Now also evidence, but straight I felt,

Though distant from thee worlds between, yet felt
That I must after thee with this thy son,
Such fatal consequence unites us three:
Hell could no longer hold us in her bounds,
Nor this unvoyageable gulf obscure

Detain from following thy illustrious track.
Thou hast achieved our liberty, confined
Within Hell-gates till now, thou us empowered
To fortify thus far, and overlay

With this portentous bridge the dark abyss.
Thine now is all this world; thy virtue hath won
What thy hands builded not, thy wisdom gained
With odds what war hath lost, and fully avenged
Our foil in Heaven; here thou shalt monarch reign,
There didst not; there let him still victor sway,
As battle hath adjudged, from this new world
Retiring, by his own doom alienated;

And henceforth monarchy with thee divide,
Of all things parted by the empyreal bounds,
His quadrature,1 from thy orbicular world,
Or try thee now more dangerous to his throne."
Whom thus the prince of darkness answered glad:
“Fair daughter, and thou son and grandchild both,
High proof ye now have given to be the race
Of Satan (for I glory in the name,
Antagonist of Heaven's almighty King);
Amply have merited of me, of all

The infernal empire, that so near Heaven's door
Triumphal with triumphal act have met,

Mine, with this glorious work, and made one realm
Hell and this world, one realm, one continent
Of easy thoroughfare. Therefore, while I
Descend through darkness, on your road with ease,
To my associate powers, them to acquaint
With these successes, and with them rejoice;
You two this way, among these numerous orbs
All yours, right down to Paradise descend;
There dwell and reign in bliss, thence on the earth

1 Milton here follows the opinion of Gassendus and others, who say that the empyréum, or heaven of heavens, is a square figure, because the holy city in the Revelation is so described, Rev. xxi. 16: "And the city lieth four-square, and the length is as large as the breadth."-Newton.

Ꭱ

Dominion exercise, and in the air,

Chiefly on man, sole lord of all declared;
Him first make sure your thrall, and lastly kill.
My substitutes I send ye, and create

Plenipotent on earth, of matchless might
Issuing from me: on your joint vigour now
My hold of this new kingdom all depends,
Through Sin to Death exposed by my exploit.
If your joint power prevail, the affairs of Hell
No detriment need fear; go, and be strong."

So saying, he dismissed them; they with speed
Their course through thickest constellations held,
Spreading their bane; the blasted stars looked wan,
And planets, planet-struck, real eclipse

Then suffered. The other way Satan went down
The causey to Hell gate; on either side
Disparted Chaos, over built, exclaimed,
And with rebounding surge the bars assailed,
That scorned his indignation; through the gate,
Wide open and unguarded, Satan passed,
And all about found desolate; for those
Appointed to sit there, had left their charge,
Flown to the upper world; the rest were all
Far to the inland retired, about the walls
Of Pandemonium, city and proud seat
Of Lucifer, so by allusion called,

Of that bright star to Satan paragoned.1

There kept their watch the legions, while the grand
In council sat, solicitous what chance

Might intercept their emperor sent; so he.
Departing, gave command, and they observed.
As when the Tartar2 from his Russian foe,
By Astracan, over the snowy plains
Retires; or Bactrian Sophi, from the horns
Of Turkish crescent, leaves all waste beyond

1 Equal, like unto.

2 As when the Tartar retreats from his Muscovite enemy, "over the snowy plains by Astracan," a considerable part of the Czar's dominion, formerly a Tartarian kingdom, with a capital city of the same name, near the mouth of the river Volga, at its fall into the Caspian sea; or Bactrian Sophi," or the Persian Emperor, named Bactrian of Bactria, one of the greatest and richest provinces of Per sia, lying near the Caspian sea; "from the horns of Turkish cres cent," from his Turkish enemies, who bear the horned moon, the crescent, on their ensigns; "leaves all waste beyond the realm of

The realm of Aladule, in his retreat

To Tauris or Casbeen: so these, the late

Heaven-banished host, left desert utmost Hell

Many a dark league, reduced in careful watch
Round their metropolis, and now expecting
Each hour their great adventurer from the search
Of foreign worlds; he through the midst unmarked,
In show plebeian angel militant

Of lowest order, passed; and from the door · Of that Plutonian hall, invisible

Ascended his high throne, which, under state
Of richest texture spread, at the upper end
Was placed in regal lustre. Down a while
He sat, and round about him saw unseen:
At last, as from a cloud, his fulgent head
And shape star-bright appeared, or brighter, clad
With what permissive glory since his fall
Was left him, or false glitter: all amazed
At that so sudden blaze the Stygian throng
Bent their aspéct, and whom they wished beheld,
Their mighty chief returned: loud was the acclaim:
Forth rush in haste the great consulting peers,
Raised from their dark divan, and with like joy
Congratulant approached him, who with hand
Silence, and with these words attention, won:
"Thrones, dominations, princedoms, virtues, powers,
For in possession such, not only of right,
I call ye and declare ye now; returned
Successful beyond hope, to lead ye forth
Triumphant out of this infernal pit
Abominable, accursed, the house of woe,
And dungeon of our tyrant: now possess,
As lords, a spacious world, to our native Heaven
Little inferior, by my adventure hard

