565

This more delufive, not the touch, but taste
Deceiv'd; they fondly thinking to allay
Their appetite with guft, inftead of fruit
Chew'd bitter athes, which th' offended tafte
With fpattering noife rejected; oft they' affay'd,
Hunger and thirst conftraining, drugg'd as oft,
With hatefulleft difrelish writh'd their jaws
With foot and cinders fill'd: so oft they fell
Into the fame illufion; not as man,
Whom they triumph'd once laps'd. Thus were they
And worn with famine, long and ceaseless hifs,
Till their loft shape, permitted, they refum'd;
Yearly injoin'd, fome fay, to undergo

570

[plagu'd

575

This annual humbling certain number'd days,"
To dash their pride, and joy for man seduc'd.
However, fome tradition they difpers'd
Among the Heathen of their purchase got,
And fabled how the serpent, whom they call'd

580

Ophion with Eury nome, the wide

Incroaching Eve perhaps, had first the rule
Of high Olympus, thence by Saturn driv'n
And Ops, ere yet Dicten Jove was born.

Meanwhile in Paradise the hellish pair

585

Too foon arriv'd; Sin there in Pow'r before,
Once actual, now in body, and to dwell

L. 581. Ophion.] Lat. from the Gr. i. e. a ferpent. One of the companions of Cadmus, who fprung out of the teeth of that ferpent which Cadmus flew,

Ibid. Eurynome.] Lat. from the Gr. i. e. ruling wide, encroaching; the daughter of Oceanus, and wife of Ophion, which incroached on her husband, and ruined her pofterity. Under this fable the heathens couched Adam and Eve, and their expulfion out of Paradise.

L. 584, Ops.] Lat. from the Gr. i. e. riches; the daughter of heaven and earth, the fifter and wife of Saturn. The Greeks called her alfo Rhea, i. e. flowing with wealth.

men.

Ibid. Ditaan,] of Didea; Lat. Gr. i, e. a place of nets and fifherA city and mountain in Crete, between Gnoffus and Samois, now called Caffiti, where Jupiter was nurfed.

Habitual habitant: behind her Death

Close following pace
for pace, not mounted yet
On his pale horse; to whom Sin thus began.

590

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

Than ftill at hell's dark threshold to' have fat watch,
Unnam'd, undreaded, and thyself half starv'd?

Whom. thus the Sin-born monster answer'd foon:
To me, who with eternal famine pine,

Alike is hell, or Paradise, or heav'n,

595

There beft, where most with ravin I may meet;
Which here, though plenteous, all too little feems 600
To ftuff this maw, this vaft onhide bound corps.

To whom th' incestuous mother thus reply'd:
Thou therefore on these herbs, and fruits, and flow'rs
Feed first, on each beaft next, and fish, and fowl,
No homely morfels; and whatever thing
The scythe of Time mowes down, devour unfpar'd;
Till I in man refiding, through the race,

605

His thoughts, his looks, words, actions, all infe&; And feafon him thy last and sweetest prey.

This faid, they both betook them several ways, 610 Both to deftroy, or unimmortal make

All kinds, and for deftruction to mature
Sooner or later which th' Almighty feeing,
From his tranfcendent feat the faints among,
To those bright orders utter'd thus his voice:
See with what heat these dogs of hell advance
To waste and havock yonder world, which I
So fair and good created, and had ftill
Kept in that state, had not the folly' of man
Let in thefe wafteful furies; who impute
Folly to me; fo doth the prince of hell,

L. 591. Death.] See it defcribed, Rev. vi. 8.
VOL. II.
H

615

620

And his adherents, that with so much ease

I fuffer them to enter and poffefs

A place fo heav'nly, and conniving feem

To gratify my scornful enemies,

That laugh, as if, tranfported with fome fit
Of paffion, I to them had quitted all,

At random yielded up to their mifrule;

625

630

And know not that I call'd and drew them thither,
My hell-hounds, to lick up the draff and filth
Which man's polluting fin with taint hath shed
On what was pure, till cramm'd and gorg'd, nigh burst,
With fuck'd and glutted offal, at one fling

Of thy victorious arm, well-pleafing Son,

Both Sin, and Death, and yawning Grave at laft 635
Through Chaos hurl'd, obstruct the mouth of hell
For ever, and feal up his ravenous jaws.

