Areopagitica

by

John Milton

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Isis Character Analysis

The wife of Egyptian god Osiris. After Osiris was cut up into several pieces and “scattered,” Isis searched for each individual piece and wrapped Osiris back up. Milton uses this ancient myth as an analogy for the pursuit of knowledge and truth. He sees truth as having been cut up and “scattered,” and the pursuit of truth through knowledge is searching for each individual piece, like Isis searching for Osiris’s limbs.

Isis Quotes in Areopagitica

The Areopagitica quotes below are all either spoken by Isis or refer to Isis. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Religion, Censorship, and Reason Theme Icon
).
Areopagitica Quotes

Truth indeed came once into the world with her divine master, and was a perfect shape most glorious to look on: but when he ascended, and his apostles after him were laid asleep, then strait arose a wicked race of deceivers, who as that story goes of the Egyptian Typhon with his conspirators, how they dealt with the good Osiris, took the virgin truth, hewed her lovely form into a thousand pieces, and scattered them to the four winds. From that time ever since, the sad friends of truth, such as durst appear, imitating the careful search that Isis made for the mangled body of Osiris, went up and down gathering up limb by limb still as they could find them. We have not yet found them all. Lords and Commons, nor ever shall do, till her master’s second coming; he shall bring together every joint and member, and shall mould them into an immortal feature of loveliness and perfection.

Related Characters: John Milton (speaker), The English Parliament, God, Isis, Osiris
Page Number: 130
Explanation and Analysis:
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Areopagitica PDF

Isis Quotes in Areopagitica

The Areopagitica quotes below are all either spoken by Isis or refer to Isis. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Religion, Censorship, and Reason Theme Icon
).
Areopagitica Quotes

Truth indeed came once into the world with her divine master, and was a perfect shape most glorious to look on: but when he ascended, and his apostles after him were laid asleep, then strait arose a wicked race of deceivers, who as that story goes of the Egyptian Typhon with his conspirators, how they dealt with the good Osiris, took the virgin truth, hewed her lovely form into a thousand pieces, and scattered them to the four winds. From that time ever since, the sad friends of truth, such as durst appear, imitating the careful search that Isis made for the mangled body of Osiris, went up and down gathering up limb by limb still as they could find them. We have not yet found them all. Lords and Commons, nor ever shall do, till her master’s second coming; he shall bring together every joint and member, and shall mould them into an immortal feature of loveliness and perfection.

Related Characters: John Milton (speaker), The English Parliament, God, Isis, Osiris
Page Number: 130
Explanation and Analysis: