That Milton intends the reader to recall Ovid's account is confirmed by the
distinctly audible echoes of this introductory sketch of Pomona in the Metamorphoses
by which he proclaims his indebtedness:
rus amat et ramos felicia poma ferentes;
nec iaculo gravis est, sed adunca dextera falce,
qua modo luxuriem premit et spatiantia passim
bracchia conpescit
(xIV.627)
(She cared [. . ] for the fields and branches laden with delicious fruits. She carried no javelin
in her hand, but the curved pruning-hook with which now she repressed the too luxuriant
growth and cut back the branches spreading out on every side.)
Milton's open allusion to this passage is not perhaps as important as the ironic effect
of the camouflaged allusion his lines contain.46 For, by the inevitable extension of
the comparison between Eve and Pomona, the reader recalls the significant detail
that the gardening tool with which Pomona arms herself is the pruning-hook

45 Lewalskihas demonstratedhow Adam

mighthave resolvedthe dispute('Miltonon Women',p. 13).Rogers
had given similaradvice to the husbandin difficulty'not to insult,threaten,and domineerover her as a Lord
[.. .] but by all loving waies tenderlyto drawher, and to convinceher by the strengthof reason'(Matrimoniall
Honour,p. 265). See also Sammons's contribution to the gardening debate in "'As the Vine Curls"',
pp. 122-24.
46 In Miltonand Ovid
(Ithaca, NY: Cornell UniversityPress, 1985), Richard Du Rocher considersanother
aspect of the ironic significanceof this comparison. Since Pomona did not in fact fly from Vertumnus's
attentionsin Ovid's account, he concludes that 'if Eve, like Pomona, is fleeing her lover unwisely,then the
resultmay be the sterilityof which Vertumnuswarned'(p. 98).

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 MANDY GREEN 313

designed to check over-luxuriant growth. The vine-elm topos thus draws together
related passages into a pattern of converging significance and sheds light on future
developments.
Virgil's firm line would have had the approval of the divine spokesman, Raphael.
He urges Adam:
weighwithherthyself;
Thenvalue:oft timesnothingprofitsmore
Than selfesteem,groundedonjust andright
Wellmanaged;of thatskillthe morethouknow'st,
The moreshewillacknowledgetheeherhead.
(vII .570)

Raphael is concerned that Adam and Eve should continue to act by their firstlesson
that 'beauty is excelled by manly grace IAnd wisdom, which alone is truly fair'
(Iv.490-9I). But in accordance with Milton's own profoundly ambivalent response
to feminine beauty, which plays so decisive a part in his conception of the Fall, there
is some degree of tension between our imaginative apprehension of Eve, suffused
with powerful evocative associations, and the coldly calculated assessments made
about her by Raphael. His curt, dismissive reference to her fair 'outside' (vIII.568)
entirely discounts the almost numinous aura that seems at times to emanate from
her, and Adam understandably finds it impossible to follow Raphael's glib advice
for managing his relationship with Eve.
Until after the Fall, the awareness of personal limitation, dependence, and mutual
need is in fact much more acutely experienced by Adam than by Eve.47 Indeed,
Adam is inclined to reverse their positions on the chain of being and to regard her
'as one intended first not after made [ Occasionally' (VIII.555-56). He even
attributes to her the godlike self-sufficiencythat he had reserved for their Creator
alone before her creation: 'So absolute she seem[ed] I And in her self complete'
(vIII.547-48).
Eve's air of self-reliance is most strongly in evidence on the two occasions when
she leaves Adam to garden by herself. It is undeniable that when she leaves him to
garden alone on the fatal morning of the Fall she seems particularlyvulnerable. Yet
the reader cannot but recall the inviolable air that attended her the first time she
departs to garden alone (when she appeared a majestic figure of truly 'goddess-like'
stature, not less but more than equal) and wonder at the change. Milton now openly
focuses attention upon her inadequacy: Eve is discovered foolishly self-forgetful,lost
in her own world, oblivious of any threat or danger:
oft stoopingto support
Eachflowerof slenderstalk,whoseheadthoughgay [... ]
Hungdroopingunsustained,themsheupstays

47 As StellaP. Revardhas pointed out, 'the notion of the humanbeing as incompleteis not firstnoted by Eve,
but by Adam' ('Eve and the Doctrine of Responsibility in ParadiseLost, PMLA, 88 (1973), 69-78 (p. 74)). See
Norford, 'The Separation of the World Parents', p. I2, and Rauber's comments on IX.309-I7, in 'The
Metamorphosesof Eve', pp. 68-69. Critical contention has tended to centre upon the question of Eve's
sufficiencywithoutAdam, attributingmore or less significanceto their separationin Book ix. The controversy
continues,but as Webberhas perceptivelyconcluded,'the whole relationshipbetweenAdam and Eve, in fact,
is affectedby this stressbetween self-sufficiencyand mutualneed [... ] eitherposition,overindulged,becomes
destructive,and balanceis hard to maintain'('The Politicsof Poetry',p. 12).

