What I have done, what suffer'd, with what pain 470 Voyag'd th' unreal, vaft, unbounded deep Of horrible confufion, over which,
By Sin and Death,a broad way now is pav'd To expedite your glorious march; but I Toil'd out my uncouth passage, forc'd to ride Th' untractable abyss, plung'd in the womb Of unoriginal Night and Chaos wild, That,jealous of their secrets, fiercely oppos'd My journey strange, with clamorous uproar Protesting Fate fupreme; thence how I found 480 The new created world, which fame in Heaven Long had foretold, a fabric wonderful
Of abfolute perfection; therein Man Plac'd in a Paradise, by our exile
Made happy: 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, hath giv'n up Both his beloved Man and all his world, To Sin and Death a prey, and so to us, Without our hazard, labor, or alarm, To range in, and to dwell, and over Man To rule, as over all he should have rul'd. True is, me also he hath judg'd, or rather
Me not, but the brute serpent in whose shape 495 Man I deceiv'd: 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, 500 Or much more grievous pain? Ye have th' account Of my performance: What remains, ye Gods, But up and enter now into full blifs?
So having said, a while he stood, expecting Their univerfal fhout and high applause To fill his ear, when,contrary, he hears On all fides, from innumerable tongues, A dismal universal hifs, the found
Of public fcorn; he wonder'd, but not long Had leisure, wond'ring at himself now more; His visage drawn he felt to sharp and spare, His arms clung to his ribs, his legs intwining Each other, till,fupplanted, down he fell A monftrous serpent,on his belly prone; Reluctant, but in vain; a greater power Now rul'd him, punish'd in the shape he finn'd, According to his doom: he would have spoke, But hiss for hifs return'd with forked tongue return'd,with To forked tongue; for now were all transform'd Alike, to ferpents all, as acceffories
To his bold riot: dreadful was the din
Of hiffing through the hall, thick fwarming now With complicated monsters, head and tail, Scorpion, and Afp, and Amphisbæna dire, Ceraftes horn'd, Hydrus, and Elops drear, U u
And Dipfas (not fo thick fwarm'd once the foil Bedropt with blood of Gorgon, or the ile Ophiufa) but ftill greatest he the midft, Now Dragon grown, larger than whom the fun Ingender'd in the Pythian vale on flime, Huge Python, and his pow'r no lefs he seem'd Above the rest still to retain; they all Him follow'diffuing forth to th'open field, Where all yet left of that revolted rout, Heav'n-fall'n, in ftation flood or just array, Sublime with expectation,when to fee
In triumph issuing forth their glorious chief; They faw, but other fight instead, a crowd Of ugly ferpents; 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 hifs renew'd, and the dire form, Catch'd by contagion, like in punishment, As in their crime. Thus was th'applause they meant, Turn'd to exploding hiss, triumph to shame 546 Cafton themselves from their own mouths. Thereftood A grove hard by, fprung up with this their change, His will who reigns above, to aggravate Their penance, laden with fair fruit, like that Which grew in Paradife, the bait of Eve
Us'd by the Tempter: on that prospect ftrange Their earnest eyes they fix'd, imagining
For one forbidden tree a multitude
Now ris'n, to work them further woe or shame; 555 Yet,parch'd with scalding thirst and hunger fierce, Though to delude them fent, could not abftain, But on they roll'd in heaps, and up the trees Climbing, fat thicker than the snaky locks That curl'd Megara: greedily they pluck'd The fruitage fair to fight, like that which grew Near that bituminous lake where Sodom flam'd; This more delufive, not the touch, but tafte Deceiv'd; they, fondly thinking to allay Their appetite with guft, instead of fruit Chew'd bitter ashes, which th' offended tafte With spattering noise rejected: oft they assay'd, Hunger and thirst constraining, drug'd as oft, With hatefulleft difrelish,writh'd their jaws With foot and cinders fill'd; so oft they fell Into the fame illufion; not as Man Whom they triumph'd once laps'd. Thus were they And worn with famin, long and ceaseless hiss, Till their loft shape, permitted, they resum'd; Yearly injoin'd, some say, to undergo This annual humbling certain number'd days, To dash their pride, and joy for Man seduc'd. However some tradition they difpers'd
Among the Heathen of their purchase got,
And fabled how the Serpent, whom they call'd 580 Ophion,with Eurynome, the wide
Encroaching Eve perhaps, had firft the rule
Of high Olympus, thence by Saturn driven And Ops, ere yet Dictaan Jove was born.
Mean while in Paradise the hellish pair Too soon arriv'd; Sin there in Pow'r 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.
590 Second of Satan fprung, all conqu'ring Death, What think'ft thou of our empire now, though earn'd With travel difficult, not better far Than ftill at Hell's dark threshold to have fat watch, Unnam'd, undreaded, and thyself half starv'd? 595
Whom thus the Sin-born monster answer'd soon.
To me, who with eternal famin pine, Alike is Hell, or Paradise, or Heaven,
There beft, where most with ravin I may meet; Which here, though plenteous, all too little feems 600 To fluff this maw, this vaft unhide-bound corps. To whom th’incefluous mother thus reply'd. Thou,therefore,on these herbs, and fruits, and flowers Feed firft, on each beaft next, and fish, and fowl, No homely morfels; and whatever thing 605 The fithe of Time mowes down, devour unspar'd; Till I,in Man refiding, through the race, His thoughts, his looks, words, actions all infect, And season him thy laft and sweetest prey.
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