Nor what the potent victor in his rage
Can else inflict, do I repent or change,
Though changed in outward luster; that fixed mind
And high disdain98, 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 utmost103 power with adverse power opposed
In dubious battle on the plains of Heav’n,
And shook his throne. What though the field be lost?
All is not lost; the unconquerable will,
And study107 of revenge, immortal hate,
And courage never to submit or yield:
And what109 is else not to be overcome?
That glory never shall his wrath or might
Extort from me. To bow and sue for grace
With suppliant knee, and deify his power,
Who from the terror of this arm so late
Doubted114 his empire, that were low indeed,
That were an ignominy115 and shame beneath
This downfall; since by fate116 the strength of gods
And this empyreal substance117 cannot fail,
Since through experience of this great event
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 grand foe,
Who now triumphs123, and in th’ excess of joy
Sole reigning holds the tyranny of Heav’n.”
So spake th’ apostate angel, though in pain,125
Vaunting aloud, but racked with deep despair:
And him thus answered soon his bold compeer.
“O Prince, O chief of many thronèd powers128,
That led th’ embattled Seraphim to war
Under thy conduct, and in dreadful deeds
Fearless, endangered Heav’n’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 event134,
That with sad overthrow and foul defeat
Hath lost us Heav’n, and all this mighty host
In horrible destruction laid thus low,
As far as gods and Heav’nly essences
Can perish: for the mind and spirit remains
Invincible, and vigor soon returns,
Though all our glory141 extinct, and happy state
Here swallowed up in endless misery.
But what if he our conqueror (whom I now
Of force144 believe almighty, since no less
Than such could have o’erpow’red such force as ours)
Have left us this our spirit and strength entire
Strongly to suffer and support147 our pains,
That we may so suffice148 his vengeful ire,
Or do him mightier service as his thralls149
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 deep152;
What can153 it then avail though yet we feel
Strength undiminished, or eternal being
To undergo eternal punishment?”
Whereto with speedy words th’ Arch-Fiend replied.
“Fall’n cherub, to be weak is miserable
Doing or suffering158: 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 his high will
Whom we resist. If then his providence
Out of our evil seek to bring forth good,
Our labor must be to pervert that end,
And out of good still to find means of evil;
Which ofttimes may succeed, so as perhaps
Shall grieve him, if I fail167 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 Heav’n: the sulfurous hail
Shot after us in storm, o’erblown hath laid172
The fiery surge, that from the precipice
Of Heav’n 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 slip178 th’ 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 livid182 flames
Casts pale and dreadful? Thither let us tend
From off the tossing of these fiery waves,
There rest, if any rest can harbor there,
And reassembling our afflicted186 powers,
Consult how we may henceforth most offend
Our enemy, our own loss how repair,
How overcome this dire calamity,
What reinforcement we may gain from hope,
If not what resolution from despair.”
Thus Satan talking to his nearest mate
With head uplift above the wave, and eyes
That sparkling blazed, his other parts besides
Prone on the flood, extended long and large
Lay floating many a rood196, in bulk as huge
As whom the fables name of monstrous size,
Titanian, or Earth-born, that warred on Jove,198
Briareos or Typhon198, whom the den
By ancient Tarsus200 held, or that sea beast
Leviathan201, which God of all his works
Created hugest that swim th’ ocean stream:
Him haply slumb’ring on the Norway foam203
The pilot of some small night-foundered204 skiff,
Deeming some island, oft, as seamen tell,
With fixèd anchor in his scaly rind
Moors by his side under the lee207, while night
Invests208 the sea, and wishèd morn delays:
So stretched out huge in length the Arch-Fiend lay
Chained210 on the burning lake, nor ever thence
Had ris’n 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
Driv’n backward slope their pointing spires, and rolled
In billows, leave i’ th’ midst a horrid224 vale.
Then with expanded wings he steers his flight
Aloft, incumbent226 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 force230
Of subterranean wind transports a hill
Torn from Pelorus232, or the shattered side
Of thund’ring Etna, whose combustible
And fueled entrails thence conceiving fire234,
Sublimed with mineral fury, aid the winds,
And leave a singèd bottom all involved
With stench and smoke: such resting found the sole
Of unblest feet. Him f
ollowed his next mate,
Both glorying to have scaped the Stygian flood239
As gods,240 and by their own recovered strength,
Not by the sufferance of supernal power.
“Is this the region, this the soil, the clime,”
Said then the lost Archangel, “this the seat
That we must change244 for Heav’n, this mournful gloom
For that celestial light? Be it so, since he
Who now is sov’reign can dispose and bid
What shall be right: farthest from him is best
Whom reason hath equaled, force hath made supreme
Above his equals. Farewell happy fields
Where joy for ever dwells: hail horrors, hail
Infernal world, and thou profoundest Hell
Receive thy new possessor252: one who brings
A mind253 not to be changed by place or time.
The mind is its own place, and in itself254
Can make a Heav’n of Hell, a Hell of Heav’n.
What matter where, if I be still the same,
And what I should be, all but less than257 he
Whom thunder hath made greater? Here at least
We shall be free; th’ Almighty hath not built
Here for his envy, will not drive us hence:
Here we may reign secure, and in my choice
To reign is worth ambition though in Hell:
Better to263 reign in Hell, than serve in Heav’n.
