by John Milton
Triumphal with triumphal act have met,
Mine with this glorious Work, and made one Realm
Hell and this World, one Realm, one Continent
Of easie thorough-fare. Therefore while I
Descend through Darkness, on your Rode with ease
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To my associate Powers, them to acquaint
With these successes, and with them rejoyce,
You two this way, among those numerous Orbs
All yours, right down to Paradise descend;
There dwell and Reign in bliss, thence on the Earth
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Dominion exercise and in the Air,
Chiefly on Man, sole Lord of all declar’d,
Him first make sure your thrall, and lastly kill.
My Substitutes I send ye, and Create
Plenipotent on Earth, of matchless might
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Issuing from mee: on your joynt vigor now
My hold of this new Kingdom all depends,
Through Sin to Death expos’d by my exploit.39
If your joynt power prevail, th’ affaires of Hell
No detriment need fear, goe and be strong.
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So saying he dismiss’d them, they with speed
Thir course through thickest Constellations held
Spreading thir bane; the blasted Starrs lookt wan,
And Planets, Planet-strook,40 real Eclips41
Then sufferd. Th’ other way Satan went down
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The Causey42 to Hell Gate; on either side
Disparted Chaos over built exclaimd,
And with rebounding surge the barrs assaild,
That scorn’d his indignation: through the Gate,
Wide open and unguarded, Satan pass’d,
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And all about found desolate; for those
Appointed to sit there, had left thir charge,
Flown to the upper World; the rest were all
Farr to the inland retir’d, about the walls
Of Pandæmonium, Citie and proud seat
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Of Lucifer, so by allusion calld,
Of that bright Starr to Satan paragond.43
There kept thir Watch the Legions, while the Grand
In Council sate, sollicitous what chance
Might intercept thir Emperour sent, so hee
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Departing gave command, and they observ’d.44
As when the Tartar from his Russian Foe
By Astracan45 over the Snowie Plains
Retires, or Bactrian Sophi46 from the horns
Of Turkish Crescent, leaves all waste beyond
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The Realm of Aladule, in his retreat
To Tauris or Casbeen.47 So these the late
Heav’n-banisht Host, left desert utmost Hell
Many a dark League, reduc’t48 in careful Watch
Round thir Metropolis, and now expecting
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Each hour their great adventurer from the search
Of Forrein Worlds: he through the midst unmarkt,
In shew plebeian Angel militant
Of lowest order, past; and from the dore
Of that Plutonian Hall, invisible
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Ascended his high Throne, which under state49
Of richest texture spred, at th’ upper end
Was plac’t in regal lustre. Down a while
He sate, and round about him saw unseen:
At last as from a Cloud his fulgent head
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And shape Starr bright appeer’d, or brighter, clad
With what permissive glory since his fall
Was left him, or false glitter: All amaz’d
At that so sudden blaze the Stygian throng
Bent thir aspect, and whom they wish’d beheld,
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Thir mighty Chief returnd: loud was th’ acclaim:
Forth rush’d in haste the great consulting Peers,
Rais’d from thir dark Divan,50 and with like joy
Congratulant approach’d him, who with hand
Silence, and with these words attention won.
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Thrones, Dominations, Princedoms, Vertues, Powers,
For in possession such, not onely of right,
I call ye and declare ye now, returnd
Successful beyond hope, to lead ye forth
Triumphant out of this infernal Pit
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Abominable, accurst, the house of woe,
And Dungeon of our Tyrant: Now possess,
As Lords, a spacious World, t’ our native Heav’n
Little inferiour, by my adventure hard
With peril great atchiev’d. Long were to tell
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What I have don, what sufferd, with what pain
Voyag’d th’ unreal, vast, unbounded deep
Of horrible confusion, over which
By Sin and Death a broad way now is pav’d
To expedite your glorious march; but I
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Toild out my uncouth51 passage, forc’t to ride
Th’ untractable Abyss, plung’d in the womb
Of unoriginal52 Night and Chaos wild,
That jealous of thir secrets fiercely oppos’d
My journey strange, with clamorous uproar
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Protesting Fate supream; thence how I found
The new created World, which fame in Heav’n
Long had foretold, a Fabrick wonderful
Of absolute perfection, therein Man
Plac’t in a Paradise, by our exile
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Made happie: Him by fraud I have seduc’d
From his Creator, and the more to increase
Your wonder, with an Apple; he thereat
Offended, worth your laughter,53 hath giv’n up
Both his beloved Man and all his World,
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To Sin and Death a prey, and so to us,
Without our hazard, labour, or allarm,
To range in, and to dwell, and over Man
To rule, as over all he should have rul’d.
