Paradise Lost (Modern Library Classics) (19 page)

797.
Frequent
: numerous.

798.
consult
: In seventeenth-century usage, the term is associated with secret meetings for plotting insurgency.

High on a throne of royal state, which far

Outshone the wealth of Ormus
²
and of Ind,

Or where the gorgeous East with richest hand

Show’rs on her kings barbaric
⁴
pearl and gold,

Satan exalted sat, by merit
⁵
raised

To that bad eminence; and from despair

Thus high uplifted beyond hope, aspires

Beyond thus high, insatiate to pursue

Vain war with Heav’n, and by success
⁹
untaught

His proud imaginations thus displayed.

   “Powers and Dominions
¹¹
, deities of Heav’n,

For since no deep within her gulf can hold

Immortal vigor, though oppressed and fall’n,

I give not Heav’n for lost
¹⁴
. From this descent

Celestial Virtues
¹⁵
rising, will appear

More glorious and more dread than from no fall,

And trust themselves to fear no second fate.

Me
¹⁸
though just right, and the fixed laws of Heav’n

Did first create your leader, next, free choice,

With what besides, in counsel or in fight,

Hath been achieved of merit, yet this loss

Thus far at least recovered, hath much more

Established
²³
in a safe unenvied throne

Yielded with full consent. The happier state
²⁴

In Heav’n, which follows dignity
²⁵
, might draw

Envy from each inferior; but who here

Will envy whom the highest place exposes

Foremost to stand against the Thunderer
²⁸
’s aim

Your bulwark, and condemns to greatest share

Of endless pain? Where there is then no good

For which to strive, no strife can grow up there

From faction; for none sure will claim in Hell

Precedence, none, whose portion is so small

Of present pain, that with ambitious mind

Will covet more. With this advantage then

To union, and firm faith, and firm accord,

More than can be in Heav’n, we now return

To claim our just inheritance of old,

Surer to prosper than prosperity

Could have assured us; and by what best way,

Whether of open war or covert guile,

We now debate; who can advise, may speak.”

   He ceased, and next him Moloch
⁴³
, sceptered king,

Stood up, the strongest and the fiercest spirit

That fought in Heav’n, now fiercer by despair.

His trust was with th’ Eternal to be deemed

Equal in strength, and rather than be less

Cared not to be at all; with that care lost

Went all his fear: of God, or Hell, or worse

He reck’d
⁵⁰
not, and these words thereafter spake.

   “My sentence
⁵¹
is for open war. Of wiles,

More unexpert
⁵²
, I boast not: them let those

Contrive who need, or when they need, not now.

For while they sit contriving, shall the rest,

Millions that stand in arms and longing wait

The signal to ascend, sit ling’ring here

Heav’n’s fugitives, and for their dwelling place

Accept this dark opprobrious den of shame,

The prison of his tyranny who reigns

By our delay? No, let us rather choose
⁶⁰

Armed with Hell flames and fury all at once
⁶¹

O’er Heav’n’s high tow’rs to force resistless way,

Turning our tortures into horrid
⁶³
arms

Against the Torturer; when to meet the noise

Of his almighty engine
⁶⁵
he shall hear

Infernal thunder, and for lightning see

Black fire and horror shot with equal rage

Among his angels; and his throne itself

Mixed with Tartarean
⁶⁹
sulfur, and strange fire,

His own invented torments. But perhaps

The way seems difficult and steep to scale

With upright wing against a higher foe.

Let such bethink them, if the sleepy drench
⁷³

Of that forgetful
⁷⁴
lake benumb not still,

That in our proper motion we ascend

Up to our native seat: descent and fall

To us is adverse. Who but felt of late

When the fierce foe hung on our broken rear

Insulting
⁷⁹
, and pursu’d us through the deep,

With what compulsion and laborious flight

We sunk
⁸¹
thus low? Th’ ascent is easy then;

Th’ event
⁸²
is feared. Should we again provoke

Our stronger, some worse way his wrath may find

To our destruction, if there be in Hell

Fear to be worse destroyed. What can be worse

Than to dwell here, driv’n out from bliss, condemned

In this abhorrèd deep to utter woe;

Where pain of unextinguishable fire

Must exercise us without hope of end

The vassals of his anger, when the scourge

Inexorably, and the torturing hour

Calls us to penance? More destroyed than thus

We should be quite abolished and expire.

What fear we then? What doubt we
⁹⁴
to incense

His utmost ire? Which to the highth enraged,

Will either quite consume us and reduce

To nothing this essential
⁹⁷
, happier far

Than miserable to have eternal being:

Or if our substance be indeed divine,

And cannot cease to be, we are at worst

On this side nothing
¹⁰⁰
; and by proof
¹⁰¹
we feel

Our power sufficient to disturb his Heav’n,

And with perpetual inroads to alarm,

Though inaccessible, his fatal
¹⁰⁴
throne:

Which if not victory is yet revenge.”

   He ended frowning, and his look denounced
¹⁰⁶

Desperate revenge, and battle dangerous

To less than gods. On th’ other side up rose
¹⁰⁸

Belial
¹⁰⁹
, in act more graceful and humane;

A fairer person lost not Heav’n; he seemed

For dignity composed and high exploit:

But all was false and hollow; though his tongue

Dropped manna
¹¹³
, and could make the worse appear

The better reason, to perplex and dash

Maturest counsels: for his thoughts were low;

To vice industrious, but to nobler deeds

Timorous and slothful: yet he pleased the ear,

And with persuasive accent thus began.

   “I should be much for open war, O peers,

As not behind in hate, if what was urged

Main reason to persuade immediate war,

Did not dissuade me most, and seem to cast

Ominous conjecture
¹²³
on the whole success:

When he who most excels in fact
¹²⁴
of arms,

In what he counsels and in what excels

Mistrustful, grounds his courage on despair

And utter dissolution, as the scope
¹²⁷

Of all his aim, after some dire revenge.