But wherefore let we then our faithful friends,
Th’ associates and copartners265 of our loss
Lie thus astonished266 on th’ oblivious pool,
And call them not to share with us their part
In this unhappy mansion268, or once more
With rallied arms to try what may be yet
Regained in Heav’n, or what more lost in Hell?”
So Satan spake, and him Beëlzebub
Thus answered. “Leader of those armies bright,
Which but th’ Omnipotent none could have foiled,
If once they hear that voice, their liveliest pledge
Of hope in fears and dangers, heard so oft
In worst extremes, and on the perilous edge276
Of battle when it raged, in all assaults
Their surest signal, they will soon resume
New courage and revive, though now they lie
Groveling and prostrate on yon lake of fire,
As we erewhile281, astounded and amazed,
No wonder, fallen such a pernicious highth.”
He scarce had ceased when the superior fiend
Was moving284 toward the shore; his ponderous shield
Ethereal temper, massy, large and round,
Behind him cast; the broad circumference
Hung on his shoulders like the moon, whose orb
Through optic glass the Tuscan artist views288
At evening from the top of Fesole,
Or in Valdarno, to descry new lands,
Rivers or mountains in her spotty globe.
His spear,292 to equal which the tallest pine
Hewn on Norwegian hills, to be the mast
Of some great ammiral294, were but a wand,
He walked with to support uneasy steps
Over the burning marl296, not like those steps
On Heaven’s azure, and the torrid clime
Smote on him sore besides, vaulted298 with fire;
Nathless299 he so endured, till on the beach
Of that inflamèd sea, he stood and called
His legions, angel forms, who lay entranced
Thick as autumnal leaves302 that strow the brooks
In Vallombrosa303, where th’ Etrurian shades
High overarched embow’r; or scattered sedge304
Afloat, when with fierce winds Orion armed305
Hath vexed the Red Sea coast, whose waves o’erthrew
Busiris307 and his Memphian chivalry,
While with perfidious hatred they pursued
The sojourners of Goshen309, who beheld
From the safe shore their floating carcasses
And broken chariot wheels. So thick bestrown
Abject and lost lay these, covering the flood,
Under amazement of their hideous change.
He called so loud, that all the hollow deep
Of Hell resounded. “Princes, potentates,
Warriors, the flow’r of Heav’n, once yours, now lost,
If such astonishment as this can seize
Eternal spirits; or have ye chos’n this place
After the toil of battle to repose
Your wearied virtue320, for the ease you find
To slumber here, as in the vales of Heav’n?
Or in this abject posture have ye sworn
To adore the conqueror, who now beholds
Cherub and Seraph324 rolling in the flood
With scattered arms and ensigns, till anon325
His swift pursuers from Heav’n gates discern
Th’ advantage, and descending tread us down327
Thus drooping, or with linkèd thunderbolts
Transfix us to the bottom of this gulf?
Awake, arise, or be for ever fall’n.”
They heard, and were abashed, and up they sprung
Upon the wing, as when men wont to watch
On duty, sleeping found by whom they dread,
Rouse and bestir themselves ere well awake.
Nor did they not perceive the evil plight
In which they were, or the fierce pains not feel;
Yet to337 their general’s voice they soon obeyed
Innumerable. As when the potent rod
Of Amram’s son339 in Egypt’s evil day
Waved round the coast, up called a pitchy cloud
Of locusts, warping341 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 cope345 of Hell
’Twixt upper, nether, and surrounding fires;
Till, as a signal giv’n, th’ uplifted spear
Of their great sultan348 waving to direct
Their course, in even balance down they light
On the firm brimstone, and fill all the plain;
Poured never from her frozen loins, to pass
Rhene or the Danaw353, 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 Heav’nly records now
Be no memorial, blotted out and razed
By their rebellion, from the Books363 of Life.
Nor had they yet among the sons of Eve
Got them new names, till wand’ring 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 th’ invisible
Glory of him that made them to transform
Oft to the image of a brute, adorned
With gay372 religions full of pomp and gold,
And devils373 to adore for deities:
Then were they known to men by various names,
And various idols through the heathen world.
Say, Muse,376 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 promiscuous380 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 thund’ring out of Sion, throned386
Between the Cherubim386; yea, often placed
Within his sanctuary itself their shrines,
Abominations389; and with cursèd 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
Worshipped in Rabba397 and her wat’ry plain,
In Argob and in Basan, to the stream
Of utmost Arnon. Nor content with such
Audacious neighborhood, the wisest heart
Of Solomon he led by fraud to build
His temple right against the temple of God
On that opprobrious hill, and made his grove
The pleasant404 valley of Hinnom, Tophet thence
And black Gehenna called, the type of Hell.
Next Chemos406, th’ 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 flow’ry dale of Sibma clad with vines,
And Eleale to th’ Asphaltic Pool.
Peor his other name, when he enticed
Israel in Sittim on their march from Nile
To do him wanton rites, which cost them woe.
Yet thence his lustful orgies he enlarged
Even to that hill of scandal, by the grove
Of Moloch homicide, lust hard by hate;
Till good Josiah418 drove them thence to Hell.
With these came they, who from the bord’ring flood419
Of old Euphrates to the brook that parts
Egypt from Syrian ground, had general names
Of Baälim and Ashtaroth422, those male,
These feminine. For spirits when they please
Can either sex assume, or both; so soft
And uncompounded425 is their essence pure,
Nor tied or manacled with joint or limb,
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 airy purposes,
And works of love or enmity fulfill.
For those the race of Israel oft forsook
Their Living Strength433, and unfrequented left