BOOK IV.

THE ARGUMENT.

SATAN, now in prospect of Eden, and nigh the place where he must now attempt the bold enterprise, which he undertook alone against God and man, falls into many doubts with himself, and many passions, fear, envy, and despair; but at length confirms himself in evil, journeys on to Paradise, whose outward prospect and situation is described, overleaps the bounds, sits in the shape of a cormorant on the Tree of Life, as the highest in the garden, to look about him. The garden described: Satan's first sight of Adam and Eve: his wonder at their excellent form and happy state, but with resolution to work their fall: overhears their discourse; thence gathers that the Tree of Knowledge was forbidden them to eat of, under the penalty of death; and thereon intends to found his temptation, by seducing them to transgress: then leaves them awhile to know further of their state by some other means. Meanwhile, Uriel, descending on a sunbeam, warns Gabriel, who had in charge the gate of Paradise, that some evil spirit had escaped the deep, and passed at noon by his sphere in the shape of a good angel down to Paradise, discovered afterwards by his furious gestures in the mount. Gabriel promises to find him ere morning. Night coming on, Adam and Eve discourse of going to their rest: their bower described; their evening worship. Gabriel, drawing forth his bands of night-watch to walk the rounds of Paradise, appoints two strong angels to Adam's bower, lest the evil spirit should be there doing some harm to Adam or Eve sleeping; there they find him at the ear of Eve, tempting her in a dream, and bring him, though unwilling, to Gabriel; by whom questioned, he scornfully answers, prepares resistance, but, hindered by a sign from heaven, flies out of Paradise.

O, FOR that warning voice, which he, who saw
The Apocalypse, heard cry in heaven aloud,
Then when the dragon, put to second rout,
Came furious down to be revenged on men,
"Woe to the inhabitants on earth!" that now,
While time was, our first parents had been warn'd
The coming of their secret foe, and 'scaped,
Haply so 'scaped his mortal snare; for now
Satan, now first inflamed with rage, came down,
The tempter ere the accuser of mankind,
To wreak on innocent frail man his loss
Of that first battel, and his flight to hell:
Yet not rejoicing in his speed, though bold
Far off and fearless, nor with cause to boast,

2. The Apocalypse. See Rev. xii. 12. 13. Not rejoicing. Satan was bold "far off, and fearless:" and as he drew nearer, was pleased with "hoped success:" but, now that he is come to earth to "begin

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his dire attempt," he does not “rej ice” in it; his heart misgives him; "horror and doubt distract" him. This is all very natural.-NEWTON.

Begins his dire attempt; which, nigh the birth,
Now rolling, boils in his tumultuous breast,
And like a devilish engine back recoils
Upon himself: horrour and doubt distract
His troubled thoughts, and from the bottom stir
The hell within him; for within him hell

He brings, and round about him, nor from hell
One step, no more than from himself, can fly
By change of place: now conscience wakes despair
That slumber'd; wakes the bitter memory
Of what he was, what is, and what must be
Worse; of worse deeds worse sufferings must ensue.
Sometimes towards Eden, which now in his view
Lay pleasant, his grieved look he fixes sad;
Sometimes towards heaven and the full-blazing sun,
Which now sat high in his meridian tower:
Then, much revolving, thus in sighs began.

O thou, that, with surpassing glory crown'd,
Look'st from thy sole dominion like the God
Of this new world; at whose sight all the stars
Hide their diminish'd heads; to thee I call,
But with no friendly voice; and add thy name,
O sun, to tell thee how I hate thy beams,
That bring to my remembrance from what state
I fell, how glorious once above thy sphere;
Till pride and worse ambition threw me down,
Warring in heaven against heaven's matchless King.
Ah, wherefore! he deserved no such return
From me, whom he created what I was
In that bright eminence, and with his good
Upbraided none; nor was his service hard.
What could be less than to afford him praise,
The easiest recompense, and pay him thanks,
How due! yet all his good proved ill in me,
And wrought but malice; lifted up so high,

I 'sdein'd subjection, and thought one step higher
Would set me highest, and in a moment quit
The debt immense of endless gratitude,
So burdensome; still paying, still to owe:
Forgetful what from him I still received;
And understood not that a grateful mind
By owing owes not, but still pays, at once
Indebted and discharged: what burden then?
O, had his powerful destiny ordain'd
Me some inferiour angel, I had stood
Then happy; no unbounded hope had raised

32 0 thou, &c. One of those magnificent speeches to which no other name can be be given, than that it is supereminently Miltonic. This is mainly argumentative sublimity; in which, I think, that he is even still greater than in his splendid and majestic imagery. The alternations

of this dreadful speech strike and move the mind like the changes of the tempest in a dark night, when the thunder and lightning roar and flash, and then intermit, and then redoubie again.—BRYDGES. 50. I 'sdain'd, for disdained.

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Ambition! Yet why not? some other power

As great might have aspired, and me, though mean,
Drawn to his part; but other powers as great
Fell not, but stand unshaken, from within
Or from without, to all temptations arm'd.

Hadst thou the same free will and power to stand?
Thou hadst: whom hast thou then or what to accuse,
But Heaven's free love dealt equally to all?
Be then his love accursed; since love or hate,
To me alike, it deals eternal woe:

Nay, cursed be thou; since against his thy will
Chose freely what it now so justly rues.
Me miserable! which way shall I fly
Infinite wrath, and infinite despair?
Which way I fly is hell; myself am hell;
And in the lowest deep a lower deep

Still threatening to devour me opens wide,
To which the hell I suffer seems a heaven.
O, then at last relent: is there no place
Left for repentance, none for pardon left?
None left but by submission; and that word
Disdain forbids me, and my dread of shame
Among the spirits beneath; whom I seduced
With other promises and other vaunts
Than to submit; boasting I could subdue
The Omnipotent. Ay me! they little know
How dearly I abide that boast so vain;
Under what torments inwardly I groan;
While they adore me on the throne of hell.
With diadem and sceptre high advanced,
The lower still I fall; only supreme
In misery: such joy ambition finds.
But say I could repent, and could obtain

By act of grace my former state; how soon

Would highth recall high thoughts, how soon unsay

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What feign'd submission swore! Ease would recant
Vows made in pain, as violent and void.
For never can true reconcilement grow

Where wounds of deadly hate have pierced so deep;
Which would but lead me to a worse relapse
And heavier fall: so should I purchase dear
Short intermission bought with double smart.
This knows my Punisher; therefore as far
From granting he, as I from begging peace:
All hope excluded thus; behold, instead

Of us outcast, exiled, his new delight,
Mankind created, and for him this world.

So farewell, hope; and with hope, farewell, fear;
Farewell, remorse: all good to me is lost;
Evil, be thou my good; by thee at least

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80. Left for repentance. See Heb. xii. 17. | thou all my happiness; for by thee I hold 110-112. As if he had said, Evil, be divided empire with the Supreme, and by

Divided empire with heaven's King I hold,
By thee, and more than half perhaps will reign;
As man ere long and this new world shall know.

Thus while he spake, each passion dimm'd his face
Thrice changed with pale, ire, envy, and despair;
Which marr'd his borrow'd visage, and betray'd
Him counterfeit, if any eye beheld:

For heavenly minds from such distempers foul
Are ever clear. Whereof he soon aware,

Each perturbation smooth'd with outward calm,
Artificer of fraud; and was the first

That practised falsehood under saintly show,
Deep malice to conceal, couch'd with revenge:
Yet not enough had practised to deceive

