Read Paradise Lost (Modern Library Classics) Online
Authors: John Milton,William Kerrigan,John Rumrich,Stephen M. Fallon
Paradise Lost (Modern Library Classics) (27 page)
1034.
sacred influence
: Light is inseparable from God himself (3.1–6). Its influence, whether sunlight or starlight, is the chief agent of creative growth; see 4.661–73, 6.476–81, 9.107, 192.
1039.
her outmost works
: Nature’s
works
are fortifications against the tumult of chaos.
1043.
holds
: maintains heading for.
1044.
shrouds and tackle
: rigging on a sailing ship; cp.
SA
198–200, 717.
1046.
Weighs
: holds steady.
1048.
undetermined
: The expanse of Heaven is so vast that one cannot tell whether it is circular or square.
1050.
living
: in its native condition and site, unlike Satan, whose connection with his
native seat
and the source of his being lies irretrievably in the past. The walls are also, like everything in Heaven, living in the literal sense (6.860–61, 878–79).
1052.
pendant world
: the entire universe, hanging like a jewel on a chain.
1055.
hies
: hastens. “Milton begins Book 3 with the same alliteration” (Leonard).
OOK
III
T
HE
A
RGUMENT
God sitting on his throne sees Satan flying towards this world, then newly created; shows him to the Son who sat at his right hand; foretells the success of Satan in perverting mankind; clears his own justice and wisdom from all imputation, having created man free and able enough to have withstood his tempter; yet declares his purpose of grace towards him, in regard he fell not of his own malice, as did Satan, but by him seduced. The Son of God renders praises to his Father for the manifestation of his gracious purpose towards man; but God again declares that grace cannot be extended towards man without the satisfaction of divine justice; man hath offended the majesty of God by aspiring to Godhead, and therefore with all his progeny devoted to death must die, unless someone can be found sufficient to answer for his offense, and undergo his punishment. The Son of God freely offers himself a ransom for man: the Father accepts him, ordains his incarnation, pronounces his exaltation above all names in Heaven and Earth, commands all the angels to adore him. They obey, and hymning to their harps in full choir, celebrate the Father and the Son. Meanwhile Satan alights upon the bare convex of this world’s outermost orb; where wandering he first finds a place since called the Limbo of Vanity; what persons and things fly up thither; thence comes to the gate of Heaven, described ascending by stairs, and the waters above the firmament that flow about it: his passage thence to the orb of the sun; he finds there Uriel the regent of that orb, but first changes himself into the shape of a meaner angel; and pretending a zealous desire to behold the new creation and man whom God had placed here, inquires of him the place of his habitation, and is directed; alights first on Mount Niphates.
Hail holy light
1
, offspring of Heav’n first-born,
Or of th’
2
Eternal coeternal beam
May I express
3
thee unblamed? Since God is light,
And never but in unapproachèd light
4
Dwelt from eternity, dwelt then in thee,
Bright effluence
6
of bright essence increate.
Or hear’st thou rather
7
pure ethereal stream,
Whose fountain who shall tell
8
? Before the sun,
Before the heavens thou wert, and at the voice
Of God, as with a mantle didst invest
10
The rising world of waters dark and deep,
Won from the void and formless infinite
12
.
Thee I revisit now with bolder wing,
Escaped the Stygian pool
14
, though long detained
In that obscure sojourn
15
, while in my flight
Through utter and through middle darkness
16
borne
With other notes
17
than to th’ Orphean lyre
I sung of Chaos and eternal Night,
Taught by the Heav’nly Muse
19
to venture down
The dark descent, and up to reascend,
Though hard and rare
20
: thee I revisit safe,
And feel thy sov’reign vital lamp; but thou
Revisit’st not these eyes, that roll
23
in vain
To find thy piercing ray, and find no dawn;
So thick a drop serene
25
hath quenched their orbs,
Or dim suffusion
26
veiled. Yet not the more
Cease I to wander where the Muses haunt
27
Clear spring, or shady grove, or sunny hill,
Smit with the love of sacred song; but chief
Thee Sion
30
and the flow’ry brooks beneath
That wash thy hallowed feet, and warbling flow,
Nightly I visit: nor sometimes forget
Those other two equaled with me in fate,
So were I equaled with them in renown,
34
Blind Thamyris
35
and blind Maeonides,
And Tiresias
36
and Phineus prophets old.
