کتاب 1

BOOK I

THE ARGUMENT

This first book proposes, first in brief, the whole subject, man’s disobedience, and the loss thereupon of Paradise wherein he was placed: then touches the prime cause of his fall, the serpent, or rather Satan in the serpent, who revolting from God, and drawing to his side many legions of angels, was by the command of God driven out of Heaven with all his crew into the great deep. Which action passed over, the poem hastes into the midst of things, presenting Satan with his angels now fallen into Hell, described here, not in the center (for heaven and earth may be supposed as yet not made, certainly not yet accursed) but in a place of utter darkness, fitliest called Chaos. Here Satan with his angels lying on the burning lake, thunder-struck and astonished, after a certain space recovers, as from confusion, calls up him who next in order and dignity lay by him. They confer of their miserable fall. Satan awakens all his legions, who lay till then in the same manner confounded; they rise, their numbers, array of battle, their chief leaders named, according to the idols known afterwards in Canaan and the countries adjoining. To these Satan directs his speech, comforts them with hope yet of regaining Heaven, but tells them lastly of a new world and new kind of creature to be created, according to an ancient prophecy or report in Heaven; for that angels were long before this visible creation was the opinion of many ancient Fathers. To find out the truth of this prophecy, and what to determine thereon, he refers to a full council. What his associates thence attempt. Pandaemonium the palace of Satan rises, suddenly built out of the deep. The infernal peers there sit in council.

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 Heav’nly 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 advent’rous song,

That with no middle flight intends to soar

Above th’ Aonian mount, while it pursues

Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme.

And chiefly thou, O Spirit, that dost prefer

Before all temples th’ upright heart and pure, Instruct me, for thou know’st; thou from the first Wast present, and with mighty wings outspread Dove-like sat’st brooding on the vast abyss

And mad’st it pregnant: what in me is dark

Illumine, what is low raise and support,

That to the highth of this great argument

I may assert eternal providence,

And justify the ways of God to men.

Say first, for Heav’n hides nothing from thy view Nor the deep tract of Hell, say first what cause Moved our grand parents in that happy state,

Favored of Heav’n so highly, to fall off

From their Creator, and transgress his will

For one restraint, lords of the world besides?

Who first seduced them to that foul revolt?

Th’ infernal serpent; he it was, whose guile

Stirred up with envy and revenge, deceived

The mother of mankind, what time his pride

Had cast him out from Heav’n, with all his host Of rebel angels, by whose aid aspiring

To set himself in glory above his peers,

He trusted to have equaled the Most High,

If he opposed; and with ambitious aim

Against the throne and monarchy of God

Raised impious war in Heav’n and battle proud With vain attempt. Him the Almighty Power

Hurled headlong flaming from th’ ethereal sky With hideous ruin and combustion down

To bottomless perdition, there to dwell

In adamantine chains and penal fire,

Who durst defy th’ Omnipotent to arms.

Nine times the space that measures day and night To mortal men, he with his horrid crew

Lay vanquished, rolling in the fiery gulf

Confounded though immortal: but his doom

Reserved him to more wrath; for now the thought Both of lost happiness and lasting pain

Torments him; round he throws his baleful eyes That witnessed huge affliction and dismay

Mixed with obdurate pride and steadfast hate: At once as far as angels ken he views

The dismal situation waste and wild,

A dungeon horrible, on all sides round

As one great furnace flamed, yet from those flames No light, but rather darkness visible

Served only to discover sights of woe,

Regions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace And rest can never dwell, hope never comes

That comes to all; but torture without end

Still urges, and a fiery deluge, fed

With ever-burning sulfur unconsumed:

Such place eternal justice had prepared

For those rebellious, here their prison ordained In utter darkness, and their portion set

As far removed from God and light of Heav’n

As from the center thrice to th’ utmost pole.

O how unlike the place from whence they fell!

There the companions of his fall, o’erwhelmed With floods and whirlwinds of tempestuous fire, He soon discerns, and welt’ring by his side

One next himself in power, and next in crime, Long after known in Palestine, and named

Beëlzebub. To whom th’ Arch-Enemy,

And thence in Heav’n called Satan, with bold words Breaking the horrid silence thus began.

