Paradise Lost
By John Milton
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About this ebook
John Milton's epic poem describes the fall of humankind and the war between heaven and hell. Satan and his fellow fallen angels are jealous that God has not given them more power. They decide to take their revenge on God's newest creation: humankind. Though warned by God, Adam and Eve are tempted by Satan and disobey God's command. Thereafter, the world is filled with sin and death, and Adam and Eve must leave Paradise, but not without a promise from God of a savior in the future. This is an unabridged version of Milton's second edition of the poem, which was originally published in England in 1674.
John Milton
John Milton was a seventeenth-century English poet, polemicist, and civil servant in the government of Oliver Cromwell. Among Milton’s best-known works are the classic epic Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, considered one of the greatest accomplishments in English blank verse, and Samson Agonistes. Writing during a period of tremendous religious and political change, Milton’s theology and politics were considered radical under King Charles I, found acceptance during the Commonwealth period, and were again out of fashion after the Restoration, when his literary reputation became a subject for debate due to his unrepentant republicanism. T.S. Eliot remarked that Milton’s poetry was the hardest to reflect upon without one’s own political and theological beliefs intruding.
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Reviews for Paradise Lost
1,898 ratings40 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Milton cria um diabo carismático e persuasivo, que clama: "Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven".
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5We had read selections of this book in my AP Lit class in high school, but as always, selections don't tell the whole story. I love reading religious literature, and this being one of the most famous epic poems in that genre, I quite enjoyed it. As an interesting aside, I did, however, find Lucifer/Satan to be far more sympathetic than he comes across in the Bible. I don't know if this was intentional on Milton's part, or simply something that was a result of describing his motivations.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5There's all this debate over why Satan is so appealing in Paradise Lost. Did Milton screw up? Is he being cynical, or a double-secret atheist? And why is God such a dick?
No one ever asks that about Iago, though, to whom I think Milton's Satan owes a debt. No one asks whether Shakespeare screwed up in making Iago so much fun; they just give him credit for, y'know, writing an awesome villain. And that's all Milton's doing. Satan is tempting for us because Satan is tempting for us. That's the point of Satan! If Milton didn't make him as appealing as possible, he'd be doing Satan a disservice. And Eve, for that matter.
Similarly, God's a dick because God's a dick. You've read the Old Testament. He's not exactly all flowers and hugs there either. Again, Milton's just being true to his characters, and writing a great story while he's at it.
There’s slightly more to it than that, yeah. For example: it's hinted, albeit obtusely, that God sets Satan up to fall. He gives a stern warning that anyone who disobeys him or his son will be cast out of Heaven. But since there's no sin or evil at the time of his speech, why give the warning? Isn't that like saying "Don't touch these cookies while I'm gone" to a kid who didn't realize there were cookies until you pointed them out? I get why people spend their entire careers arguing over this thing.
Here’s my advice to people considering reading Paradise Lost: read the first two books. It starts with a bang, and it’s pretty amazing for a while. It slows down a bit in books III - VII, so if you’re not totally sold in the first two books (I was), you can either quit altogether with a fair idea of what Milton sounds like, or skip to books IX and X. IX is the actual temptation and fall (especially fun if you’re a misogynist), and X is an astonishing sequence where Adam and Eve contemplate suicide:
"Why am I mocked with death, and lengthened out
To deathless pain? How gladly would I meet
Mortality my sentence...
his dreadful voice no more
Would thunder in my ears." (Adam, X.774 - 780)
“We’ve totally mucked this up, and our kids are gonna justifiably hate us because we got kicked out of Paradise, and maybe we should just quit while we’re behind.”
But really, the whole thing is worth it. Took me a while – it’s intense stuff, so I found that I had to read a book and then chew on it for a while to process it before moving to the next one – but it’s cool.
In book VIII, if you’re cosmologically minded, Milton lays out the whole universe. Like Giordano Bruno, he understands that our earth is a tiny speck in the universe, and he gets that all the stars are suns like ours, and therefore could have planets like ours around them. He also thinks they might be inhabited; our species might not be God's only experiment. Elsewhere, other Adams and Eves may have faced the same test of the Tree of Knowledge - and they might have passed it. Isn't that an amazing thought?
In books XI and XII, Michael tells Adam sortof all the rest of the stories in the Old Testament, which of course boil down to:
“So shall the world go on,
To good malignant, to bad men benign,
Under her own weight groaning.” (XII 537 – 539)
That’s your fault there, Adam. Nice work.
He rushes through them though, and it makes me wonder whether Milton had originally intended to retell the entire Old Testament but got bored or intimidated or something. That would’ve been remarkable. Certainly Paradise Lost is better literature than the Old Testament is, and significantly more coherent.
