What I have done, what suffer'd, with what
pain
Voyag'd th' unreal, vast, unbounded deep
Of horrible confusion, over which
By Sin and Death a broad way now is pav'd
To expedite your glorious march; but I
Toil'd out my uncouth passage, forc'd to ride
Th' untractable abyss, plung'd in the womb
Of unoriginal Night and Chaos wild,
That jealous of their secrets fiercely oppos'd
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
Plac'd in a Paradise, by our exile
Made happy: Him by fraud I have seduc'd
From his Creator, and the more to increase
Your wonder, with an apple, he thereat
Offended, worth your laughter, hath giv'n 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 rul'd.
True is, me also he hath judg'd, or rather
Me not, but the brute serpent in whose shape
Man I deceiv'd: 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 th' ac-
count
With complicated monsters head and tail,
Scorpion, and Asp, and Amphisbæna dire,
Cerastes horn'd, Hydrus, and Elops drear,
And Dipsas (not so thick swarm'd once the
soil
Bedropt with blood of Gorgon, or the isle
Ophiusa) but still greatest he the midst,
Now Dragon grown, larger than whom the
Engender'd in the Pythian vale on slime,
Huge Python, and his pow'r no less he seem'd
Above the rest still to retain; they all
Him follow'd issuing forth to th' open field,
Where all yet left of that revolted rout
Heav'n-fall'n, 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,
[fast
Down fell both spear and shield, down they as
And the dire hiss renew'd, and the dire form
Catch'd by contagion, like in punishment,
As in their crime. Thus was th' applause they
meant,
Turn'd to exploding hiss, triumph to shame
Cast on themselves from their own mouths.
There stood
[change,
A grove hard by, sprung up with this their
His will who reigns above, to aggravate
Their penance, laden with fair fruit, like that
Which grew in Paradise, the bait of Eve
Us'd by the Tempter: on that prospect strange
Of my performance: What remains, ye Gods, Their earnest eyes they fix'd, imagining
But up and enter now into full bliss?
So having said, a while he stood, expecting
Their universal shout and high applause
To fil bis ear, when contrary he hears
On all sides, from innumerable tongues
A dismal universal hiss, the sound
Of public scorn; he wonder'd, but not long
Had leisure, wond'ring at himself now more;
His visage drawn he felt to sharp and spare,
His arms clung to his ribs, his legs intwining
Each other, till supplanted down he fell
A monstrous serpent on his belly prone,
Reluctant, but in vain, a greater power
Now rul'd him, punish'd in the shape he
sinn'd
According to his doom: he would have spoke
But hiss for hiss return'd with forked tongue
To forked tongue, for now were all traus-
form'd
Alike, to serpents all as accessorics
To his bold riot: dreadful was the din
fhissing through the hall,thick swarming now
For one forbidden tree a multitude
Now ris'n, to work them further woe or shame;
Yet parch'd with scalding thirst and hunger
fierce,
Though to delude them sent, could not abstain,
But on they roll'd in heaps, and up the trees
Climbing, sat thicker than the snaky locks
That curl'd Megara: greedily they pluck'd
The fruitage fair to sight, like that which
grew
Near that bituminous lake where Sodom flam'd;
This more delusive, not the touch, but taste
Deceiv'd; they fondly thinking to allay
Their appetites with gust, instead of fruit
Chew'd bitter ashes, which th' offended taste
With spattering noise rejected: oft they as-
say'd,
Hunger and thirst constraining, drugg'd as
oft,
With hatefullest disrelish writh'd their jaws
With soot and cinders fill'd; so oft they fell
Into the same illusion, not as Man,
Whom they triumph'd ouce laps'd. Thus were
And worn with famine, long and ceaseless hiss,
Till their lost shape, permitted, they resum’d,
Yearly enjoin'd, some say, to undergo
This annual humbling certain number'd days,
To dash their pride, and joy for man seduc'd.
However some tradition they dispers'd
Among the Heathen of their purchase got,
And fabled how the serpent, whom they cali'd
Ophion with Eurynome, the wide
Encroaching Eve perhaps, had first the rule
Of high Olympus, thence by Saturn driven
And Ops, ere yet Dictaan Jove was born.