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314 'The Vineand Her Elm'

Gentlywithmyrtleband,mindlessthewhile,
Her self,thoughfairestunsupportedflower,
Fromherbestpropso far,andstormso nigh.
(IX.427,430)
This brief but delicately executed sketch of Eve glimpsed as the 'fairestunsupported
flower' amongst her flowers possesses, like the vine-elm figure it parallels so closely,
other qualities beside the purely pictorial. The image gathers together the
significance of what has preceded and prepares for what follows. Moreover, in
contrast to the peaceful gardening activities of Book v, which only incidentally make
the reader uneasy, the image here is no longer primarilyhorticultural:it is explicitly
linked with the imminent tragedy at every point. Again, unlike the earlier image,
the metaphor of the flower without her prop suggests exclusively Eve's 'frailty and
infirmersex' (x.956). At the figurativelevel, at least, the outcome of Eve's encounter
with Satan is never in doubt, but we are encouraged to feel that properly pruned
and supported the vine would have been able to weather the storm, 'contemnere
uentos' (Georgics,II.36).48
However, the lines above not only prepare for her collapse 'exposed' by Adam to
the oncoming 'storm' but also look forward to the more passive and unassuming,
but no less important, role Eve is to play when 'much humbled' (xi. i8i) she freely
confesses her dependence on him in terms that are clearly significant for this study,
acknowledging Adam to be her 'onlystrengthand stay' (x.92i; my italics). As the
emphasis now falls upon Eve's incompleteness without Adam, the image of the vine
languishing without her 'strengthand stay' seems singularlyappropriate.Moreover,
only a minute adjustmentof focus is necessary to render the scene curiouslyfamiliar.
Milton introduces Eve's speech with an account of how she approached Adam:
withtearsthatceasednot flowing,
Andtressesall disordered,at hisfeet
Fellhumble,andembracingthembesought
His peace
(x.9Io)

'That physical description', as J. H. Summers recognized, 'with its specific

recollection of the "Tresses discompos'd" (v.io), the "imbracing" (v.27), and the
tears (V.I29-I35) [...] had characterized Eve's earlier appearance when she
repented merely her dream of sin' (p. 178). E. M. W. Tillyard, too, has commented
upon the way in which this earlier scene seems to serve as 'a foreshadowing of the
human motions of sin, repentance, forgiveness in love and continued life which are
played out between Adam and Eve on the heroic scale in Book x'.49 These
observations form a valid and pertinent commentary upon one of the ways in which
this central scene prompts recollections of other related incidents and draws them
together into a larger pattern of significance. However, we are still making fewer
demands upon the lines than they will serve, for the parallel between this scene and
the one at the beginning of Book v is more extensive than either Summers's or

48
CompareGoodman'sinsistenceon a husband'sresponsibilitiesto his wife: 'Hath God made her the weaker
vessel?then she wants the protectionof her husband;she the more impotentand weakerof counsell?then she
ought to be instructedand taughtby her husband'( TheFallofMan,p. 257). Sammonsis less inclined to make
excuses for Eve: 'Adamis Eve's "besftprop, not her onlyprop. [... ] She was strongenough. She could have
withstoodthe storm.And she can blame only herselffor falling'(' "Asthe Vine Curls"',p. 24).
49 Milton
(London:Chatto& Windus, 1930),p. 74.

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 MANDY GREEN 315

Tillyard's readings would seem to suggest: they stop short of the critical allusion to
the image of the vine and her prop, and the weight of associations this brings to bear
on the present passage.
The wedding of the vine to her elm forms, as I have shown, a natural pendant to
the scene which directly preceded it and which it parallels so closely, restating
emblematically the reconciliation of Eve to Adam after the divisive experience of
the dream temptation and 'fall'. It is interesting to speculate whether the
reappearance of the vine-elm motif betokens a similar significance here. That
Milton intends the reader to recall these complementary scenes seems confirmed by
several significant points of contact. Eve's words at I. I 76 are noteworthy not only
for the voltefacethey contain (the reversal of her confident assurance in her own self-
sufficiency, which led her away from Adam's protection and support in an active
assertion of independence), but also because it seems no coincidence that Eve is
submissivelylikening herself to a plant in need of support and restraint.
Touched by her prostration before him, Adam 'upraised her soon' (x.946).
Adam's re-dressing of Eve to an upright stance is an action that speaks louder and
reverberates more powerfully than any prosaic statement could of the proper
relationship of support and dependence, authority and subjection that must now
exist between them. The dynamic tension that complicated our attitude to Eve's
relationship to Adam, embodied not only in the narrative action but in the complex
patterning of ideas, images, values, and feelings, is now resolved completely. This
ultimate resolution paradoxically involves loss and gain. Stripped of her mytho-
logical pretensions and self-assurance, Eve's heroic stature as 'goddess humane' is
exchanged for the humility and dependence essential for Christian salvation. By
embodying the virtues necessary for any human being's salvation Eve becomes, as
Sharon C. Seelig argues, 'not merely Milton's ideal of womanhood but the pattern
for all mankind after the Fall'.50
Indeed, the view that the relationship between man and woman was for Milton a
type or image of that between God and the soul seems confirmed by the way in
which the relationship of support and dependence between fallen man and woman
is seen to reflect the proper relationship between God and mankind after the
Fall. Eve's 'lowlyplight I Immovable till peace obtained from fault I Acknowledged
and deplored', clearly looks forward to fallen mankind 'in lowliestplightrepentant'
(x.937, xi.I; my italics). Moreover, this parallelism in turn throws light on the
apparent inconsistency that has troubled some editors between lines Io87 and 1099
in Book x and the first line of Book xi. The traditional defence put forward by
commentators such as Pearce and Greenwood, and repeated here by Fowler, is that
when Milton says Adam and Eve 'in lowliest plight repentant stood'(xi. I, my italics),
'there is no literal contradiction of "prostrate" at x.io99, since stood means
"remained" '. However, their clearly physical prostration at x. 1087 and 1099 exerts
pressure on stood,encouraging us to take it literally. It seems more likely then that
Milton intends to show that physical prostration has been replaced by 'manly

