The Complete Poetry of John Milton (116 page)

   540     
And horrid sympathie; for what they saw,

               
They felt themselvs now changing; down thir arms,

               
Down fell both Spear and Shield, down they as fast,

               
And the dire hiss renew’d, and the dire form

               
Catcht by Contagion, like in punishment,

   545     
As in thir crime. Thus was th’ applause they meant,

               
Turnd to exploding hiss, triumph to shame

               
Cast on themselves from thir own mouths. There stood

               
A Grove hard by, sprung up with this thir change,

               
His will who reigns above, to aggravate

   550     
Thir penance, laden with fair Fruit like that

               
Which grew in Paradise, the bait of
Eve

               
Us’d by the Tempter: on that prospect strange

               
Thir earnest eyes they fix’d, imagining

               
For one forbidden Tree a multitude

   555     
Now ris’n, to work them furder woe or shame;

               
Yet parcnt with scalding thurst and hunger fierce,

               
Though to delude them sent, could not abstain,

               
But on they rould in heaps, and up the Trees

               
Climbing, sat thicker then the snakie locks

   560     
That curld
Megæra:
⁵⁸
greedily they pluck’d

               
The Fruitage fair to sight, like that which grew

               
Neer that bituminous Lake
⁵⁹
where
Sodom
flam’d;

               
This more delusive, not the touch, but taste

               
Deceav’d; they fondly thinking to allay

   565     
Thir appetite with gust,
⁶⁰
instead of Fruit

               
Chewd bitter Ashes, which th’ offended taste

               
With spattering noise rejected: oft they assayd,

               
Hunger and thirst constraining, drug’d
⁶¹
as oft,

               
With hatefullest disrelish writh’d thir jaws

   570     
With soot and cinders fill’d; so oft they fell

               
Into the same illusion, not as Man

               
Whom they triumph’d once lapst. Thus were they plagu’d

               
And worn with Famin, long and ceasless hiss,

               
Till thir lost shape, permitted, they resum’d,

   575     
Yearly enjoynd, some say, to undergo

               
This annual humbling certain number’d days,

               
To dash thir pride, and joy for Man seduc’t.

               
However some tradition they dispers’d

               
Among the Heathen of thir purchase got,

   580     
And Fabl’d how the Serpent, whom they calld

               
Ophion
⁶²
with
Eurynome
, the wide-Encroaching

               
Eve
perhaps, had first the rule

               
Of high
Olympus
, thence by
Saturn
driv’n

               
And
Ops
, ere yet
Dictæan Jove
was born.

   585     
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

   590     
On his pale Horse:
⁶³
to whom
Sin
thus began.

           
      
       Second of
Satan
sprung, all conquering
Death
,

               
What thinkst thou of our Empire now, though earnd

               
With travail difficult, not better farr

               
Then still at Hells dark threshold to have sate watch,

   595     
Unnam’d, undreaded, and thy self half starv’d?
⁶⁴

           
      
       Whom thus the Sin-born Monster answerd soon.

               
To mee, who with eternal Famin pine,

               
Alike is Hell, or Paradise, or Heaven,

               
There best, where most with ravin I may meet;

   600     
Which here, though plenteous, all too little seems

               
To stuff this Maw, this vast unhide-bound
⁶⁵
Corps.

           
      
       To whom th’ incestuous Mother thus repli’d.

               
Thou therefore on these Herbs, and Fruits, and Flowrs

               
Feed first, on each Beast next, and Fish, and Fowl,

   605     
No homely morsels, and whatever thing

               
The Sithe of Time mows down, devour unspar’d,

               
Till I in Man residing through the Race,

               
His thoughts, his looks, words, actions all infect,

               
And season him thy last and sweetest prey.