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
On his pale horse: to whom thus Sin began:
Second of Satan sprung, all conqu'ring Death,
What think'st thou of our empire now, though
earn'd
With travel difficult, not better far
And his adherents, that with so much ease
I suffer them to enter and possess
A place so heav'nly, and conniving seem
To gratify my scornful enemies,
That laugh, as if transported with some fit
Of passion, I to them had quitted all,
At random yielded up to their misrule;
And know not that I call'd and drew them
My hell hounds, to lick up the draff and filth
Which man's polluting sin with taint had shed
On what was pure, till cramm'd and gorg'd,
nigh burst
With suck'd and glutted offal, at one sling,
Of thy victorious arm, well-pleasing Son,
Both Sin and Death, and yawning Grave at last,
Through Chaos hurl'd, obstruct the mouth of
Hell
For ever, and seal up his ravenous jaws.
Then Heav'n and Earth renew'd shall be made
To sanctity that shall receive no stain :
Till then the curse pronoun'd on both precedes.
He ended, and the heav'nly audience loud
Than still at Hell's dark threshold to have sat Sung halleluiah, as the sound of seas,
Unnam'd, undreaded, and thyself half starv'd?
Whom thus the sin-born monster answer'd
To me, who with eternal famine pine,
Alike is Hell, or Paradise, or Heav'n,
There best, where most with ravin I may meet;
Which here, though plenteous, all too little
[corps. To stuff this maw, this vast unhide-bound To whom th' incestuous mother thus reply'd: Thou therefore on these herbs, and fruits, and flowers
Feed first, on each beast next,and fish and fowl,
No homely morsels; and whatever thing
The sithe of Time mows down, devour unspar'd
Till I in man residing through the race,
Through multitude that sung: Just are thy
Righteous are thy decrees on all thy works;
Who can extenuate thee? Next, to the Son,
Destin'd Restorer of mankiud, by whom
New Heav'n and Earth shall to the ages rise,
Or down from Heav'n descend. Such was their
song
While the Creator calling forth by name
His mighty angels, gave them several charge
As sorted best with present things. The sun
Had first his precept so to move, so shine,
As might effect the earth with cold and heat
Scarce tolerable, and from the north to call
Decrepit winter, from the south to bring
Solstitial summer's heat. To the blank moon
Her office they prescrib'd, to th' other five
His thoughts, his looks, words, actions, all Their planetary motions and aspects
In sextile, square, and trine, and opposite
Of noxious efficacy, and when to join
In synod unbenign; and taught the fix'd
Their influence malignant when to shower,
Which of them rising with the sun, or falling,
Should prove tempestuous: to the winds they
Their corners, when with bluster to confound
Sea, air, and shore, the thunder when to roll
With terror through the dark aereal hall.
Some say he bid his angels turn ascanse
The poles of earth twice ten degrees and more
From the sun's axle, they with labour push'd
Oblique the centric globe; some say the sun
Was bid turn reins from th' equinoctial road
Like distant breadth to Taurus with the seven
N
Atlantic Sisters, and the Spartan Twins
Up to the Tropic Crab; thence down amain
By Leo and the Virgiu 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 verdant flowers,
Equal in days and nights, except to those
Beyond the polar circles; to them day
Had unbenighted shone, while the low sun
To recompense his distance, in their sight
Had rounded still the horizon, and not known
Or east or west, which had forbid the snow
From cold Estoitland, and south as far
Beneath Magellan. At that tasted fruit
The sun, as from Thyestean banquet turn'd
His course intended; else how had the world
Inhabited, though sinless more than now,
Avoid pinching cold and scorching heat?
