Hurled headlong flaming from the ethereal sky, With hideous ruin and combustion, down To bottomless perdition; there to dwell In adamantine1 chains and penal fire Who durst defy the Omnipotent to arms
Nine times the space that measures day and night2 To mortal men, he with his horrid crew Lay vanquished, rolling in the fiery gulf, Confounded, though immortal: but his doom Reserved him to more wrath; for now the thought Both of lost happiness, and lasting pain,
Torments him: round he throws his baleful eyes, That witnessed huge affliction and dismay, Mixed with obdurate pride, and steadfast hate. At once, as far as angels' ken, he views The dismal situation, waste and wild: A dungeon horrible on all sides round,
As one great furnace flamed; yet from those flames No light; but rather darkness visible Served only to discover sights of woe,
Regions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace
And rest can never dwell; hope never comes That comes to all; but torture without end Still urges, and a fiery deluge, fed
With ever-burning sulphur unconsumed. Such place Eternal Justice had prepared For those rebellious3; here their prison ordained In utter darkness, and their portion set As far removed from God and light of Heaven, As from the centre thrice to the utmost pole. O, how unlike the place from whence they fell! There, the companions of his fall, o'erwhelmed With floods and whirlwinds of tempestuous fire, He soon discerns; and, weltering by his side, One next himself in power, and next in crime, Long after known in Palestine, and named Beelzebub.5 To whom the Arch-Enemy,
5 Beelzebub, or "the Lord of flies," was worshipped at Ekron in Philistia.
And thence in Heaven called Satan1, with bold words Breaking the horrid silence, thus began:
"If thou beest he; but O, how fallen, how changed From him, who, in the happy realms of light, Clothed with transcendent brightness, didst outshine Myriads, though bright! If he whom mutual league, United thoughts and counsels, equal hope And hazard in the glorious enterprise,
Joined with me once, now misery hath joined
In equal ruin! Into what pit thou seest,
From what height fallen; so much the stronger proved
He with his thunder: and till then who knew
The force of those dire arms? Yet not for those, Nor what the potent Victor in his rage Can else inflict, do I repent or change,
Though changed in outward lustre, that fixed mind, And high disdain from sense of injured merit, That with the Mightiest raised me to contend, And to the fierce contention brought along Innumerable force of Spirits armed,
That durst dislike his reign, and, me preferring,
His utmost power with adverse power opposed In dubious battle on the plains of Heaven,
And shook his throne. What though the field be lost
All is not lost; the unconquerable will,
And study of revenge, immortal hate, And courage never to submit or yield, And, what is else not to be overcome; Thát glory never shall his wrath or might Extort from me. To bow and sue for grace With suppliant knee, and deify his power3, Who from the terror of this arm so late Doubted his empire; that were low indeed, That were an ignominy, and shame beneath This downfall; since, by fate, the strength of gods And this empyreal substance cannot fail; Since, through experience of this great event,
1 Satan; in Hebrew, an adversary, power of Him who &c., a Latin
In arms not worse, in foresight much advanced, We may, with more successful hope, resolve To wage, by force or guile, eternal war, Irreconcilable to our grand1 Foe,
Who now triumphs, and, in the excess of joy Sole reigning, holds the tyranny of Heaven." So spake the apostate Angel, though in pain, Vaunting aloud, but racked with deep despair. And him thus answered soon his bold compeer :-
"O Prince, O chief of many throned powers, That led the embattled Seraphim 2 to war Under thy conduct, and, in dreadful deeds Fearless, endangered Heaven's perpetual King, And put to proof his high supremacy,
Whether upheld by strength, or chance, or fate; Too well I see and rue the dire event, That with sad overthrow and foul defeat
Hath lost us Heaven, and all this mighty host In horrible destruction laid thus low, As far as gods and heavenly essences Can perish; for the mind and spirit remains Invincible, and vigour soon returns,
Though all our glory extinct, and happy state Here swallowed up in endless misery.
