Read Paradise Lost (Modern Library Classics) Online
Authors: John Milton,William Kerrigan,John Rumrich,Stephen M. Fallon
Paradise Lost (Modern Library Classics) (12 page)
1.
The defense of blank verse and the prose arguments summarizing each book “procured” by Milton’s printer, Samuel Simmons, were inserted in bound copies of the first edition beginning in 1668, with this brief note.
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This first book proposes, first in brief, the whole subject, man’s disobedience, and the loss thereupon of Paradise wherein he was placed: then touches the prime cause of his fall, the serpent, or rather Satan in the serpent, who revolting from God, and drawing to his side many legions of angels, was by the command of God driven out of Heaven with all his crew into the great deep. Which action passed over, the poem hastes into the midst of things, presenting Satan with his angels now fallen into Hell, described here, not in the center (for heaven and earth may be supposed as yet not made, certainly not yet accursed) but in a place of utter darkness, fitliest called Chaos. Here Satan with his angels lying on the burning lake, thunder-struck and astonished, after a certain space recovers, as from confusion, calls up him who next in order and dignity lay by him. They confer of their miserable fall. Satan awakens all his legions, who lay till then in the same manner confounded; they rise, their numbers, array of battle, their chief leaders named, according to the idols known afterwards in Canaan and the countries adjoining. To these Satan directs his speech, comforts them with hope yet of regaining Heaven, but tells them lastly of a new world and new kind of creature to be created, according to an ancient prophecy or report in Heaven; for that angels were long before this visible creation was the opinion of many ancient Fathers. To find out the truth of this prophecy, and what to determine thereon, he refers to a full council. What his associates thence attempt. Pandaemonium the palace of Satan rises, suddenly built out of the deep. The infernal peers there sit in council.
Of man’s
1
first disobedience, and the fruit
Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste
Brought death into the world, and all our woe,
With loss of Eden, till one greater man
4
Restore us, and regain the blissful seat
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,
Sing Heav’nly Muse
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, that on the secret top
Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire
That shepherd
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, who first taught the chosen seed,
In the beginning
9
how the heavens and earth
Rose out of Chaos
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: or if Sion hill
Delight thee more, and Siloa’s brook that flowed
Fast by the oracle of God
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, I thence
Invoke thy aid to my advent’rous song,
That with no middle flight
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intends to soar
Above th’ Aonian mount
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, while it pursues
Things unattempted
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yet in prose or rhyme.
And chiefly
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thou, O Spirit, that dost prefer
Before all temples th’ upright heart and pure,
Instruct me, for thou know’st; thou from the first
Wast present, and with mighty wings outspread
Dove-like sat’st brooding
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on the vast abyss
And mad’st it pregnant: what in me is dark
Illumine, what is low raise and support,
That to the highth of this great argument
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I may assert
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eternal providence,
And justify
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the ways of God to men.
Say first,
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for Heav’n hides nothing from thy view
Nor the deep tract of Hell, say first what cause
Moved our grand
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parents in that happy state,
Favored of Heav’n so highly, to fall off
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From their Creator, and transgress his will
For one restraint, lords of the world besides?
Who first seduced them to that foul revolt?
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Th’ infernal serpent; he it was, whose guile
Stirred up with envy and revenge, deceived
The mother of mankind, what time
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his pride
Had cast him out from Heav’n, with all his host
Of rebel angels, by whose aid aspiring
To set himself in glory above his peers,
He trusted to have equaled the Most High,
If he opposed; and with ambitious aim
Against the throne and monarchy of God
Raised impious war in Heav’n and battle proud
With vain attempt. Him the Almighty Power
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Hurled headlong
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flaming from th’ ethereal sky
With hideous ruin
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and combustion down
To bottomless perdition, there to dwell
In adamantine
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chains and penal fire,
Who durst
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defy th’ Omnipotent to arms.
Nine times
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the space that measures day and night
To mortal men, he with his horrid crew
Lay vanquished, rolling in the fiery gulf
Confounded
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though immortal: but his doom
Reserved
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him to more wrath; for now the thought
Both of lost happiness and lasting pain
Torments him; round he throws his baleful
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eyes
That witnessed
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huge affliction and dismay
Mixed with obdurate pride and steadfast hate:
At once as far as angels ken
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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
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Served only to discover sights of woe,
Regions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace
And rest
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can never dwell, hope never comes
That comes to all; but
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torture without end
Still urges, and a fiery deluge, fed
With ever-burning sulfur unconsumed:
Such place
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eternal justice had prepared
For those rebellious, here their prison ordained
In utter darkness
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, and their portion set
As far removed from God and light of Heav’n
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As from the center
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thrice to th’ 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 welt’ring
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by his side
One next himself in power, and next in crime,
Long after known in Palestine, and named
Beëlzebub
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. To whom th’ Arch-Enemy,
And thence in Heav’n called Satan
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, with bold words
Breaking the horrid silence thus began.
“If thou beest he; but O how fall’n!
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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 highth fall’n, 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 luster; that fixed mind
And high disdain
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, 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
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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 study
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of revenge, immortal hate,
And courage never to submit or yield:
And what
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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
Doubted
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his empire, that were low indeed,
That were an ignominy
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and shame beneath
This downfall; since by fate
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the strength of gods
And this empyreal substance
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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 triumphs
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, and in th’ excess of joy
Sole reigning holds the tyranny of Heav’n.”
So spake th’ apostate angel, though in pain,
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Vaunting aloud, but racked with deep despair:
And him thus answered soon his bold compeer.
“O Prince, O chief of many thronèd powers
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,
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 event
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,
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 glory
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extinct, and happy state
Here swallowed up in endless misery.
But what if he our conqueror (whom I now
Of force
144
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 support
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our pains,
That we may so suffice
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his vengeful ire,
Or do him mightier service as his thralls
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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
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;
What can
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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 suffering
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: 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 fail
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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 laid
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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 slip
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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 livid
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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 afflicted
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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 rood
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, in bulk as huge
As whom the fables name of monstrous size,
Titanian, or Earth-born, that warred on Jove,
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Briareos or Typhon
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, whom the den
By ancient Tarsus
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held, or that sea beast
Leviathan
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, which God of all his works
Created hugest that swim th’ ocean stream:
Him haply slumb’ring on the Norway foam
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The pilot of some small night-foundered
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skiff,
Deeming some island, oft, as seamen tell,
With fixèd anchor in his scaly rind
Moors by his side under the lee
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, while night
Invests
208
the sea, and wishèd morn delays:
So stretched out huge in length the Arch-Fiend lay
Chained
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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 horrid
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vale.
Then with expanded wings he steers his flight
Aloft, incumbent
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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
230
Of subterranean wind transports a hill
Torn from Pelorus
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, or the shattered side
Of thund’ring Etna, whose combustible
And fueled entrails thence conceiving fire
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,
Sublimed with mineral fury, aid the winds,