It’s also better literature than almost everything else. It’s pretty awesome. Probably the second-best poem by a blind guy ever. I give it two thumbs up. - Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I originally read this in response to finishing The Golden Compass series. Pullman spoke about Paradise Lost as one of the main inspirations for some of his thinking. Though I did study literature, I never had any intention of reading this work. I am so glad that I did. There are lines in there that move the heart and mind of course, the imagery gave me bad dreams, and it the experience is something that I will keep forever.Talk about closure, the last lines gave me so much hope and made me feel electric.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Milton wrote a great poem but it's also a byproduct of its day - 1667 - and he views events and characters very much through the male gaze; as do all organized religions and which the poem references. Thus, the apple on the tree of knowledge was (imo) something a religious-minded white Portuguese male would regard as sinful. As it stands, the sin no longer applies. It is 2005, eating the apple amounts to doing just that; eating an apple. Unless you have the apple representing something else, i.e., update the sin attached to it. What if it the apple was meant to test the consequence of giving Adam and Eve free will? See what they'd do with it? It's almost as if Satan was allowed to escape hell because it was part of God's bigger plan. Of course - so that man could LOVE God of his own free will. Even the simple act of eating does of course symbolise our interactivity, our symbiosis, with nature - that in itself bears a responsibility. So, the apple was an interface in a way between mankind abnegating responsibility to God's will and being participatory in it instead. That's Evolution! Moral certainty of sin/grace evolved too - quite rightly into today's concept of contingency and context.In my book Milton is the main man, the Yeats of his day, but with a much less comedic outcome and overall strike rate of gags. Cromwell’s PR man and a life spiralling out of control, the linguistic mouthpiece for himself first and discovered deeper than anyone sane person would hope to emulate or seriously hope to outlive as a narrative of reality the fates allotted exquisitely and which has long been understood in the brythonic tradition, that each life is unique and a poem in itself. Milton went blind, the cruelest fate but one which propelled him to the highest ridge of poetic attainment, forged in the turbulent bloodletting in which his first robust roar for himself first as the poet of a revolution; like Mayakovsky, fate put him in a certain space and time and he surrendered to the powerful spiritual combination of his intellect and passion, and it is befitting, though entirely tragic, that the first seriously poetic cornerstone figure whose gravitas came from the real life antics his person was part and often a central linguistic force affecting not to mirror as the Luna light of William Shakespeare did in far less personally turbulent times when he struck the primary metrical coinage of modern English bardic lore; but acting as the show and pazzaz, the me, me, me of being needy, very clever, broke the mould and everyone since conspires to make the best of a poor do with this chap, who let's face it, we read far less of than beyond a few verses before switching off, knowing we are being offered caviar, but preferring instead the real staple of British poetic. Rustics we are, as well as morons clotted whimsies, we indulge in because intellectually, we are all “me arse”, and as Graves said, admitting Milton is the British genius, should not blind us to the basic error which is the very grain, grease and premise of poetry, the binary opposite set of circumstance and premise which create the journey and object of linguistic artifice we call poetry.And Milton discovered it at a terrible cost of a new national poetic born in less than charitable times, a most intellectually fascinating, but less natural than Shakespeare; he’s a great source of refuge for the fire and brimstone mobs; one can imagine his frenzies fed to direct action, like Cromwell, possessed by a warp spasm of uncontrollable madness when the Muse was in full flight, inventing the terrors only too, too real, and so Milton is extremely strong proof, best for whipping one's rabble into shape with him and Cromwell, two very divisive national martyrs who have a high regard domestically but globally are seen as fundamentally flawed perhaps; life's too short for taking on Milton in one mad binge, and really one needs next to none of him, as he cannot be cooked up to offer us anything other than mad loathing and foaming, a terrible wisdom bought at horrific cost, and after him the artificial decorum of the new bores in the coffee shops which exploded in 18th Century London, where Horribles got together and bitched, the blind leading the suicidal bad vibe, which I think it is fair to say, is essentially, supremely competitive.Please adopt me as your protégé Milton; I want to carry the rumens' flame to the next generation of young poets seeking to set out into the treacherous straits of amateur verse, just how to set about switching over to be a pro, to attain that gravitas only our most ennobling examples of savvy exotica we concoct in the thoroughly unpleasant and incredibly jealous septic tank heritage Milton and various other chaps had no fun inventing.NB: My wife and I once saw a dramatisation of “Paradise Lost”. In the first, before the Fall scenes, Adam and Eve were completely naked in the Garden of Eden and, no doubt as a result of their cuddling, Adam soon got rather a splendid but no doubt unwanted, erection. This distraction was, as I pointed out to my wife, sadly appropriate since the early Christian church maintained that before the Fall, Adam was able to control his penis at will. This postlapsarian actor, of course, could not.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This was somewhat slow going, but worth the effort to persevere with it. I had the oxford Classics verison, which phas an essay at the beginning to put the poem into context, which was helpful. it also had footnotes for references in the text to classical legends and diffiocult worrds or phrasings, which was very useful!
The text concerns the biblical acocunt of creaction and the expulsion of Adam & Eve from paradise - hence the title. Regardless of if you believe, it makes for a really good read, but takes a little effort to get into it each time. The text has a hypnotic flow and rhythm to it. Tthe language is sometimes a little obscure, but not excessively so, it isn't like every line requires serious explanation. There are also a large number of legends worked into the text, all building this into a complex mass of intertwined threads, rather than a straightforward retelling of the same story. It is also one of those works that you realise has been referenced in other books you've read - the number of times I found myself thinking "I've read something like that before" and realising that it was a reference to Milton that I'd not known at the time. It was excellent, but I'm going for something a little lighter next time! - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I'd be lying if I said I understood and enjoyed every word of Paradise Lost, but there's no getting around the fact that it's beautiful and terrifying and provoking. It's definitely a book that requires many rereadings.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I read this many years ago and thought that it was actually a very fascinating read compared to other literature of its day. I loved the style and language in which it was written, and I think that makes me enjoy it all the more. I am sure that I will read it again very soon.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I expected to have more trouble reading Milton's Paradise Lost than I actually did, mostly because it's written in blank verse. As a matter of fact, that didn't matter much. It flows wonderfully and it's great to read aloud. The rhythms and the way the words were strung together were just lovely -- my synaesthesia just pretty much regarded it as a feast! I also enjoyed the classical sort of structure, which reminded me of the Aeneid.
I didn't so much enjoy the characterisation of Eve or the angels, and it doesn't fit with my view of Christianity, but that didn't keep from enjoying reading it. - Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This was very powerful. I am not the most religious person in the world, but I found the subject matter intensely interesting. The poetic beauty of Milton words captivated me throughout the course of the work. Sadly, I tried "Paradise Regained" but I did not get far into the read before I became disinterested. I guess we are fascinated more by evil than goodness. Sad. I may retry "Paradise Regained" but I fail to see how it can be as moving as "Paradise Lost."
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Certainly one of the best poems ever written in English!
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5861 Paradise Lost, by John Milton (read 24 Jul 1966) I read this in full and felt it was good to have read it. From it I extracted one of my favorite sayings: "The mind is its own place, and in itselfCan make a Heav'n of Hell, a Hell of Heav'n." This is in Book I, line 253.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Formidabel kosmisch epos, met vooral in de eerste helft grote scheppende kracht, maar daarna “verworden” tot een uitgebreide navertelling van Genesis. Nochtans zijn de delen over het scheppingverhaal en de menselijke zondeval (vooral de interactie tussen Adam en Eva is meest poëtisch). Weinig actie, behalve in de strijdtaferelen, de tweede helft is vooral verhalend
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5As this was my first epic read, I cannot profess to be well-trained as to the vastness of other works, but the beauty of this work lies in its broad overview of Scripture, character, and life. Not merely striking the main points of Eden, as I was expecting, but surveying large portions of history. It felt huge without being overly laborious to read.The wording was not nearly as stilted as I was lead to believe it would be, though at times the footnotes were indispensable--I am still rather ignorant of many of his references.A wonderful work that I hope to reread in time.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This one definitely makes the short list of must reads. It's great poetry and I enjoyed the effect of its having originally been in English. It's also a great interpretation of the creation story; I observed a number of new ideas as well as some that I myself have posited and refuted. More than anything else I've read, Milton does a superb job of bringing out the essence of the situation, the passions that were felt, and the reason for each event.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5We had read selections of this book in my AP Lit class in high school, but as always, selections don't tell the whole story. I love reading religious literature, and this being one of the most famous epic poems in that genre, I quite enjoyed it. As an interesting aside, I did, however, find Lucifer/Satan to be far more sympathetic than he comes across in the Bible. I don't know if this was intentional on Milton's part, or simply something that was a result of describing his motivations.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Quite a read for a poet! My first journey with an epic poem in its entirety, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Too many lines of good verses to name--phrases that inspired me for their deft command of language--and a great amount of passages that left me feeling triumphant. One of the simplest lines I liked the most, spoken to the Son: "Two days are therefore pass'd, the third is thine"; and a favorite passage, sung to the Creator: "Who seeks To lessen thee, against his purpose serves To manifest the more thy might: his evil Thou usest, and from thence creat'st more good."I was impressed with what creativity the characters' experiences and emotions were developed. Story-wise, my favorite character is the Son, the unmatched warrior amid all the hosts of heaven who compassionately serves as intercessor for fallen humankind. This classic presents a challenge to me, both as a poet and as a novelist.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This epic poem is stunning; a magnificent read all the way. I loved it.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Don't care if it's blasphemy, Satan is awesome!!! He becomes a character that drives a much needed retelling of Genesis. Milton knew how to use his character and his words to create a book that was one of only two that would usually be found in anyone's house during the 18th and 19th century.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I had dreaded taking a class on this but ended up absolutely loving the text. I didn't like my professor and his ideas so much, but found that the text stands on its own as excellent literature, which is something I can't say for Shakespeare.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Read many years ago, but still amazes at every re-perusal. Shows that even for a person of Milton's erudition, devotion and great idealism Adam, Eve, and Satan are easier to portray than God. But his ardent and humble invocations of the divine Spirit did not , in my opinion, go completely unanswered!
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Okay, I only read part of it, and it was for college. It was incredibly well written and entertaining. My only issue is the complete lack of biblical credibility. It's LOOSELY based on the three little chapters that it covers in the Bible and takes A LOT of artistic license. In doing so, it tells a few outright lies.
I take comfort in that I doubt anyone takes their biblical knowledge from it. - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I have been wanting/intending to read this for a long time. I don't think I was ever required to read it in school other than maybe some small excerpts. I've always enjoyed epic poetry like this and found Milton's imagery and language exceptional. On the down side, I was struck by his negative portrayal of Eve (Adam, of course, was pure as the driven snow until he ate the apple just to please her) and her exclusion from many of the scenes highlighted Milton's patriarchal bias.Aesthetically, this edition by the Folio Society is awesome. Blake's illustrations are magnificent and the layout and design of the edition is impressive. The choice of font and it's size makes it much easier for me to read then when I attempt to read a long poem like this stuffed into small print.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Even though I don't hold with religious belief, that didn't stop me from adoring Dante's Divine Comedy and I've loved Homer's epic poems. Yet I can't say that Milton's Paradise Lost spoke to me. Much of the poem felt repetitive and bloated with discourses on such matters as heliocentric theory. His recapitulation of Genesis is part plagiarism, part bizarre twisting. (Among other things, according to Milton, "God the Son" who would become Jesus was really the Creator.) Unlike Dante, who never lost the human even when dealing with the divine, in Paradise Lost so much is focused on God, Satan, and their angelic allies. Only Adam and Eve are human--and the depiction of Eve gave me no end of problems. And unlike others Milton is compared to such as Homer, Dante, Chaucer and Shakespeare, if Milton has a sense of humor, I completely missed it.I did recognize passages of beauty and grandeur in Paradise Lost, but rather disconcertingly they were almost always spoken by Satan. "The Mind is its own place and itself can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven." "Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven." Ironically, according to the introduction to the edition I read, Milton was himself a rebel. He supported Cromwell's republic which executed a anointed monarch and argued against censorship in his treatise Areopagitica. It seems incongruous that in Paradise Lost he seeks to "justify the ways of God to men" by making disobedience and a desire for knowledge the root of all evil. So maybe it's not that surprising that Romantics such as Shelley and Blake would see Satan as the hero of Milton's epic. Especially since Milton's God has all the hallmarks of a despot. Milton describes God as a "sov'reign King;" the purpose of angels and humans is to praise (flatter) him, he's arbitrary, capricious and rigid in his commands, jealous of his power, willing to sacrifice others for his ends and decrees "torture without end."I found it hard not to gag at the depiction of Eve from the start who says to Adam, "God is thy law, thou mine." It's not all negative. It's through Eve that Milton depicts humans arriving at self-awareness and Milton is sex positive. He insists the unFallen Adam and Eve had sex for instance and he supports marriage. But Milton emphasizes Eve's subordination, inferiority and centrality to the human tragedy throughout. Says Adam:Of Nature her the inferior, in the mindAnd inward faculties, which most excel;In outward also her resembling lessHis image who made both, and less expressingThe character of that dominion givenO'er other creatures. God sends a warning through the Angel Raphael to Adam--not Eve--merely telling him "to warn thy weaker." Eve succumbs because of flattery and vanity. Adam disobeys God out of love, joining her in sin because he fears otherwise they'd be divided. So woman is weak in herself--man only if and when he's weakened by woman. "Sin" is also female with parallels to Eve--a grotesque demoness who is the daughter of Satan and through an incestuous union with him the mother of Death. Both Sin and Eve are in league with Satan and bring death into creation.Unlike the case with Homer, I can't blame an initial negative reaction to Milton as the result of being forced to read him in school, a lack of maturity or a bad translation. Milton wrote in English and I've read Paradise Lost only recently for the first time. However, Milton greatly influenced the Romantic poets and even how many Christians see the story of Adam and Eve and Satan. Because of that I'm glad I read the poem and do encourage others to read it. Besides the glints of beauty, many of Milton's religious views are, well, unique. The glimpse of his political views are interesting too--almost libertarian.He gave us only over Beast, Fish, FowlDominion absolute; that right we holdBy his donation; but Man over menHe made not Lord; such title to himselfReserving, human left from human free.Nevertheless, unlike Homer or Dante, I can't by any means see Paradise Lost as a favorite or a work I'd ever reread nor am I tempted to read the sequel, Paradise Regained.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A 17th century epic of the Genesis account with references to classical mythology throughout. From the beginning formations of the earth to the design of paradise to the creation of Adam and Eve to the Fall. The idea behind the verse is that paradise is lost but hope still remains through Christ who will save the offspring of our first parents who sinned. Adam is shown a vision when his hope is diminished that encompasses all of humanity from Noah to Abraham to Joseph of Egypt to David and up through Christ’s birth and death. The world is corrupt but there is hope for all in the end. Very difficult but interesting to read; there are notes to help through all the references to the mythology and other passages that we today are unfamiliar with.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Another one of those freshman English assigments I cribbed my way through. When I reread it finally as an adult I was astonished. I returned to it because of Mike Carey's Lucifer and Steven Brust's To Reign in Hell, contemporary fantasy on the same themes. And I was surprised and delighted to find depth of character and excitement in a Stuffy Old Classic.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I wasn't exactly sure what I was getting myself into, but this telling of the creation and the expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise was entertaining even though the writing was a bit different from what I am used to.I found it amusing that according to Milton Sin and Death were the offspring of Satan and that Chaos' consort is Night with Confusion and Discord along for the ride.The manner of using words as names for creatures was very inventive.Rarely, do I like Classics this old, but this one worked f or me.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Milton gets extra points for scope and ambition, but I have to admit that he tends toward the preachy (rather than allowing his characters to illustrate their own morals), plus some of his theology struck me as a bit simple-minded. That said, the descriptions of hell remain both beautiful and terrible -- unparalleled in the English language.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I don't think anyone would say that Milton is an easy read, but it is worthwhile. The prose of Paradise Lost is some of the most beautiful in the English language.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I never would have picked this up on my own, but reading it for class gave me a real appreciation for all the effort Milton put in to composing this piece. It was fun to try to reconcile my own beliefs with what Milton puts forth as the narrative of the Fall(s), and after a while, I think I actually enjoyed reading it. Maybe. Or I just got used to it, at least.
Book preview
Paradise Lost - John Milton
XII
BOOK I
Of Man’s first disobedience, and the fruit
Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste
Brought death into the World, and all our woe,
With loss of Eden, till one greater Man
Restore us, and regain the blissful seat,
Sing, Heavenly Muse, that, on the secret top
Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire
That shepherd who first taught the chosen seed
In the beginning how the heavens and earth
Rose out of Chaos: or, if Sion hill
Delight thee more, and Siloa’s brook that flowed
Fast by the oracle of God, I thence
Invoke thy aid to my adventurous song,
That with no middle flight intends to soar
Above th’ Aonian mount, while it pursues
Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme.
And chiefly thou, O Spirit, that dost prefer
Before all temples th’ upright heart and pure,
Instruct me, for thou know’st; thou from the first
Wast present, and, with mighty wings outspread,
Dove-like sat’st brooding on the vast Abyss,
And mad’st it pregnant: what in me is dark
Illumine, what is low raise and support;
That, to the height of this great argument,
I may assert Eternal Providence,
And justify the ways of God to men.
Say first—for Heaven hides nothing from thy view,
Nor the deep tract of Hell—say first what cause
Moved our grand parents, in that happy state,
Favoured of Heaven so highly, to fall off
From their Creator, and transgress his will
For one restraint, lords of the World besides.
Who first seduced them to that foul revolt?
Th’ infernal Serpent; he it was whose guile,
Stirred up with envy and revenge, deceived
The mother of mankind, what time his pride
Had cast him out from Heaven, with all his host
Of rebel Angels, by whose aid, aspiring
To set himself in glory above his peers,
He trusted to have equalled the Most High,
If he opposed, and with ambitious aim
Against the throne and monarchy of God,
Raised impious war in Heaven and battle proud,
With vain attempt. Him the Almighty Power
Hurled headlong flaming from th’ ethereal sky,
With hideous ruin and combustion, down
To bottomless perdition, there to dwell
In adamantine chains and penal fire,
Who durst defy th’ Omnipotent to arms.
Nine times the space that measures day and night
To mortal men, he, with his horrid crew,
Lay vanquished, rolling in the fiery gulf,
Confounded, though immortal. But his doom
Reserved him to more wrath; for now the thought
Both of lost happiness and lasting pain
Torments him: round he throws his baleful eyes,
That witnessed huge affliction and dismay,
Mixed with obdurate pride and steadfast hate.
At once, as far as Angels ken, he views
The dismal situation waste and wild.
A dungeon horrible, on all sides round,
As one great furnace flamed; yet from those flames
No light; but rather darkness visible
Served only to discover sights of woe,
Regions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace
And rest can never dwell, hope never comes
That comes to all, but torture without end
Still urges, and a fiery deluge, fed
With ever-burning sulphur unconsumed.
Such place Eternal Justice has prepared
For those rebellious; here their prison ordained
In utter darkness, and their portion set,
As far removed from God and light of Heaven
As from the centre thrice to th’ utmost pole.
Oh how unlike the place from whence they fell!
There the companions of his fall, o’erwhelmed
With floods and whirlwinds of tempestuous fire,
He soon discerns; and, weltering by his side,
One next himself in power, and next in crime,
Long after known in Palestine, and named
Beelzebub. To whom th’ Arch-Enemy,
And thence in Heaven called Satan, with bold words
Breaking the horrid silence, thus began:—
"If thou beest he—but O how fallen! how changed
From him who, in the happy realms of light
Clothed with transcendent brightness, didst outshine
Myriads, though bright!—if he whom mutual league,
United thoughts and counsels, equal hope
And hazard in the glorious enterprise
Joined with me once, now misery hath joined
In equal ruin; into what pit thou seest
From what height fallen: so much the stronger proved
He with his thunder; and till then who knew
The force of those dire arms? Yet not for those,
Nor what the potent Victor in his rage
Can else inflict, do I repent, or change,
Though changed in outward lustre, that fixed mind,
And high disdain from sense of injured merit,
That with the Mightiest raised me to contend,
And to the fierce contentions brought along
Innumerable force of Spirits armed,
That durst dislike his reign, and, me preferring,
His utmost power with adverse power opposed
In dubious battle on the plains of Heaven,
And shook his throne. What though the field be lost?
All is not lost—the unconquerable will,
And study of revenge, immortal hate,
And courage never to submit or yield:
And what is else not to be overcome?
That glory never shall his wrath or might
Extort from me. To bow and sue for grace
With suppliant knee, and deify his power
Who, from the terror of this arm, so late
Doubted his empire—that were low indeed;
That were an ignominy and shame beneath
This downfall; since, by fate, the strength of Gods,
And this empyreal sybstance, cannot fail;
Since, through experience of this great event,
In arms not worse, in foresight much advanced,
We may with more successful hope resolve
To wage by force or guile eternal war,
Irreconcilable to our grand Foe,
Who now triumphs, and in th’ excess of joy
Sole reigning holds the tyranny of Heaven."
So spake th’ apostate Angel, though in pain,
Vaunting aloud, but racked with deep despair;
And him thus answered soon his bold compeer:—
"O Prince, O Chief of many throned Powers
That led th’ embattled Seraphim to war
Under thy conduct, and, in dreadful deeds
Fearless, endangered Heaven’s perpetual King,
And put to proof his high supremacy,
Whether upheld by strength, or chance, or fate,
Too well I see and rue the dire event
That, with sad overthrow and foul defeat,
Hath lost us Heaven, and all this mighty host
In horrible destruction laid thus low,
As far as Gods and heavenly Essences
Can perish: for the mind and spirit remains
Invincible, and vigour soon returns,
Though all our glory extinct, and happy state
Here swallowed up in endless misery.
But what if he our Conqueror (whom I now
Of force believe almighty, since no less
Than such could have o’erpowered such force as ours)
Have left us this our spirit and strength entire,
Strongly to suffer and support our pains,
That we may so suffice his vengeful ire,
Or do him mightier service as his thralls
By right of war, whate’er his business be,
Here in the heart of Hell to work in fire,
Or do his errands in the gloomy Deep?
What can it the avail though yet we feel
Strength undiminished, or eternal being
To undergo eternal punishment?"
Whereto with speedy words th’ Arch-Fiend replied:—
"Fallen Cherub, to be weak is miserable,
Doing or suffering: but of this be sure—
To do aught good never will be our task,
But ever to do ill our sole delight,
As being the contrary to his high will
Whom we resist. If then his providence
Out of our evil seek to bring forth good,
Our labour must be to pervert that end,
And out of good still to find means of evil;
Which ofttimes may succeed so as perhaps
Shall grieve him, if I fail not, and disturb
His inmost counsels from their destined aim.
But see! the angry Victor hath recalled
His ministers of vengeance and pursuit
Back to the gates of Heaven: the sulphurous hail,
Shot after us in storm, o’erblown hath laid
The fiery surge that from the precipice
Of Heaven received us falling; and the thunder,
Winged with red lightning and impetuous rage,
Perhaps hath spent his shafts, and ceases now
To bellow through the vast and boundless Deep.
Let us not slip th’ occasion, whether scorn
Or satiate fury yield it from our Foe.
Seest thou yon dreary plain, forlorn and wild,
The seat of desolation, void of light,
Save what the glimmering of these livid flames
Casts pale and dreadful? Thither let us tend
From off the tossing of these fiery waves;
There rest, if any rest can harbour there;
And, re-assembling our afflicted powers,
Consult how we may henceforth most offend
Our enemy, our own loss how repair,
How overcome this dire calamity,
What reinforcement we may gain from hope,
If not, what resolution from despair."
Thus Satan, talking to his nearest mate,
With head uplift above the wave, and eyes
That sparkling blazed; his other parts besides
Prone on the flood, extended long and large,
Lay floating many a rood, in bulk as huge
As whom the fables name of monstrous size,
Titanian or Earth-born, that warred on Jove,
Briareos or Typhon, whom the den
By ancient Tarsus held, or that sea-beast
Leviathan, which God of all his works
Created hugest that swim th’ ocean-stream.
Him, haply slumbering on the Norway foam,
The pilot of some small night-foundered skiff,
Deeming some island, oft, as seamen tell,
With fixed anchor in his scaly rind,
Moors by his side under the lee, while night
Invests the sea, and wished morn delays.
So stretched out huge in length the Arch-fiend lay,
Chained on the burning lake; nor ever thence
Had risen, or heaved his head, but that the will
And high permission of all-ruling Heaven
Left him at large to his own dark designs,
That with reiterated crimes he might
Heap on himself damnation, while he sought
Evil to others, and enraged might see
How all his malice served but to bring forth
Infinite goodness, grace, and mercy, shewn
On Man by him seduced, but on himself
Treble confusion, wrath, and vengeance poured.
Forthwith upright he rears from off the pool
His mighty stature; on each hand the flames
Driven backward slope their pointing spires, and rolled
In billows, leave i’ th’ midst a horrid vale.
Then with expanded wings he steers his flight
Aloft, incumbent on the dusky air,
That felt unusual weight; till on dry land
He lights—if it were land that ever burned
With solid, as the lake with liquid fire,
And such appeared in hue as when the force
Of subterranean wind transports a hill
Torn from Pelorus, or the shattered side
Of thundering Etna, whose combustible
And fuelled entrails, thence conceiving fire,
Sublimed with mineral fury, aid the winds,
And leave a singed bottom all involved
With stench and smoke. Such resting found the sole
Of unblest feet. Him followed his next mate;
Both glorying to have scaped the Stygian flood
As gods, and by their own recovered strength,
Not by the sufferance of supernal Power.
Is this the region, this the soil, the clime,
Said then the lost Archangel, "this the seat
That we must change for Heaven?—this mournful gloom
For that celestial light? Be it so, since he
Who now is sovereign can dispose and bid
What shall be right: farthest from him is best
Whom reason hath equalled, force hath made supreme
Above his equals. Farewell, happy fields,
Where joy for ever dwells! Hail, horrors! hail,
Infernal world! and thou, profoundest Hell,
Receive thy new possessor—one who brings
A mind not to be changed by place or time.
The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.
What matter where, if I be still the same,
And what I should be, all but less than he
Whom thunder hath made greater? Here at least
We shall be free; th’ Almighty hath not built
Here for his envy, will not drive us hence:
Here we may reign secure; and, in my choice,
To reign is worth ambition, though in Hell:
Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.
But wherefore let we then our faithful friends,
Th’ associates and co-partners of our loss,
Lie thus astonished on th’ oblivious pool,
And call them not to share with us their part
In this unhappy mansion, or once more
With rallied arms to try what may be yet
Regained in Heaven, or what more lost in Hell?"
So Satan spake; and him Beelzebub
Thus answered:—"Leader of those armies bright
Which, but th’ Omnipotent, none could have foiled!
