The War in Heaven

Two things:

First, the battle in heaven's going on, and there's this description of the Archangel Michael & Satan's meeting (Book VI, lines 320-327):

But the sword
Of Michael from the armoury of God
Was given him tempered so, that neither keen
Nor solid might resist that edge: it met
The sword of Satan, with steep force to smite
Descending, and in half cut sheer; nor staid,
But with swift wheel reverse, deep entering, shared
All his right side: Then Satan first knew pain

The archangel breaks Satan's sword, and then slices off Lucifer's right side.

Satan's just in pain (and not annihilated) b/c he's an angel and (lines 340-345):

... the ethereal substance closed,
Not long divisible; and from the gash
A stream of necturous humour issuing flowed
Sanguine, such as celestial Spirits may bleed,
And all his armour stained, ere while so bright.

You have to like the pretty blood.

#2 - Milton just described a "cubic phalanx": the angels (the good guys in this case, I think) form a phalanx, but because they can fly, the angles made a 3-D phalanx.

wicked.