The Complete Poetry of John Milton (11 page)

Now the devout James coming from the remote north / ruled over the Troy-descended people
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and the wide-stretching realms / of the English, and now an inviolable covenant / had joined the English kingdoms with Caledonian Scots: / and the peace-maker, happy and rich, was seated [5] / on his new throne, untroubled by secret conspiracy or foe: / when the cruel tyrant
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reigning over Acheron, which flows with fire, / the father of the Eumenides, the wandering outcast from celestial Olympus, / by chance strayed through the vast circle of the earth, / enumerating the companions of his wickedness and his faithful slaves, [10] / future participants of his rule after their woeful deaths. / Here he stirs ominous tempests in middle air; / there he contrives hatred among harmonious friends, / and arms invincible nations against mutual cordiality, / and turns flourishing kingdoms from olive-bearing peace; [15] / and whatever lovers of pure virtue he spies, / those he seeks to add to his empire, and master of guile, / he tries to corrupt the heart inaccessible to sin / and lays silent plots and stretches unseen snares, / so that he may assault the incautious, as the Caspian tigress [20] / pursues her anxious prey through the waste wildernesses / in the moonless night and under the stars winking in their drowsiness. / With like fears does Summanus
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harass the people and the cities, / he, wreathed with a smoking tornado of blue flames. / And now the white coasts with their wave-resounding cliffs [25] / appear, and the land highly esteemed by the sea god, / to which Neptune’s son gave his name so long ago, / who, having sailed across the sea, did not hesitate to challenge / fierce Hercules with furious battle / before the unmerciful times of conquered Troy.
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[30] /

But as soon as he beholds this land blessed with wealth / and joyful peace, and with fields rich in the gifts of Ceres, / and, what pained him more, a people revering the sacred divinity / of the true god, at length he breaks into sighs / emitting Tartarean fires and ghastly sulphur. [35] / Such sighs does grim and monstrous Typhoeus,
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enclosed by Jove / under Sicilian Aetna, breathe from his destructive mouth. / His eyes flash and his inflexible row of teeth / hisses like the crash of arms and the blow of spear against spear. / And then, “Throughout the travelled world I found this worthy of tears only,” [40] / he said; “this nation alone is rebellious toward me, / and contemptuous of my yoke and stronger than my art. / Yet if my attempts have power over anyone, it / shall not endure thus with impunity for long; it shall not go unavenged.” / No further did he speak, but floats away on pitch-black wings through [45] / the liquid air; wherever he flies adverse winds precede in a mass, / clouds are thickened, and repeated thunderbolts flash. /

And now his speed has surmounted the frosty Alps, / and he reaches the borders of Italy; on his left side / was the stormy Apennine range and the ancient Sabines; [50] / on his right Etruria with its infamous magic potions, and besides / he sees the furtive kisses which you are giving to Thetis,
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O Tiber; / next he stands still on the citadel of Quirinus, born of Mars.
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/ Already had evening twilight bestowed uncertain light, / when the wearer of the triple crown walks around the entire city, [55] / and carries the gods made of bread, and on men’s shoulders / is elevated; kings precede him on bended knee, / and a most lengthy train of mendicant brothers; / and unable to see, they bear wax candles in their hands, / those bom and enduring life in Cimmerian darkness. [60] / Next they enter the temples glittering with many torches / (it was that eve sacred to St. Peter) and the noise of those singing / often fills the hollow domes and the void of those places. / How Bacchus howls, and the followers of Bacchus, / chanting their orgies on Theban Aracynthus,
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[65] / while astonished Asopus trembles under the glassy waves, / and afar off Cithaeron itself echoes from its hollow rock. /

Then at last, these things performed in a solemn fashion, / silent Night
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left the embraces of old Erebus, / and now drives her headlong horses with a goading whip–[70] / blind Typhlos and spirited Melanchaetes, / torpid Siope, sprung from an infernal father, / and shaggy Phrix with bristly hair. / Meanwhile the tamer of kings, the heir of hell, / enters his chambers (for the secret adulterer [75] / does not spend sterile nights without a gentle concubine); / but sleep was scarcely closing his ready eyes, / when the dark lord of the shadows, the ruler of the dead, / the plunderer of man stood before him, concealed by a false shape. / His temples flashed with the gray hairs he had assumed; [80] / a long beard covered his breast; his ash-colored attire / swept the ground with a long train; and his hood hung down / from his shaven crown; and so that none might be absent from his frauds / he bound his lustful loins with hempen rope, / thrusting his slow feet into open sandals. [85] / In like manner, as rumor has it, Francis
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used to wander alone / in the vast, loathsome desert through the haunts of wild beasts; / he carried the pious word of salvation to the people of the wood, / himself impious, and tamed the wolves and the Libyan lions. /

But clothed in such garb, the cunning serpent, [90] / deceitful, separated his accursed lips with these words: / “Are you sleeping, my son? Does slumber still overpower your limbs? / O negligent of faith and neglectful of your flocks! / while a barbarous nation born under the northern sky / ridicules your throne and triple diadem, O venerable one, [95] / and while the quivered English contemn your laws! / Arise, up, arise, lazy one, whom the Roman emperor adores, / and for whom the unlocked gate of arched heaven lies open; / crush their swelling pride and insolent arrogance, / and let the sacrilegious know what your curse may be capable of, [100] / and what custody of the Apostolic key may avail; / and remember to avenge the scattered armada of the Spanish / and the banners of the Iberians swallowed up by the broad deep, / and the bodies of so many saints hanged on infamous gallows / recently by the reigning Amazonian virgin.
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[105] / But if you prefer to become indolent in your soft bed / and refuse to crush the increasing strength
of the foe, / he will fill the Tyrrhene Sea with a vast army / and set his glittering standards on the Aventine hill:
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/ he will destroy and burn with flames the remains of the ancients, [110] / and with profane feet will trample upon your sacred neck, / you whose shoes kings were glad to give their kisses. / Yet you will not challenge him to wars and open conflict; / such would be useless labor; you are shrewd to use deception, / of which any kind is fitting in order to spread traps for heretics; [115] / and now the great king calls the nobles with foreign speech / to council, and those sprung from the stock of celebrated men / and old venerable sires with their robe of state and gray hairs. / You will be able to scatter them limb by limb throughout the air / and to give them up to cinders, by the fire of nitrous [120] / powder exploded beneath the last chambers where they have assembled. / Immediately therefore advise whatever faithful there are in England / of the proposed deed; will any of your followers / dare not dispatch the commands of the supreme Pope? / And instantly may the fierce Gaul and the savage Spaniard [125] / invade them, smitten with dread and stupefied by calamity. / Thus at last the Marian era
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will return to that land / and you will rule again over the warlike English. / And, so you fear nothing, accept the gods and subordinate goddesses, / as many deities as are honored on your feast days.” [130] / The deceiver spoke, and laying his disguise aside, / he fled to Lethe, his abominable, gloomy kingdom. /

Now rosy dawn, throwing open the eastern gates, / dresses the gilded world with returning light; / and hitherto grieving for the sad death of her swarthy son,
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[135] / she sprinkles the mountain tops with ambrosial tears, / then the keeper
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of the starry court banished sleep, / repeating his nocturnal visions and delightful dreams. /