“If thou beest he; but O how fall’n! How changed From him, who in the happy realms of light

Clothed with transcendent brightness didst outshine Myriads though bright: if he whom mutual league, United thoughts and counsels, equal hope

And hazard in the glorious enterprise,

Joined with me once, now misery hath joined

In equal ruin: into what pit thou seest

From what highth fall’n, so much the stronger proved He with his thunder: and till then who knew

The force of those dire arms? Yet not for those, Nor what the potent victor in his rage

Can else inflict, do I repent or change,

Though changed in outward luster; that fixed mind And high disdain, from sense of injured merit, That with the mightiest raised me to contend, And to the fierce contention brought along

Innumerable force of spirits armed

That durst dislike his reign, and me preferring, His utmost power with adverse power opposed

In dubious battle on the plains of Heav’n,

And shook his throne. What though the field be lost?

All is not lost; the unconquerable will,

And study of revenge, immortal hate,

And courage never to submit or yield:

And what is else not to be overcome?

That glory never shall his wrath or might

Extort from me. To bow and sue for grace

With suppliant knee, and deify his power,

Who from the terror of this arm so late

Doubted his empire, that were low indeed,

That were an ignominy and shame beneath

This downfall; since by fate the strength of gods And this empyreal substance cannot fail,

Since through experience of this great event

In arms not worse, in foresight much advanced, We may with more successful hope resolve

To wage by force or guile eternal war

Irreconcilable, to our grand foe,

Who now triumphs, and in th’ excess of joy

Sole reigning holds the tyranny of Heav’n.”

So spake th’ apostate angel, though in pain,

Vaunting aloud, but racked with deep despair: And him thus answered soon his bold compeer.

“O Prince, O chief of many thronèd powers,

That led th’ embattled Seraphim to war

Under thy conduct, and in dreadful deeds

Fearless, endangered Heav’n’s perpetual King, And put to proof his high supremacy,

Whether upheld by strength, or chance, or fate, Too well I see and rue the dire event,

That with sad overthrow and foul defeat

Hath lost us Heav’n, and all this mighty host In horrible destruction laid thus low,

As far as gods and Heav’nly essences

Can perish: for the mind and spirit remains

Invincible, and vigor soon returns,

Though all our glory extinct, and happy state Here swallowed up in endless misery.

But what if he our conqueror (whom I now

Of force believe almighty, since no less

Than such could have o’erpow’red such force as ours) Have left us this our spirit and strength entire Strongly to suffer and support our pains,

That we may so suffice his vengeful ire,

Or do him mightier service as his thralls

By right of war, whate’er his business be

Here in the heart of Hell to work in fire,

Or do his errands in the gloomy deep;

What can it then avail though yet we feel

Strength undiminished, or eternal being

To undergo eternal punishment?”

Whereto with speedy words th’ Arch-Fiend replied.

“Fall’n cherub, to be weak is miserable

Doing or suffering: but of this be sure,

To do aught good never will be our task,

But ever to do ill our sole delight,

As being the contrary to his high will

Whom we resist. If then his providence

Out of our evil seek to bring forth good,

Our labor must be to pervert that end,

And out of good still to find means of evil;

Which ofttimes may succeed, so as perhaps

Shall grieve him, if I fail not, and disturb

His inmost counsels from their destined aim.

But see the angry victor hath recalled

His ministers of vengeance and pursuit

Back to the gates of Heav’n: the sulfurous hail Shot after us in storm, o’erblown hath laid

The fiery surge, that from the precipice

Of Heav’n received us falling, and the thunder, Winged with red lightning and impetuous rage, Perhaps hath spent his shafts, and ceases now To bellow through the vast and boundless deep.

Let us not slip th’ occasion, whether scorn,

Or satiate fury yield it from our foe.

Seest thou yon dreary plain, forlorn and wild, The seat of desolation, void of light,

Save what the glimmering of these livid flames Casts pale and dreadful? Thither let us tend

From off the tossing of these fiery waves,

There rest, if any rest can harbor there,

And reassembling our afflicted powers,

Consult how we may henceforth most offend

Our enemy, our own loss how repair,

How overcome this dire calamity,

What reinforcement we may gain from hope,

If not what resolution from despair.”

