Of your brave emperor, the chief of hell!
Hark! hear ye not the sound,

That calls you forth from out your various dwellings?
Behold! how from the sphere of blazing fire

Arsiccio, of the blazing legion prince,

Comes to pay homage to his mighty Lord.

Arion. Lo! from the field of air I too descend,

I who am call'd Arion,

The mighty ruler of this winged band,

At the command of hell.

Tarpalce. Of the infernal palace

To bend before the prince,

Forth from a thousand subterraneous paths

The great Tarpalce, chief of earthy sprights,
Raises his brow to heav'n.

Ondoso. From many a vein of water,

From many a rising fount,

From rills, and rivers, torrents, floods, and streams, And from a thousand marshes, pools, and lakes

Such as I am, Ondoso, of soft spirits

The humid, floating ruler, now on wing

Here even I attend, to reverence

The subterranean power.

Volan. Lo from the dark abyss to lightsome air

Great Lucifer now rising! and with him

The most sagacious band

Of hellish counsellors!

SCENE THE SECOND.

LUCIFER, FIERY, AIRY, EARTHLY, AQUATIC, INFERNAL SPIRITS, and VOLANO.

Lucifer. Ah light! detested light!

Yet once again I look toward thy rays,
The sightless mole of hell,

And like a frantic angel

Dazzled, and griev'd at heart,

Immortally I die.

Beliar. Of what dost thou complain? why grieves our God?

Clear up thy countenance! and see around
How thy palms shake! thy banners float in air!
Signs of that valour, which has conquer'd heav'n!
And now in triumph may enjoy the world!
Ah too imperfect is the victor's glory,
If he exult not in his victory.

Lucifer. Destructive victory! unworthy boast! Laughter to weeping turn'd,

Is that, which thou esteem'st the praise of hell.
Ah heav'ns high power has found

A new expedient to our endless shame,

To make our vanquish'd foe remain the victor
And triumph, tho' defeated,

Mirim. What barbed arrows in my wounded

heart,

Great Lord! hast thou enfixt!

Lucifer. Ah! for no other purpose have I call'd

you

From realms of air, and fire,

From earth, from water, and the centʼral depths,
Save that we might project in council here
How man may fall entirely overwhelm'd,
If to destroy him by the fruit I fail'd.

Digrignan. Ah how can Adam live,
If he indeed has eat the fruit forbidden?
Condemning him to death

Now well may we exclaim,

That heav'n this day inures itself to falshood.

Lucifer. Hear it oh hell! and shudder at the sound!

And let thy lively joys now turn to languor!
Tell me, thou, Beliar! how seems to thee
After the tasted fruit, man on the sudden
Discover'd naked! and amid the branches
Of thickest growth hastening to hide his shame!
Beliar. In viewing his own nakedness, he shews us,
The tasted fruit has robb'd him of all grace;
The very foliage where he hides informs him

He is become a beast,

And like a beast is doom'd in death to lose
His body, and his soul.

Lucifer. ThouCoriban relate why man has form'd

With the figs ample leaf
A mantle for his waist

Coriban. I'll tell you, 'tis the nature of the fig
To rise not high, and prove of short duration;
Still less may man expect to Glory's highth
To raise himself; for short shall be his date.
All the contentious elements at war

Occasion'd by his sin, now in their conflict
Shall overwhelm him, and the hope with souls
More to embellish heav'n shall be in vain.
Lucifer. And thou Ferèa! what denotes the ser-
pent,

Whom in his anger God is pleas'd to curse?

Ferea. I will be brief in telling all that's true;
When he pronounc'd a curse upon the serpent,
Man had already heard his malediction;
And thus to that he added

Prone on thy belly serpent thou shalt grovel
As if to man suggesting,

Dark as a riddling God, man is of clay;

And clay shall now be destitute of soul,

As destitute of soul each other reptile.

Lucifer. Thou, Solobrico, tell me, what think'st thou

Of this strange speech to man!

Thou by thy sweat must gain

The bread, that forms thy food!

Solobrico, This bread to us discovers.

The life of man's frail body,

A body form'd of earth, as now indeed

Grain must be drawn from earth to make this bread

The vital element :

His sweat denotes the element of water,

His countenance is air, his labour fire;
So that this dark expression

Of being doom'd to gain his bread by sweat,

To man says, thou shalt live,

In many griefs and troubles,

A short space in the world;

Then is thy lot to die,

Turning again to earth, air, water, fire.

Lucifer. And Gismon thou! to woman when he said

That with the pangs of birth

She should produce her offspring, say what meaning Lurk'd in that new expression to bring forth? Gismon. This said expression birth

Denotes the being born;

When her young progeny shall rise to light:

He also might denote a new partition
By this new word bring forth,

Innumerable pains,

In which the suff'ring parents

Shall both participate to rear their children:

Of body, and of soul

The certain death I see in this expression: