MILTON QUARTERLY

Miltons Eve and Wisdom:

The Dinner-PartyScene
in Paradise Lost
Ann Torday Gulden
In 1808 Hannah More wrote that

according to m y notion of householdgood, which does

not include one dea of drudgery or servility, but
which involves a targe and comprehensive scheme of
excellence, I will venture to afirm, that let a woman
know what she may, yet ifshe knows not this, she is
ignorant of the most indqensible, the most appropriate branch offemale knowledge.
Hannah More writes of Eve in terms of wisdom.
Eves wisdom is, to quote, seen in its effects. Indeed
it is felt rather than seen. It is sensibly acknowledged
in the peace, the happiness, the virtue of the
component parts; in the order, regularity, and beauty
of the whole system, of which she is the moving
spring (Wittreich 163-64): The idea of Miltons Eve
as the moving spring of the paradisal system comes
close to my own reading of her role in the epic. Eve
brings about change, and the episode of the meal is a
central example in the series of incidents where she is
the principal actor.
The critical discussion on the angelic visitation
usually privileges Raphaels discourse with Adam.
Eves contribution has been of less interest. However, Eves more immediate means of knowing is
achieved through the created things, and the
implications of her domestic creativity warrant more
extensive comment. The occasion of Raphaels visit is
of crucial importance to the investigation of Eves
role in the pursuit of wisdom. I will argue that Eve,
through her domestic ability, can be seen to mediate
the message Raphael brings from on high.
It is intriguing that the meal, and particularly the
details of Eves practical preparations, should be given
such prominence in the text. The meal is attended by
three major powers of good, and the occasion it
accompanies spans the four central books in the epic.
The account of the Creation itself is situated within

137

the framework of Eves meal. Given that meals are

usually mundane events, prompted by the need for
survival, and that an elaborate meal takes place in
prelapsarian Eden where survival is hardly an immediate problem, this episode is remarkable enough to
warrant investigationof more than appearances alone.
The meal and its context serve to illustrate some of
the precepts of the epic as a whole, such as reciprocity
and moderation. It facilitates knowledge of the ways
of God, helping Raphael who has been sent for the
purpose of making Adam aware of his predicament.
Raphael teaches about the War in Heaven and the
Creation, and reinforces the epistemological bounds
which are to circumscribe their existence. Complementing this, Eve shows her understanding of the
createdthings, and her grasp of household management. These are areas of importance which link
closely with Raphaels project by putting his teaching
into practice, as I aim to show. Albert Fields, and
more recently Lorna Hutson, have brought to our
attention the Greek teacher Xenophons influence on
early modern literature. Xenophon wrote in the
Oeconomicus that estate management is the name of
a branch of knowledge, like medicine, smithing and
carpentry. . . the business of a good estate manager is
to manage his own estate well (Xenophone 363).4
Miltons Eve, in contrast to the unfortunate wife of
Xenophons fictional character Isomachus, who
relates that she was vexed and blushed crimson,
because she could not give me something from the
stores when I asked for it (Xenophon 429) manages
her estate well. Miltons Eve knows about storekeeping.
I will argue that Miltons text re-mythologises the
role of the wife at home. Eve is not only a purveyor of things to eat. Far from perpetuating the
convention of Dod and Cleavers explicit delineation
of spheres of responsibility (outdoors for husband,
indoors for wife) and the idea that the woman, as
good wife, is merely the example of his [the husbands] ability to govern (Xenophon 2 I), Paradise
Lost shows a creative autonomy in the actions of Eve
that reduces the power of such stereotypes. The text
of Paradise Lost moderates the norm advocated in the
conduct books, for example as expressed in The
Gentlewomans Companion of 1673.
Far from suggesting that household management