Thus Satan talking to his nearest mate

With head uplift above the wave, and eyes

That sparkling blazed, his other parts besides Prone on the flood, extended long and large

Lay floating many a rood, in bulk as huge

As whom the fables name of monstrous size,

Titanian, or Earth-born, that warred on Jove, Briareos or Typhon, whom the den

By ancient Tarsus held, or that sea beast

Leviathan, which God of all his works

Created hugest that swim th’ ocean stream:

Him haply slumb’ring on the Norway foam

The pilot of some small night-foundered skiff, Deeming some island, oft, as seamen tell,

With fixèd anchor in his scaly rind

Moors by his side under the lee, while night

Invests the sea, and wishèd morn delays:

So stretched out huge in length the Arch-Fiend lay Chained on the burning lake, nor ever thence

Had ris’n or heaved his head, but that the will And high permission of all-ruling Heaven

Left him at large to his own dark designs,

That with reiterated crimes he might

Heap on himself damnation, while he sought

Evil to others, and enraged might see

How all his malice served but to bring forth

Infinite goodness, grace and mercy shown

On man by him seduced, but on himself

Treble confusion, wrath and vengeance poured.

Forthwith upright he rears from off the pool

His mighty stature; on each hand the flames

Driv’n backward slope their pointing spires, and rolled In billows, leave i’ th’ midst a horrid vale.

Then with expanded wings he steers his flight Aloft, incumbent on the dusky air

That felt unusual weight, till on dry land

He lights, if it were land that ever burned

With solid, as the lake with liquid fire,

And such appeared in hue, as when the force

Of subterranean wind transports a hill

Torn from Pelorus, or the shattered side

Of thund’ring Etna, whose combustible

And fueled entrails thence conceiving fire,

Sublimed with mineral fury, aid the winds,

And leave a singèd bottom all involved

With stench and smoke: such resting found the sole Of unblest feet. Him followed his next mate,

Both glorying to have scaped the Stygian flood As gods, and by their own recovered strength, Not by the sufferance of supernal power.

“Is this the region, this the soil, the clime,” Said then the lost Archangel, “this the seat

That we must change for Heav’n, this mournful gloom For that celestial light? Be it so, since he

Who now is sov’reign can dispose and bid

What shall be right: farthest from him is best Whom reason hath equaled, force hath made supreme Above his equals. Farewell happy fields

Where joy for ever dwells: hail horrors, hail Infernal world, and thou profoundest Hell

Receive thy new possessor: one who brings

A mind not to be changed by place or time.

The mind is its own place, and in itself

Can make a Heav’n of Hell, a Hell of Heav’n.

What matter where, if I be still the same,

And what I should be, all but less than he

Whom thunder hath made greater? Here at least We shall be free; th’ Almighty hath not built Here for his envy, will not drive us hence:

Here we may reign secure, and in my choice

To reign is worth ambition though in Hell:

Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heav’n.

But wherefore let we then our faithful friends, Th’ associates and copartners of our loss

Lie thus astonished on th’ oblivious pool,

And call them not to share with us their part In this unhappy mansion, or once more

With rallied arms to try what may be yet

Regained in Heav’n, or what more lost in Hell?” So Satan spake, and him Beëlzebub

Thus answered. “Leader of those armies bright, Which but th’ Omnipotent none could have foiled, If once they hear that voice, their liveliest pledge Of hope in fears and dangers, heard so oft

In worst extremes, and on the perilous edge

Of battle when it raged, in all assaults

Their surest signal, they will soon resume

New courage and revive, though now they lie

Groveling and prostrate on yon lake of fire,

As we erewhile, astounded and amazed,

No wonder, fallen such a pernicious highth.”

He scarce had ceased when the superior fiend

Was moving toward the shore; his ponderous shield Ethereal temper, massy, large and round,

Behind him cast; the broad circumference

Hung on his shoulders like the moon, whose orb Through optic glass the Tuscan artist views

At evening from the top of Fesole,

Or in Valdarno, to descry new lands,

Rivers or mountains in her spotty globe.

