An Image From The Past?

As I was reading Book Eleven of Paradise Lost, there was a short section that caught and held me fixed:

"Adam could not but wept,
Though not of woman born. Compassion quelled
His best of man and gave him to tears
A space till firmer thoughts restrained excess..." (11.495-498)

It was not until we were hovering in that general vicinity during the class discussion that it finally dawned on my why that passage in particular had raised a flag; there are two image which are strikingly similar to ones presented in the climax of Shakespeare's Macbeth nearly a century earlier. The main character of the play, Macbeth, was told by three witches that he could only be defeated by someone not "of woman born". Though the footnote in our edition of Paradise Lost asserts that Adam is the only man to be "not of woman born", meaning the only man without a mother, Shakespeare uses this phrase in a different way. In Macbeth, the character of Macduff is announced to have been "from his mother's womb/ Untimely ripped." In that sense, he was not "born" of his mother, having been delivered by C-Section apparently. So whereas in Paradise Lost, the character who is "not of woman born" is thought to "be less inclined to weep" (see footnote, page 273, Teskey edition), in Macbeth that character is foretold to be the one to defeat Macbeth; in one story that character is partially responsible for the downfall of mankind, while in the other story that character is the savior of Scotland. I thought those to be two very interesting differences, juxtapositons if you will.

Another interesting connection is with the quelling of Adam's "best of man". In Macbeth, when Macbeth realizes that he is facing the man destined to kill him, he states that the news "hath cow'd [his] better part of man", meaning in both cases that their manly courage has been put down by the situation. In the case of Adam, it is the compassion that Death shows in delaying his final strike which moves Adam to have his courage quelled, while in the case of Macbeth it is fear of an impending death in the form of Macduff who will not stay his blade. Thisconnection is more of a similarity, with death being a fear-inspiring entity in both Paradise Lost and Macbeth.

Because our course is focused primarily on Paradise Lost, it might be tempting to conclude that Shakespeare "borrowed" at least these two images from Milton. However, Macbeth was written before John Milton was even born. This quite possibly could have been one of the first instances of Shakespeare having directly influenced what has become a major example of English literature, or it could all have been coincidence. I am inclined to think the former, simply because I think it likely that Milton would have been at least somewhat familiar with Shakespeare's work, maybe in the form of only having heard passages from it in passing before he sat down to hash out his own masterpiece. In the final paper that we've been working on for a short while now, I've been looking into the ways that Paradise Lost may have influenced Peter Jackson when creating the film adaptation of The Lord of the Rings. Though I knew the influence may mostly have been from Milton onto J.R.R. Tolkien, who by default influenced the films, it never occured to me that there could very well be at least one more degree of influence, that of Shakespeare onto Milton onto Tolkien onto Jackson.