Of locusts, warping on the eastern wind,

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,
'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
Rhene or the Danaw, when her barbarous sons
Came like a deluge on the South, and spread
Beneath Gibraltar to the Libyan sands.

Forthwith, from every squadron and each band,
The heads and leaders thither haste where stood

Their great Commander— godlike Shapes, and Forms
Excelling human; princely Dignities;

And Powers that erst in Heaven sat on thrones,

Though of their names in Heavenly records now
Be no memorial, blotted out and rased

By their rebellion from the Books of Life.
Nor had they yet among the sons of Eve

Got them new names, till, wandering o'er the earth,
Through God's high sufferance for the trial of man,
By falsities and lies * the greatest part
Of mankind they corrupted to forsake
God their Creator, and the invisible

* I. 740-747.

350

360

Glory of Him that made them to transform

Oft to the image of a brute, adorned

With gay religions full of pomp and gold,

And devils to adore for deities:

Then were they known to men by various names,
And various idols through the heathen world.

370

Say, Muse, their names then known, who first, who last,
Roused from the slumber on that fiery couch,
At their great Emperor's call, as next in worth
Came singly where he stood on the bare strand,
While the promiscuous crowd stood yet aloof.

The chief were those who, from the pit of Hell
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
Between the Cherubim ;1 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.
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
To his grim idol. Him the Ammonite

Worshiped in Rabba and her watery plain,

In Argob and in Basan, to the stream

38a

399

Of utmost Arnon.1
Audacious neighbourhood, the wisest heart
Of Solomon he led by fraud to build

Nor content with such

His temple right against the temple of God
On that opprobrious hill,2 and made his grove
The pleasant valley of Hinnom, Tophet thence
And black Gehenna called, the type of Hell.
Next Chemos, the obscene dread of Moab's sons,
From Aroar to Nebo and the wild

Of southmost Abarim; in Hesebon
And Horonaim, Seon's realm, beyond

The flowery dale of Sibma clad with vines,
And Eleale to the Asphaltic Pool:

Peor his other name, when he enticed

40c

410

Israel in Sittim, on their march from Nile,

To do him wanton rites, which cost them woe.3
Yet thence his lustful orgies he enlarged
Even to that hill of scandal,2 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

Egypt from Syrian ground, had general names
Of Baalim 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,
Not tied or manacled with joint or limb,

1 See map, p. 87, for these and places following, to 505.

2 93, 94.

8

91.

* VI. 344+.

420

Nor founded on the brittle strength of bones,

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

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

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,2 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
Her temple on the offensive mountain, built
By that uxorious king whose heart, though large,
Beguiled by fair idolatresses, fell

3

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

430

440

450

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
Maimed his brute image, head and hands lopt off,
In his own temple, on the grunsel-edge,

Where he fell flat and shamed his worshipers :
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:
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

Whom he had vanquished. After these appeared
A crew who, under names of old renown
Osiris, Isis, Orus, and their train-

With monstrous shapes and sorceries abused
Fanatic Egypt and her priests to seek

Their wandering gods disguised in brutish forms
Rather than human. Nor did Israel scape

The infection, when their borrowed gold composed

460

470

480