Satan having compassed the earth, with meditated guile returns, as a mist, by night into Paradise; enters into the serpent sleeping. Adam and Eve in the morning go forth to their labours, which Eve proposes to divide in several places, each labouring apart: Adam consents not, alleging the dan ger, lest that enemy, of whom they were forewarned, should attempt her found alone. Eve, loth to be thought not cir. eumspect or firm enough, urges her going apart, the rather desirous to make trial of her strength. Adam at last yields; the serpent finds her alone; his subtile approach, first ga ing, then speaking; with much flattery extolling Eve above all other creatures. Eve, wondering to hear the serpent speak, asks how he attained to human speech, and such understand. ing, not till now: the serpent answers, that, by tasting of a certain tree in the garden, he attained both to speech and reason till then void of both. Eve requires him to bring her to that tree, and finds it to be the tree of knowledge forbidden: the serpent, now grown bolder, with many wiles and arguments, induces her at length to eat; she, pleased with the taste, deliberates a while whether to impart thereof to Adam or not; at last brings him of the fruit; relates what persuaded her to eat thereof. Adam, at first amazed, but perceiving her lost, resolves, through vehemence of love, to perish with her; and, extenuating the trespass, eats also of the fruit; the effects thereof in them both; they seek to cover their nakedness; then fall to variance and accusation of one another.
No more of talk where God or angel guest With man, as with his friend, familiar us'd To sit indulgent, and with him partake Rural repast; permitting him the while Venial discourse unblam'd. I now must chang Those notes to tragic; foul distrust, and breach Disloyal on the part of man, revolt And disobedience: on the part of Heaven Now alienated, distance and distaste,
Anger and just rebuke, and judgment given, That brought into this world a world of woe, Sin and her shadow Death, and Misery Death's harbinger: sad task, yet argument Not less but more heroic than the wrath Of stern Achilles on his foe pursued Thrice fugitive about Troy wall; or rage Of Turnus for Lavinia disespous'd; Or Neptune's ire, or Juno's, that so long Perplex'd the Greek, and Cytherea's son, If answerable style I can obtain
Of my celestial patroness, who deigns Her nightly visitation unimplor'd,
And dictates to me slumbering; or inspires Easy my unpremeditated verse:
Since first this subject for heroic song Pleas'd me long choosing, and beginning late; Not sedulous by nature to indite
Wars, hitherto the only argument Heroic deem'd; chief mastery to dissect With long and tedious havoc fabled knights, In battles feign'd; the better fortitude Of patience and heroic martyrdom Unsung; or to describe races and games, Or tilting furniture, imblazon'd shields, Impresses quaint, caparisons and steeds, Bases and tinsel trappings, gorgeous knights At joust and tournament; then marshall'd feast Serv'd up in hall with sewers and seneschals; The skill of artifice or office mean,
Not that which justly gives heroic name To person or to poem. Me, of these Nor skill'd nor studious, higher argument Remains; sufficient of itself to raise That name, unless an age too late, or cold Climate, or years, damp my intended wing Depress'd; and much they may, if all be mine, Not hers who brings it nightly to my ear.
The sun was sunk, and after him the star
Of Hesperus, whose office is to bring Twilight upon the earth, short arbiter
"Twixt day and night, and not from end to end Night's hemisphere had veil'd the horizon round; When Satan, who late fled before the threats Of Gabriel out of Eden, now improv'd In meditated fraud and malice, bent
On man's destruction, maugre what might hap Of heavier on himself, fearless return'd. By night he fled, and at midnight return'd From compassing the earth; cautious of day, Since Uriel, regent of the sun, descried His entrance, and forewarn'd the cherubim That kept their watch: thence fall of anguish dri. The space of seven continued nights he rode [ven With darkness: thrice the equinoctial line He circled; four times cross'd the car of night From pole to pole, traversing each colure; On the eighth return'd; and on the coast averse From entrance or cherubic watch, by stealth Found unsuspected way. There was a place, Now not, though sin, not time, first wrought the Where Tigris, at the foot of Paradise, [change, Into a gulf shot under ground, till part Rose up a fountain by the tree of life; an with the river sunk, and with it rose, Satan involv'd in rising mist; then sought Where to lie hid; sea he had search'd, and land From Eden over Pontus and the pool Mæotis, up beyond the river Ob;
Downward as far antarctic: and in length, West from Orontes to the ocean barr'd At Darien; thence to the land where flows Ganges and Indus: thus the orb he roam'd With narrow search; and with inspection deep Consider'd every creature, which of all
Most opportune might serve his wiles; and found The serpent subtlest beast of all the field. Him after long debate, irresolite
Of thoaghts revolv'd, his final sentenos chose Fit vessel, fittest imp of fraud, in whom To enter, and his dark suggestions hide From sharpest sight: for, in the wily snake Whatever slights, none would suspicious mark As from his wit and native subtlety Proceeding; which, in other beasts observ'd Doubt might beget of diabolic power Active within, beyond the sense of brute. Thus he resolv'd, but first from inward grief His bursting passion into plaints thus pour'd: "O earth, how like to heaven, if not preferr'd More justly, seat worthier of gods, as built With second thoughts, reforming what was old! For what god, after better, worse would build? Terrestrial heaven, danc'd round by other heavens That shine, yet bear their bright officious lamps, Light above light, for thee alone as seems, In thee concentering all their precious beams Of sacred influence! As God in heaven Is center, yet extends to all; so thou, Cent'ring, receivest from all these orbs: in thee, Not in themselves, all their known virtue appears Productive in herb, plant, and nobler birth Of creatures animate with gradual life Of growth, sense, reason, all summ'd up in man. With what delight could I have walk'd thee round, If I could joy in aught, sweet interchange Of hill and valley, rivers, woods, and plains, Now land, now sea, and shores with forest crown'd, Kocks, dens, and caves! But I in none of these Find place or refuge; and the more I see Pleasures about me, so much more I feel Torment within me, as from the hateful siege Of contraries: all good to me becomes
Bane, and in heaven much worse would be my state. But neither here seek I, no, nor in heaven To dweil, unless by mastering heaven's Supreme; Nor hope to be myself less miserable
By what I seek, but others to make such As I, though thereby worse to me redound: For only in destroying I find ease
To my relentless thoughts; and, him destroy'd, Or won to what may work his utter loss, For whom all this was made, all this will soon Follow, as to him link'd in weal or woe; In woe then, that destruction wide may range To me shall be the glory sole among
The infernal powers, in one day to have marr'd What he, Almighty styl'd, six nights and days Continued making; and who knows how long Before had been contriving? though perhaps Not longer than since, I, in one night, freed From servitude inglorious well nigh half The angelic name, and thinner left the throng Of his adorers: he, to be aveng'd,
And to repair his numbers thus impair'd, Whether such virtue spent of old now fail'd More angels to create, if they at least Are his created, or, to spite us more, Determin'd to advance into our room
A creature form'd of earth, and him endow, Exalted from so base original,
With heavenly spoils, our spoils: what he de creed
He effected; man he made, and for him built Magnificent this world, and earth his seat, Him lord pronounc'd; and, O indignity! Subjected to his service angel-wings, And flaming ministers to watch and tend T'heir earthly charge; of these the vigilance I dread; and, to elude, thus wrapt in mist Of midnight vapour glide obscure, and pry In every bush and brake, where hap may find The serpent sleeping; in whose mazy folds To hide me, and the dark intent I bring. O foul descent! that I, who erst contended With gods to sit the highest, am now constrain'd into a beast; and, mix'd with bestial slime
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