How is the beginning of Paradise Lost similar to other epic poems?

John Milton's Paradise Lost opens with a classic invocation, typical of epic poems. Just like Homer's Iliad and Virgil's Aeneid, Milton begins his poem with an appeal to a higher power for inspiration and guidance. In Paradise Lost, Milton invokes the Heavenly Muse, the Holy Spirit, requesting celestial assistance in recounting the momentous tale of Adam and Eve's fall from grace and the subsequent loss of Paradise.

By starting his epic with an invocation, Milton establishes the gravity of his subject matter and aligns himself with the tradition of伟大epics that came before him. This literary convention serves as a signal to the reader that they are embarking on a journey into an elevated and grand narrative.

Here's the invocation from Paradise Lost:

> Of Man's first disobedience, and the fruit

Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste

Brought death into the World, and all our woe,

With loss of Eden, till one greater Man

Restore us, and regain the blissful seat,

Sing, Heavenly Muse, that, on the secret top

Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire

That shepherd who first taught the chosen seed

In the beginning how the heavens and earth

Rose out of Chaos: or, if Sion hill

Delight thee more, and Siloa's brook that flowed

Fast by the oracle of God, I thence

Invoke thy aid to my adventurous song,

That with no middle flight intends to soar

Above the Aonian mount, while it pursues

Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme.