Him first make sure your thrall, and lastly kill.
My substitutes I send ye, and create
Plenipotent on earth, of matchless might
Issuing from me: on your joint vigour now
My hold of this new kingdom all depends,
Through Sin to Death exposed by my exploit.
If your joint power prevail, the affairs of hell
No detriment need fear; go, and be strong.

So saying, he dismiss'd them; they with speed Their course through thickest constellations held, Spreading their bane; the blasted stars look'd wan, And planets, planet-struck, real eclipse

Then suffer'd. The other way Satan went down
The causeway to hell-gate: on either side
Disparted Chaos over built exclaim'd,

And with rebounding surge the bars assail'd,
That scorn'd his indignation. Through the gate
Wide open and unguarded, Satan pass'd,
And all about found desolate; for those
Appointed to sit there had left their charge,
Flown to the upper world; the rest were all
Far to the inland retired, about the walls
Of Pandemonium, city and proud seat
Of Lucifer, so by allusion call'd,

Of that bright star to Satan paragon'd.

There kept their watch the legions, while the grand
In council sat, solicitous what chance
Might intercept their emperor sent, so he
Departing gave command, and they observed.
As when the Tartar from his Russian foe
By Astracan oyer the snowy plains
Retires, or Bactrian Sophi from the horns
Of Turkish crescent leaves all waste beyond
The realm of Aladule in his retreat

To Tauris or Casbeen; so these, the late
Heaven-banish'd host, left desert utmost hell
Many a dark league, reduced in careful watch
Round their metropolis, and now expecting
Each hour their great adventurer from he search
Of foreign worlds: he through the midst unr
ark'd,
In show plebeian angel militant
Of lowest order, pass'd; and from the door
Of that Plutonian hall invisible

Ascended his high throne, which, under stat?
Of richest texture spread, at the upper end
Was placed in regal lustre. Down a while
He sat, and round about him saw unseen :
At last as from a cloud his fulgent head
And shape star-bright appear'd, or brighter, clad
With what permissive glory since his fall
Was left him, or false glitter. All amazed
At that so sudden blaze, the Stygian throng

Bent their aspect, and whom they wish'd beheld,
Their mighty chief return'd: loud was the acclaim.
Forth rush'd in haste the great consulting peers,
Raised from their dark divan, and with like joy
Congratulant approach'd him, who with hand
Silence, and with these words attention, won:
Thrones, dominations, princedoms, virtues, powers,
For in possession such, not only of right,
I call ye and declare ye now, return'd
Successful beyond hope, to lead ye forth
Triumphant out of this infernal pit

Abominable, accursed, the house of woe,
And dungeon of our tyrant: now possess,
As lords, a spacious world, to our native heaven
Little inferior, by my adventure hard,

With peril great, achieved. Long were to tell
What I have done, what suffer'd, with what pain
Voyaged the unreal, vast, unbounded deep
Of horrible confusion, over which,

By Sin and Death a broad way now is paved
To expedite your glorious march; but I
Toil'd out my uncouth passage, forced to ride
The untractable abyss, plunged in the womb
Of unoriginal Night and Chaos wild,

That, jealous of their secrets, fiercely opposed
My journey strange, with clamorous uproar
Protesting fate supreme; thence, how I found
The new-created world, which fame in heaven
Long had foretold, a fabric wonderful,
Of absolute perfection, therein man,
Placed in a Paradise, by our exile

Made happy: him by fraud I have seduced
From his Creator; and, the more to increase
Your wonder, with an apple; he thereat
Offended, worth your laughter, hath given up
Both his beloved man and all his world
To Sin and Death a prey, and so to us,
Without our hazard, labour, or alarm,
To range in, and to dwell, and over man
To rule, as over all he should have ruled.
True is, me also he hath judged, or rather
Me not, but the brute serpent, in whose shape
Man I deceived: that which to me belongs
Is enmity, which he will put between
Me and mankind; I am to bruise his heel;
His seed, when is not set, shall bruise my head.
A world who would not purchase with a bruise,
Or much more grievous pain? Ye have the account
Of my performance; what remains, ye gods,
and enter now into full bliss?
So having said, a while he stood, expecting
Their universal shout and high applause

But

up

To fill his ear, when, contrary, he hears
On all sides, from innumerable tongues,
A dismal universal hiss, the sound

Of public scorn; he wonder'd, but not long
Had leisure, wondering at himself now more;
His visage drawn he felt to sharp and spare,
His arms clung to his ribs, his legs entwining
Each other, till supplanted down he fell
A monstrous serpent on his belly prone,
Reluctant, but in vain, a greater Power
Now ruled him, punish'd in the shape he sinn'd,
According to his doom. He would have spoke,
But hiss for hiss return'd with forked tongue
To forked tongue, for now were all transform'd
Alike, to serpents all, as accessories

