To Tauris or Casbeen; so these, the late
Heav'n-banish'd host, left desert utmost Hell
Many a dark league, reduc'd in careful watch
Round their metropolis, and now expecting

Each hour their great adventurer from the search

440

Of foreign worlds. He through the midst, unmark'd,
In show plebeian Angel militant

Of lowest order, pass'd; and from the door

Of that Plutonian hall, invisible,

Ascended his high throne, which under state
Of richest texture spread, at th' upper end
Was plac'd in regal lustre. Down a while
He sat, and round about him saw unseen:
At last, as from a cloud, his fulgent head

445

And shape star-bright appear'd, or brighter, clad

450

With what permissive glory since his fall

Was left him, or false glitter. All amaz'd
At that so sudden blaze, the Stygian throng
Bent their aspect, and whom they wish'd beheld,
Their mighty chief return'd: loud was th' acclaim;
Forth rush'd in haste the great consulting peers,
Rais'd from their dark Divan, and with like joy

455

Congratulant approach'd him, who with hand
Silence, and with these words attention won..

Thrones, Dominations, Princedoms, Virtues, Powers, For in possession such, not only' of right,

461.

ye

forth

I call ye and declare ye now, return'd,
Successful beyond hope, to lead
Triumphant out of this infernal pit

Abominable, accurs'd, the house of woe,

465

And dungeon of our tyrant; now possess,

As Lords, a spacious world, to' our native Heaven

Little inferior, by my adventure hard

With peril great achiev'd. Long were to tell

What I have done, what suffer'd, with what pain

470

Voyag'd th' unreal, vast, unbounded deep

Of horrible confusion, over which,

M 2

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 supreme; thence how I found
The new-created world, which fame in Heaven
Long had foretold, a fabric wonderful,

Of absolute perfection, therein Man

Plac'd in a Paradise, by our exile

475

480

Made happy. Him by fraud. I have seduc'd

485

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, labour, 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

490

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,
Or much more grievous pain? Ye have th' account
Of my performance: what remains, ye Gods,

500

But

up and enter now into full bliss?"

So having said, a while he stood, expecting
Their universal shout and high applause
To fill his ear; when, contrary, he hears
On all sides, from innumerable tongues,

A dismal universal hiss, the sound

Of public scorn; he wonder'd, but not long

505

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 supplanted down he fell
A monstrous serpent on his belly prone,
Reluctant, but in vain, a greater power
Now rul'd him, punish'd in the shape he sinn'd
According to his doom. He would have spoke,
But hiss for hiss return'd with forked tongue
To forked tongue, for now were all transform'd
Alike, to serpents all, as accessories

To his bold riot: dreadful was the din

Of hissing through the hall, thick swarming now
With complicated monsters head and tail,
Scorpion, and Asp, and Amphisbæna dire,
Cerastes horn'd, Hydrus, and Elops drear,
And Dipsas (not so thick swarm'd once the soil
Bedropt with blood of Gorgon, or the isle
Ophiusa); but still greatest he the midst,
Now Dragon grown, larger than whom the sun.
Engender'd in the Pythian vale on slime,
Huge Python, and his power no less he seem'd
Above the rest still to retain. They all
Him follow'd, issuing forth to th' open field,
Where all yet left of that revolted rout,
Heav'n-fall'n, in station stood or just array,
Sublime with expectation when to see
In triumph issuing forth their glorious chief.
They saw,
but other sight instead, a crowd
Of ugly serpents: horror on them fell,

-510

515

520

525

530

535

And horrid sympathy: for what they saw

540

They felt themselves now changing; down their arms,

Down fell both spear and shield, down they as fast,

And the dire hiss renew'd, and the dire form,

Catch'd by contagion, like in punishment,

As in their crime. Thus was th' applause they meant

545

Turn'd to exploding hiss, triumph to shame,

Cast on themselves from their own mouths. There stood

A grove hard by, sprung up with this their change,

His will who reigns above, to aggravate

Their penance, laden with fair fruit, like that
Which grew in Paradise, the bait of Eve

Us'd by the Tempter: on that prospect strange
Their earnest eyes they fix'd, imagining
For one forbidden tree a multitude

550

Now ris'n, to work them further woe or shame;

555

Yet parch'd with scalding thirst and hunger fierce,
Though to delude them sent, could not abstain,
But on they roll'd in heaps, and up the trees
Climbing, sat thicker than the snaky locks
That curl'd Megara: greedily they pluck'd
The fruitage fair to sight, like that which grew
Near that bituminous lake where Sodom flam'd;
This more delusive, not the touch, but taste
Deceiv'd; they fondly thinking to allay
Their appetite with gust, instead of fruit
Chew'd bitter ashes, which th' offended taste

560

565

With spattering noise rejected : oft they' assay'd,

Hunger and thirst constraining, drugg'd as oft,

With hatefullest disrelish writh'd their jaws

With soot and cinders fill'd; so oft they fell

570

Into the same illusion, not as Man

Whom they triumph'd once laps'd. Thus were they plagu'd

And worn with famine, long and ceaseless hiss,

Till their lost shape, permitted, they resum❜d,

Yearly enjoin'd, some say, to undergo

575

This annual humbling certain number'd days,

To dash their pride, and joy for Man seduc'd.
However some tradition they dispers'd

Among the Heathen of their purchase got,

And fabled how the Serpent, whom they call'd
Ophion with Eurynome, the wide

580

Encroaching Eve perhaps, had first the rule
Of high Olympus, thence by Saturn driven
And Ops, ere yet Dictaan Jove was born.

Meanwhile in Paradise the hellish pair
Too soon arriv'd, Sin there in power before,
Once actual, now in body, and to dwell
Habitual habitant: behind her Death

585

Close following pace for pace, not mounted yet
On his pale horse: to whom Sin thus began.

590

"Second of Satan sprung, all couqu❜ring Death, What think'st thou of our empire now, tho' earn'd With travel difficult, not better far

Than still at Hell's dark threshold to' have sat watch,

Unnam'd, undreaded, and thyself half-starv’d ?”

595

Whom thus the Sin-born monster answer'd soon.

"To me, who with eternal famine pine, Alike is Hell, or Paradise, or Heaven,

There best, where most with ravine I may meet;
Which here, tho' plenteous, all too little seems
To stuff this maw, this vast unhide-bound corpse."
To whom the incestuous mother thus reply'd.
"Thou therefore on these herbs, and fruits, and flowers,
Feed first, on each beast next, and fish, and fowl,

600

No homely morsels; and whatever thing

605

The sithe of Time mows down, devour unspar'd;
Till I in Man residing through the race,

His thoughts, his looks, words, actions, all infect,

And season him thy last and sweetest prey."

Thus said, they both betook them several ways, Both to destroy, or unimmortal make

610

4

All kinds, and for destruction to mature

Sooner or later; which th' Almighty seeing,

From his transcendent seat the Saints among,
To those bright Orders utter'd thus his voice.

"See with what heat these dogs of Hell advance

To waste and havock yonder world, which I

615