   610  
      
       This said, they both betook them several wayes,

               
Both to destroy, or unimmortal make

               
All kinds, and for destruction to mature

               
Sooner or later; which th’ Almightie seeing,

               
From his transcendent Seat the Saints among,

   615     
To those bright Orders utterd thus his voice.

           
      
       See with what heat these Dogs of Hell advance

               
To waste and havoc yonder World, which I

               
So fair and good created, and had still

               
Kept in that state, had not the folly of Man

   620     
Let in these wastful Furies, who impute

               
Folly to mee, so doth the Prince of Hell

               
And his Adherents, that with so much ease

               
I suffer them to enter and possess

               
A place so heav’nly, and conniving
⁶⁶
seem

   625     
To gratifie my scornful Enemies,

               
That laugh, as if transported with some fit

               
Of Passion, I to them had quitted all,

               
At random yeilded up to their misrule;

               
And know not that I call’d and drew them thither

   630     
My Hell-hounds, to lick up the draff and filth

               
Which mans polluting Sin with taint hath shed

               
On what was pure, till cramm’d and gorg’d, nigh burst

               
With suckt and glutted offal, at one sling

               
Of thy victorious Arm, well-pleasing Son,

   635     
Both
Sin
, and
Death
, and yawning
Grave
at last

               
Through
Chaos
hurld, obstruct the mouth of Hell

               
For ever, and seal up his ravenous Jaws.

               
Then Heav’n and Earth renewd shall be made pure

               
To sanctitie that shall receive no stain:

   640     
Till then the Curse pronounc’t on both precedes.

           
      
       He ended, and the heav’nly Audience loud

               
Sung
Halleluia
, as the sound of Seas,

               
Through multitude that sung: Just are thy ways,

               
Righteous are thy Decrees on all thy Works;
⁶⁷

   645     
Who can extenuate
⁶⁸
thee? Next, to the Son,

               
Destin’d restorer of Mankind, by whom

               
New Heav’n and Earth shall to the Ages rise,

               
Or down from Heav’n descend. Such was thir song,

               
While the Creator calling forth by name

   650     
His mightie Angels gave them several charge,

               
As sorted
⁶⁹
best with present things. The Sun

               
Had first his precept so to move, so shine,

               
As might affect the Earth with cold and heat

               
Scarce tollerable, and from the North to call

   655     
Decrepit Winter, from the South to bring

               
Solstitial summers heat. To the blanc Moon

               
Her office they prescrib’d, to th’ other five
⁷⁰

               
Thir planetarie motions and aspects

               
In
Sextile, Square
, and
Trine
, and
Opposite
,
⁷¹

   660     
Of noxious efficacie, and when to joyn

               
In Synod unbenigne, and taught the fixt

               
Thir influence malignant when to showr,

               
Which of them rising with the Sun, or falling,

               
Should prove tempestuous: To the Winds they set

   665     
Thir corners, when with bluster to confound

               
Sea, Air, and Shoar, the Thunder when to rowl

               
With terror through the dark Aereal Hall.

               
Some say he bid his Angels turn ascanse

               
The Poles of Earth twice ten degrees and more

   670     
From the Suns Axle;
⁷²
they with labour push’d

               
Oblique the Centric Globe: Som say the Sun

               
Was bid turn Reins from th’ Equinoctial Rode

               
Like distant breadth to
Taurus
with the Seav’n

               
Atlantick
Sisters, and the
Spartan
Twins

   675     
Up to the
Tropic
Crab; thence down amain

               
By
Leo
and the
Virgin
and the
Scales
,

               
As deep as
Capricorn
, to bring in change

               
Of Seasons to each Clime; else had the Spring

               
Perpetual smil’d on Earth with vernant Flowrs,

   680     
Equal in Days and Nights, except to those

               
Beyond the Polar Circles; to them Day

               
Had unbenighted shon, while the low Sun

               
To recompence his distance, in thir sight

               
Had rounded still th’
Horizon
, and not known

   685     
Or East or West, which had forbid the Snow

               
From cold
Estotiland
,
⁷³
and South as farr

               
Beneath
Magellan.
At that tasted Fruit

               
The Sun, as from
Thyestean
Banquet,
⁷⁴
turn’d

               
His course intended; else how had the World