These changes in the Heav'ns, though slow,
produc'd
Like change on sea and land, sideral blast,
Vapor, and mist, and exhalation hot,
Corrupt and pestilent: now from the north
Of Norumbega, and the Samoed shore,
Bursting their brazen dungeon, arm'd with ice
And snow and hail and stormy gust and flaw,
Boreas and Cæcias and Argestes loud
And Thrascias rend the woods and seas upturn;
With adverse blast upturns them from the
south
Notus and Afer black with thundrons clouds
From Serraliona; thwart of these as fierce
Forth rush the Levant and Ponent winds
Eurus and Zephyr with their lateral noise,
Sirocco, and Libecchio. Thus began
Outrage from lifeless things; but Discord first
Daughter of Sin among th' irrational,
Death introduc'd through fierce antipathy:
Beast now with beast 'gan war, and fowl with
fowl,
[ing,
And fish with fish; to graze the herb all leav-
Devour'd each other; nor stood much in awe
Of man but fled him, or with count'nance grim
Glar'd on him passing. These were from
without
The growing miseries which Adam saw
Already in part, though hid in gloomiest shade,
To sorrow abandon'd, but worse felt within,
And in a troubled sea of passion tost,
Thus to disburden sought with sad complaint.
O miserable of happy! is this the end
Of this new glorious world, and me so late
The glory of that glory, who now become
Accurs'd of blessed, hid me from the face
Of God, whom to behold was then my height
Of happiness! yet well, if here would end
The misery; I deserv'd it, and would bear
My own deservings; but this will not serve;
Ail that I eat or drink, or shall beget,
Is propagated curse. O voice once heard
Delightfully, Increase and Multiply,
Now death to bear! for what can I increase
Or multiply, but curses on my head?
Who of all ages to succeed, but feeling
The evil on him brought by me, will curse
My head? Il fare our ancestor impure,
For this we may thank Adam; but his thanks
Shall be the execration; so besides
Mine own that bide upon me, all from me
Shall with a fierce reflux on me redound,
On me as on their natural center light
Heavy, though in their place. O flecting joys
Of Paradise, dear bought with lasting woes!
Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay
To mould me man, did I solicit thee
From darkness to promote me, or here place
In this delicious garden? As my will
Concurr'd not to my being, it were but right
And equal to reduce me to my dust,
Desirous to resign and render back
All I receiv'd, unable to perform
Thy terms so hard, by which I was to hold
The good I sought not. To the loss of that,
Sufficient penalty, why hast thou added
The sense of endless woes? inexplicable
Thy justice seems; yet to say truth, too late
I thus contest; then should have been re-
fus'd
[pos'd:
Those terms whatever, when they were pro-
Thou did'st accept them: wilt thou enjoy the
Then cavil the conditions? and though God Made thee without thy leave, what if thy son Prove disobedient, and reprov'd, retort, Wherefore did'st thou beget me? I sought it
Would thou admit for his contempt of thee That prond excuse? yet him not thy election, But natural necessity begot.
God made thee of choice his own, and of his
To serve him; thy reward was of his grace,
Thy punishment then justly is at his will,
Be it so, for I submit; his doom is fair,
That dust I am, and shall to dust return:
welcome hour whenever! why delays
His hand to execute what his decree
Fix'd on this day? why do I overlive
Why am I mock'd with death, and lengthen'd
out
To deathless pain? how gladly would I meet
Mortality my sentence, and be earth
Insensible, how glad would lay me down
As in my mother's lap? there I should rest
And sleep secure; bis dreadful voice no more
Would thunder in my ears, no fear of worse
To me and to my offspring would torment me
With cruel expectation. Yet one doubt
Pursues me still, lest all I cannot die,
Lest that pure breath of life, the spirit of man
Which God inspir'd, cannot together perish
With this corporeal clod; then in the grave,
Or in some other dismal place, who knows
But I shall die a living death? O thought
Horrid, if true! yet why? it was but breath
O: life that sinn'd; what dies but what had life
And siu? the body properly hath neither.
All of me then shalt die : let this appease
The doubt, since humau reach no further
knows.
For though the Lord of all be infinite,
Is his wrath also? be it, mau is not so,
But mortal doom'd. How can he exercise
Wrath without end on man whom death must
end?