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MILTON QUARTERLY

is a profession that is not difficult; for she that is not

capable of any thing else, may be capable of this
(Hobby 185)5 as that manual asserts, Miltons text
reverses that tradition by presenting Eve as highly
skilled; she does not need training. Adam has little
competence in household management. His ideas on
storage are incorrect, whereas Eve shows her
expertise. The epic text allows for a reading which
refutes the stereotyping, so common in the work of
Xenophon and the tradition which derives from him,
of woman as inept and herself in need of husbandry.
Eves actions ground Raphaels instructions, which
were to such discourse bring on, / As may advise
him [Adam] of his happy state (5.233). Eve already
understands frugality, temperance, and hospitality;
conditions essential to the happy state. She is, like
Adam, highly skilled in husbandry, described by
Xenophon as the mother and nurse of the other arts.
For when husbandry flourishes, all the other arts are
in good fettle (Hobby 405): Eve ministers at the
table, her ministry in balance with Raphaels to
Adam. Both Raphael and Eve are well ordered in the
way they proceed, not only obeying the commands
they have received from God and Adam respectively
(although Eve moderates Adams instructions), but
also in the manner in which they discharge their
duties. They are confident and orderly in the
performance of their tasks. Raphael, prepared for his
task by God, lectures Adam, in a similar orderly
manner to the way Eve prepares, orders, and serves
the meal. Xenophon would approve: he wrote, there
is nothing so convenient or so good for human beings
as order (429). Eve is, moreover, capable Of what
was high (8.50), so the argument with which this
paper ends, that Eve moves from managing the
household to managing the Garden, in possession of
new knowledge gleaned from Raphaels plant
allegory, seems reasonable.
Furthermore, the meal prepared by Eve for the
archangel Raphael provides more than physical
sustenance. It becomes the point of departure for
Raphaels instruction, which compounds the idea of
their purposes being linked. Raphael, in the best
pedagogical manner, uses what is to hand as context
for his teaching. He takes the idea of food to explain
the way towards a higher understanding via transsubstantiation, where all things corporeal to

incorporeal turn./ For know, whatever was created,

needs / To be sustained and fed (5.413).
The theme of a universal exchange of higher and
lower, as Fowler puts it, is expressed at several levels
through the interactions between the three characters
around the table. At the level of discourse, Raphael
and Adam exchange stories, the higher with the
lower. Raphael also interacts with Eve, first greeting
her as mother of mankind (5.388), and then using
her contribution as a visible and tactile point of
departure for his cosmographical teaching. Eve provides the material starting point for Raphaels
discourse, and the exchange of higher and lower
here is enabled by the sure knowledge that whatever
was created, needs / To be sustained and f e d (5.414),
be it an organism or an angelic argument. Transsubstantiation through digestion, physical or intellectual, is central to Raphaels discourse, and Eves
meal provides the basis for this vital process.
The text allows for a reading which elevates Eves
domestic contribution as one method of justifying
the ways of God to men (1.26). I will refer to
commentaries on P~overbs31, which are concerned
with the elevation of domesticity to a form of wisdom. In her assumption of authority in the domestic
sphere Eve shows that she is lowly wise (8.173).
Eves self-assurance and understanding of temperance
and her ordering of the ingredients of the meal show
the way in which she, as well as Adam, practices the
contemplation of created things which leads by
steps towards a better understanding of God. Thus
Eve enacts Miltons dictum that doubtlessethat indeed according to art is most eloquent, which returnes and approaches neerest to nature from whence
it came; and they expresse nature best, who in their
lives least wander from her safe leading, which may
be cdld regenerate reason (CPWI: 874).
Eating and the pursuit of knowledge are linked
activities in the epic, as Christopher Ricks has famously pointed out. He writes, The word (supere)
is important to Milton because it links knowledge
and the fruit ( 7111). The theologian Carol Myers
writes of the verb to eat as being [plerhaps the
most prominent theme word in the Eden tale (89).
Myers describes the humans ability to hear and
comprehend Gods instructions, and the humans
need to know about the sources of sustenance as

