Of public scorn; he wonder'd, but not long
Had leisure, wondering at himself now more ;
His visage drawn he felt to shape and spare ;
His arms clung to his ribs; his legs entwining
Each other, till supplanted down he fell
A monstrous serpent on his belly prone,
Reluctant, but in vain; a greater power
Now ruled him, punish'd in the shape he sinn'd,
According to his doom: he would have spoke,
But hiss for hiss return'd 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 tail,
Scorpion, and Asp, and Amphisæna dire,
Cerastes horn'd, Hydrus, and Elops drear,
And Dipsas (not so thick swarm'd once the soil
Be drop'd with blood of Gorgon, or the isle
Ophiusa ;) but still greatest he the midst,
Now Dragon grown, larger than whom the sun
Engender'd in the Pythian vale or 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 the open field,
Where all yet left of that revolted rout,
Heaven-fallen, in station stood or just array;
Sublime with expectation when to see
In triumph issuing forth their glorious chief;
They saw, but other sight instead! a crowd
Of ugly serpents: horror on them fell,
And horrid sympathy; for what they saw,

They felt themselves, now changing; down their arms Down fell both spear and shield; down they as fast; And the dire hiss renew'd, and the dire form

Catch'd by contagion; like in punishment,

As in their crime. Thus was the applause they meant Turn'd to exploding hiss, triumph to shame

Cast on themselves from their own mouths. There stood

A grove hard by, sprung up with this their change,
His will who reigns above, to aggravate

Their penance, laden with fair fruit, like that
Which grew in Paradise the bait of Eve

Used by the tempter: on that prospect strange
Their earnest eyes they fix'd, imagining
For one forbidden tree a multitude

Now risen, to work them further wo or shame;
Yet, parch'd with scalding thirst and hunger fierce,
Though to delude them sent, could not abstain;
But on they roll'd in heaps, and, up the trees
Climbing, sat thicker than the snaky locks
That curl'd Megara; greedily they pluck'd
The fruitage fair to sight, like that which grew
Near that bituminous lake where Sodom flamed;
This, more delusive, not the touch, but taste
Deceived; they, fondly thinking to allay
Their appetite with gust, instead of fruit
Chew'd bitter ashes, which the offended taste
With spattering noise rejected; oft they essay'd,
Hunger and thirst constraining; drugg'd as oft,
With hatefulest disrelish writhed their jaws,
With soot and cinders fill'd; so oft they fell
Into the same illusion, not as man

Whom they triumph'd once lapsed. Thus were they plagued
And worn with famine, long and ceaseless hiss,
Till their lost shape, permitted, they resumed;
Yearly enjoyn'd, some say, to undergo
This annual humbling certain number'd days,
To dash their pride and joy, for man seduced.
However, some tradition they dispersed
Among the heathen of their purchase got,
And fabled how the Serpent, whom they call'd
Ophion, with Eurynome, the wide
Encroaching Eve perhaps, had first the rule
Of high Olympus; thence by Satan driven

And Ops, ere yet Dictaan Jove was born.
Meanwhile in Paradise the Hellish pair
Too soon arrived; 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 thinkest thou of our empire now, though earned With travel difficulty, not better far

Than still at Hell's dark threshold to have set watch,
Unnamed, undreaded and thyself half starved ?"
Whom thus the sin-born monster answer'd soon:
"To me, who with eternal famine pine,
Alike is Hell, or Paradise, or Heaven;

There best, where most with ravine I may meet
Which there, though plenteous, all to little seems
To stuff this maw, this vast unhide-bound corpse."

To whom the incestuous mother thus replied:
"Thou therefore on these herbs, and fruits, and flowers
Feed-first; on each beast next, and fish, and fowl;
No homely morsels: and whatever thing

The sithe of time mows down, devour unspared:
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 ways,
Both to destroy, unimmortal make

All kinds, and for destruction to mature
Sooner or later; which the Almighty seing,
From his transcendent seat the saints among,
To those bright orders utter'd thus his voice :
See, with what heat these dogs of Hell advance
To waste and havoc yonder world, which I
So fair and good created; and had still
Kept in that, state had the folly of man
Let in these wasteful furies, who impute
Folly to me; so doth the Prince of Hell

And his adherents, that with so much ease
I suffer them to enter and possess

A place so heavenly; and conceiving, seem
To gratify my scornful enemies,

That laugh, as, if, transported with some fit
Of passion, I to then had quited all,

At random yielded up to their misrule;

And know not that I called, and drew them thither,
My hell-hounds, to lick up the draff and filth
Which man's polluting sin with taint hath shed

On what was pure; till, cramm'd and gorged, nigh burst.
With suck'd and glutted offal, at one sling

Of thy victorious arm, well pleasing Son

Both Sin, and Death, and yawning grave, at last,
Through Chaos hurl'd, obstruct the mouth of Hell
For ever, and seal up his ravenous jaws.

Then Heaven and Earth renew'd shall be made pure
To sanctify, that shall receive no stain :

Till then, the curse pronounced on both precedes."
He ended, and Heavenly audience loud
Sung hallelujah, as the sound of seas.

Through multitude that sung. Just are thy ways,
Righteous are thy decrees on all thy works?
Who can extenuate thee? Next, to the Son
Destined restorer of mankind, by whom

New Heaven and Earth shall to the ages rise,

Or down from Heaven descend. Such was their song ;
While the Creator, calling forth by name

His Almighty Angels, gave them several charge,
As sorted best with present things. The Sun
Had first his precept so to move, so shine,
As might affect the Earth with cold and heat
Scarce tolerable; and from the north to call
Decrepit winter; from the south to bring
Solstitial summer's heat. To the blanc moon
Her office they prescribed; to the other five
Their planetary motions, and aspects,

Some say,

In sextile, square, and trine, and opposite,
Of noxious efficacy, and when to join
In synod unbenign; and taught the fix'd
Their influence malignant when to shower.
Which of them rising with the sun, or falling,
Should prove tempestuous: To the winds they set
Their corners, when with bluster to confound
Sea, air, and shore; the thunder when to roll,
With terror through the dark, aerial hall.
he bid his Angels turn askance
The poles of Earth, twice ten degrees and more,
From the sun's axel; they with labor push'd
Oblique the centric globe: Some say, the Sun
Was bid turn reins from th' equinoctial road
Like distant breath to Taurus with the seven
Atlantic Sisters, and the Spartan twins.
Up to the Tropic Crab thence down amain
By Leo, and the Virgin, and the Scales,
As deep as Capricorn; to bring in change
Of seasons to each clime; else had the spring
Perpetual smiled on Earth with verdant flowers
Equal in days and nights, except to those
Beyond the polar cicles; to them day
IIad unbenighted shone, while the low sun,
To recompense his distance, in their sight
Had rounded still the horizon, and not known
Or east or west; which had forbid the snow
From cold Estotland, and south as far
Beneath Magellan. At that tasted fruit
The Sun, as from Thyestean banquet, turn'd
IIis course intended; else how had the world
Inhabited, though sinless more than now
Avoided pinching cold and scorching heat!
These changes in the Heavens, though slow produced
Like change on sea and land; sideral blast,

Vapor and mist, and exhalation hot,

Corrupt and pestilent; now from the north

Of Norumbega, and the Sameod shore