Can he make deathless death? that were to Strange contradiction, which to God himself Impossible is held, as argument
Of weakness, not of power. Will he draw out, For anger's sake, finite to infinite
In punish'd man, to satisfy his rigor
Satisfy'd never? that were to extend
His sentence beyond dust and Nature's law,
By which all causes else according still
To the reception of their matter act,
Not to the extent of their own sphere. But say
That death be not one stroke, as I suppos'd
Bereaving seuse, but endless misery
From this day onward, which I feel begun
Both in me, and without me, and so last
To perpetuity; Ay me, that fear
Comes thund'ring back, with dreadful revo-
On my defenceless head, both death and I
Am found eterual, and incorporate both,
Nor I in my part single, in me all
Posterity stands curs'd: fair patrimony
That I must leave ye, Sons; O were I able
To waste it all myself, and leave ye none!
So disinterested how would you bless
Me now your curse! Ab, why should all man-
kind
[demn'd,
For one man's fault thus guiltless be con-
If guiltless? but from me what can proceed,
But all corrupt, both mind and will deprav'd,
Not to do only, but to do the same
With ine? how can they then acquitted stand
In sight of God? him after all disputes
Forc'd I absolve: all my evasious vain, [still
And reasonings, though through mazes, lead
But to my own conviction: first and last
On me, me only, as the source and spring
Of all corruption, all the blame lights due;
So might the wrath. Fond wish! couldst thou
support
That burden heavier than the earth to bear, Than all the world much heavier, though divided
With that bad woman? thus what thou desir'st
And what thou fear'st, alike destroys all hope
Of refuge, and concludes thee miserable
Beyond all past example and future.
To Satan only like both crime and doom.
O Couscience, into what abyss of fears
And horrors hast thou driv'u me; out of which
I find no way, from deep to deeper plung'd!
Thus Adam to himself lamented loud
Through the still night, not now, as ere inan
fell
[air
Wholesome and cool, and mild, but with black
Accompanied, with damps and dreadful gloom,
Which to his evil conscience represented
All things with double terror: on the ground
Outstretch'd he lay, on the cold ground, and oft
Curst his creation, Death as oft accus'd
Of tardy execution, since denounc'd
The day of his offence. Why comes not Death,
Said he, with one thrice acceptable stroke
To end me? shall Truth fail to keep her word,
Justice divine not hasten to be just?
But Death coines not at all, Justice divine
Mends not her slowest pace for pray'rs or cries.
O woods, fountains, hillocks,dales and bowers,
With other echo late I taught your shades
To answer, and resound far other song.
Whom thus afflicted when sad Eve beheld,
Desolate where she sat, approaching nigh,
Soft words to his fierce passion she assay'd:
But her with stern regard he thus address'd.
Out of my sight thou serpent; that name
Befits thee with him leagu'd, thyself as false And hateful; nothing wants, but that thy
Like his, and colour serpentine may show
Thy inward fraud, to warn all creatures from
thee
[tended
Henceforth; lest that too heav'nly form, pre-
To hellish falsehood snare them. But for thee
I had persisted happy, had not thy pride
And wand'ring vanity, when least was safe,
Rejected my forwarning, and disdain'd
Not to be trusted, longing to be seen
Though by the Devil himself, him overweening
To over-reach, but with the serpent meeting
Fool'd and beguild, by him thou, and I by thee
To trust thee from my side, imagin'd wise,
Constant, mature, proof against all assaults,
And understood not all was but a show
Rather than solid virtue, all but a rib
Crooked by Nature, bent as now appears,
More to the part sinister, from me drawn,
Well if thrown out, as supernumerary
To my just number found. O why did God,
Creator wise, that peopied highest Heav'n
|| With spirits masculine, create at last
This novelty on earth, this fair defect
Of nature, and not fill the world at once
With men as angels without feminine,
Or find some other way to generate
Mankind? this mischief had not then befall'u
And more that shall befal, innumerable
Disturbances on earth through female snares,
And strait conjunction with this sex: for either
He never shall find out fit mate, but such
As some misfortune brings him, or mistake;
Or whom he wishes most shall seldom gain
Through her perverseness, but shall see her
gain'd
By a far worse, or if she love, withhe'd
By parents; or his happiest choice too late
Shall meet already link'd and wedlock-bound
To a fell adversary, his hate or shame:
Which infinite calamity shall cause
To human life, and household peace confound
He added not, and from her turn'd; but Eve |
Not so repuls'd, with tears that ceas'd not
flowing,
And tresses all disorder'd, at his feet
Fell humble, and embracing them besought
His peace and thus proceeded in her plaint:
Forsake me not thus, Adam; witness Heav'n
What love sincere, and rev'rence in my heart
I hear thee, and unweeting have offended,
Unhappily deceiv'd; thy suppliant
1 beg, and clasp thy knees; bereave me not,
Whereon I live, thy gentle looks, thy aid,
Thy counsel in the uttermost distress,
My only strength and stay: forlorn of thee,
Whither shall I betake me, where subsist?
