by John Milton
That I fall down and worship thee as God?
Get thee behind me; plain thou now appear’st
That Evil one, Satan for ever damn’d.
195
To whom the Fiend with fear abasht reply’d.
Be not so sore offended, Son of God;
Though Sons of God both Angels are and Men,
If I to try whether in higher sort
Then these thou bear’st that title, have propos’d
200
What both from Men and Angels I receive,
Tetrarchs26 of fire, air, flood, and on the earth
Nations besides from all the quarter’d winds,
God of this world invok’t and world beneath;
Who then thou art, whose coming is foretold
205
To me so fatal, me it most concerns.
The tryal hath indamag’d thee no way,
Rather more honour left and more esteem;
Me naught advantag’d, missing what I aim’d.
Therefore let pass, as they are transitory,
210
The Kingdoms of this world; I shall no more
Advise thee, gain them as thou canst, or not.
And thou thy self seem’st otherwise inclin’d
Then to a worldly Crown, addicted more
To contemplation and profound dispute,
215
As by that early action may be judg’d,
When slipping from thy Mothers eye thou went’st
Alone into the Temple;27 there wast found
Among the gravest Rabbies disputant
On points and questions fitting Moses Chair,
220
Teaching not taught; the childhood shews the man,
As morning shews the day. Be famous then
By wisdom; as thy Empire must extend,
So let extend thy mind o’re all the world,
In knowledge, all things in it comprehend,
225
All knowledge is not couch’t in Moses Law,
The Pentateuch28 or what the Prophets wrote,
The Gentiles also know, and write, and teach
To admiration, led by Natures light;
And with the Gentiles much thou must converse,
230
Ruling them by perswasion as thou mean’st,
Without thir learning how wilt thou with them,
Or they with thee hold conversation meet?
How wilt thou reason with them, how refute
Thir Idolisms, Traditions, Paradoxes?
235
Error by his own arms is best evinc’t.
Look once more e’re we leave this specular Mount
Westward, much nearer by Southwest, behold
Where on th’ Ægean shore a City stands
Built nobly, pure the air, and light the soil,
240
Athens the eye of Greece, Mother of Arts
And Eloquence, native to famous wits
Or hospitable, in her sweet recess,
City or Suburban, studious walks and shades;
See there the Olive Grove of Academe,
245
Plato’s retirement, where the Attic Bird29
Trills her thick-warbl’d notes the summer long,
There flowrie hill Hymettus with the sound
Of Bees industrious murmur oft invites
To studious musing; there Ilissus rouls
250
His whispering stream; within the walls then view
The schools of antient Sages; his30 who bred
Great Alexander to subdue the world,
Lyceum there, and painted Stoa31 next:
There thou shalt hear and learn the secret power
255
Of harmony in tones and numbers hit
By voice or hand, and various-measur’d verse,
Æolian charms and Dorian Lyric Odes,32
And his who gave them breath, but higher sung,
Blind Melesigenes thence Homer call’d,
260
Whose Poem Phœbus challeng’d for his own.
Thence what the lofty grave Tragœdians taught
In Chorus or Iambic, teachers best
Of moral prudence, with delight receiv’d
In brief sententious precepts, while they treat
265
Of fate, and chance, and change in human life;
High actions, and high passions best describing:
Thence to the famous Orators repair,
Those antient, whose resistless eloquence
Wielded at will that fierce Democratic,
270
Shook the Arsenal and fulmin’d over Greece,
To Macedon, and Artaxerxes33 Throne;
To sage Philosophy next lend thine ear,
From Heav’n descended to the low-rooft house
Of Socrates, see there his Tenement,
275
Whom well inspir’d the Oracle pronounc’d
Wisest of men; from whose mouth issu’d forth
Mellifluous streams that water’d all the schools
Of Academics old and new, with those
Sirnam’d Peripatetics,34 and the Sect
280
Epicurean, and the Stoic severe;
These here revolve, or, as thou lik’st, at home,
Till time mature thee to a Kingdom’s waight;
These rules will render thee a King compleat
Within thy self, much more with Empire joyn’d.
285
To whom our Saviour sagely thus repli’d.
Think not but that I know these things, or think
I know them not; not therefore am I short
Of knowing what I ought: he who receives
Light from above, from the fountain of light,
290
No other doctrine needs, though granted true;
But these are false, or little else but dreams,
Conjectures, fancies, built on nothing firm.