MILTON QUARTERLY
two features of human life . . .inextricably linked
(90). They are certainly linked activities during the
scene in question here, where the most
comprehensive sequence of instruction in the epic is
juxtaposed with a primordial idyll. Barbara Lewalski
writes of georgic rather than pastoral activity here:
Miltons Edenic pastoral undergoes continuing
redefinition . . . . Husbandry, though unlaborious, is
necessary to the maintenance of the Garden (174).
For Raphaels visit Eve redefines the pastoral meal
described in Book 4, when she and Adam simply
enjoyed what was to hand, unprocessed: The
savoury pulp they chew, and in the rind / Still as
they thirsted scoop the brimming stream (4.335).
Here, in the more festive scene, Eve sorts, orders,
and arranges the food, and makes delicious grape
juice and tempered dulcet creams (5.347). Her
ihusbandry, the careful processing of the food and
drink, is a new development.
The idea of transubstantiation, explained at length
by Raphael, illustrates the inextricability of the link
between the material and the immaterial. Angels eat
and digest food in a similar way to Adam and Eve,
they Tasting concoct, digest, assimilate, / And corporeal to incorporeal turn (5.412). As far as knowledge is concerned Mans nourishment, by gradual
scale sublimed / To vital spirits aspire, to animal, /
To intellectual, give both life and sense (5. 483). The
continuum between the material and the immaterial,
food and knowledge, is explained carefully by
Raphael. For us, Milton provides food for thought,
and this is made possible by Eve as she conveys
Raphaels message into the practical sphere. She
makes sense of it, and the text privileges her contribution as it does that of Raphael.
Evidence in support of the idea of a link between
Raphael and Eve is found in other ways too. From
the moment of Raphaels arrival in Eden the text
emphasizes a reciprocity of perfumed essences that
proclaims their parallel functions. Eve is consistently
associated with flowers, and she strews the ground
around the table With rose and odours from the
shrub unfumed. (5.348). The immaterial exchange of
perfumes prefigures the material exchange of food for
knowledge which is to follow. Raphael is draped elegantly in his three pairs of wings as he lands, and
walks towards the bower, wafting perfume and regal

139

composu
fragrance filled / The circuit wide (5.285). The clouds
of fragrance which accompany him are met by the
aroma
myrrh, / And flowering odours, cassia, nard, and
balm (5.292). Thus heavenly essences combine with
earthly essences, just as knowledge of God gives rise
to earthly response and obedience, for example in the
form of the songs of praise sung in unison by Adam
and Eve. Diane McColley sees this reciprocity in the
passage describing Adams account of his wedding
night, when he says that Heaven and earth. . . join
to approve (8.513) Gods approval is shown then by
the mixing of perfumes. I would suggest that the same
approval joins heaven to earth at the scene of Raphaels arrival. God has, after all, sanctioned the visit of
his sociable spirit. The perfumed air wafts divine
approval,
grance which permeates heaven accompanies Gods
speech and enables a Sense of new joy ineffable in
3.135-37.
The philosopher Pierre Charron, a representative
voice of Renaissance humanist wisdom, describes the
sense of smell as one fitted to those Spirits and
Avenues that belong to the Soul and Body both.
Raphael is about to embark on a discourse on both
soul and body, and it is therefore appropriate that his
visit is introduced by the exchange of perfumes,
signifying the interdependency, and indeed the
relatedness of the material with the immaterial? The
scented air, thus sanctioned, provides the perfect
ambience for Adam and Eves reception of new ideas.
Additionally, Raphael receives the scents of Eden,
which provide a means for him to learn. Both the soul
and body are engaged in reciprocal harmonious
learning.
Adam spots the approaching archangel as he sits in
his doorway waiting for Eve to prepare the noontime
meal. This division of labor, a possible intrusion of
stereotyped notions of gendered behavior, or
seventeenth-century etiquette, is shown in another
light when read against Proverbs, where the woman,
procuring and preparing food for her family, fulfills
a function essential to life in protecting, preserving,
and securing the economic base. Carol Myers writes
about the industrious woman in Proverbs 31,
whose strength is portrayed mainly in terms of her

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MILTON QUARTERLY

economic functions (179-80). Claudia Camp adds

that in Proverbs, The movement is to put Wisdom
firmly on the everyday level; although that human
level, represented in female imagery, is a highly
idealized one, in part because of the woman of
worths canonical association with personified
Wisdom (97). The text of Paradise Lost can thus be
seen to prefigure the trend found in the twentieth
century by Myers and Camp in Proverbs, since it
elevates rather than demeans womans domesticity.
This comes to the fore in the way in which Eve
comprehends the nature of the job at hand. The
intake of food, just as the permitted intake of knowledge, must be regulated, and not overindulged.
Robert Cleaver, in his 1614 commentary on Proverbs
writes that By foode, he meaneth all such things as
are needfull for the use of mans life; and by Much, he
understandeth a fit and competent measure (68):
Miltons Eve knows precisely how to gather food,
how much to prepare (afit and competent measure),
and the proper ceremony ta be attached to its presentation. She says that she Each plant and juiciest gourd
will pluck such choice / To entertain our angel guest
(5.327). Eve shows her abdity to select not only which
fruits to use, but also she exercises choice, or right
reason, in her selections and arrangements. Eve not
only chooses to entertain the guest, but she also
presents him with a select choice of the choicest
fruits. In this way Eve shows that she is aware of her
role as Adams helper and her association with the
natural world, which indicates her regenerate
reason. Eve will preside over the meal for Raphael,
naturally assuming authority.
Adam, in contrast to Eves composure, is taken
aback by the approaching angel. He is unwise in
suggesting that Eve should go with speed, / And
what your stores contain, bring forth (5.313). Eve
knows that in Eden both speed and stores are
generally unnecessary. She says that small store will
serve, where store, / All seasons, ripe for use hangs on
the stalk (5.322). Only a few fruits improve with
storage, the ones that taste better when dried. Eve
explains to Adam that an abundance of food is
available for use as it is, Save what by frugal storing
firmness gains / To nourish, and superfluous moist
consumes(5.324). Thus Eve shows consciousness of
the problem of superfluity, or excess; particularly in

