Mixed with Tartarean sulphur, and strange fire,
His own invented torments. But perhaps The way seems difficult and steep to scale With upright wing against a higher foe. Let such bethink them, if the sleepy drench Of that forgetful lake benumb not still, That in our proper motion we ascend Up to our native seat: Descent and fall To us is adverse. Who but felt of late, When the fierce Foe hung on our broken rear Insulting, and pursued us through the deep, With what compulsion and laborious flight We sunk thus low? The ascent is easy then; The event is feared; should we again provoke Our stronger, some worse way his wrath may find To our destruction; if there be in Hell
Fear to be worse destroyed: What can be worse
Than to dwell here, driven out from bliss, condemned 86 In this abhorred deep to utter woe; Where pain of unextinguishable fire Must exercise us without hope of end, The vassals of his
Inexorably, and the torturing hour,
Calls us to penance? More destroyed than thus, We should be quite abolished, and expire. What fear we then? what doubt we to incense
His utmost ire? which, to the highth enraged, Will either quite consume us, and reduce
To nothing this essential; happier far Than miserable to have eternal being: Or if our substance be indeed divine, And cannot cease to be, we are at worst On this side nothing; and by proof we feel Our power sufficient to disturb his Heaven, And with perpetual inroads to alarm, Though inaccessible, his fatal throne: Which, if not victory, is yet revenge.
He ended frowning, and his look denounced Desperate revenge, and battle dangerous To less than Gods. On the other side up-rose Belial, in act more graceful and humane: A fairer person lost not Heaven; he seemed For dignity composed, and high exploit: But all was false and hollow; though his tongue Dropt manna, and could make the worse appear The better reason, to perplex and dash Maturest counsels: for his thoughts were low; To vice industrious, but to nobler deeds Timorous and slothful: yet he pleased the ear, And with persuasive accent thus began.
I should be much for open war, O Peers, As not behind in hate; if what was urged
Main reason to persuade immediate war, Did not dissuade me most, and seem to cast Ominous conjecture on the whole success; When he, who most excels in fact of arms, In what he counsels, and in what excels, Mistrustful, grounds his courage on despair And utter dissolution, as the scope
Of all his aim, after some dire revenge.
First, what revenge? The towers of Heaven are filled 129 With armed watch, that render all access Impregnable: oft on the bordering deep Encamp their legions; or, with obscure wing, Scout far and wide into the realm of night, Scorning surprise. Or could we break our way By force, and at our heels all Hell should rise With blackest insurrection, to confound Heaven's purest light; yet our great Enemy, All incorruptible, would on his throne Sit unpolluted; and the ethereal mould, Incapable of stain, would soon expel Her mischief, and purge off the baser fire, Victorious. Thus repulsed, our final hope Is flat despair: We must exasperate The Almighty Victor to spend all his rage, And that must end us; that must be our cure, To be no more. Sad cure! for who would lose,
Though full of pain, this intellectual being, Those thoughts that wander through eternity,
To perish rather, swallowed up and lost
In the wide womb of uncreated night,
Devoid of sense and motion? And who knows, Let this be good, whether our angry Foe Can give it, or will ever? how he can, Is doubtful; that he never will, is sure. Will he, so wise, let loose at once his ire, Belike through impotence, or unaware, To give his enemies their wish, and end Them in his anger, whom his anger saves To punish endless? Wherefore cease we then? Say they who counsel war; we are decreed, Reserved, and destined to eternal woe; Whatever doing, what can we suffer more, What can we suffer worse? Is this then worst, Thus sitting, thus consulting, thus in arms? What! when we fled amain, pursued, and struck With Heaven's afflicting thunder, and besought The deep to shelter us? This Hell then seemed A refuge from those wounds: or when we lay Chained on the burning lake? That sure was worse. What if the breath, that kindled those grim fires, Awaked, should blow them into sevenfold rage, And plunge us in the flames? or, from above,
Should intermitted vengeance arm again His red right hand to plague us? What if all Her stores were opened, and this firmament Of Hell should spout her cataracts of fire, Impendent horrours, threatening hideous fall One day upon our heads; while we perhaps, Designing or exhorting glorious war, Caught in a fiery tempest shall be hurled Each on his rock transfixed, the sport and prey Of wracking whirlwinds; or for ever sunk Under yon boiling ocean, wrapt in chains; There to converse with everlasting groans, Unrespited, unpitied, unreprieved,
Ages of hopeless end? This would be worse. War therefore, open or concealed, alike
My voice dissuades; for what can force or guile With him, or who deceive his mind, whose eye
Views all things at one view? He from Heaven's highth 190
All these our motions vain sees, and derides ;
Not more almighty to resist our might
Than wise to frustrate all our plots and wiles.
Shall we then live thus vile, the race of Heaven
Thus trampled, thus expelled to suffer here
Chains and these torments? Better these than worse, By my advice; since fate inevitable
Subdues us, and omnipotent decree,
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