Read The Annotated Milton: Complete English Poems Online
Authors: John Milton,Burton Raffel
Tags: #Fiction, #General, #Literary Collections, #Poetry, #Classics, #English; Irish; Scottish; Welsh, #English poetry
534 | | Where all yet left of that revolted rout, |
535 | | |
536 | | Sublime |
537 | | In triumph issuing forth their glorious chief. |
538 | | They saw, but other sight instead! a crowd |
539 | | Of ugly serpents. Horror on them fell, |
540 | | And horrid sympathy, for what they saw |
541 | | They felt themselves now changing. Down their arms, |
542 | | Down fell both spear and shield, down they as fast, |
543 | | And the dire hiss renewed, and the dire form |
544 | | |
545 | | As in their crime. Thus was th’ applause they meant |
546 | | Turned to exploding hiss, triumph to shame |
547 | | Cast on themselves from their own mouths. There stood |
548 | | A grove hard by, sprung up with |
549 | | (His will who reigns above, to aggravate |
550 | | Their penance), laden with fair fruit, like that |
551 | | Which grew in Paradise, the bait of Eve |
552 | |
553
Their earnest eyes they fixed, imagining
554
For one forbidden tree a multitude
555
Now ris’n, to work them further woe or shame.
556
Yet parched with scalding thirst and hunger fierce,
557
Though to delude them sent, could not abstain,
558
But on they rolled in heaps, and up the trees
559
Climbing, sat thicker than the snaky locks
560
That curled Megaera.
5445
Greedily they plucked
561
The fruitage fair to sight, like that which grew
562
563
This more delusive, not the touch, but taste
564
Deceived. They fondly
5448
thinking to allay
565
Their appetite with gust,
5449
instead of fruit
566
Chewed bitter ashes, which th’ offended taste
567
With spattering noise rejected. Oft they assayed,
568
Hunger and thirst constraining, drugged
5450
as oft,
569
With hatefullest disrelish
5451
writhed their jaws,
570
With soot and cinders filled. So oft they fell
571
Into the same illusion, not as man
572
Whom they triumphed
5452
once
5453
lapsed. Thus were they plagued
573
And worn with famine,
5454
long and ceaseless hiss,
574
Till their lost shape, permitted, they resumed,
575
Yearly enjoined, some say, to undergo
576
This annual humbling certain
5455
numbered days,
577
To dash
5456
their pride and joy for man seduced.
578
579
Among the heathen, of their purchase
5459
got,
580
And fabled how the serpent, whom they called
581
582
Encroaching Eve,
5462
perhaps), had first the rule
583
Of high Olympus, thence by Saturn driv’n
584
585
Meanwhile in Paradise the hellish pair
586
Too soon arrived, Sin there in power before,
587
588
Habitual habitant; behind her Death,
589
Close following pace for pace, not mounted yet
590
On his pale horse.
5467
To whom Sin thus began:
591
“Second of Satan sprung, all-conquering Death!
592
What think’st thou of our empire now, though earned
593
With travel difficult, not better far
594
Than still at Hell’s dark threshold to have sat watch,
595
Unnamed, undreaded, and thyself half starved?
596
Whom thus the Sin-born monster answered soon:
5468
597
“To me, who with eternal famine pine,
5469
598
Alike is Hell, or Paradise, or Heaven—
599
There best, where most with ravine
5470
I may meet,
600
Which here, though plenteous, all too little seems
601
602
To whom th’ incestuous mother thus replied:
603
“Thou therefore on these herbs, and fruits, and flow’rs
604
Feed first. On each beast next, and fish, and fowl—
605
No homely
5473
morsels! And whatever thing
606
The scythe of Time mows down, devour unspared,
5474
607
Till I, in man residing through the race,
608
His thoughts, his looks, words, actions, all infect,
609
And season him thy last and sweetest prey.
610
This said, they both betook them several
5475
ways,
611
Both to destroy, or unimmortal make
612
All kinds, and for destruction to mature
5476
613
Sooner or later. Which th’Almighty seeing,
614
From His transcendent seat the Saints among,
615
To those bright orders uttered thus His voice:
616
“See with what heat these dogs of Hell advance
617
618
So fair and good created, and had still
619
Kept in that state, had not the folly of man
620
Let in these wasteful Furies, who impute
5479