Then feed on thoughts, that voluntary move
37
Harmonious numbers
38
; as the wakeful bird
Sings darkling
39
, and in shadiest covert hid
Tunes her nocturnal note. Thus with the year
Seasons return, but not to me returns
Day, or the sweet approach of ev’n or morn,
Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer’s rose,
Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine;
But cloud instead, and ever-during dark
Surrounds me, from the cheerful ways of men
Cut off, and for the book of knowledge
47
fair
Presented with a universal blank
48
Of Nature’s works to me expunged and razed
49
,
And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out.
So much the rather thou celestial light
Shine inward, and the mind through all her powers
Irradiate, there plant eyes, all mist from thence
Purge and disperse, that I may see and tell
Of things invisible to mortal sight.
Now had th’
56
Almighty Father from above,
From the pure empyrean where he sits
High throned above all highth, bent down his eye,
His own works and their works at once to view:
About him all the sanctities
60
of Heaven
Stood thick as stars, and from his sight received
Beatitude past utterance; on his right
62
The radiant image of his glory sat,
His only Son; on Earth he first beheld
Our two first parents, yet the only two
Of mankind, in the happy Garden placed,
Reaping immortal fruits of joy and love,
Uninterrupted joy, unrivaled love
In blissful solitude; he then surveyed
Hell and the gulf between, and Satan there
Coasting the wall of Heav’n on this side Night
71
In the dun air sublime
72
, and ready now
To stoop with wearied wings and willing feet
On the bare outside of this world
74
, that seemed
Firm land embosomed without firmament,
Uncertain which, in ocean or in air.
Him God beholding from his prospect high,
Wherein past, present, future he beholds,
Thus to his only Son foreseeing spake.
“Only begotten Son, seest thou what rage
Transports
81
our Adversary, whom no bounds
Prescribed, no bars of Hell, nor all the chains
Heaped on him there, nor yet the main abyss
83
Wide interrupt
84
can hold; so bent he seems
On desperate revenge, that shall redound
Upon his own rebellious head. And now
Through all restraint broke loose he wings his way
Not far off Heav’n, in the precincts of light,
Directly towards the new-created world,
And man there placed, with purpose to assay
90
If him by force he can destroy, or worse,
By some false guile pervert; and shall pervert;
For man will hearken to his glozing
93
lies,
And easily transgress the sole command,
Sole pledge of his obedience: so will fall
He and his faithless progeny: whose fault?
Whose but his own? Ingrate, he had of me
All he could have; I made him just and right,
Sufficient to have stood, though free to fall.
99
Such I created all th’ ethereal Powers
And spirits, both them who stood and them who failed;
Freely they stood who stood, and fell who fell.
Not free, what proof could they have giv’n sincere
Of true allegiance, constant faith or love,
Where only what they needs must do, appeared,
Not what they would? What praise could they receive?
What pleasure I from such obedience paid,
When will and reason (reason also is choice
108
)
Useless and vain, of freedom both despoiled,
Made passive both, had served necessity,
Not me. They therefore as to right belonged,
So were created, nor can justly accuse
Their Maker, or their making, or their fate,
As if predestination overruled
Their will, disposed by absolute decree
Or high foreknowledge; they themselves decreed
Their own revolt, not I: if I foreknew,
Foreknowledge had no influence on their fault,
Which had no less proved certain unforeknown
119
.
So without least impulse
120
or shadow of fate,
Or aught by me immutably foreseen,
They trespass, authors to themselves in all
Both what they judge and what they choose; for so
I formed them free, and free they must remain,
Till they enthrall themselves: I else must change
Their nature, and revoke the high decree
Unchangeable, eternal, which ordained
Their freedom; they themselves ordained their fall.
The first sort
129
by their own suggestion fell,
Self-tempted, self-depraved: man falls deceived
By the other first: man therefore shall find grace,
The other none: in mercy and justice both,
Through Heav’n and Earth, so shall my glory excel,
But mercy first and last shall brightest shine.”
Thus while God spake, ambrosial fragrance
135
filled
All Heav’n, and in the blessèd spirits elect
Sense of new joy ineffable diffused:
Beyond compare the Son of God was seen
Most glorious, in him all his Father shone
Substantially
140
expressed, and in his face
Divine compassion visibly
141
appeared,
Love without end, and without measure grace,
Which uttering
143
thus he to his Father spake.
