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 appetite with gust, instead of fruit
Chew'd bitter ashes, which th' offended taste
With spattering noise rejected: oft they' assay'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 once laps'd. Thus were they plagu'd
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 call'd
Ophion with Eurynome, the wide
Encroaching Eve perhaps, had first the rule
Of high Olympus, thence by Saturn driven
And Ops, ere yet Dictæan Jove was born.
Meanwhile in Paradise the hellish pair
Too soon arriv'd, Sin there in pow'r 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 Sin thus began.
"Second of Satan sprung, all-conqu❜ring Death, What think'st thou of our empire now, tho' earn'd With travel difficult, not better far
Than still at Hell's dark threshold to' have sat watch,
Unnam'd, undreaded, and thyself half starv'd?" 595
Whom thus the Sin-born monster answer'd soon.
"To me, who with eternal famine pine,
Alike is Hell, or Paradise, or Heaven,
There best, where most with ravine I may meet:
Which here, tho' plenteous, all too little seems
To stuff this maw, this vast unhide-bound corpse,
To whom th' incestuous mother thus reply'd. 602
"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,
His thoughts, his looks, words, actions, all infect,
And season him thy last and sweetest prey."
This said, they both betook them several ways,
Both to destroy, or unimmortal make
All kinds, and for destruction to mature
Sooner or later; which th' Almighty seeing,
From his transcendent seat the Saints among,
To those bright Orders utter'd thus his voice.
"See with what heat these dogs of Hell advance
To waste and havoc yonder world, which I
So fair and good created, and had still
Kept in that state, had not the folly' of Man
Let in these wasteful furies, who impute
Folly to me, so doth the prince of Hell
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 thither, 629 My Hell-hounds, to lick up the draff and filth Which Man's polluting sin with taint hath 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 pure To sanctity that shall receive no stain:
Till then the curse pronounc'd on both precedes."
He ended, and the heav'nly audience loud Sung Halleluiah, as the sound of seas,
Through multitude that sung: "Just are thy ways,
Righteous are thy decrees on all thy works;
Who can extenuate thee?" Next, to the Son,
"Destin'd restorer of mankind, 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 affect 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
Their planetary motions and aspécts
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 set 664
Their corners, when with bluster to confound
Sea, air, and shore, the thunder when to roll
With terror through the dark aërial hall.
Some say he bid his Angels turn ascance
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
Atlantic Sisters, and the Spartan Twins
Up to the Tropic Crab; thence down amain
By Leo and the Virgin 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 vernant 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 th' horizon, and not known
Or east or west, which had forbid the snow
From cold Estotiland, and south as far
Beneath Magellan. At that tasted fruit
The sun, as from Thyéstean banquet, turn'd
His course intended; else how had the world
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