• my arch-enemy, because my creator

    In Paradise Lost Satan bears this designation (I.81)—or is named Arch-foe (VI.259)—but
    it is ironically reversed here to apply to the figure who stands in place of God.
    Yet, to contemplate the phrase in isolation is to discern serious implications about
    the relation between sire and scion of a type that have greatly concerned modern psychoanalytic
    discourse.