To his bold riot: dreadful was the din

Of hissing through the hall, thick-swarming now
With complicated monsters head and tail,
Scorpion, and asp, and amphisbæna dire,
Cerastes horn'd, hydrus, and ellops drear,
And dipsas; not so thick swarm'd once the soil
Bedropp'd with blood of Gorgon, or the isle
Ophiusa; but still greatest he the midst,
Now dragon, grown larger than whom the sun
Engender'd 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 the open field,
Where all yet left of that revolted rout
Heaven-fallen in station stood or just array,
Sublime with expectation when to see
In triumph issuing forth their glorious chief.
They saw, but other sight instead, a crowd
Of ugly serpents; horror on them fell,

And horrid sympathy; for what they saw,

They felt themselves now changing: down their arms, Down fell both spear and shield, down they as fast, And the dire hiss renew'd, and the dire form

Catch'd by contagion, like in punishment,

As in their crime. Thus was the applause they meant Turn'd to exploding hiss, triumph to shame,

Cast on themselves from their own mouths. There stood

A grove hard by, sprung up with this their change,

His will who reigns above, to aggravate

Their penance, laden with fair fruit, like that
Which grew in Paradise, the bait of Eve
Used by the tempter; on that prospect strange
Their earnest eyes they fix'd, imagining
For one forbidden tree a multitude

Now risen, to work them further woe or shame :
Yet, parch'd with scalding thirst and hunger fierce
Though to delude them sent, could not abstain,

But on they roll'd in heaps, and up the trees
Climbing, sat thicker than the snaky locks
That curl'd Megæra. Greedily they pluck'd
The fruitage fair to sight, like that which grew
Near that bituminous lake where Sodom flamed;
This more delusive, not the touch, but taste
Deceived; they, fondly thinking to allay
Their appetite with gust, instead of fruit
Chew'd bitter ashes, which the offended taste
With spattering noise rejected: oft they essay'd,
Hunger and thirst constraining, drugg'd as oft,
With hatefulest disrelish writhed their jaws
With soot and cinders fill'd; so oft they fell
Into the same illusion, not as man
Whom they triumph'd once lapsed.

plagued

Thus were they

And worn with famine long, and ceaseless his,
Till their lost shape, permitted, they resumed,
Yearly enjoin'd, some say, to undergo

This annual humbling certain number'd days,
To dash their pride and joy for man seduced.
However, some tradition they dispersed
Among the heathen of their purchase got,
And fabled how the serpent, whom they call'd
Ophion with Eurynome, the wide

Encroaching Eve perhaps, had first the rule
Of high Olympus, thence by Saturn driven
And Ops, ere yet Dictaan Jove was born.
Meanwhile in Paradise the hellish pair
Too soon arrived, 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
On his pale horse; to whom Sin thus began:

Second of Satan sprung, all-conquering Death, What think'st thou of our empire now, though

earn'd

With travail difficult, not better far

Than still at hell's dark threshold to have sat watch
Unnamed, undreaded, and thyself half-starved?
Whom thus the sin-born monster answer'd soon:
me, who with eternal famine pine,
Alike is hell, or paradise, or heaven,

Το

There best, where most with ravin I may meet;
Which here, though plenteous, all too little seems
To stuff this maw, this vast unhide-bound corps.

To whom the incestuous mother thus replied:
Thou therefore on these herbs, and fruits, and flowers
Feed first, on each beast next, and fish, and fowl,
No homely morsels, and whatever thing

The scythe of Time mows down, devour unspared, Till I, in man residing, through the race,

His thoughts, his looks, words, actions, all infect,
And season him thy last and sweetest prey.

This said, they both betook them several ways,
Both to destroy, or unimmortal make
All kinds, and for destruction to mature
Sooner or later; which the Almighty seeing,
From his transcendent seat the saints among,
To those bright orders utter'd 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
Let in these wasteful furies, who impute
Folly to me; so doth the prince of hell
And his adherents, that with so much ease
I suffer them to enter and possess

A place so heavenly; and, conniving, seem
To gratify my scornful enemies,

That laugh, as if, transported with some fit
Of passion, I to them had quitted all,

At random yielded up to their misrule ;

And know not that I call'd and drew them thither

My hell-hounds, to lick up the draff and filth,

Which man's polluting sin with taint hath shed

On what was pure; till, crammed and gorged, nigh burst With suck'd and glutted offal, at one sling

Of thy victorious arm, well-pleasing Son,

Both Sin, and Death, and yawning grave, at last
Through Chaos hurl'd, obstruct the mouth of hell
For ever, and seal up his ravenous jaws.

Then heaven and earth renew'd shall be made pure
To sanctity that shall receive no stain:

Till then the curse pronounced on both precedes.
He ended, and the heavenly audience loud
Sung hallelujah, as the sound of seas,

Through multitude that sung: Just are thy ways,
Righteous are thy decrees on all thy works;
Who can extenuate thee? Next, to the Son,
Destined Restorer of mankind, by whom
New heaven and earth shall to the ages rise,

Or down from heaven descend. Such was their song,
While the Creator, calling forth by name
His mighty angels, gave them several charge,
As sorted best with present things. The sun
Had first his precept so to move, so shine,
As night affect the earth with cold and heat
Scarce tolerable, and from the north to call
Decrepit winter; from the south to bring
Solstitial summer's heat. To the blank_moon
Her office they prescribed, to the other five
Their planetary motions and aspects
In sextile, square, and trine, and opposite,