Heaven's awful monarch? wherefore, but in hope
To dispossess him, and thyself to reign?
But mark what I arreed' thee now: Avaunt!
Fly thither whence thou fled'st: if from this hour
Within these hallowed limits thou appear,
Back to the infernal pit I drag thee chained,
And seal thee so, as henceforth not to scorn
The facile gates of Hell, too slightly barred."
So threatened he; but Satan to no threats
Gave heed, but waxing more in rage replied:
"Then when I am thy captive talk of chains,
Proud limitary cherub! But ere then
Far heavier load thyself expect to feel
From my prevailing arm, though Heaven's King
Ride on thy wings, and thou, with thy compeers,
Used to the yoke, draw'st his triumphant wheels
In progress through the road of Heaven star-paved."
While thus he spake, the angelic squadron bright
Turned fiery red, sharpening in moonéd horns
Their phalanx, and began to hem him round
With ported spears, as thick as when a field
Of Ceres, ripe for harvest, waving bends
Her bearded grove of ears, which way the wind
Sways them; the careful ploughman doubting stands,.
Lest on the threshing floor his hopeful sheaves
Prove chaff. On the other side, Satan, alarmed,
Collecting all his might, dilated stood,
Like Teneriff or Atlas, unremoved:6
His stature reached the sky,7 and on his crest
Sat horror plumed; nor wanted in his grasp
3 i. e. who darest to set limits to my movements. 5 Cf. Hom. Il. ii. :
"And as on corn when western gusts descend,
Before the blast the lofty harvests bend:
Thus o'er the field the moving host appears,
With nodding plumes and groves of waving spears."
"Like Eryx, or like Athos great, he shows,
Or father Apennine, when white with snows,
His head divine obscure in clouds he hides,
And shakes the sounding forest on his side."-Dryden,
7 Cf. Hom. Il. iv. 443; Virg. Æn. iv. 177, and Wisdom xviii. 16. Although he had only just resumed his natural form.
What seemed both spear and shield. Now dreadful deeds
Might have ensued; not only Paradise,
In this commotion, but the starry cope
Of Heaven, perhaps, or all the elements
At least had gone to wrack, disturbed and torn
With violence of this conflict, had not soon
The Eternal, to prevent such horrid fray,
Hung forth in Heaven his golden scales, yet seen
Betwixt Astrea and the Scorpion sign,
Wherein all things created first he weighed,
The pendulous round earth with balanced air
In counterpoise; now ponders all events,
Battles and realms: in these he put two weights,
The sequel each of parting and of fight;
The latter quick up flew, and kicked the beam;1
Which Gabriel spying, thus bespake the fiend :
Satan, I know thy strength, and thou know'st mine, Neither our own, but given; what folly, then,
To boast what arms can do, since thine no more
Than Heaven permits, nor mine, though doubled now
To trample thee as mire! For proof look up,
And read thy lot in yon celestial sign,
Where thou art weighed, and shown how light, how weak,'
If thou resist. The fiend looked up, and knew
His mounted scale aloft: nor more; but fled
Murmuring, and with him fled the shades of night.
1 Bentley, and probably many others, have misunderstood Milton's thought about the scales, judging of it by what they read of Jupiter's scales in Homer and Virgil; the account of which is very different from this of Milton; for in them the fates of the two combatants are weighed one against the other, and the descent of one of the scales foreshowed the death of him whose fate lay in that scale, quo vergat pondere lethum: whereas, in Milton, nothing is weighed but what relates to Satan only, and in the two scales are weighed the two dif ferent events of his retreating and his fighting. From what has been said it may appear pretty plainly, that Milton by "sequel" meant the consequence or "event," as it is expressed in ver. 1001, and then there will be no occasion for Dr. Bentley's "signal;" both because it is a very improper word in this place, and because a "signal of parting and of fight" can be nothing else than a signal when to part and when to fight; which he will not pretend to be the poet's meaning.-Pearce.
2 He does not make the ascending scale the sign of victory, as in Homer and Virgil, but of lightness and weakness, according to that of Belshazzar, Dan. v. 27, "Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting." So true it is, that Milton oftener imitates Scripture than Homer and Virgil, even where he is thought to imitate them most.
Morning approached, Eve relates to Adam her troublesome dream; he likes it not, yet comforts her: they come forth to their day labours their morning hymn at the door of their bower. God, to render man inexcusable, sends Raphael to admonish him of his obedience, of his free estate, of his enemy near at hand, who he is, and why his enemy, and whatever else may avail Adam to know. Raphael comes down to Paradise; his appearance described; his coming discerned by Adam afar off, sitting at the door of his bower; he goes out to meet him, brings him to his lodge, entertains him with the choicest fruits of Paradise got together by Eve; their discourse at table: Raphael performs his message, minds Adam of his state and of his enemy; relates, at Adam's request, who that enemy is, and how he came to be so, beginning from his first revolt in Heaven, and the occasion thereof; how he drew his legions after him to the parts of the north, and there incited them to rebel with him, persuading all but only Abdiel, a seraph, who in argument dissuades and opposes him, then forsakes him.