her correction of Adams excessive ideas of hospitality, but also in her unwillingness to serve fruit which
is excessively watery. Her understanding of temperance anticipates Raphaels in her tempering of the
dessert as in From many a berry, and from sweet
kernels pressed / She tempers dulcet creams (5.346).
Eve is careful, frugal, and temperate-she introduces
the notion of frugality to the epic. As John Guillory
has argued, the rhetoric of frugality is central to the
text: all the characters and thematic events touch
upon it (80). But it is Eve, not Adam, who introduces
the concept. Eves primary role in the exercise of
frugality is of central importance; she even engages in
an exchange with an angel in performance of this
exercise.
Thus Eve supplies a degree of wisdom about
created things to this prelapsarian classroom. She
chooses What order so contrived as not to mix /
Tastes, not well joined, inelegant, but bring / Taste
after taste upheld with kindliest change (8.334; my
emphasis). Eve brings Raphaels cosmological teachings down to earth most aptly, and through her
consonance with nature and sense of order, she has
access to a major source of wisdom. Charron writes
that there are three sorts of Wisdom, Divine, Humane, and Worldly; these relate and bear proportion
to God; to Nature in its primitive Purity and Perfection; and to Nature lapsed and depraved
(Charron, Authors Preface). Knowledge of the latter
is not yet applicable, but Eves confidence in this
scene shows her knowledge of Nature in its primitive Purity and Perfection, which indicates her state
of wisdom.
The pattern of Eves reaction to Adam follows
Raphaels closely. Irene Samuel notes how Raphael
tends to reprove Adam before accommodating his
wishes. Eve acts as Raphael does in this respect. First,
she corrects Adams ideas on food preparation, and
then she accommodates his main wish, which is that
they should be hospitable (Samuel 708, 710). This
similarity of approach sustains the link between Eve
and Raphael. Yet all three learn during this episode.
Eve functions through her direct interaction with all
her surroundings; she does not confine her attention
to matters relating to Adam only as one is led to
expect by the line He for God only, she for God in
him (4.299). Christine Froula notices Eves desire

MILTON QUARTERLY
for experienced rather than mediated knowledge,
and the problems this poses to the epic authorities
(329). Eve, in contrast to Raphael, fulfills her task
intuitively, working under no other guidance but her
own. So the reciprocity of learning activities at the
dinner-party scene is not consistent with a straight
line of wisdom and authority passed down from God
to Adam and so to Eve. Eve is not merely a passive
recipient of the crumbs from Adams table; she has
made the cake, and Adam i s not too sure of her
ingredients.
Eve modifies and moderates Adams ideas. She sees
to it that Raphael will perceive that here on earth /
God hath dispensed his bounties as in heaven (5.329).
In creating the meal, Eve acts directly upon the raw
materials. She first exercises choice and order
(5.333,334), the most privileged terms, and then
gathers, heaps, crushes, presses, and tempers-all active verbs signifying active skills which
bring about change. Eve interprets the bounties of
nature, arranges the created things, creating out of
the Creation. Raphael carries the notion of change,
demonstrated by Eve, into his explanation of
transsubstantiation. Even angels eat, and corporealto
incorporeal turn (5.413). Eves meal complements,
illustrates, and inspires the discourse sanctioned by
the Creator via his archangel. It inspires Raphaels
explanation and performs a conciliatory and mediating function between heaven and earth.
If the approach of Raphael heralds the opening of
the scene, the departure of Eve signifies its disruption.
There is a dynamic counterpoise here, the movement
towards the table balanced by the movement away
from it. Eve, with her affiliation to nature, is
especially receptive to Raphaels plant metaphor.
From the idea of the root to the flowers and their
fruit / Mans nourishment (5.482), an issue close to
her heart, Eve learns the significance of the process
from the material to the immaterial. Plants, food, and
wisdom become officially interrelated by Raphaels
authorization, and gardening takes on a new dimension. From one level of competence, the domestic,
Eves pursuit of wisdom continues in another form as
she departs to resume her gardening with new intensity. Eve becomes a terraculturalist.
University of Oslo

