He soon discerns; and, weltering by his side,
One next himself in power, and next in crime,
Long after known in Palestine, and named 80
Beelzebub. To whom the Arch-Enemy,
And thence in Heaven called Satan, with
bold words

Breaking the horrid silence, thus began:-
"If thou beest he- but Oh how fallen!
how changed

From him, who in the happy realms of light 85 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 fallen: so much the

stronger proved

ΟΙ

105

109

All is not lost the unconquerable will,
And study1 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 empire2— that were low indeed;
That were an ignominy and shame beneath
This downfall; since by fate the strength of
gods

116 And this empyreal substance cannot fail; Since, through experience of this great event, In arms not worse, in foresight much advanced,

1 continued endeavor 2 authority and power 3 divine, cf. 1. 138

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, 150
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?"

155

Whereto with speedy words the ArchFiend replied:

160

"Fallen 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 labour must be to pervert that end,
And out of good still to find means of evil; 165

1 necessarily

170

rage,

175

Deep.

181

4

191

8

By ancient Tarsus held, or that sea-beast 200
Leviathan, which God of all his works
Created hugest that swim the ocean-stream.
Him, haply slumbering on the Norway foam,
The pilot of some small night-foundered skiff
Deeming some island, oft, as seamen tell, 205
With fixed anchor in his scaly rind,

Moors by his side under the lee, while night
Invests 10 the sea, and wished morn delays.
So stretched out huge in length the Arch-
Fiend lay,

1 if I mistake not 2 its 3 blue-black go 5 injure

226

In billows, leave in the 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,1 or the shattered side
Of thundering Etna, whose combustible
And fuelled entrails thence conceiving fire,
Sublimed with mineral fury, aid the winds,
And leave a singèd bottom all involved 236
With stench and smoke: such resting found
the sole

231

A mind not to be changed by place or time.
The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.
What matter where, if I be still the same, 256
And what I should be, all but less than he
Whom thunder hath made greater? Here at
least

We shall be free; the 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 Heaven.
But wherefore let we then our faithful friends,
The associates and co-partners of our loss, 265
Lie thus astonished2 on the 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 Heaven, or what more lost in
Hell?"

270

So Satan spake; and him Beëlzebub Thus answered: - "Leader of those armies bright

Which but the 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 277 Their surest signal - they will soon resume New courage and revive, though now they lie Grovelling and proŝtrate on yon lake of fire, As we erewhile, astounded and amazed: 281 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, 285 Behind him cast. The broad circumference Hung on his shoulders like the moon, whose orb

200

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 295
Over the burning marle, 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 inflamed sea he stood, and called 300
His legions, angel forms, who lay entranced,
Thick as autumnal leaves that strow the
brooks

In Vallombrosa, where the Etrurian shades High over-arched embower; or scattered sedge Afloat, when with fierce winds Orion' armed Hath vexed the Red-Sea coast, whose waves o'erthrew 306

Busiris and his Memphian chivalry,3
While with perfidious hatred they pursued
The sojourners of Goshen, who beheld
From the safe shore their floating carcases
And broken chariot-wheels:

so thick be311

strown, 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 Flower of Heaven

yours, now lost,

once

316

If such astonishment as this can seize
Eternal Spirits! Or have ye chosen 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 Heaven?
Or in this abject posture have ye sworn 322
To adore the Conqueror, who now beholds
Cherub and Seraph rolling in the flood
With scattered arms and ensigns, till anon 325
His swift pursuers from Heaven-gates discern
The advantage, and descending tread us down
Thus drooping, or with linked thunderbolts
Transfix us to the bottom of this gulf?
Awake, arise, or be forever fallen!"

330

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 335
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,4 in Egypt's evil day,
Waved round the coast, up called a pitchy
cloud

Of locusts, warping on the eastern wind,

340

1a constellation supposed to cause storms 2 Pharaoh horsemen Moses 5 moving in irregular flight

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, 345
'Twixt upper, nether, and surrounding fires;
Till, as a signal given, the 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
Rhene1 or the Danaw,2 when her barbarous
sons 3

Came like a deluge on the South, and spread
Beneath Gibraltar to the Libyan sands. 355
Forthwith, from every squadron and each
band,

The heads and leaders thither haste where stood

Their great Commander; godlike shapes,

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 thundering out of Sion, throned 386
Between the Cherubim; yea, often placed
Within his sanctuary itself their shrines,
Abominations; and with cursed things
His holy rites and solemn feasts profaned,
And with their darkness durst affront his
light.
391

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

395

To his grim idol. Him the Ammonite
Worshipped in Rabba and her watery plain,
In Argob and in Basan, to the stream
Of utmost Arnon. Nor content with such
Audacious neighbourhood, 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 Hinnon, Tophet thence
And black Gehenna called, the type of Hell.
Next Chemos, the obscene dread of Moab's

401

406

411

The flowery dale of Sibma clad with vines,
And Eleale to the Asphaltic pool.2
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 415
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 bordering
flood

Of old Euphrates to the brook that parts 420
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, 425
Not tied or manacled with joint or limb,
Nor founded on the brittle strength of bones,

1 offensive 2 the Dead Sea

Like cumbrous flesh; but, in what shape they choose,

430

Dilated or condensed, bright or obscure,
Can execute their aery purposes,
And works of love or enmity fulfil.
For those the race of Israel oft forsook
Their living Strength, and unfrequented left
His righteous altar, bowing lowly down
434
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 Heaven, 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 442
Her temple on the offensive mountain, built
By that uxorious king1 whose heart, though
large,

Beguiled by fair idolatresses, fell

445

449

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

455

Maimed his brute image, head and hands lopt off

5

465

In his own temple,3 on the grunsel-edge, 460
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: 470
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 offerings, and adore the gods

475

1 Solomon 2 Ezek. viii: 14 3 Cf. Ode on the Nativity, I. 199 threshold 5 Ashdod 6 Naaman