The first and wisest of them all35 profess’d
To know this only, that he nothing knew;
295
The next36 to fabling fell and smooth conceits,
A third sort37 doubted all things, though plain sence;
Others38 in vertue plac’d felicity,
But vertue joyn’d with riches and long life,
In corporal pleasure he,39 and careless ease,
300
The Stoic last in Philosophic pride,
By him call’d vertue; and his vertuous man,
Wise, perfect in himself, and all possessing
Equal to God, oft shames not to prefer,
As fearing God nor man, contemning all
305
Wealth, pleasure, pain or torment, death and life,
Which when he lists, he leaves, or boasts he can,
For all his tedious talk is but vain boast,
Or subtle shifts conviction to evade.
Alas what can they teach, and not mislead;
310
Ignorant of themselves, of God much more,
And how the world began, and how man fell
Degraded by himself, on grace depending?
Much of the Soul they talk, but all awrie,
And in themselves seek vertue, and to themselves
315
All glory arrogate, to God give none,
Rather accuse him under usual names,
Fortune and Fate, as one regardless quite
Of mortal things. Who therefore seeks in these
True wisdom, finds her not, or by delusion
320
Far worse, her false resemblance only meets,
An empty cloud. However many books
Wise men have said are wearisom; who reads
Incessantly, and to his reading brings not
A spirit and judgment equal or superior,
325
(And what he brings, what needs he elsewhere seek)
Uncertain and
unsettl’d still remains,
Deep verst in books and shallow in himself,
Crude or intoxicate, collecting toys,
And trifles for choice matters, worth a spunge;
330
As Children gathering pibles on the shore.
Or if I would delight my private hours
With Music or with Poem, where so soon
As in our native Language can I find
That solace? All our Law and Story strew’d
335
With Hymns, our Psalms with artful terms inscrib’d,
Our Hebrew Songs and Harps in Babylon,
That pleas’d so well our Victors ear, declare
That rather Greece from us these Arts deriv’d;
Ill imitated, while they loudest sing
340
The vices of thir Deities, and thir own
In Fable, Hymn, or Song, so personating
Thir Gods ridiculous, and themselves past shame.
Remove their swelling Epithetes thick laid
As varnish on a Harlots cheek, the rest,
345
Thin sown with aught of profit or delight,
Will far be found unworthy to compare
With Sion’s songs, to all true tasts excelling,
Where God is prais’d aright, and Godlike men,
The Holiest of Holies, and his Saints;
350
Such are from God inspir’d, not such from thee;
Unless where moral vertue is express’t
By light of Nature not in all quite lost.
Thir Orators thou then extoll’st, as those
The top of Eloquence, Statists40 indeed,
355
And lovers of thir Country, as may seem;
But herein to our Prophets far beneath,
As men divinely taught, and better teaching
The solid rules of Civil Government
In thir majestic unaffected stile
360
Then all the Oratory of Greece and Rome.
In them is plainest taught, and easiest learnt,
What makes a Nation happy, and keeps it so,
What ruins Kingdoms, and lays Cities flat;
These only with our Law best form a King.
365
So spake the Son of God; but Satan now
Quite at a loss, for all his darts were spent,
Thus to our Saviour with stern brow reply’d.
Since neither wealth, nor honour, arms nor arts,
Kingdom nor Empire pleases thee, nor aught
370
By me propos’d in life contemplative,
Or active, tended on by glory, or fame,
What dost thou in this World? the Wilderness
For thee is fittest place, I found thee there,
And thither will return thee, yet remember
375
What I foretell thee, soon thou shalt have cause
To wish thou never hadst rejected thus
Nicely or cautiously my offer’d aid,
Which would have set thee in short time with ease
On David’s Throne; or Throne of all the world,
380
Now at full age, fulness of time, thy season,
When Prophesies of thee are best fullfill’d.
Now contrary, if I read aught in Heav’n,
Or Heav’n write aught of Fate, by what the Stars
Voluminous, or single characters,
385
In their conjunction met, give me to spell,
Sorrows, and labours, opposition, hate,
Attends thee, scorns, reproaches, injuries,
Violence and stripes, and lastly cruel death.
A Kingdom they portend thee, but what Kingdom,
390
Real or Allegoric I discern not,
Now when, eternal sure, as without end,
Without beginning; for no date prefixt
Directs me in the Starry Rubric set.
