Awaiting next command. To whom their chief, "O friends! I hear the tread of nimble feet He scarce had ended, when these two approached, To whom with stern regard thus Gabriel spake : To whom thus Satan with contemptuous brow: 870 880 Though thither doomed? Thou wouldst thyself, no doubt, And boldly venture to whatever place Farthest from pain, where thou mightst hope to change Torment with ease, and soonest recompense Dole with delight, which in this place I sought; To thee no reason, who know'st only good, But evil hast not tried; and wilt object 891 His will who bound us? Let him surer bar His iron gates, if he intends our stay In that dark durance: thus much what was asked. 900 The rest is true, they found me where they say; But that implies not violence or harm." Thus he in scorn. The warlike angel moved, Disdainfully half smiling, thus replied: "O loss of one in Heaven, to judge of wise, Since Satan fell, whom folly overthrew, And now returns him from his prison 'scaped, Or not, who ask what boldness brought him hither So judge thou still, presumptuous, till the wrath, 910 Sevenfold, and scourge that wisdom back to Hell, But wherefore thou alone? Wherefore with thee To thy deserted host this cause of flight, To which the fiend thus answered, frowning stern: This new created world, whereof in Hell What thou and thy gay legions dare against; Whose easier business were to serve their Lord High up in Heaven, with songs to hymn his throne And practised distances to cringe, not fight." 920 930 940 To whom the warrior angel soon replied: "To say and straight unsay, pretending first Wise to fly pain, professing next the spy, Argues no leader, but a liar traced, Satan, and couldst thou faithful add? O name, 950 O sacred name of faithfulness profaned! Was this your discipline and faith engaged, Allegiance to the acknowledged power supreme? Once fawned, and cringed, and servilely adored 960 To dispossess him, and thyself to reign? But mark what I arreed thee now: Avaunt! * Award, decree. Fly thither whence thou fled'st: if from this hoar * Back to the infernal pit I drag thee chained, Her bearded grove of ears, which way the wind Sways them; the careful ploughman doubting stands, Prove chaff. On the other side, Satan, alarmed, Like Teneriff or Atlas, unremoved : His stature reached the sky, and on his crest Sat horror plumed; nor wanted § in his grasp 970 980 What seemed both spear and shield. Now dreadful deeds Might have ensued; not only Paradise, In this commotion, but the starry cope Of heaven, perhaps, or all the elements At least had gone to wrack, disturbed and torn With violence of this conflict, had not soon Hung forth in Heaven his golden scales, yet seen * Cf. Rev. xx. 3. That is, Who darest to set limits to my movements. Although he had only just resumed his natural form. 991 1000 Bentley, and probably many others, have misunderstood Milton's thought about the scales, judging of it by what they read of Jupiter's scales in Homer and Virgil; the account of which is very different from this of Milton; for in them the fates of the two combatants are weighed one "Satan, I know thy strength, and thou know'st mine, Neither our own, but given; what folly, then, To boast what arms can do, since thine no more Than Heaven permits, nor mine, though doubled now ΠΟΙΟ Where thou art weighed, and shown how light, how weak, against the other, and the descent of one of the scales foreshowed the death of him whose fate lay in that scale, quo vergat pondere lethum: whereas, in Milton, nothing is weighed but what relates to Satan only, and in the two scales are weighed the two different events of his retreating and his fighting. -Pearce. He does not make the ascending scale the sign of victory, as in Homer and Virgil, but of lightness and weakness, according to that of Belshazzar, Dan. v. 27, “Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting." END OF THE FOURTH BOOK. may BOOK V. THE ARGUMENT. Morning approached, Eve relates to Adam her troublesome dream; he likes it not, yet comforts her: they come forth to their day labours: their morning hymn at the door of their bower. God, to render man inexcus able, sends Raphael to admonish him of his obedience, of his free estate, of his enemy near at hand,who he is, and why his enemy, and whatever else avail Adam to know. Raphael comes down to Paradise; his appear. ance described; his coming discerned by Adam afar off, sitting at the door of his bower; he goes out to meet him, brings him to his lodge, entertains him with the choicest fruits of Paradise got together by Eve; their ciscourse at table: Raphael performs his message, minds Adam of his state and of his enemy; relates, at Adam's request, who that enemy is, and how he came to be so, beginning from his first revolt in Heaven, and the occasion thereof; how he drew his legions after him to the parts of the north, and there incited them to rebel with him, persuading all but only Abdiel, a seraph, who in argument dissuades and opposes him, then forsakes him. Now morn her rosy steps in the eastern clime And temperate vapours bland, which the only sound Lightly dispersed, and the shrill matin song Her hand soft touching, whispered thus: "Awake, * Viz., his sleep. The words "only sound," mean the sound alone." The early morning. 20 |