If once they hear that voice, their liveliest pledge
Of hope in fears and dangers—heard so oft
In worst extremes, and on the perilous edge
Of battle, when it raged, in all assaults
Their surest signal—they will soon resume
New courage and revive, though now they lie
Grovelling and prostrate on yon lake of fire,
As we erewhile, astounded and amazed;
No wonder, fallen such a pernicious height!"
He scare had ceased when the superior Fiend
Was moving toward the shore; his ponderous shield,
Ethereal temper, massy, large, and round,
Behind him cast. The broad circumference
Hung on his shoulders like the moon, whose orb
Through optic glass the Tuscan artist views
At evening, from the top of Fesole,
Or in Valdarno, to descry new lands,
Rivers, or mountains, in her spotty globe.
His spear—to equal which the tallest pine
Hewn on Norwegian hills, to be the mast
Of some great ammiral, were but a wand—
He walked with, to support uneasy steps
Over the burning marl, not like those steps
On Heaven’s azure; and the torrid clime
Smote on him sore besides, vaulted with fire.
Nathless he so endured, till on the beach
Of that inflamed sea he stood, and called
His legions—Angel Forms, who lay entranced
Thick as autumnal leaves that strow the brooks
In Vallombrosa, where th’ Etrurian shades
High over-arched embower; or scattered sedge
Afloat, when with fierce winds Orion armed
Hath vexed the Red-Sea coast, whose waves o’erthrew
Busiris and his Memphian chivalry,
While with perfidious hatred they pursued
The sojourners of Goshen, who beheld
From the safe shore their floating carcases
And broken chariot-wheels. So thick bestrown,
Abject and lost, lay these, covering the flood,
Under amazement of their hideous change.
He called so loud that all the hollow deep
Of Hell resounded:—"Princes, Potentates,
Warriors, the Flower of Heaven—once yours; now lost,
If such astonishment as this can seize
Eternal Spirits! Or have ye chosen this place
After the toil of battle to repose
Your wearied virtue, for the ease you find
To slumber here, as in the vales of Heaven?
Or in this abject posture have ye sworn
To adore the Conqueror, who now beholds
Cherub and Seraph rolling in the flood
With scattered arms and ensigns, till anon
His swift pursuers from Heaven-gates discern
Th’ advantage, and, descending, tread us down
Thus drooping, or with linked thunderbolts
Transfix us to the bottom of this gulf?
Awake, arise, or be for ever fallen!"
They heard, and were abashed, and up they sprung
Upon the wing, as when men wont to watch
On duty, sleeping found by whom they dread,
Rouse and bestir themselves ere well awake.
Nor did they not perceive the evil plight
In which they were, or the fierce pains not feel;
Yet to their General’s voice they soon obeyed
Innumerable. As when the potent rod
Of Amram’s son, in Egypt’s evil day,
Waved round the coast, up-called a pitchy cloud
Of locusts, warping on the eastern wind,
That o’er the realm of impious Pharaoh hung
Like Night, and darkened all the land of Nile;
So numberless were those bad Angels seen
Hovering on wing under the cope of Hell,
’Twixt upper, nether, and surrounding fires;
Till, as a signal given, th’ uplifted spear
Of their great Sultan waving to direct
Their course, in even balance down they light
On the firm brimstone, and fill all the plain:
A multitude like which the populous North
Poured never from her frozen loins to pass
Rhene or the Danaw, when her barbarous sons
Came like a deluge on the South, and spread
Beneath Gibraltar to the Libyan sands.
Forthwith, form every squadron and each band,
The heads and leaders thither haste where stood
Their great Commander—godlike Shapes, and Forms
Excelling human; princely Dignities;
And Powers that erst in Heaven sat on thrones,
Though on their names in Heavenly records now
Be no memorial, blotted out and rased
By their rebellion from the Books of Life.
Nor had they yet among the sons of Eve
Got them new names, till, wandering o’er the earth,
Through God’s high sufferance for the trial of man,
By falsities and lies the greatest part
Of mankind they corrupted to forsake
God their Creator, and th’ invisible
Glory of him that made them to transform
Oft to the image of a brute, adorned
With gay religions full of pomp and gold,
And devils to adore for deities:
Then were they known to men by various names,
And various idols through the heathen world.
Say, Muse, their names then known, who first, who last,
Roused from the slumber on that fiery couch,
At their great Emperor’s call, as next in worth
Came singly where he stood on the bare strand,
While the promiscuous crowd stood yet aloof?
The chief were those who, from the pit of Hell
Roaming to seek their prey on Earth, durst fix
Their seats, long after, next the seat of God,
Their altars by his altar, gods adored
Among the nations round, and durst abide
Jehovah thundering out of Sion, throned
Between the Cherubim; yea, often placed
Within his sanctuary itself their shrines,
Abominations; and with cursed things
His holy rites and solemn feasts profaned,
And with their darkness durst affront his light.
First, Moloch, horrid king, besmeared with blood
Of human sacrifice, and parents’ tears;
Though, for the noise of drums and timbrels loud,
Their children’s cries unheard that passed through fire
To his grim idol. Him the Ammonite
Worshiped in Rabba and her watery plain,
In Argob and in Basan, to the stream
Of utmost Arnon. Nor content with such
Audacious neighbourhood, the wisest heart
Of Solomon he led by fraud to build
His temple right against the temple of God
On that opprobrious hill, and made his grove
The pleasant valley of Hinnom, Tophet thence
And black Gehenna called, the type of Hell.
