Their mighty Chief return'd: loud was the acclaim: Forth rush'd in haste the great consulting peers, Rais'd from their dark Divan, and with like joy 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, I call ye, and declare ye now; return'd Successful beyond hope, to lead ye forth Triumphant out of this infernal pit Abominable, accurs'd, the house of woe, 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 Voyag'd th' unreal, vast, unbounded deep Of horrible confusion; over which
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 The 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
Made happy: Him by fraud I have seduc'd From his Creator; and, the more to increase Your wonder, with an apple; he, thereat Offended, worth your laughter! hath given 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 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 the account Of my performance: What remains, ye Gods, But up, and enter now into full bliss?
So having said, awhile 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 Had leisure, wondering at himself now more ; His visage drawn he felt to sharp and spare; His arms clung to his ribs; his legs entwining 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 Ingender'd in the Pythian vale or 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 the open field, Where all yet left of that revolted rout, Heaven-fallen, 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, And horrid sympathy; for, what they saw,
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 the applause they meant, 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
Now risen, to work them further woe or shame; 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 Megæra: 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 the offended taste 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 Into the same illusion, not as Man Whom they triumph'd once laps'd. Thus were they And worn with famine, long and ceaseless hiss,
Till their lost shape, permitted, they resum'd;
Yearly enjoin'd, some say, to undergo
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-
Encroaching Eve perhaps, had first the rule Of high Olympus; thence by Saturn driven And Ops, ere yet Dictæan Jove was born.
Mean while 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,
Close following pace for pace, not mounted yet On his pale horse: to whom Sin thus began.
Second of Satan sprang, all-conquering Death! What think'st thou of our empire now, though earn'd With travel difficult, not better far
Than still at Hell's dark threshold to have set watch, Unnam'd, undreaded, and thyself half starv'd?
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, though plenteous, all too little seems To stuff this maw, this vast unhide-bound corps.
To whom the incestuous mother thus replied. Thou therefore on these herbs, and fruits, and flowers Feed first; on each beast next, and fish, and fowl;
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