His spear, to equal which the tallest pine

Hewn on Norwegian hills, to be the mast

Of some great ammiral, were but a wand,

He walked with to support uneasy steps

Over the burning marl, not like those steps

On Heaven’s azure, and the torrid clime

Smote on him sore besides, vaulted with fire; Nathless he so endured, till on the beach

Of that inflamèd sea, he stood and called

His legions, angel forms, who lay entranced

Thick as autumnal leaves that strow the brooks In Vallombrosa, where th’ Etrurian shades

High overarched embow’r; or scattered sedge

Afloat, when with fierce winds Orion armed

Hath vexed the Red Sea coast, whose waves o’erthrew Busiris and his Memphian chivalry,

While with perfidious hatred they pursued

The sojourners of Goshen, who beheld

From the safe shore their floating carcasses

And broken chariot wheels. So thick bestrown

Abject and lost lay these, covering the flood, Under amazement of their hideous change.

He called so loud, that all the hollow deep

Of Hell resounded. “Princes, potentates,

Warriors, the flow’r of Heav’n, once yours, now lost, If such astonishment as this can seize

Eternal spirits; or have ye chos’n this place After the toil of battle to repose

Your wearied virtue, for the ease you find

To slumber here, as in the vales of Heav’n?

Or in this abject posture have ye sworn

To adore the conqueror, who now beholds

Cherub and Seraph rolling in the flood

With scattered arms and ensigns, till anon

His swift pursuers from Heav’n gates discern

Th’ advantage, and descending tread us down

Thus drooping, or with linkèd thunderbolts

Transfix us to the bottom of this gulf?

Awake, arise, or be for ever fall’n.”

They heard, and were abashed, and up they sprung Upon the wing, as when men wont to watch

On duty, sleeping found by whom they dread,

Rouse and bestir themselves ere well awake.

Nor did they not perceive the evil plight

In which they were, or the fierce pains not feel; Yet to their general’s voice they soon obeyed Innumerable. As when the potent rod

Of Amram’s son in Egypt’s evil day

Waved round the coast, up called a pitchy cloud Of locusts, warping on the eastern wind,

That o’er the realm of impious Pharaoh hung

Like night, and darkened all the land of Nile: So numberless were those bad angels seen

Hovering on wing under the cope of Hell

‘Twixt upper, nether, and surrounding fires;

Till, as a signal giv’n, th’ uplifted spear

Of their great sultan waving to direct

Their course, in even balance down they light On the firm brimstone, and fill all the plain; A multitude, like which the populous north

Poured never from her frozen loins, to pass

Rhene or the Danaw, when her barbarous sons

Came like a deluge on the south, and spread

Beneath Gibraltar to the Libyan sands.

Forthwith from every squadron and each band

The heads and leaders thither haste where stood Their great commander; godlike shapes and forms Excelling human, princely dignities,

And Powers that erst in Heaven sat on thrones; Though of their names in Heav’nly records now Be no memorial, blotted out and razed

By their rebellion, from the Books of Life.

Nor had they yet among the sons of Eve

Got them new names, till wand’ring o’er the Earth, Through God’s high sufferance for the trial of man, By falsities and lies the greatest part

Of mankind they corrupted to forsake

God their Creator, and th’ invisible

Glory of him that made them to transform

Oft to the image of a brute, adorned

With gay religions full of pomp and gold,

And devils to adore for deities:

Then were they known to men by various names, And various idols through the heathen world.

Say, Muse, their names then known, who first, who last, Roused from the slumber on that fiery couch,

At their great emperor’s call, as next in worth Came singly where he stood on the bare strand, While the promiscuous crowd stood yet aloof?

The chief were those who from the pit of Hell Roaming to seek their prey on earth, durst fix Their seats long after next the seat of God,

Their altars by his altar, gods adored

Among the nations round, and durst abide

Jehovah thund’ring out of Sion, throned

Between the Cherubim; yea, often placed

Within his sanctuary itself their shrines,

Abominations; and with cursèd things

His holy rites, and solemn feasts profaned,

And with their darkness durst affront his light.

First Moloch, horrid king besmeared with blood Of human sacrifice, and parents’ tears,

Though for the noise of drums and timbrels loud Their children’s cries unheard, that passed through fire To his grim idol. Him the Ammonite

Worshipped in Rabba and her wat’ry plain,

In Argob and in Basan, to the stream

Of utmost Arnon. Nor content with such

Audacious neighborhood, the wisest heart

Of Solomon he led by fraud to build

His temple right against the temple of God

On that opprobrious hill, and made his grove

The pleasant valley of Hinnom, Tophet thence

And black Gehenna called, the type of Hell.

Next Chemos, th’ obscene dread of Moab’s sons, From Aroar to Nebo, and the wild

Of southmost Abarim; in Hesebon

And Horonaim, Seon’s realm, beyond

The flow’ry dale of Sibma clad with vines,

And Eleale to th’ Asphaltic Pool.

Peor his other name, when he enticed

Israel in Sittim on their march from Nile

To do him wanton rites, which cost them woe.

Yet thence his lustful orgies he enlarged

Even to that hill of scandal, by the grove

Of Moloch homicide, lust hard by hate;

Till good Josiah drove them thence to Hell.

With these came they, who from the bord’ring flood Of old Euphrates to the brook that parts

Egypt from Syrian ground, had general names

Of Baälim and Ashtaroth, those male,

These feminine. For spirits when they please

Can either sex assume, or both; so soft

And uncompounded is their essence pure,

Nor tied or manacled with joint or limb,

Nor founded on the brittle strength of bones, Like cumbrous flesh; but in what shape they choose Dilated or condensed, bright or obscure,

Can execute their airy purposes,

And works of love or enmity fulfill.

For those the race of Israel oft forsook

Their Living Strength, and unfrequented left

His righteous altar, bowing lowly down

To bestial gods; for which their heads as low Bowed down in battle, sunk before the spear

Of despicable foes. With these in troop

Came Astoreth, whom the Phoenicians called

Astarte, Queen of Heav’n, with crescent horns; To whose bright image nightly by the moon

Sidonian virgins paid their vows and songs,

In Sion also not unsung, where stood

Her temple on th’ offensive mountain, built

By that uxorious king, whose heart though large, Beguiled by fair idolatresses, fell

To idols foul. Thammuz came next behind,

Whose annual wound in Lebanon allured

The Syrian damsels to lament his fate

In amorous ditties all a summer’s day,

While smooth Adonis from his native rock

Ran purple to the sea, supposed with blood

Of Thammuz yearly wounded: the love-tale

Infected Sion’s daughters with like heat,

Whose wanton passions in the sacred porch

Ezekiel saw, when by the vision led

His eye surveyed the dark idolatries

Of alienated Judah. Next came one

Who mourned in earnest, when the captive ark

Maimed his brute image, head and hands lopped off In his own temple, on the grunsel edge,

Where he fell flat, and shamed his worshippers: Dagon his name, sea monster, upward man

And downward fish: yet had his temple high

Reared in Azotus, dreaded through the coast

Of Palestine, in Gath and Ascalon

And Accaron and Gaza’s frontier bounds.

Him followed Rimmon, whose delightful seat

Was fair Damascus, on the fertile banks

Of Abbana and Pharphar, lucid streams.

He also against the house of God was bold:

A leper once he lost and gained a king,

Ahaz his sottish conqueror, whom he drew

God’s altar to disparage and displace

For one of Syrian mode, whereon to burn

His odious off’rings, and adore the gods

Whom he had vanquished. After these appeared

A crew who under names of old renown,

Osiris, Isis, Orus and their train

With monstrous shapes and sorceries abused

Fanatic Egypt and her priests, to seek

Their wand’ring gods disguised in brutish forms Rather than human. Nor did Israel scape

Th’ infection when their borrowed gold composed The calf in Oreb: and the rebel king

Doubled that sin in Bethel and in Dan,

Lik’ning his Maker to the grazèd ox,

Jehovah, who in one night when he passed

From Egypt marching, equaled with one stroke

Both her first born and all her bleating gods.

