122

CEDMON'S POEM.

Would follow,

Work his will;

Therefore gave he them wit,
And shaped them with his hands,
The holy Lord.

He had placed them so happily,
One he had made so powerful,
So mighty in his mind's thought,
He let him sway over so much,

Highest after himself in heaven's kingdom.
He had made him so fair,

So beauteous was his form in heaven,

That came to him from the Lord of hosts,
He was like to the light stars.

It was his to work the praise of the Lord,

It was his to hold dear his joys in heaven,

And to thank his Lord

For the reward that he had bestowed on him in that light;

Then had he let him long possess it;

But he turned it for himself to a worse thing,

Began to raise war upon him,

Against the highest Ruler of heaven,

Who sitteth in the holy seat.

Dear was he to our Lord,

But it might not be hidden from him

That his angel began

To be presumptuous,

Raised himself against his Master,

Sought speech of hate,

Words of pride towards him,

Would not serve God,

Said that his body was

Light and beauteous,

Fair and bright of hue:

He might not find in his mind

That he would God

In subjection,

His Lord, serve :

Seemed to himself

That he a power and force

Had greater

Than the holy God

Could have

THE REBELLIOUS ANGELS.

Of adherents.

Many words spake

The angel of presumption:

Thought, through his own power,

How he for himself a stronger

Seat might make,

Higher in heaven :

Said that him his mind impelled,

That he west and north

Would begin to work,

Would prepare structures:

Said it to him seemed doubtful

That he to God would

Be a vassal.

'Why shall I toil?' said he ;

'To me it is no whit needful.
To have a superior;

I can with my hands as many
Wonders work;

I have great power

To form

A diviner throne,

A higher in heaven.

Why shall I for his favour serve,
Bend to him in such vassalage?
I may be a god as he

Stand by me strong associates,

Who will not fail me in the strife,

Heroes stern of mood,

They have chosen me for chief,

Renowned warriors!

With such may one devise counsel,

With such capture his adherents;

They are my zealous friends,
Faithful in their thoughts;

I may be their chieftain,

Sway in this realm:

Thus to me it seemeth not right

That I in aught

Need cringe

To God for any good;

I will no longer be his vassal.'

When the All-powerful it

123

124

SATAN'S PRESUMPTION.

All had heard,

That his angel devised

Great presumption

To raise up against his Master,

And spake proud words

Foolishly against his Lord,

Then must he expiate the deed,

Share the work of war,

And for his punishment must have

Of all deadly ills the greatest.

So doth every man

Who against his Lord

Deviseth to war,

With crime against the great Ruler.

Then as the Mighty angry ;

The highest Ruler of heaven
Hurled him from the lofty seat;

Hate had he gained at his Lord,

His favour he had lost,

Incensed with him was the Good in his mind,

Therefore must he seek the gulf

Of hard hell-torment,

For that he had warred with heaven's Ruler,

He rejected him then from his favour,

And cast him into hell,

Into the deep parts,

Where he became a devil:

The fiend with all his comrades

Fell then from heaven above,

Through as long as three nights and days,

The angels from heaven into hell;

And them all the Lord transformed to devils,

Because they his deed and word

Would not revere;

Therefore them in a worse light,

Under the earth beneath,
Almighty God

Had placed triumphless

In the swart hell;

There they have at even,
Immeasurably long,

Each of all the fiends,

A renewal of fire;

Whether this spirited description was written by Cædmon, and whether it is of his century, are questions unimportant to the present inquiry. The poem represents a mediæval notion which long prevailed, and which characterised the Mysteries, that Satan and his comrades were humiliated from the highest angelic rank to a hell already

prepared and peopled with devils, and were there, and by those devils, severely punished. One of the illuminations of the Cadmon manuscript, preserved in the Bodleian Library, shows Satan undergoing his torment (Fig. 3).

126

MILTON'S VERSION.

He is bound over something like a gridiron, and four devils are torturing him, the largest using a scourge with six prongs. His face manifests great suffering. His form is mainly human, but his bushy tail and animal feet indicate that he has been transformed to a devil similar to those who chastise him.

On Cadmon's foundation Milton built his gorgeous edifice. His Satan is an ambitious and very English lord, in whom are reflected the whole aristocracy of England in their hatred and contempt of the holy Puritan Commonwealth, the Church of Christ as he deemed it. The ages had brought round a similar situation to that which confronted the Jews at Babylon, the early christians of Rome, and their missionaries among the proud pagan princes of the north. The Church had long allied itself with the earlier Lucifers of the north, and now represented the proud empire of a satanic aristocracy, and the persecuted Nonconformists represented the authority of the King of kings. In the English palace, and in the throne of Canterbury, Milton saw his Beelzebub and his Satan.

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 equall'd 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
Hurl'd 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.1

1 Paradise Lost,' i. 40-50.