On Paradise Lost and being struck 'stupidly good'

 I'm sort of a geek for Milton. Paradise Lost. Yeah. I wish I had a year to just sift through all the great language and cheer out loud for every clever poetic moment.

The whole work is astounding, and wonderful. But the best by far, for me, is when we spy Eve, alone.

 I so want her job:

"...so thick the roses blushing round

About her glowed; Oft stooping to support

Each flower of slender stalk, whose head, though gay,

Carnation, purple, azure, or specked with gold,

Hung drooping unsustained; them she upstays

Gently with myrtle-band..."

To make it so everything about you lovely and cared for, nurtured. To protect, and make right. To beautify, fortify and renew. Is this not a woman's work?

And in a garden no less...

"...What pleasing seemed, for her now pleases more..."

Yeah. Eve totally rocks.

AND THEN! Without even knowing it. She tames the beast...

"Thus early, thus alone: her heavenly form

Angelick, but more soft, and feminine,

Her graceful innocence, her every air

Of gesture, or least action, overawed

His Malice, and with rapine sweet, bereaved

His fierceness of the fierce intent it brought: 

Thus space the Evil-one abstracted stood

From his own evil, and for the time remained

Stupidly good; of enmity disarmed,

Of guilt, of hate, of envy, or revenge:..."

Satan, is struck 'stupidly good'. 

Women, creative women, nurturing women, wise women can wield this power, and tame any evil, just by being themselves.

This is the real legacy left to us daughters of Eve. Don't know why she gets such a bad rap.

This isn't a painting of Eve. It's a painting of Mary Magdalene by Cassandra Barney.

It strikes me 'stupidly good'.