Belial came last, than whom a spirit more lewd Fell not from Heaven, or more gross to love

Vice for itself: to him no temple stood

Or altar smoked; yet who more oft than he

In temples and at altars, when the priest

Turns atheist, as did Eli’s sons, who filled

With lust and violence the house of God.

In courts and palaces he also reigns

And in luxurious cities, where the noise

Of riot ascends above their loftiest tow’rs,

And injury and outrage: and when night

Darkens the streets, then wander forth the sons Of Belial, flown with insolence and wine.

Witness the streets of Sodom, and that night

In Gibeah, when the hospitable door

Exposed a matron to avoid worse rape.

These were the prime in order and in might;

The rest were long to tell, though far renowned, Th’ Ionian gods, of Javan’s issue held

Gods, yet confessed later than Heav’n and Earth Their boasted parents; Titan Heav’n’s first born With his enormous brood, and birthright seized By younger Saturn, he from mightier Jove

His own and Rhea’s son like measure found;

So Jove usurping reigned: these first in Crete And Ida known, thence on the snowy top

Of cold Olympus ruled the middle air

Their highest heav’n; or on the Delphian cliff, Or in Dodona, and through all the bounds

Of Doric land; or who with Saturn old

Fled over Adria to th’ Hesperian fields,

And o’er the Celtic roamed the utmost isles.

All these and more came flocking; but with looks Downcast and damp, yet such wherein appeared

Obscure some glimpse of joy, to have found their chief Not in despair, to have found themselves not lost In loss itself; which on his count’nance cast Like doubtful hue: but he his wonted pride

Soon recollecting, with high words, that bore Semblance of worth, not substance, gently raised Their fainting courage, and dispelled their fears.

Then straight commands that at the warlike sound Of trumpets loud and clarions be upreared

His mighty standard; that proud honor claimed Azazel as his right, a cherub tall:

Who forthwith from the glittering staff unfurled Th’ imperial ensign, which full high advanced Shone like a meteor streaming to the wind

With gems and golden luster rich emblazed,

Seraphic arms and trophies: all the while

Sonorous metal blowing martial sounds:

At which the universal host upsent

A shout that tore Hell’s concave, and beyond

Frighted the reign of Chaos and old Night.

All in a moment through the gloom were seen

Ten thousand banners rise into the air

With orient colors waving: with them rose

A forest huge of spears: and thronging helms

Appeared, and serried shields in thick array

Of depth immeasurable: anon they move

In perfect phalanx to the Dorian mood

Of flutes and soft recorders; such as raised

To highth of noblest temper heroes old

Arming to battle, and instead of rage

Deliberate valor breathed, firm and unmoved

With dread of death to flight or foul retreat, Nor wanting power to mitigate and swage

With solemn touches, troubled thoughts, and chase Anguish and doubt and fear and sorrow and pain From mortal or immortal minds. Thus they

Breathing united force with fixèd thought

Moved on in silence to soft pipes that charmed Their painful steps o’er the burnt soil; and now Advanced in view they stand, a horrid front

Of dreadful length and dazzling arms, in guise Of warriors old with ordered spear and shield, Awaiting what command their mighty chief

Had to impose: he through the armèd files

Darts his experienced eye, and soon traverse

The whole battalion views, their order due,

Their visages and stature as of gods,

Their number last he sums. And now his heart

Distends with pride, and hard’ning in his strength Glories: for never since created man,

Met such embodied force, as named with these

Could merit more than that small infantry

Warred on by cranes: though all the giant brood Of Phlegra with th’ heroic race were joined

That fought at Thebes and Ilium, on each side Mixed with auxiliar gods; and what resounds

In fable or romance of Uther’s son

Begirt with British and Armoric knights;

And all who since, baptized or infidel,

Jousted in Aspramont or Montalban,

Damasco, or Marocco, or Trebisond,

Or whom Biserta sent from Afric shore

When Charlemagne with all his peerage fell

By Fontarabia. Thus far these beyond

Compare of mortal prowess, yet observed

Their dread commander: he above the rest

In shape and gesture proudly eminent

Stood like a tow’r; his form had yet not lost All her original brightness, nor appeared