With peril great achieved. Long were to tell

What I have done, what suffered, with what pain

Aladule," the greater Armenia, called by the Turks (under whom the greatest part of it is) Aladule, of its last king Aladules, slain by Selymus the First; "in his retreat to Tauris," a great city in the kingdom of Persia, now called Ecbatana, sometimes in the hands of the Turks, but in 1603 retaken by Abas, king of Persia; "or Casbeen," one of the greatest cities of Persia, in the province of Ayrach, formerly Parthia, towards the Caspian sea, where the Persian monarchs made their residence after the loss of Tauris, from which it is distant sixty-five German miles to the south-east.-Hume.

Voyaged the unreal, vast, unbounded deep
Of horrible confusion, over which

By Sin and Death a broad way now is paved
To expedite your glorious march; but I
Toiled out my uncouth' passage, forced to ride
The untractable abyss, plunged in the womb
Of unoriginal night and Chaos wild,

That, jealous of their secrets, fiercely opposed
My journey strange, with clamorous uproar
Protesting Fate supreme; thence how I found
The new-created world, which fame in Heaven
Long had foretold, a fabric wonderful
Of absolute perfection, therein man
Placed in a Paradise, by our exile

Made happy him by fraud I have seduced
From his Creator, and the more to increase
Your wonder, with an apple; He, thereat
Offended (worth your laughter), hath given up
Both his beloved man and all his world,
To Sin and Death a prey, and so to us,
Without our hazard, labour, or alarm,
To range in, and to dwell, and over man
To rule, as over all he should have ruled.
True is, me also he hath judged, or rather
Me not, but the brute serpent in whose shape
Man I deceived: that which to me belongs,
Is enmity, which he will put between
Me and mankind; I am to bruise his heel;
His seed (when, is not set) shall bruise my head:
A world who would not purchase with a bruise,
Or much more grievous pain? Ye have the account
Of my performance: what remains, ye gods,
But up and enter now into full bliss?"

So having said, a while he stood, expecting
Their universal shout and high applause
To fill his ear; when, contrary, he hears
On all sides, from innumerable tongues,
A dismal universal hiss, the sound

Of public scorn: he wondered, but not long
Had leisure, wondering at himself now more;
His visage drawn he felt to sharp and spare,
His arms clung to his ribs, his legs intwining

1 Strange, unusual.

2 Calling upon Fate as a witness.

Each other, till supplanted1 down he fell
A monstrous serpent on his belly prone,
Reluctant, but in vain; a greater power
Now ruled him, punished in the shape he sinned,
According to his doom: he would have spoke,
But hiss for hiss returned with forkéd tongue
To forkéd tongue, for now were all transformed
Alike, to serpents all, as accessories

To his bold riot: dreadful was the din

Of hissing through the hall, thick swarming now
With complicated monsters head and tail,
Scorpion, and asp, and amphisbæna2 dire,
Cerastes horned, hydrus, and elops drear,
And dipsas (not so thick swarmed once the soil
Bedropped with blood of Gorgon, or the isle
Ophiusa7); but still greatest he the midst,
Now dragon grown, larger than whom the sun
Engendered in the Pythian vale on slime,
Huge Python, and his power no less he seemed
Above the rest still to retain; they all
Him followed, issuing forth to the open field,
Where all yet left of that revolted rout,
Heaven-fallen, in station stood or just array,
Sublime with expectation, when to see
In triumph issuing forth their glorious chief;
They saw, but other sight instead! a crowd
Of ugly serpents: horror on them fell,

And horrid sympathy; for what they saw,

They felt themselves now changing; down their arms," Down fell both spear and shield, down they as fast, And the dire hiss renewed, and the dire form

Catched by contagion, like in punishment,

As in their crime. Thus was the applause they meant

1 i. e. literally, "tripped up," from supplanto. There is much force in this expression, denoting the physical as well as moral degradation of the fiend.

2 A monster, said to have a head at both ends.

3 A water serpent.

4 A dumb serpent, which gives us warning of its approach, as other serpents do, by hissing. There is, however, some incongruity in the passage.-See Bentley and Pearce.

5 So called from the frightful thirst induced by its bite.

6 Libya, cf. Ovid, Met. iv. 616; Lucan, ix. 696.

7 A small island in the Mediterranean, deriving its name from the numerous serpents (optic) with which it was infested.