ty towards fighting. He conceded to God's power, realizing they would easily be defeated. Up next came the "least erected spirit that fell from Heaven," named Mammon, who was characterized by greed and tangible wealth. When Mammon was in Heaven, he desired the golden floors he walked on better than desiring the wealth and virtue available from God who ruled over them. The reader saw this same desire in his philosophy of what the angels should do in Hell, which was to stay there and exploit its wealth rather than war in Heaven against God. The final speaker at the meeting was Beelzebub, who relayed the earlier thoughts of Satan, which were to go after the new creation of God, man, rather than take the chance of fighting in Heaven. Since these ideas were those of Satan, he quickly adjourned the meeting, and the plans to accomplish his idea were begun. The final two essential characters that interacted with Satan representing sin were his daughter Sin and incestuous son Death, showing the reader the perversity in evil. Sin was Satan's daughter, born from his head in Heaven, only to fall with him into Hell. The poem described her as a woman; beautiful above the waist but an evil serpent below, with Satan's Hellhounds crawling out of her stomach. These hellhounds aided Sin in her main duty, which was to guard the gates of Hell. Sin carried on an incestuous relationship with her father, which brought forth a son named Death. Death, described by the poem as a threatening, shadowy figure, carried a dart as a weapon and even threatened his father with it. Death had two specific tasks, first to serve as Satan's jailer, then as his road builder from Heaven to Paradise. With the relationship between these three characters, Milton showed the sick perversity of evil to the reader. Milton used two main characters to display good and virtue to the reader; the first one is God himself. God was the true symbol of all that is good in the world. God was th...