While yet we live, scarce one short hour per-
haps,
Between us two let there be peace, both join-
ing,
As join'd in injuries, one enmity
Against a foe by doom express assign'd us,
That cruel serpent: on me exercise not
Thy hatred for this misery befall'n,
On me already lost, me than thyself
More miserable; both have sina'd, but thou
Against God only, I against God and thee,
And to the place of judgment will return,
There with my cries importune Heav'n, that
The sentence from thy head remov'd may light
On me, sole cause to thee of all this woe,
Me, me only, just object of his ire.
She ended weeping, and her lowly plight,
Immoveable till peace obtain'd from fault
Acknowledg'd aud deplor'd, in Adam wrought
Commiseration; soon his heart relented
Tow'rds her, his life so late and sole delight,
Now at his feet submissive in distress,
Creature so fair his reconcilement seeking,
His counsel, whom she had displeas'd, his aid;
As one disarm'd, his anger all be lost,
And thus with peaceful words uprais'd her
Unwary, and too desirous, as before,
So now of what thou know'st not, who desir'st
The punishment all on thyself; alas,
Bear thine own first, ill able to sustain
His full wrath, whose thou feel'st as yet least
part,
And my displeasure bear'st so ill. If prayers
Could alter high decrees, I to that place
Would speed before thee, and be louder heard,
That on my head all might be visited,
Thy frailty and infirmer sex forgiven,
To me committed and by me expos'd.
But rise, let us no more contend, nor blame
Each other, blam'd enough elsewhere, but strive
In offices of love, how we may lighten
Each other's burden in our share of woe;
Since this day's death denounc'd, if ought I see,
Will prove no sudden, but a slow pac`d evil
A long day's dying to augment our pain,
And to our seed (O hapless sced!) deriv'd.
To whom thus Eve, recovering heart, reply'd.
Adam, by sad experiment I know
How little weight my words with thee can fiud,
Found so crroneous, thence by just event
Found so unfortunate; nevertheless
Restor'd by thee, vile as I am, to place
Of new acceptance, hopeful to regain
Thy love, the sole contentment of my heart
Living or dying, from thee I will not hide
What thoughts in my unquiet breast are risen,
Tending to some relief of our extremes
Or end, though sharp and sad, yet tolerable,
As in our evils, aud of easier choice.
If care of our descent perplex us most
Which must be borne to certain woe, devour'd
By Death at last; and miserable it is
To be to others cause of misery,
Our own begotten, and of our loins to bring
Into this cursed world a woeful race,
That after wretched life must be at last
Food for so foul a monster; in thy power
It lies, yet ere conception to prevent
The race uublest, to being yet unbegot.
Childless thou art, childless remain: so Death
Shall be deceiv'd his glut, and with us two
Be fore'd to satisfy his ravenous maw.
But if thou judge it hard and difficult,
Conversing, looking, loving, to abstain
From Love's due rites, nuptial embraces sweet,
And with desire to languish without hope,
Before the present object languishing
With like desire, which would be misery
And torment less than none of what we dread;
Then both ourselves and seed at once to free
From what we fear for both, let us make short,
Let us seek Death, or be not found, supply
With our own hands his office on ourselves;
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