First, what revenge? The tow’rs of Heav’n are filled

With armèd watch, that render all access

Impregnable; oft on the bordering deep

Encamp their legions, or with obscure wing

Scout far and wide into the realm of Night,

Scorning surprise. Or could we break our way

By force, and at our heels all Hell should rise

With blackest insurrection, to confound

Heav’n’s purest light, yet our great enemy

All incorruptible would on his throne

Sit unpolluted, and th’ ethereal mold
¹³⁹

Incapable of stain would soon expel

Her mischief
¹⁴¹
, and purge off the baser fire

Victorious. Thus repulsed, our final hope

Is flat despair: we must exasperate

Th’ almighty Victor to spend all his rage,

And that must end us, that must be our cure,

To be no more. Sad cure; for who would lose,

Though full of pain, this intellectual being,

Those thoughts that wander through eternity,

To perish rather, swallowed up and lost

In the wide womb of uncreated Night
¹⁴⁹
,

Devoid of sense and motion? And who knows,

Let this be good
¹⁵²
, whether our angry foe

Can give it, or will ever? How he can

Is doubtful; that he never will is sure.

Will he, so wise, let loose at once his ire,

Belike through impotence, or unaware,
¹⁵⁶

To give his enemies their wish, and end

Them in his anger, whom his anger saves

To punish endless? ‘Wherefore cease we then?’

Say they who
¹⁶⁰
counsel war, ‘we are decreed,

Reserved and destined to eternal woe;

Whatever doing, what can we suffer more,

What can we suffer worse?’ Is this then worst,

Thus sitting, thus consulting, thus in arms?

What when we fled amain
¹⁶⁵
, pursued and strook

With Heav’n’s afflicting thunder, and besought

The deep to shelter us? This Hell then seemed

A refuge from those wounds. Or when we lay

Chained on the burning lake? That sure was worse.

What if
¹⁷⁰
the breath that kindled those grim fires

Awaked should blow them into sevenfold rage

And plunge us in the flames? Or from above

Should intermitted
¹⁷³
vengeance arm again

His red right hand
¹⁷⁴
to plague us? What if all

Her
¹⁷⁵
stores were opened, and this firmament

Of Hell should spout her cataracts
¹⁷⁶
of fire

Impendent horrors, threat’ning hideous fall

One day upon our heads; while we perhaps

Designing or exhorting glorious war,

Caught in a fiery tempest shall be hurled

Each on his rock transfixed, the sport and prey

Of racking whirlwinds
¹⁸⁰
, or for ever sunk

Under yon boiling ocean, wrapped in chains;

There to converse with everlasting groans,

Unrespited, unpitied, unreprieved,

Ages of hopeless end. This would be worse.

War therefore,
¹⁸⁷
open or concealed, alike

My voice dissuades; for what can force or guile
¹⁸⁸

With him, or who deceive his mind, whose eye

Views all things at one view? He from Heav’n’s highth

All these our motions vain, sees and derides;

Not more almighty to resist our might

Than wise to frustrate all our plots and wiles.

Shall we then live thus vile, the race of Heav’n

Thus trampled, thus expelled to suffer here

Chains and these torments? Better these than worse

By my advice; since fate inevitable
¹⁹⁷

Subdues us, and omnipotent decree,

The victor’s will. To suffer, as to do
¹⁹⁹
,

Our strength is equal
²⁰⁰
, nor the law unjust

That so ordains: this was at first resolved,

If we were wise, against so great a foe

Contending, and so doubtful what might fall.

I laugh, when those who at the spear are bold

And vent’rous, if that fail them, shrink and fear

What yet they know must follow, to endure

Exile, or ignominy, or bonds, or pain,

The sentence of their conqueror. This is now

Our doom; which if we can sustain and bear,

Our supreme foe in time may much remit

His anger, and perhaps thus far removed

Not mind us not offending, satisfied

With what is punished
²¹³
; whence these raging fires

Will slacken, if his breath stir not their flames.

Our purer essence then will overcome

Their noxious vapor, or inured not feel,

changed at length, and to the place conformed

In temper and in nature, will receive

Familiar the fierce heat, and void of pain;

This horror will grow mild, this darkness light
²²⁰
,

Besides what hope the never-ending flight

Of future days may bring, what chance, what change

Worth waiting, since our present lot appears

For happy though but ill, for ill not worst
²²³
,

If we procure not to ourselves more woe.”

   Thus Belial with words clothed in reason’s garb

Counseled ignoble ease, and peaceful sloth,

Not peace: and after him thus Mammon
²²⁸
spake.

   “Either to disenthrone the King of Heav’n

We war, if war be best, or to regain

Our own right lost: him to unthrone we then

May hope when everlasting Fate shall yield

To fickle Chance, and Chaos judge the strife:

The former vain to hope argues as vain

The latter: for what place can be for us

Within Heav’n’s bound, unless Heav’n’s Lord supreme

We overpower? Suppose he should relent

And publish grace to all, on promise made

Of new subjection; with what eyes could we

Stand in his presence humble, and receive

Strict laws imposed, to celebrate his throne

With warbled hymns, and to his Godhead sing

Forced hallelujahs; while he lordly sits

Our envied Sov’reign, and his altar breathes

Ambrosial
²⁴⁵
odors and ambrosial flowers,

Our servile offerings. This must be our task

In Heav’n, this our delight; how wearisome

Eternity so spent in worship paid

To whom we hate. Let us not then pursue

By force impossible, by leave obtained

Unacceptable, though in Heav’n, our state

Of splendid vassalage, but rather seek