Next Chemos, th’ obscene dread of Moab’s sons,
From Aroar to Nebo and the wild
Of southmost Abarim; in Hesebon
And Horonaim, Seon’s real, beyond
The flowery dale of Sibma clad with vines,
And Eleale to th’ Asphaltic Pool:
Peor his other name, when he enticed
Israel in Sittim, on their march from Nile,
To do him wanton rites, which cost them woe.
Yet thence his lustful orgies he enlarged
Even to that hill of scandal, by the grove
Of Moloch homicide, lust hard by hate,
Till good Josiah drove them thence to Hell.
With these came they who, from the bordering flood
Of old Euphrates to the brook that parts
Egypt from Syrian ground, had general names
Of Baalim and Ashtaroth—those male,
These feminine. For Spirits, when they please,
Can either sex assume, or both; so soft
And uncompounded is their essence pure,
Not tried or manacled with joint or limb,
Nor founded on the brittle strength of bones,
Like cumbrous flesh; but, in what shape they choose,
Dilated or condensed, bright or obscure,
Can execute their airy purposes,
And works of love or enmity fulfil.
For those the race of Israel oft forsook
Their Living Strength, and unfrequented left
His righteous altar, bowing lowly down
To bestial gods; for which their heads as low
Bowed down in battle, sunk before the spear
Of despicable foes. With these in troop
Came Astoreth, whom the Phoenicians called
Astarte, queen of heaven, with crescent horns;
To whose bright image nightly by the moon
Sidonian virgins paid their vows and songs;
In Sion also not unsung, where stood
Her temple on th’ offensive mountain, built
By that uxorious king whose heart, though large,
Beguiled by fair idolatresses, fell
To idols foul. Thammuz came next behind,
Whose annual wound in Lebanon allured
The Syrian damsels to lament his fate
In amorous ditties all a summer’s day,
While smooth Adonis from his native rock
Ran purple to the sea, supposed with blood
Of Thammuz yearly wounded: the love-tale
Infected Sion’s daughters with like heat,
Whose wanton passions in the sacred porch
Ezekiel saw, when, by the vision led,
His eye surveyed the dark idolatries
Of alienated Judah. Next came one
Who mourned in earnest, when the captive ark
Maimed his brute image, head and hands lopt off,
In his own temple, on the grunsel-edge,
Where he fell flat and shamed his worshippers:
Dagon his name, sea-monster, upward man
And downward fish; yet had his temple high
Reared in Azotus, dreaded through the coast
Of Palestine, in Gath and Ascalon,
And Accaron and Gaza’s frontier bounds.
Him followed Rimmon, whose delightful seat
Was fair Damascus, on the fertile banks
Of Abbana and Pharphar, lucid streams.
He also against the house of God was bold:
A leper once he lost, and gained a king—
Ahaz, his sottish conqueror, whom he drew
God’s altar to disparage and displace
For one of Syrian mode, whereon to burn
His odious offerings, and adore the gods
Whom he had vanquished. After these appeared
A crew who, under names of old renown—
Osiris, Isis, Orus, and their train—
With monstrous shapes and sorceries abused
Fanatic Egypt and her priests to seek
Their wandering gods disguised in brutish forms
Rather than human. Nor did Israel scape
Th’ infection, when their borrowed gold composed
The calf in Oreb; and the rebel king
Doubled that sin in Bethel and in Dan,
Likening his Maker to the grazed ox—
Jehovah, who, in one night, when he passed
From Egypt marching, equalled with one stroke
Both her first-born and all her bleating gods.
Belial came last; than whom a Spirit more lewd
Fell not from Heaven, or more gross to love
Vice for itself. To him no temple stood
Or altar smoked; yet who more oft than he
In temples and at altars, when the priest
Turns atheist, as did Eli’s sons, who filled
With lust and violence the house of God?
In courts and palaces he also reigns,
And in luxurious cities, where the noise
Of riot ascends above their loftiest towers,
And injury and outrage; and, when night
Darkens the streets, then wander forth the sons
Of Belial, flown with insolence and wine.
Witness the streets of Sodom, and that night
In Gibeah, when the hospitable door
Exposed a matron, to avoid worse rape.
These were the prime in order and in might:
The rest were long to tell; though far renowned
Th’ Ionian gods—of Javan’s issue held
Gods, yet confessed later than Heaven and Earth,
Their boasted parents;—Titan, Heaven’s first-born,
With his enormous brood, and birthright seized
By younger Saturn: he from mightier Jove,
His own and Rhea’s son, like measure found;
So Jove usurping reigned. These, first in Crete
And Ida known, thence on the snowy top
Of cold Olympus ruled the middle air,
Their highest heaven; or on the Delphian cliff,
Or in Dodona, and through all the bounds
Of Doric land; or who with Saturn old
Fled over Adria to th’ Hesperian fields,
And o’er the Celtic roamed the utmost Isles.
All these and more came flocking; but with looks
Downcast and damp; yet such wherein appeared
Obscure some glimpse of joy to have found their Chief
Not in despair, to have found themselves not lost
In loss itself; which on his countenance cast
Like doubtful hue. But he, his wonted pride
Soon recollecting, with high words, that bore
Semblance of worth, not substance, gently raised
Their fainting courage, and dispelled their fears.
Then straight commands that, at the warlike sound
Of trumpets loud and clarions, be upreared
His mighty standard. That proud honour claimed
Azazel as his right, a Cherub tall:
Who forthwith from the glittering staff unfurled
Th’ imperial