“O Father, gracious was that word which closed
Thy sov’reign sentence, that man should find grace;
For which both Heav’n and Earth shall high extol
Thy praises, with th’ innumerable sound
Of hymns and sacred songs, wherewith thy throne
Encompassed shall resound thee ever blest.
For should man finally be lost, should man
Thy creature late so loved, thy youngest son
Fall circumvented
152
thus by fraud, though joined
With his own folly? That be from thee far,
153
That far be from thee, Father, who art judge
Of all things made, and judgest only right.
Or shall the Adversary thus obtain
His end, and frustrate thine, shall he fulfill
His malice, and thy goodness bring to naught,
Or proud return though to his heavier doom,
Yet with revenge accomplished and to Hell
Draw after him the whole race of mankind,
By him corrupted? Or wilt thou thyself
Abolish thy creation, and unmake,
For him, what for thy glory thou hast made?
So should thy goodness and thy greatness both
Be questioned and blasphemed
166
without defense.”
To whom the great Creator thus replied.
“O Son, in whom my soul hath chief delight,
168
Son of my bosom, Son who art alone
My Word
170
, my wisdom, and effectual might,
All hast thou spoken as my thoughts are, all
As my eternal purpose hath decreed:
Man shall not quite be lost, but saved who will,
Yet not
174
of will in him, but grace in me
Freely vouchsafed; once more I will renew
His lapsèd powers, though forfeit and enthralled
By sin to foul exorbitant desires;
Upheld by me, yet once more he shall stand
On even ground against his mortal foe,
By me upheld, that he may know how frail
His fall’n condition is, and to me owe
All his deliv’rance, and to none but me.
Some I have chosen of peculiar grace
183
Elect above the rest; so is my will:
The rest shall hear me call, and oft be warned
Their sinful state, and to appease betimes
186
Th’ incensèd
187
Deity, while offered grace
Invites; for I will clear their senses dark,
What may suffice, and soften stony hearts
189
To pray, repent, and bring obedience due.
To prayer, repentance, and obedience due,
Though but endeavored with sincere intent,
Mine ear shall not be slow, mine eye not shut.
And I will place within them as a guide
My umpire conscience, whom if they will hear,
Light after light well used they shall attain,
And to the end persisting
197
, safe arrive.
This my long sufferance and my day of grace
They who neglect and scorn, shall never taste;
But hard be hardened, blind be blinded more,
200
That they may stumble on, and deeper fall;
And none but such from mercy I exclude.
But yet all is not done; man disobeying,
Disloyal breaks his fealty
204
, and sins
Against the high supremacy of Heav’n,
Affecting Godhead, and so losing all,
To expiate his treason hath naught left,
But to destruction sacred and devote
208
,
He with his whole posterity must die,
Die he or Justice must; unless for him
Some other able, and as willing, pay
The rigid
212
satisfaction, death for death.
Say Heav’nly powers, where shall we find such love,
Which of ye will be mortal to redeem
Man’s mortal crime, and just
215
th’ unjust to save,
Dwells in all Heaven charity so dear?”
He asked, but all the Heav’nly choir stood mute,
And silence was in Heav’n: on man’s behalf
Patron or intercessor none appeared,
Much less that durst upon his own head draw
The deadly forfeiture, and ransom set
221
.
And now without redemption all mankind
Must have been lost, adjudged to death and Hell
By doom severe, had not the Son of God,
In whom the fullness dwells of love divine,
His dearest mediation
226
thus renewed.
“Father, thy word is past, man shall find grace;
And shall grace not find means, that finds her way,
The speediest of thy wingèd messengers,
To visit all thy creatures, and to all
Comes unprevented
231
, unimplored, unsought,
Happy for man, so coming; he her aid
Can never seek, once dead in sins
233
and lost;
Atonement for himself or offering meet
234
,
Indebted and undone, hath none to bring:
Behold me
236
then, me for him, life for life
I offer, on me let thine anger fall;
Account me man; I for his sake will leave
Thy bosom, and this glory next to thee
Freely put off, and for him lastly die
Well pleased, on me
241
let Death wreck all his rage;