50'Our General Mother: The Pattern for Mankind', abstract of a paper given at the convention of the
NortheastMLA, Universityof Vermont,Burlington,8- o April 1976,publishedin MQ, I (1976), 24.

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316 'The Vineand Her Elm'

erectness',51 especially since this would continue the parallelism between the scene
of Adam's forgiveness of Eve and God's forgiveness of mankind.Just as Adam raises
Eve in token of his reconciliation to her, Milton here effects the quiet miracle of the
beginnings of mankind's regeneration after the Fall as Man is held erect once more
by God.
The emblematic image of the plant and its support thus becomes invested with
theological significance as it merges with the traditional Christian emblem of God,
the prop of the fallen, as the Father holds out the promise that mankind 'yet once
more [. . ] shall stand', 'Upheld by me' (III.178-79):
By me upheld,thathe mayknowhowfrail52
His fallenconditionis, andto me owe
All his deliverance,andto nonebutme.
(mII.
I80)
The emphatic antimetabole underlines the strength of His support, Man's
dependence, and the new conditions that obtain in the fallen world where Man is
no longer sufficientto stand alone. In this way, the connotative value of the Ovidian
image of the 'vine-prop elm' expands and deepens in association with and is finally
absorbed into Christian truth. Indeed, mankind is instructed in the ScholaCordis:
Thou cans'tnot stand
Withouta propto boulsterthee.
To trust to thine owne strength would soon betray thee.53
In this way, Milton's use of the figure of the vine and the elm seems to anticipate not
only the Fall but also the movement towards regeneration. Although the elm's
'barren leaves'54may prefigure the 'fruitless hours' (Ix. I 88) that Adam and Eve
spend apart after the Fall, in leading the vine to wed her elm Milton prepares for
Adam and Eve's reconciliation and the continuation of the human race through
their children,55while the fruitfulvine56looks forward to their redemption through
the 'seed of woman' (XII.379).57
UNIVERSITY OF DURHAM MANDY GREEN

51 Wayne Shumaker, Unpremeditated Verse:Feelingand Perception Lost'(Princeton,NJ; Princeton

in 'Paradise
UniversityPress, I967), p. 198. 'Prostrate'is generallyused of somethingnormallyerect as 'a tree' or 'person'
(OED),and see xI.758-59, where Adam falls into despairliterallyand metaphorically'till gently reared I By
the angel on his feet he stood [... ] at last'.
52 See Hume's
53
glosson 'frail',which reads:'How unableto supportitself [.. ] offiagilis,Lat. easilybroken'.
ChristopherHarvey, ScholaCordis;or, TheHeartof it SelfegoneawayfromGod;brought backagaineto Him and
instructed
by Himin 47 Emblems (I647), Emblem37, p. 172.
54 Taken
togetherwith the allusionto the sterilisplatanus,the elm's 'barrenleaves' may well suggestChrist's
cursing of the barrenfig tree in Matthew2I. 19. (I am indebtedto AnthonyLow for this suggestion.)
55
Commentingon v.2 5,J. B. Broadbentobservesthat by 'leading"theVine to wed her Elm"it is as if Adam
and Eve were rearing children and giving them in marriage'(SomeGraver Subject:An Essayon 'Paradise
Lost'
(Londonand New York:Chatto& Windus, 1961),p. 77.
56
Fryeobservesthat in one traditionofJudaic and primitiveChristianart the vine was associated with the
Tree of Life and 'the vine and its grapesbecame symbolicof sacrificeand redemptionthroughChrist'(Milton's
Imagery andtheVisualArts,p. 247). Parallelsbetween Eve and the Son have been detected by Summers(The
Muse'sMethod,pp. 176-85).
57 See K. M. Lost',MS, 5 (1973), 155-76, where she
Swaim, 'Flowers,Fruitand Seed: A Reading of Paradise
notesthat 'seedand anticipationof harvestdominatethe finalbooks'(p. I 59).

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