Now morn her rosy steps in the eastern clime
Advancing, sowed the earth with orient pearl,
When Adam waked, so customed; for his sleep
Was airy light, from pure digestion bred,
And temperate vapours bland, which the only sound
Of leaves and fuming rills, Aurora's fan,
Lightly dispersed, and the shrill matin song
Of birds2 on every bough; so much the more
His wonder was to find unwakened Eve
With tresses discomposed, and glowing cheek,
1 Viz., his sleep. The words "only sound," mean "the sound alone." Thyer compares Spenser, F. Q. v. 2, 30: "As if the only
sound thereof she feared."
2"The rattling boughs and leaves their part did bear."-Fairfax.
As through unquiet rest: he on his side
Leaning, half raised, with looks of cordial love
Hung over her enamoured, and beheld
Beauty, which, whether waking or asleep,
Shot forth peculiar graces; then with voice
Mild, as when Zephyrus on Flora breathes,1
Her hand soft touching, whispered thus: "Awake,
My fairest, my espoused, my latest found,
Heaven's last best gift, my ever-new delight,
Awake; the morning shines, and the fresh field
Calls us; we lose the prime to mark how spring
Our tended plants, how blows the citron grove,
What drops the myrrh, and what the balmy reed,
How nature paints her colours, how the bee
Sits on the bloom extracting liquid sweet."
Such whispering waked her, but with startled eye
On Adam, whom embracing, thus she spake :
"O sole in whom my thoughts find all repose,
My glory, my perfection! glad I see
Thy face, and morn returned; for I this night
(Such night till this I never passed) have dreamed,
If dreamed, not as I oft am wont, of thee,
Works of day past, or morrow's next design,
But of offence and trouble, which my mind
Knew never till this irksome night: methought
Close at mine ear one called me forth to walk,
With gentle voice; I thought it thine; it said,
'Why sleep'st thou, Eve? Now is the pleasant time,
The cool, the silent, save where silence yields
To the night-warbling bird, that now awake
Tunes sweetest his love-laboured song; now reigns
Full orbed the moon, and with more pleasing light
Shadowy sets off the face of things; in vain,
If none regard; Heaven wakes with all his eyes,3
1 For this delightful simile Milton was probably obliged to his ad mired Ben Jonson in his mask of "Love reconciled to Virtue":
The fair will think you do 'em wrong,
Go choose among-but with a mind
As gentle as the stroking wind
Runs o'er the gentler flowers."-Song 3rd.-Thyer
2 i. e. the early morning.
Spenser, F. Q. iii. 2, 45:
High Heaven beholds," &c.
Whom to behold but thee, nature's desire.
In whose sight all things joy, with ravishment
Attracted by thy beauty still to gaze.'
I rose as at thy call, but found thee not;
To find thee I directed then my walk;
And on, methought, alone I passed through ways
That brought me on a sudden to the tree
Of interdicted knowledge: fair it seemed,
Much fairer to my fancy than by day :
And as I wondering looked, beside it stood
One shaped and winged like one of those from Heaven
By us oft seen; his dewy locks distilled
Ambrosia; on that tree he also gazed;
And 'O fair plant,' said he, 'with fruit surcharged,
Deigns none to ease thy load, and taste thy sweet,
Nor God, nor man? Is knowledge so despised?
Or envy, or what reserve forbids to taste?
Forbid who will, none shall from me withhold
Longer thy offered good: why else set here?'
This said, he paused not, but with venturous arm
He plucked, he tasted; me damp horror chilled
At such bold words vouched with a deed so bold:
But he thus, overjoyed: 'O fruit divine,
Sweet of thyself, but much more sweet thus cropped;
Forbidden here, it seems, as only fit
For gods, yet able to make gods of men:
And why not gods of men, since good, the more
Communicated, more abundant grows,
The author not impaired, but honoured more?
Here, happy creature, fair angelic Eve,
Partake thou also; happy though thou art,
Happier thou mayst be, worthier canst not be:
Taste this, and be henceforth among the gods
Thyself a goddess, not to earth confined,
But sometimes in the air, as we; sometimes
Ascend to Heaven, by merit thine, and see
What life the gods live there, and such live thou.'
So saying, he drew nigh, and to me held,
Even to my mouth of that same fruit held part
Which he had plucked; the pleasant savoury smell
So quickened appetite, that I, methought,
Could not but taste. Forthwith up to the clouds
With him I flew, and underneath beheld
The earth outstretched immense, a prospect wide
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