141

NOTES
Hannah Mores Coelebs on Miltons Eve (quoted
in Wittreich 163).More discusses Miltons Eve in the
introductory pages of her book Coelebs in Search of a
W q e (1808).
Mores book only mentions Eve in the introductory passages.

See, for example, Burden, who does not write

about the meal in B e Logical Epic. Bradford writes,
Eve moves into the background during this period of
instruction and for most of the central section of the
poem she exists in the margins (37-38). McColley
mentions the meal insofar as it represents an example
of Eves creativity, without connecting it with the
idea of wisdom. The meal is a graciouserrand (114).
Turner writes of Adams more dominant posture,
sitting at the door of his bower . . . while Eve hangs
back like a servant (285).
According to the translator, the influence of this
book extended from Virgil to Ruskin. Lorna Hutson
explains the influence of Xenophon on sixteenthcentury culture: Xenophon turns up everywhere
(29). Milton regarded Xenophon as equal to Plato. See
his A n Apology against a Pamphlet, ed. Frederick
Lovett Taft, in C P W 1: 891. The surprising equality
suggested by Milton is explained by Lawrence A.
Sasek: Milton was judging them according to their
efficacy in teaching men to live virtuously . . . . Xenophon is the equal of Plato as
teacher, not as literary craftsman or philosopher. . . . Miltons familiarity with the whole canon
of Xenophon can be assumed from his citation of the
relatively obscure Hiero (260-61). For a similar argument, see Anthony Low, Plato and his equal Xenophon: A Note on Miltons Apologyfir Smectymnuus,
Milton Quarterly 4 (1970): 20-22.
Hobby has found that the Gentlewoman2 Conpanion does not come from the pen of the early
feminist Hannah Wolley as purported. It is part of a
thriving seventeenth-century tradition of male assertions about what could be achieved by women if

142

MILTON QUARTERLY

they were properly trained (186-97). She places the

manual amongst the hack writing in this period
before the invention of authorial copyright (190).

WORKS CITED

Xenophons heroine is taught how to order her

household by her husband. In Miltons description of
Edenic domesticity, the opposite appears to be the
case.
Pierre Charron, Of Wisdom, Three Books, trans.
Samson Lennard, London; Printed for Nathaniel
Renew and Ionathan Robinson at the Kings Arms in
St. Pauls Churchyard. 1670, p. 84.
Milton expresses his monist materialism thus,
spirit, being the more excellent substance . . . contains within itself what is clearly the inferior
substance; in the same way as the spiritual and
rational faculty contains the corporeal (The Christian
Doctrine CPW 6: 309).
Hutson shows the provenance of the notion of the
virtuous wife at home as the example of his [the
husbands] ability to govern, to be Xenophon, in her
account of the critical tradition descending from Dod
and Cleavers Godlie Fomze of Household Government
(1612), 21.
lo Even C. S. Lewis remarks on her composure,
writing that [slhe stands before him unabashed-a
great lady doing the honours of her own house, the
matriarch of the world (116).

Raphael disparages Adams enquiries about astronomy, but answers them, and then comments,
Solicit not thy thoughts with matters h i d (8.167).
Raphael, though with misgiving, spends some time
answering the question before he speaks his mild
rebuke and counsel (Samuel 708,710).

Bradford, Richard, ed. Paradise Lost. Buckingham:

Oxford UP, 1992.
Burden, Dennis H. The Logical Epic: A Study of the
Argument of Paradise Lost. London: Routledge &
Kegan Paul, 1967.
Camp, Claudia, Wisdom and the Feminine in the Book
of Proverbs. Sheffield, Eng.: Almond, 1985.
Charron, Pierre, Of Wisdom. Trans. Samson Lennard.
London, 1670.
Cleaver, Robert. A Plaine and Familiar Exposition of

the First and Second Chapters of the Proverbs of

Solomon. London: Printed by T.S. for Thomas
Man, 1614.

CPW. See Milton.