So saying he took (for still he knew his power
395
Not yet expir’d) and to the Wilderness
Brought back the Son of God, and left him there,
Feigning to disappear. Darkness now rose,
As day-light sunk, and brought in lowring night
Her shadowy off-spring unsubstantial both,
400
Privation meer of light and absent day.
Our Saviour meek and with untroubl’d mind
After his aerie jaunt, though hurried sore,
Hungry and cold betook him to his rest,
Wherever, under some concourse of shades
405
Whose branching arms thick intertwin’d might shield
From dews and damps of night his shelter’d head,
But shelter’d slept in vain, for at his head
The Tempter watch’d, and soon with ugly dreams
Disturb’d his sleep; and either Tropic now
410
’Gan thunder, and both ends of Heav’n, the Clouds
From many a horrid rift abortive pour’d
Fierce rain with lightning mixt, water with fire
In ruin reconcil’d: nor slept the winds
Within thir stony caves, but rush’d abroad
415
From the four hinges of the world, and fell
On the vext Wilderness, whose tallest Pines,
Though rooted deep as high, and sturdiest Oaks
Bow’d their Stiff necks, loaden with stormy blasts,
Or torn up sheer: ill wast thou shrouded then,
420
O patient Son of God, yet only stoodst
Unshaken; nor yet staid the terror there,
Infernal Ghosts, and Hellish Furies, round
Environ’d thee, some howl’d, some yell’d, some shriek’d,
Some bent at thee thir fiery darts, while thou
425
Sat’st unappall’d in calm and sinless peace.
Thus pass’d the night so foul till morning fair
Came forth with Pilgrim steps in amice41 gray;
Who with her radiant finger still’d the roar
Of thunder, chas’d the clouds, and laid the winds,
430
And grisly Spectres, which the Fiend had rais’d
To tempt the Son of God with terrors dire.
And now the Sun with more effectual beams
Had chear’d the face of Earth, and dry’d the wet
From drooping plant, or dropping tree; the birds
435
Who all things now behold more fresh and green,
After a night of storm so ruinous,
Clear’d up their choicest notes in bush and spray
To gratulate the sweet return of morn;
Nor yet amidst this joy and brightest morn
440
Was absent, after all his mischief done,
The Prince of darkness, glad would also seem
Of this fair change, and to our Saviour came,
Yet with no new device, they all were spent,
Rather by this his last affront resolv’d,
445
Desperate of better course, to vent his rage,
And mad despight to be so oft repell’d.
Him walking on a Sunny hill he found,
Back’d on the North and West by a thick wood,
Out of the wood he starts in wonted shape;
450
And in a careless mood thus to him said.
Fair morning yet betides thee Son of God,
After a dismal night; I heard the rack
As Earth and Skie would mingle; but my self
Was distant; and these flaws, though mortals fear them
455
As dangerous to the pillard frame of Heav’n,
Or to the Earths dark basis underneath,
Are to the main42 as inconsiderable,
And harmless, if not wholsom, as a sneeze43
To mans le
ss universe, and soon are gone;
460
Yet as being oft times noxious where they light
On man, beast, plant, wastful and turbulent,
Like turbulencies in th’ affairs of men,
Over whose heads they roar, and seem to point,
They oft fore-signifie and threaten ill:
465
This Tempest at this Desert most was bent;
Of men at thee, for only thou here dwell’st.
Did I not tell thee, if thou didst reject
The perfet season offer’d with my aid
To win thy destin’d seat, but wilt prolong
470
All to the push of Fate, persue thy way
Of gaining David’s Throne no man knows when,
For both the when and how is no where told,
Thou shalt be what thou art ordain’d, no doubt;
For Angels have proclaim’d it, but concealing
475
The time and means: each act is rightliest done,
Not when it must, but when it may be best.
If thou observe not this, be sure to find,
What I foretold thee, many a hard assay
Of dangers, and adversities and pains,
480
E’re thou of Israel’s Scepter get fast hold;
Whereof this ominous night that clos’d thee round,
So many terrors, voices, prodigies
May warn thee, as a sure fore-going sign.
So talk’d he, while the Son of God went on
485
And staid not, but in brief him answer’d thus.
Mee worse then wet thou find’st not; other harm
Those terrors which thou speak’st of, did me none;
I never fear’d they could, though noising loud
And threatning nigh; what they can do as signs
490
Betok’ning, or ill boding, I contemn
As false portents, not sent from God, but thee;
Who knowing I shall raign past thy preventing,
Obtrud’st thy offer’d aid, that I accepting
At least might seem to hold all power of44 thee,
495