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Moloch We now debate. Who can advise may speak.' advises He ceased; and next him Moloch, sceptred king,

open war

Stood up the strongest and the fiercest Spirit
That fought in Heaven, now fiercer by despair
His trust was with the Eternal to be deemed
Equal in strength, and rather than be less
Cared not to be at all; with that care lost
Went all his fear of God, or Hell, or worse,
He recked not, and these words thereafter

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My sentence is for open war.

Of wiles,

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way,

More unexpert, I boast not them let those
Contrive who need, or when they need; not now.
For, while they sit contriving, shall the rest-
Millions that stand in arms, and longing wait
The signal to ascend-sit lingering here,
Heaven's fugitives, and for their dwelling-place
Accept this dark opprobrious den of shame,
The prison of His tyranny who reigns
By our delay? No! let us rather choose,
Armed with Hell-flames and fury, all at once
O'er Heaven's high towers to force resistless
Turning our tortures into horrid arms
Against the Torturer; when, to meet the noise
Of his almighty engine, he shall hear
Infernal thunder, and, for lightning, see
Black fire and horror shot with equal rage
Among his Angels, and his throne itself
Mixed with Tartarean sulphur and strange fire,
His own invented torments. But perhaps
The way seems difficult, and steep to scale
With upright wing against a higher foe!
Let such bethink them, if the sleepy drench

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Of that forgetful lake benumb not still,
That in our proper motion we ascend
Up to our native seat; descent and fall
To us is adverse. Who but felt of late,
When the fierce foe hung on our broken rear
Insulting, and pursued us through the Deep,
With what compulsion and laborious flight
We sunk thus low? The ascent is easy, then;
The event is feared! Should we again provoke
Our stronger, some worse way his wrath may
find

To our destruction, if there be in Hell

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Fear to be worse destroyed! What can be

worse

Than to dwell here, driven out from bliss, con-
demned

In this abhorred deep to utter woe;
Where pain of unextinguishable fire
Must exercise us without hope of end
The vassals of his anger, when the scourge
Inexorably, and the torturing hour,

Calls us to penance? More destroyed than thus,
We should be quite abolished, and expire.
What fear we then? what doubt we to incense
His utmost ire? which, to the highth enraged,
Will either quite consume us, and reduce
To nothing this essential-happier far
Than miserable to have eternal being!
Or, if our substance be indeed divine,
And cannot cease to be, we are at worst
On this side nothing; and by proof we feel
Our power sufficient to disturb his Heaven,
And with perpetual inroads to alarm,
Though inaccessible, his fatal throne:

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'What

can be worse than this?'

He dis- What if the breath that kindled those grim fires, suades Awaked, should blow them into sevenfold rage, war And plunge us in the flames; or from above Should intermitted vengeance arm again

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His red right hand to plague us? What if a
Her stores were opened, and this firmament II¢
Of Hell should spout her cataracts of fire,
Impendent horrors, threatening hideous fall
One day upon our heads; while we perhaps,
Designing or exhorting glorious war,
Caught in a fiery tempest, shall be hurled,
Each on his rock transfixed, the sport and
Of racking whirlwinds, or for ever sunk
Under yon boiling ocean, wrapt in chains,
There to converse with everlasting groans,
Unrespited, unpitied, unreprieved,
Ages of hopeless end?

prey

This would be worse.
War, therefore, open or concealed, alike

My voice dissuades; for what can force or guile
With him, or who deceive his mind, whose eye
Views all things at one view? He from
Heaven's highth

All these our motions vain sees and derides,
Not more almighty to resist our might

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Than wise to frustrate all our plots and wiles.
Shall we, then, live thus vile-the race of

Heaven

Thus trampled, thus expelled, to suffer here
Chains and these torments? Better these than

worse,

By my advice; since fate inevitable

Subdues us, and omnipotent decree,
The Victor's will. To suffer, as to do,

Our strength is equal; nor the law unjust 200

That so ordains. This was at first resolved,
If we were wise, against so great a foe
Contending, and so doubtful what might fall.
I laugh when those who at the spear are bold
And venturous, if that fail them, shrink, and fear
What yet they know must follow-to endure
Exile, or ignominy, or bonds, or pain,

The sentence of their conqueror. This is now
Our doom; which if we can sustain and bear,
Our Supreme Foe in time may much remit 210
His anger, and perhaps, thus far removed,
Not mind us not offending, satisfied

With what is punished; whence these raging fires
Will slacken, if his breath stir not their flames.
Our purer essence then will overcome

Their noxious vapour; or, inured, not feel;
Or, changed at length, and to the place con-
formed

In temper and in nature, will receive

Familiar the fierce heat; and, void of pain,
This horror will grow mild, this darkness light;
Besides what hope the never-ending flight
Of future days may bring, what chance, what
change

Worth waiting-since our present lot appears
For happy though but ill, for ill not worst,
If we procure not to ourselves more woe.'

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Thus Belial, with words clothed in reason's
garb,

Counselled ignoble ease and peaceful sloth,
Not peace; and after him thus Mammon spake :-
Either to disenthrone the King of Heaven

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We war, if war be best, or to regain
-Our own right lost. Him to unthrone we then

Mammon speaks

PARADISE LOST

BOOK II

THE ARGUMENT

Satan THE consultation begun, Satan debates whether another upon his battle be to be hazarded for the recovery of Heaven : throne some aavise it, others dissuade. A third proposal is pre

ferred, mentioned before by Satan-to search the truth of that prophecy or tradition in Heaven concerning another world, and another kind of creature, equal, or not much inferior, to themselves, about this time to be created. Their doubt who shall be sent on this difficult search: Satan, their chief, undertakes alone the voyage; is honoured and applauded. The council thus ended, the rest betake them several ways and to several employments, as their inclinations lead them, to entertain the time till Satan return. He passes on his journey to Hell-gates; finds them shut, and who sat there to guard them; by whom at length they are opened, and discover to him the great gulf between Hell and Heaven. With what difficulty he passes through, directed by Chaos, the Power of that place, to the sight of this new World which he sought.

HIGH on a throne of royal state, which far
Outshone the wealth of Ormus and of Ind,
Or where the gorgeous East with richest hand
Showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold,
Satan exalted sat, by merit raised

To that bad eminence; and, from despair
Thus high uplifted beyond hope, aspires
Beyond thus high, insatiate to pursue

Vain war with Heaven; and, by success untaught,

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