• O Night, and by the spirits that preside over thee In all conventional mythologies Night is a figure of discord and threat. As she appears
    in Book I of Spenser's Faerie Queene, she is represented as "griesly Night, with visage
    deadly sad" (I.5.172), testifying that "I the mother bee/ Of falshood" (I.5.240-41).
    The eldest of divinities, she has unimpeded access to the depths of Hell. In Paradise
    Lost Night dwells with Chaos in the "dark/ Illimitable ocean without bound" (II.891-92)
    from which God creates Hell. Whatever Victor thinks he is doing by solemnly invoking
    Night to aid him in his revenge, it is clear, by all traditional associations, that
    no good will come of it.

    The observant reader may recall that the Creature invoked figures associated with
    the daytime in swearing before Victor that, if he were given a partner, he would never
    trouble his maker again (see II:9:17).