Less than Archangel ruined, and th’ excess

Of glory obscured: as when the sun new ris’n

Looks through the horizontal misty air

Shorn of his beams, or from behind the moon

In dim eclipse disastrous twilight sheds

On half the nations, and with fear of change

Perplexes monarchs. Darkened so, yet shone

Above them all th’ Archangel: but his face

Deep scars of thunder had intrenched, and care Sat on his faded cheek, but under brows

Of dauntless courage, and considerate pride

Waiting revenge: cruel his eye, but cast

Signs of remorse and passion to behold

The fellows of his crime, the followers rather (Far other once beheld in bliss) condemned

For ever now to have their lot in pain,

Millions of spirits for his fault amerced

Of Heav’n, and from eternal splendors flung

For his revolt, yet faithful how they stood,

Their glory withered. As when heaven’s fire

Hath scathed the forest oaks or mountain pines, With singèd top their stately growth though bare Stands on the blasted heath. He now prepared

To speak; whereat their doubled ranks they bend From wing to wing, and half enclose him round With all his peers: attention held them mute.

Thrice he assayed, and thrice in spite of scorn, Tears such as angels weep burst forth: at last Words interwove with sighs found out their way.

O myriads of immortal spirits, O powers

Matchless, but with th’ Almighty, and that strife Was not inglorious, though th’ event was dire, As this place testifies, and this dire change Hateful to utter: but what power of mind

Foreseeing or presaging, from the depth

Of knowledge past or present, could have feared, How such united force of gods, how such

As stood like these, could ever know repulse?

For who can yet believe, though after loss,

That all these puissant legions, whose exile

Hath emptied Heav’n, shall fail to reascend

Self-raised, and repossess their native seat?

For me be witness all the host of Heav’n,

If counsels different, or danger shunned

By me, have lost our hopes. But he who reigns Monarch in Heav’n, till then as one secure

Sat on his throne, upheld by old repute,

Consent or custom, and his regal state

Put forth at full, but still his strength concealed, Which tempted our attempt, and wrought our fall.

Henceforth his might we know, and know our own So as not either to provoke, or dread

New war, provoked; our better part remains

To work in close design, by fraud or guile

What force effected not: that he no less

At length from us may find, who overcomes

By force, hath overcome but half his foe.

Space may produce new worlds; whereof so rife There went a fame in Heav’n that he ere long

Intended to create, and therein plant

A generation, whom his choice regard

Should favor equal to the sons of Heav’n:

Thither, if but to pry, shall be perhaps

Our first eruption, thither or elsewhere:

For this infernal pit shall never hold

Celestial spirits in bondage, nor th’ abyss

Long under darkness cover. But these thoughts Full counsel must mature: peace is despaired, For who can think submission? War then, war

Open or understood must be resolved.”

He spake: and to confirm his words, out flew

Millions of flaming swords, drawn from the thighs Of mighty Cherubim; the sudden blaze

Far round illumined Hell: highly they raged

Against the Highest, and fierce with graspèd arms Clashed on their sounding shields the din of war, Hurling defiance toward the vault of Heav’n.

There stood a hill not far whose grisly top

Belched fire and rolling smoke; the rest entire Shone with a glossy scurf, undoubted sign

That in his womb was hid metallic ore,

The work of sulfur. Thither winged with speed A numerous brigade hastened. As when bands

Of pioneers with spade and pickax armed

Forerun the royal camp, to trench a field,

Or cast a rampart. Mammon led them on,

Mammon, the least erected spirit that fell

From Heav’n, for ev’n in Heav’n his looks and thoughts Were always downward bent, admiring more

The riches of Heav’n’s pavement, trodden gold, Than aught divine or holy else enjoyed

In vision beatific: by him first

Men also, and by his suggestion taught,

Ransacked the center, and with impious hands

Rifled the bowels of their mother Earth

For treasures better hid. Soon had his crew

Opened into the hill a spacious wound

And digged out ribs of gold. Let none admire

That riches grow in Hell; that soil may best

Deserve the precious bane. And here let those Who boast in mortal things, and wond’ring tell Of Babel, and the works of Memphian kings,

Learn how their greatest monuments of fame,

And strength and art are easily outdone

By spirits reprobate, and in an hour

What in an age they with incessant toil

And hands innumerable scarce perform.