Then heav'n and earth renew'd shall be made pure
To fanctity that shall receive no stain :

Till then the curfe pronounc'd on both precedes. 640
He ended, and the heav'nly audience loud

Sung Halleluiah, as the found of feas,

Through multitude that fung: Juft are thy ways,
Righteous are thy decrees on all thy works:
Who can extenuate thee? Next, to the Son,
Deftin'd restorer of mankind, by whom
New heav'n and earth fhall to the ages rise,

645

Or down from heav'n defcend. Such was their fong,

While the Creator calling forth by name
His mighty angels, gave them feveral charge,
As forted beft with prefent things. The fun
Had first his precept fo to move, fo fhine,
As might affect the earth with cold and heat
Scarce tolerable; and from the north to call
Decrepit winter; from the fouth to bring

650

655

Solftitial fummer's heat. To the blanc moon
Her office they prefcrib'd; to th' other five,
Their planetary motions and afpects,
In fextile, fquare, and trine, and oppofite
Of noxious efficacy, and when to join
In fynod unbenign; and taught the fix'd
Their influence malignant when to show'r ;
Which of them rifing with the fun, or falling,
Should prove tempestuous; to the winds they fet
Their corners, when with bluftre to confound
Sea, air, and fhore, the thunder when to roll
With terror through the dark aerial hall.
Some fay he bid his angels turn afcance

The poles of earth twice ten degrees and more
From the fun's axle; they with labour push'd

660

665

670

L. 656. Solftitial,] of the folftice; Lat. i. e. the standing of the fun. An aftronomical term. The fummer folftice falls on the 21st of June, and the winter folftice on the 21st of December, to which two points of the tropicks when the fun comes, there is no fenfible increase or decrease of the day and night for a little time: it feems to be at a ftand. Here the first is meant.

L. 658. Planetary,] of planets; Gr. i. e. wandering. Here, moving in their feveral orbs. Here feveral terms of aftrology and aftronomy occur, in a continued digreffion. According to aftrologers, the planets make several angles or aspects in their motions through the twelve figns; the chief are conjunction, fextile, quadrate, trine, oppofition.

L. 668. Some fay he bid his angels, &c.] It was eternal Spring (B. IV. 1. 268.) before the fall; and he is now accounting for the change of feasons after the fall, and mentions the two famous hypothefes. Some fay it was occafioned by altering the pofition of the earth, by turning the poles of the earth above 20 degrees afide from the fun's orb, he bid his angels turn afcance the poles of earth twice ten degrees and more from the fun's axle; and the poles of the earth are about 23 degrees and a half diftant from those of the ecliptick; they with labour push'd oblique the centrick globe; it was erect before, but is oblique now; the obliquity of a fphere is the pro- per aftronomical term, when the pole is raised any number of degrees less than 90; the centrick globe fixed on its centre, and therefore moved with labour and difficulty, or rather centrick, as being the centre of the world, according to the Ptolemaick fyftem, which our author ufually follows.

Oblique the centrick globe: some say the fun
Was bid turn reins from th' equinoctial road
Like diftant breadth to Taurus with the feven
Atlantick fifters, and the Spartan Twins
Up to the Tropick Crab; thence down amain
By Leo, and the Virgin, and the Scales,
As deep as Capricorn, to bring in change
Of feasons to each clime; elfe had the spring
Perpetual smil'd on earth with vernant flow'rs,

675

L. 674, Twins] Sax. Gemini. Two children born at one birth. Here, Caftor and Pollux, fons of Tindaurus and Leda, king of Sparta; born there, and at the fame time. Caftor and Pollux, i. e. adorned, or fhining, were the eleventh king of it after their father, and reigned cotemporary. They are feigned to be the fign Gemini, by fabulous antiquity, and were much in veneration among the heathens. See Acts xxviii. 11. They are ftars of the second magnitude, which form the two heads of Gemini, the third of the twelve figns of the zodiack.

L. 675. Crab.] Cancer; becaufe the fun moves back the fame way as the crab doth; or because it confifts of nine ftars in the fhape of a crab the fourth of the twelve figas; the fun enters into this fign on the 21ft of June. Here, the tropick of Cancer, or the northern tropick.

L. 676. Leo.] Lat. from the Gr. i. e. the lion. Here, an aftronomical term. The fifth of the twelve figns, into which the fun enters on the 22d of July. This conftellation hath twenty-seven ftars about it.

Ibid. Virgin,] virgo, Lat. i. e. ftrong; a chafte maid, a maiden in her bloom and ftrength. Here, an aftronomical term. The fixth of the twelve figns. It confifts of twenty-fix ftars; the fun enters into it on the 22d of Auguft. This is Aftrea the goddess of juftice, who left the earth because of the wickedness of men after the fall, and flew up to heaven, where the weighs, confiders, and examines all actions of men and things, as the poets feigned. But this is a good emblem of divine justice, and the fall of Adam.

Ibid. Scales.] Libra, Lat. i. e. a balance, or pair of fcales. Here, an astronomical term: The feventh of the twelve figns, into which the fun enters on the 22d of September. It is the first of the fix fouthern figns of the zodiack.

L. 677. Capricorn. Lat. i. e. an horned goat; because then the fun at this point climbs upward again in his annual courfe, like. that climbing creature the goat: An aftronomical term. The tenth of the twelve figns. It confifts of twenty-one stars; the fun. enters into it on the 22d of December, and makes the winter fo ftice. It is the fouthern tropick.