But what if he our conqueror (whom I now
Of force believe Almighty, since no less
Than such could have o'erpowered such force as ours)
Have left us this our spirit and strength entire Strongly to suffer and support our pains, That we may so suffice his vengeful ire, Or do him mightier service, as his thralls 3 By right of war, whate'er his business be, Here in the heart of Hell to work in fire, Or do his errands in the gloomy deep; What can it then avail, though yet we feel Strength undiminished, or eternal being, To undergo eternal punishment?"
Whereto with speedy words the Arch-Fiend replied:
-a bond-servant, a slave.
"Fallen cherub, to be weak is miserable, Doing or suffering: but of this be sure, To do aught good never will be our task, But ever to do ill our sole delight',
As being the contrary to his2 high will Whom we resist. If then, his providence Out of our evil seek to bring forth good, Our labour must be to pervert that end, And out of good still to find means of evil; Which oft-times may succeed, so as perhaps Shall grieve him, if I fail not, and disturb His inmost counsels from their destined aim. But see! the angry Victor hath recalled His ministers of vengeance and pursuit
Back to the gates of Heaven: the sulphurous hail,
Shot after us in storm, o'erblown, hath laid The fiery surge, that from the precipice
Of Heaven received us falling, and the thunder Winged with red lightning and impetuous rage, Perhaps hath spent his shafts, and ceases now To bellow through the vast and boundless deep. Let us not slip the occasion, whether scorn Or satiate fury yield it from our Foe. Seest thou yon dreary plain, forlorn and wild, The seat of Desolation, void of light, Save what the glimmering of these livid flames Casts pale and dreadful? Thither let us tend From off the tossing of these fiery waves; There rest, if any rest can harbour there; And re-assembling our afflicted3 powers, Consult how we may henceforth most offend Our Enemy; our own loss how repair; How overcome this dire calamity;
What re-inforcement we may gain from hope; If not, what resolution from despair." Thus Satan talking to his nearest mate With head up-lift above the wave, and eyes That sparkling blazed; his other parts besides
1 With what force is the character of Satan comprised in these few words! To do good.... a task; to do ill.... sole delight!
2 See ante, line 112.
3 Beaten, struck down.
Prone on the flood, extended long and large1, Lay floating many a rood; in bulk as huge As whom the fables name of monstrous size, Titanian 2 or earth-born, that warred on Jove; Briareus3, or Typhon, whom the den By ancient Tarsus 5 held; or that sea-beast Leviathan 6, which God of all his works Created hugest that swim the ocean stream : Him, haply, slumbering on the Norway foam, The pilot of some small night-foundered skiff Deeming some island, oft, as seamen tell, With fixed anchor in his scaly rind
Moors by his side under the lee, while night
Invests the sea, and wishèd morn delays:
So stretched out huge in length the Arch-Fiend lay,
Chained on the burning lake: nor ever thence
Had risen, or heaved his head; but that the will
And high permission of all-ruling Heaven Left him at large to his own dark designs; That, with reiterated crimes, he might Heap on himself damnation, while he sought Evil to others; and, enraged, might see How all his malice served but to bring forth Infinite goodness, grace, and mercy, shown On man by him seduced; but on himself Treble confusion, wrath, and vengeance poured. Forthwith upright he rears from off the pool His mighty stature; on each hand the flames,
Driven backward, slope their pointing spires, and, rolled In billows, leave in the midst a horrid vale. Then with expanded wings he steers his flight Aloft, incumbent on the dusky air
That felt unusual weight; till on dry land He lights, if it were land that ever burned With solid, as the lake with liquid fire: And such appeared in hue, as when the force Of subterranean wind transports a hill
2 Of Titan, who, according to the mythologists, was a son of Cælus (heaven), and Terra (earth).
3 A huge monster with fifty heads and a hundred arms.
4 Typhôn, a giant whom Juno produced by striking the earth.
5 Tarsus, a town of Cilicia in Asia Minor.
Leviathan, a huge sea-animal mentioned in Job, xli. 1.
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