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BY NIGHT HE FLED.....UNSUSPECTED WAY (LINES 58-69)
Here Milton tells us that exactly seven nights after having been driven out of Eden by Gabriel and other guardian angels, Satan was back at Eden to work his mischief. His travels during these seven days is here outlined.
During this time, he circled the Earth enveloped in darkness. Before the Fall, the poles of the Earth’s sphere were perpendicular, so that one-half of the globe was in sunlight and the other half in darkness. Satan contrived to fly in continuous darkness by flying due west, keeping ahead of the rising sun for three nights. On two other nights, he flew from north to south along a meridian that was in darkness, crossing the pole at dawn and flying north again along the reverse meridian, which was just beginning its 12 hour period of night.
‘Colures’ are two circles passing longitudinally from north to south and again from south to north at the other side of the globe intersecting each other at right angles thus dividing the earth’s globe into four equal segments.
Then Satan had fled away in anguish and since then he had ventured on the earth seven times in the darkness of the night. On the eighth night, he came and stealthily entered Eden by cleverly avoiding the eye of the guarding angels.