Nigh on the plain in many cells prepared,

That underneath had veins of liquid fire

Sluiced from the lake, a second multitude

With wondrous art founded the massy ore,

Severing each kind, and scummed the bullion dross: A third as soon had formed within the ground

A various mold, and from the boiling cells

By strange conveyance filled each hollow nook, As in an organ from one blast of wind

To many a row of pipes the soundboard breathes.

Anon out of the earth a fabric huge

Rose like an exhalation, with the sound

Of dulcet symphonies and voices sweet,

Built like a temple, where pilasters round

Were set, and Doric pillars overlaid

With golden architrave; nor did there want

Cornice or frieze, with bossy sculptures grav’n; The roof was fretted gold. Not Babylon,

Nor great Alcairo such magnificence

Equaled in all their glories, to enshrine

Belus or Serapis their gods, or seat

Their kings, when Egypt with Assyria strove

In wealth and luxury. Th’ ascending pile

Stood fixed her stately highth, and straight the doors Op’ning their brazen folds discover wide

Within, her ample spaces, o’er the smooth

And level pavement: from the archèd roof

Pendant by subtle magic many a row

Of starry lamps and blazing cressets fed

With naphtha and asphaltus yielded light

As from a sky. The hasty multitude

Admiring entered, and the work some praise

And some the architect: his hand was known

In Heav’n by many a towered structure high,

Where sceptered angels held their residence,

And sat as princes, whom the supreme King

Exalted to such power, and gave to rule,

Each in his hierarchy, the orders bright.

Nor was his name unheard or unadored

In ancient Greece; and in Ausonian land

Men called him Mulciber; and how he fell

From Heav’n, they fabled, thrown by angry Jove Sheer o’er the crystal battlements; from morn To noon he fell, from noon to dewy eve,

A summer’s day; and with the setting sun

Dropped from the zenith like a falling star,

On Lemnos th’ Aegean isle: thus they relate,

Erring; for he with this rebellious rout

Fell long before; nor aught availed him now

To have built in Heav’n high tow’rs; nor did he scape By all his engines, but was headlong sent

With his industrious crew to build in Hell.

Meanwhile the wingèd heralds by command

Of sov’reign power, with awful ceremony

And trumpets’ sound throughout the host proclaim A solemn council forthwith to be held

At Pandaemonium, the high capital

Of Satan and his peers: their summons called

From every band and squarèd regiment

By place or choice the worthiest; they anon

With hundreds and with thousands trooping came Attended: all access was thronged, the gates

And porches wide, but chief the spacious hall (Though like a covered field, where champions bold Wont ride in armed, and at the soldan’s chair Defied the best of paynim chivalry

To mortal combat or career with lance)

Thick swarmed, both on the ground and in the air, Brushed with the hiss of rustling wings. As bees In springtime, when the sun with Taurus rides, Pour forth their populous youth about the hive In clusters; they among fresh dews and flowers Fly to and fro, or on the smoothèd plank,

The suburb of their straw-built citadel,

New rubbed with balm, expatiate and confer

Their state affairs. So thick the airy crowd

Swarmed and were straitened; till the signal giv’n, Behold a wonder! They but now who seemed

In bigness to surpass Earth’s giant sons

Now less than smallest dwarfs, in narrow room Throng numberless, like that pygmean race

Beyond the Indian mount, or faerie elves

Whose midnight revels, by a forest side

Or fountain some belated peasant sees,

Or dreams he sees, while overhead the moon

Sits arbitress, and nearer to the earth

Wheels her pale course, they on their mirth and dance Intent, with jocund music charm his ear;

At once with joy and fear his heart rebounds.

Thus incorporeal spirits to smallest forms

Reduced their shapes immense, and were at large, Though without number still amidst the hall

Of that infernal court. But far within

And in their own dimensions like themselves

The great Seraphic lords and Cherubim

In close recess and secret conclave sat

A thousand demigods on golden seats,

Frequent and full. After short silence then

And summons read, the great consult began.