With what permissive glory since his fall

Was left him, or false glitter: All amaz'd

At that so sudden blaze the STYGIAN throng

Bent thir aspect, and whom they wish'd beheld,

Thir mighty Chief returnd: loud was th' acclaime:

Forth rush'd in haste the great consulting Peers,

Rais'd from thir dark DIVAN, and with like joy

Congratulant approach'd him, who with hand

Silence, and with these words attention won.

Thrones, Dominations, Princedoms, Vertues, Powers,

For in possession such, not onely of right,

I call ye and declare ye now, returnd

Successful beyond hope, to lead ye forth

Triumphant out of this infernal Pit

Abominable, accurst, the house of woe,

And Dungeon of our Tyrant: Now possess,

As Lords, a spacious World, to our native Heaven

Little inferiour, by my adventure hard

With peril great atchiev'd. Long were to tell

What I have don, what sufferd, with what paine

Voyag'd the 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

Toild out my uncouth passage, forc't to ride

Th' untractable Abysse, plung'd in the womb

Of unoriginal NIGHT and CHAOS wilde,

That jealous of thir secrets fiercely oppos'd

My journey strange, with clamorous uproare

Protesting Fate supreame; thence how I found

The new created World, which fame in Heav'n

Long had foretold, a Fabrick wonderful

Of absolute perfection, therein Man

Plac't in a Paradise, by our exile

Made happie: 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 allarme,

To range in, and to dwell, and over Man

To rule, as over all he should have rul'd.

True is, mee also he hath judg'd, or rather

Mee not, but the brute Serpent in whose shape

Man I deceav'd: that which to mee belongs,

Is enmity, which he will put between

Mee and Mankinde; 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' account

Of my performance: What remaines, ye Gods,

But up and enter now into full bliss.

So having said, a while he stood, expecting

Thir universal shout and high applause

To fill his eare, when contrary he hears

On all sides, from innumerable tongues

A dismal universal hiss, the sound

Of public scorn; he wonderd, but not long

Had leasure, wondring at himself now more;

His Visage drawn he felt to sharp and spare,

His Armes clung to his Ribs, his Leggs entwining

Each other, till supplanted down he fell

A monstrous Serpent on his Belly prone,

Reluctant, but in vaine, a greater power

Now rul'd him, punisht in the shape he sin'd,

According to his doom: he would have spoke,

But hiss for hiss returnd with forked tongue

To forked tongue, for now were all transform'd

Alike, to Serpents all as accessories

To his bold Riot: dreadful was the din

Of hissing through the Hall, thick swarming now

With complicated monsters, head and taile,

Scorpion and Asp, and AMPHISBAENA dire,

CERASTES hornd, HYDRUS, and ELLOPS drear,

And DIPSAS (Not so thick swarm'd once the Soil

Bedropt with blood of Gorgon, or the Isle

OPHIUSA) but still greatest hee the midst,

Now Dragon grown, larger then whom the Sun

Ingenderd in the PYTHIAN Vale on slime,

Huge PYTHON, and his Power 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 thir glorious Chief;

They saw, but other sight instead, a crowd

Of ugly Serpents; horror on them fell,

And horrid sympathie; for what they saw,

They felt themselvs now changing; down thir arms,

Down fell both Spear and Shield, down they as fast,

And the dire hiss renew'd, and the dire form

Catcht by Contagion, like in punishment,

As in thir crime. Thus was th' applause they meant,

Turnd to exploding hiss, triumph to shame

Cast on themselves from thir own mouths. There stood

A Grove hard by, sprung up with this thir change,

His will who reigns above, to aggravate

Thir penance, laden with fair Fruit, like that

VVhich grew in Paradise, the bait of EVE

Us'd by the Tempter: on that prospect strange

Thir earnest eyes they fix'd, imagining

For one forbidden Tree a multitude

Now ris'n, to work them furder woe or shame;

Yet parcht with scalding thurst and hunger fierce,

Though to delude them sent, could not abstain,

But on they rould in heaps, and up the Trees

Climbing, sat thicker then the snakie locks

That curld MEGAERA: greedily they pluck'd

The Frutage fair to sight, like that which grew

Neer that bituminous Lake where SODOM flam'd;

This more delusive, not the touch, but taste

Deceav'd; they fondly thinking to allay

Thir appetite with gust, instead of Fruit

Chewd bitter Ashes, which th' offended taste

VVith spattering noise rejected: oft they assayd,

Hunger and thirst constraining, drugd as oft,

VVith hatefullest disrelish writh'd thir jaws

VVith foot and cinders fill'd; so oft they fell

Into the same illusion, not as Man

Whom they triumph'd once lapst. Thus were they plagu'd

And worn with Famin, long and ceasless hiss,

Till thir lost shape, permitted, they resum'd,

Yearly enjoynd, some say, to undergo

This annual humbling certain number'd days,

To dash thir pride, and joy for Man seduc't.

However some tradition they dispers'd

Among the Heathen of thir purchase got,

And Fabl'd how the Serpent, whom they calld

OPHION with EURYNOME, the wide-

Encroaching EVE perhaps, had first the rule

Of high OLYMPUS, thence by SATURN driv'n

And OPS, ere yet DICTAEAN 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 SIN thus began.

Second of SATAN sprung, all conquering Death,

What thinkst thou of our Empire now, though earnd

With travail difficult, not better farr

Then stil at Hels dark threshold to have sate watch,

Unnam'd, undreaded, and thy self half starv'd?

Whom thus the Sin-born Monster answerd soon.

To mee, who with eternal Famin pine,

Alike is Hell, or Paradise, or Heaven,

There best, where most with ravin I may meet;

Which here, though plenteous, all too little seems

To stuff this Maw, this vast unhide-bound Corps.

To whom th' incestuous Mother thus repli'd.

Thou therefore on these Herbs, and Fruits, & Flours

Feed first, on each Beast next, and Fish, and Fowle,

No homely morsels, and whatever thing

The Sithe of Time mowes 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 wayes,

Both to destroy, or unimmortal make

All kinds, and for destruction to mature