Fields, Albert. Milton and Self-Knowledge. PMLA
83 (1968): 392-99.
Froula, Christine. When Eve Reads Milton: Undoing
the Canonical Economy. Critical Inquiry 10
(1983): 321-47.
Guillory, John, From the Superfluous to the
Supernumary:Reading Gender into Paradise Lost.

Soliciting Interpretation: Literary Theory and Seventeenth-Century English Poetry. Ed. Elizabeth D.
Harvey and Katharine Eisaman Maus. Chicago: U
Chicago P, 1990.68-88.
Hobby, Elaine. A Womans best setting out is
silence:The Writings of Hannah Wolley. Culture
and Society in the Stuart Restoration. Cambridge:
Cambridge UP, 1990. 179-200.
Hutson, Lorna. The UsurersDaughter:Male F d h i p

andFictions of Women in Sixteenth-CenturyEngland.

London: Routledge, 1994.

MILTON QUARTERLY
Lewalski, Barbara Kiefer. Paradise Lost and the
Rhetoric ofLiterary F o m . Princeton, NJ: Princeton
UP, 1985.
Lewis, C.S. A Preface to Paradise Lost. London:
Oxford UP, 1942.
Low, Anthony. Plato, and His Equall Xenophon:
A Note on Miltons Apology For Smectymnuus.
Milton Quarterly 4 (1970): 20-22.

143

Reviews
SublimeMilton:
An Eighteenth-CenturyFiction?

Michelle Volpe

McColley, Diane Kelsey. Miltons Eve. Urbana, IL: U

of Illinois P, 1983.

Leslie E. Moore begins her book Beautqul Sublime:

The Making of Paradise Lost, 1701-1734 (Stanford:
Stanford UP, 1990; 235 pp.; $35.00) by quoting Annie

Milton, John. Complete Prose Works ofJohn Milton.

8 vols. in 10. New Haven, CT: Yale UP, 1953-82.
Referred to in the text as CPW.

Dillards description of the total eclipse of 1979: It

had clobbered us, and now it roared away . . . . It was
as though an enormous loping god in the sky had
reached down and slapped the earths face (I).
Paradise Lost, Moore holds, had a similar effect on its
early-eighteenth-century readers. Faced with this
poem of epic magnitudes, writers like Joseph Addison
were overcome by Miltons ambitious yet successful-in fact, sublime-rendering of his religious
subject; Addison, like the witnesses of the eclipse,
had been struck, clobbered by the loping God in
the sky (1). With this in mind, Moore sets out to
show how and why Milton was elevated to sublime
and beautiful heights, how this conception of
Milton and Paradise Lost has affected literary history,
and to illuminate the works of writers who have been
overlooked despite their fresh and provocative
analyses of Miltons poem. Her inquiries are more
complex and compelling than may be evident; as
Moore notes, [t]he sublime Milton may well be a
fiction of eighteenth-century criticism, but it
functions as a near truth in literary history (2).
Aside from Addison, the writers Moore explores
(TohnDennis,Jane Adams, Anne Finch, and Jonathan
Richardson) generally have been overlooked or
obscuredbecause of gender, profession, or class (15).
Moore writes that all [of these writers] contributed
to the contexts shaping the thought of major
eighteenth-centurywriters-and perhaps contributed
even more to the traditions leading to modern work
on Paradise Lost (15). She aims to understand their
definitions of sublime and beautiful and how they
apply them to Milton and his works, but notes that

More, Hannah. Coelebs in Search of a Wqe. 1808.

London: Printed for T. Cadell, 1830.
Myers, Carol. Discovering Eden: Ancient Israelite
Women i n Context. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1988.
Myers, William. The Spirit of Diffkrence. John
Milton. Ed. Annabel Patterson. London: Longman,
1992. 102-19.
Ricks, Christopher. Miltons Grand Style. Oxford:
Clarendon, 1963.
Samuel, Irene. Milton on Learning and Wisdom.
PMLA 64 (1949): 708-23.
Sasek, Lawrence A. Plato, and His Equall,
Xenophon. English Language Notes 7 (1970):
260-61.
Turner, James Grantham. One Flesh: Paparadisal

Marriage and Sexual Relations in the Age of Milton.

Oxford: Clarendon, 1993.
Wittreich, Joseph. Feminist Milton. Ithaca: Cornell
UP, 1987.
Xenophon. The Oeconomicus. Trans. E.C. Marchant.
London: Heinemann, 1953.