Uriel once warn'd; whose eye pursued him down
The way he went, and on the Assyrian mount
Saw him disfigured, more than could befall
Spirit of happy sort: his gestures fierce
He mark'd and mad demeanour, then alone,
As he supposed, all unobserved, unseen.
So on he fares, and to the border comes
Of Eden, where delicious Paradise,
Now nearer, crowns with her enclosure green,
As with a rural mound, the champain head
Of a steep wilderness, whose hairy sides
With thicket overgrown, grotesque and wild,
Access denied; and overhead up grew
Insuperable highth of loftiest shade,
Cedar, and pine, and fir, and branching palm,
A sylvan scene; and, as the ranks ascend
Shade above shade, a woody theatre

Of stateliest view. Yet higher than their tops
The verdurous wall of Paradise up sprung;
Which to our general sire gave prospect large
Into his nether empire neighbouring round.
And higher than that wall a circling row
Of goodliest trees loaden with fairest fruit,
Blossoms and fruits at once of golden hue,
Appear'd, with gay enamel'd colours mix'd:

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On which the sun more glad impress'd his beams,
Than in fair evening cloud, or humid bow,

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When God hath shower'd the earth; so lovely seem'd

That landskip: and of pure now purer air

Meets his approach, and to the heart inspires
Vernal delight and joy, able to drive
All sadness but despair: now gentle gales,

thee, I repeat, I will in a short time reign over more than half, as I intend to add earth (man's domain) to my empire. Addison deems this speech of Satan the inest that is ascribed to him in the whole poem.

115. Thrice changed with pale. That

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is, each passion, ire, envy, and despair, dimmed his face, which was thrice changed with pale, through the successive agita tions of these passions.

151. Some would read, "on fair evening cloud."

Fanning their odoriferous wings, dispense
Native perfumes, and whisper whence they stole
Those balmy spoils. As when to them who sail
Beyond the Cape of Hope, and now are pass'd
Mozambic, off at sea north-east winds blow
Sabæan odours from the spicy shore

Of Araby the bless'd; with such delay

Well pleased they slack their course, and many a league
Cheer'd with the grateful smell old Ocean smiles:

So entertain'd those odorous sweets the fiend

Who came their bane; though with them better pleased
Than Asmodeus with the fishy fume,

That drove him, though enamour'd, from the spouse
Of Tobit's son, and with a vengeance sent
From Media post to Ægypt, there fast bound.
Now to the ascent of that steep savage hill
Satan had journey'd on, pensive and slow;
But further way found none; so thick entwined,
As one continued brake, the undergrowth
Of shrubs and tangling bushes had perplex'd
All path of man or beast that pass'd that way.
One gate there only was, and that look'd east

On the other side: which when the arch-felon saw,
Due entrance he disdain'd; and in contempt,
At one slight bound high overleap'd all bound
Of hill or highest wall, and sheer within
Lights on his feet. As when a prowling wolf,
Whom hunger drives to seek new haunt for prey,
Watching where shepherds pen their flocks at eve
In hurdled cotes amid the field secure,
Leaps o'er the fence with ease into the fold:
Or as a thief, bent to unhoard the cash
Of some rich burgher, whose substantial doors,
Cross-barr'd and bolted fast, fear no assault,
In at the window climbs, or o'er the tiles:
So clomb this first grand thief into God's fold;
So since into his church lewd hirelings climb.
Thence up he flew; and on the Tree of Life,
The middle tree and highest there that grew,
Sat like a cormorant; yet not true life
Thereby regain'd, but sat devising death
To them who lived; nor on the virtue thought
Of that life-giving plant, but only used
For prospect, what well used had been the pledge
Of immortality. So little knows

168. Asmodéus was the evil Spirit, enamoured of Sarah, the daughter of Raguel, Those seven husbands he destroyed. But when she was married to the son of Tobit, he was driven away by the fumes of the heart and liver of a fish; "the which smell when the evil Spirit had smelled, he fled into the utmost parts of Egypt,

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and the angel bound him." See the Book of Tobit, chap. viii.

177. That pass'd, for that would have pass'd.

193. Lewd. In Milton's time this word was used in a wider sense than now, and signified profane, impious, wicked, as well as lascivious. See i. 490; and vi. 182.