True is, mee also he hath judg’d, or rather
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Mee not, but the brute Serpent in whose shape
Man I deceav’d: that which to mee belongs,
Is enmity, which he will put between
Mee and Mankind; I am to bruise his heel;
His Seed, when is not set, shall bruise my head:
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A World who would not purchase with a bruise,
Or much more grievous pain? Ye have th’ account
Of my performance: What remains, ye Gods,
But up and enter now into full bliss.
So having said, a while he stood, expecting
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Thir universal shout and high applause
To fill his ear, when contrary he hears
On all sides, from innumerable tongues
A dismal universal hiss, the sound
Of public scorn; he wonderd, but not long
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Had leasure, wondring at himself now more;
His Visage drawn he felt to sharp and spare,
His Armes clung to his Ribs, his Leggs entwining
Each other, till supplanted54 down he fell
A monstrous Serpent on his Belly prone,
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Reluctant, but in vain, a greater power
Now rul’d him, punisht in the shape he sin’d,
According to his doom: he would have spoke,
But hiss for hiss returnd with forked tongue
To forked tongue, for now were all transform’d
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Alike, to Serpents all as accessories
To his bold Riot:55 dreadful was the din
Of hissing through the Hall, thick swarming now
With complicated56 monsters, head and tail,
Scorpion and Asp, and Amphisbæ
na dire,
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Cerastes hornd, Hydrus, and Ellops drear,
And Dipsas (not so thick swarm’d once the Soil
Bedropt with blood of Gorgon, or the Isle
Ophiusa) but still greatest hee the midst,
Now Dragon grown, larger then whom the Sun
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Ingenderd in the Pythian Vale on slime,
Huge Python, and his Power no less he seem’d
Above the rest still to retain; they all
Him follow’d issuing forth to th’ open Field,
Where all yet left of that revolted Rout
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Heav’n-fall’n, in station stood or just array,
Sublime57 with expectation when to see
In Triumph issuing forth thir glorious Chief;
They saw, but other sight instead, a crowd
Of ugly Serpents; horror on them fell,
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And horrid sympathie; for what they saw,
They felt themselvs now changing; down thir arms,
Down fell both Spear and Shield, down they as fast,
And the dire hiss renew’d, and the dire form
Catcht by Contagion, like in punishment,
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As in thir crime. Thus was th’ applause they meant,
Turnd to exploding hiss, triumph to shame
Cast on themselves from thir own mouths. There stood
A Grove hard by, sprung up with this thir change,
His will who reigns above, to aggravate
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Thir penance, laden with fair Fruit like that
Which grew in Paradise, the bait of Eve
Us’d by the Tempter: on that prospect strange
Thir earnest eyes they fix’d, imagining
For one forbidden Tree a multitude
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Now ris’n, to work them furder woe or shame;
Yet parcnt with scalding thurst and hunger fierce,
Though to delude them sent, could not abstain,
But on they rould in heaps, and up the Trees
Climbing, sat thicker then the snakie locks
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That curld Megæra:58 greedily they pluck’d
The Fruitage fair to sight, like that which grew
Neer that bituminous Lake59 where Sodom flam’d;
This more delusive, not the touch, but taste
Deceav’d; they fondly thinking to allay
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Thir appetite with gust,60 instead of Fruit
Chewd bitter Ashes, which th’ offended taste
With spattering noise rejected: oft they assayd,
Hunger and thirst constraining, drug’d61 as oft,
With hatefullest disrelish writh’d thir jaws
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With soot and cinders fill’d; so oft they fell
Into the same illusion, not as Man
Whom they triumph’d once lapst. Thus were they plagu’d
And worn with Famin, long and ceasless hiss,
Till thir lost shape, permitted, they resum’d,
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Yearly enjoynd, some say, to undergo
This annual humbling certain number’d days,
To dash thir pride, and joy for Man seduc’t.
However some tradition they dispers’d
Among the Heathen of thir purchase got,
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And Fabl’d how the Serpent, whom they calld
Ophion62 with Eurynome, the wide-Encroaching
Eve perhaps, had first the rule
Of high Olympus, thence by Saturn driv’n
And Ops, ere yet Dictæan Jove was born.
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Mean while in Paradise the hellish pair
Too soon arriv’d, Sin there in power before,
Once actual, now in body, and to dwell
Habitual habitant; behind her Death
Close following pace for pace, not mounted yet
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On his pale Horse:63 to whom Sin thus began.
Second of Satan sprung, all conquering Death,
What thinkst thou of our Empire now, though earnd
With travail difficult, not better farr
Then still at Hells dark threshold to have sate watch,
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Unnam’d, undreaded, and thy self half starv’d?64
Whom thus the Sin-born Monster answerd soon.
To mee, who with eternal Famin pine,
Alike is Hell, or Paradise, or Heaven,
There best, where most with ravin I may meet;
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Which here, though plenteous, all too little seems
To stuff this Maw, this vast unhide-bound65 Corps.
To whom th’ incestuous Mother thus repli’d.
Thou therefore on these Herbs, and Fruits, and Flowrs
Feed first, on each Beast next, and Fish, and Fowl,
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No homely morsels, and whatever thing
The Sithe of Time mows down, devour unspar’d,
Till I in Man residing through the Race,
His thoughts, his looks, words, actions all infect,
And season him thy last and sweetest prey.
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This said, they both betook them several wayes,
Both to destroy, or unimmortal make
All kinds, and for destruction to mature
Sooner or later; which th’ Almightie seeing,
From his transcendent Seat the Saints among,
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To those bright Orders utterd thus his voice.
See with what heat these Dogs of Hell advance
To waste and havoc yonder World, which I
So fair and good created, and had still
Kept in that state, had not the folly of Man
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Let in these wastful Furies, who impute
Folly to mee, so doth the Prince of Hell
And his Adherents, that with so much ease
I suffer them to enter and possess
A place so heav’nly, and conniving66 seem
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To gratifie my scornful Enemies,
That laugh, as if transported with some fit
Of Passion, I to them had quitted all,
At random yeilded up to their misrule;
And know not that I call’d and drew them thither
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My Hell-hounds, to lick up the draff and filth
Which mans polluting Sin with taint hath shed
On what was pure, till cramm’d and gorg’d, nigh burst
With suckt and glutted offal, at one sling
Of thy victorious Arm, well-pleasing Son,
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Both Sin, and Death, and yawning Grave at last
Through Chaos hurld, obstruct the mouth of Hell
For ever, and seal up his ravenous Jaws.
Then Heav’n and Earth renewd shall be made pure
To sanctitie that shall receive no stain:
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Till then the Curse pronounc’t on both precedes.
He ended, and the heav’nly Audience loud
Sung Halleluia, as the sound of Seas,
Through multitude that sung: Just are thy ways,
Righteous are thy Decrees on all thy Works;67
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Who can extenuate68 thee? Next, to the Son,
Destin’d restorer of Mankind, by whom
New Heav’n and Earth shall to the Ages rise,
Or down from Heav’n descend. Such was thir song,
While the Creator calling forth by name
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His mightie Angels gave them several charge,
As sorted69 best with present things. The Sun
Had first his precept so to move, so shine,
As might affect the Earth with cold and heat
Scarce tollerable, and from the North to call
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Decrepit Winter, from the South to bring
So
lstitial summers heat. To the blanc Moon
Her office they prescrib’d, to th’ other five70
Thir planetarie motions and aspects
In Sextile, Square, and Trine, and Opposite,71
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Of noxious efficacie, and when to joyn
In Synod unbenigne, and taught the fixt
Thir influence malignant when to showr,
Which of them rising with the Sun, or falling,
Should prove tempestuous: To the Winds they set
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Thir corners, when with bluster to confound
Sea, Air, and Shoar, the Thunder when to rowl
With terror through the dark Aereal Hall.
Some say he bid his Angels turn ascanse
The Poles of Earth twice ten degrees and more
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From the Suns Axle;72 they with labour push’d
Oblique the Centric Globe: Som say the Sun
Was bid turn Reins from th’ Equinoctial Rode
Like distant breadth to Taurus with the Seav’n
Atlantick Sisters, and the Spartan Twins
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Up to the Tropic Crab; thence down amain
By Leo and the Virgin and the Scales,
As deep as Capricorn, to bring in change
Of Seasons to each Clime; else had the Spring
Perpetual smil’d on Earth with vernant Flowrs,
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Equal in Days and Nights, except to those
Beyond the Polar Circles; to them Day
Had unbenighted shon, while the low Sun
To recompence his distance, in thir sight
Had rounded still th’ Horizon, and not known
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Or East or West, which had forbid the Snow
From cold Estotiland,73 and South as farr
Beneath Magellan. At that tasted Fruit
The Sun, as from Thyestean Banquet,74 turn’d
His course intended; else how had the World
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Inhabited, though sinless, more then now,
Avoided pinching cold and scorching heat?
These changes in the Heav’ns, though slow, produc’d