Part 25 (2/2)
PARADISE LOST
Book I. After intimating he intends ”no middle flight,” but proposes to ”justify the ways of G.o.d to man,” Milton states the fall was due to the serpent, who, in revenge for being cast out of heaven with his hosts, induced the mother of mankind to sin. He adds how, hurled from the ethereal sky to the bottomless pit, Satan lands in a burning lake of asphalt. There, oppressed by the sense of lost happiness and lasting pain, he casts his eyes about him, and, flames making the darkness visible, beholds those enveloped in his doom suffering the same dire pangs. Full of immortal hate, unconquerable will, and a determination never to submit or yield, Satan, confident his companions will not fail him, and enriched by past experiences, determines to continue disputing the mastery of heaven from the Almighty.
Beside Satan, on the burning marl, lies Beelzebub, his bold compeer, who dreads lest the Almighty comes after them and further punish them.
But Satan, rejoining that ”to be weak is miserable, doing or suffering,” urges that they try and pervert G.o.d's aims. Then, gazing upward, he perceives G.o.d has recalled his avenging hosts, that the rain of sulphur has ceased, and that lightning no longer furrows the sky. He, therefore, deems this a fitting opportunity to rise from the burning lake, reconnoitre their new place of abode, and take measures to redeem their losses.
”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 harbor there, And, rea.s.sembling 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.”
Striding through parting flames to a neighboring hill, Satan gazes around him, contrasting the mournful gloom of this abode with the refulgent light to which he has been accustomed, and, notwithstanding the bitter contrast, concluding, ”it is better to reign in h.e.l.l than serve in heaven,” ere he bids Beelzebub call the fallen angels.
His moon-like s.h.i.+eld behind him, Beelzebub summons the legions lying on the asphalt lake, ”thick as autumn leaves that strew the brooks of Vallombroso.” Like guilty sentinels caught sleeping, they hastily arise, and, numerous as the locusts which ravaged Egypt, flutter around the cope of h.e.l.l before alighting at their master's feet.
Among them Milton descries various idols, later to be wors.h.i.+pped in Palestine, Egypt, and Greece. Then, contrasting the downcast appearance of this host with its brilliancy in heaven, he goes on to describe how they saluted Satan's banner with ”a shout that tore h.e.l.l's conclave and beyond frighted the reign of Chaos and old Night.”
Next, their standards fluttering in the breeze, they perform their wonted evolutions, and Satan, seeing so mighty a host still at his disposal, feels his heart distend with pride.
Although he realizes these spirits have forfeited heaven to follow him, he experiences merely a pa.s.sing remorse ere he declares the strife they waged was not inglorious, and that although once defeated they may yet repossess their native seat. He suggests that, as they now know the exact force of their opponent and are satisfied they cannot overcome him by force, they damage the new world which the Almighty has recently created, for submission is unthinkable weakness.
To make their new quarters habitable, the fallen angels, under Mammon's direction, mine gold from the neighboring hills and mould, it into bricks, wherewith they erect Pandemonium, ”the high capitol of Satan and his peers.” This hall, constructed with speed and ease, is brightly illuminated by means of naphtha, and, after Satan and his staff have entered, the other fallen angels crowd beneath its roof in the shape of pygmies, and ”the great consult” begins.
_Book II._ On a throne of dazzling splendor sits Satan, surrounded by his peers. Addressing his followers, he declares that, having forfeited the highest position, he has lost more than they, and that, since he suffers the greatest pain, none will envy him his preeminence. When he bids them suggest what they shall do, Moloch votes in favor of war, stirring up his companions with a belligerent speech. Belial, who is versed in making ”the worse appear the better reason,” urges guile instead of warfare, for they have tested the power of the Almighty and know he can easily outwit their plans. In his turn, Mammon favors neither force nor guile, but suggests that, since riches abound in this region, they content themselves with piling up treasures.
All having been heard, the fallen angels decide, since it is impossible again to face Michael's dreaded sword, they will adopt Beelzebub's suggestion and try and find out whether they cannot settle more comfortably in the recently created world. This decided, Satan inquires who will undertake to reconnoitre, and, as no one volunteers, declares that the mission of greatest difficulty and danger rightly belongs to him, bidding the fallen angels meanwhile keep watch lest further ill befall them. This decision is so enthusiastically applauded that ever since an overwhelming tumult has been termed ”Pandemonium,” like Satan's hall.
The ”consult” ended, the angels resume their wonted size and scatter through h.e.l.l, some exploring its recesses, where they discover huge rivers, regions of fire and ice, and hideous monsters, while others beguile their time by arguing of ”foreknowledge, will, fate,” and discussing questions of philosophy, or join in antiphonal songs.
Meanwhile Satan has set out on his dreadful journey, wending his way straight to the gates of Hades, before which stand two formidable shapes, one woman down to the waist and thence scaly dragon, while the other, a grim, skeleton-like shape, wears a royal crown and brandishes a spear. Seeing Satan approach, this monster threatens him, whereupon a dire fight would have ensued, had not the female stepped between them, declaring she is Sin, Satan's daughter, and that in an incestuous union they two produced Death, whom even they cannot subdue. She adds that she dares not unlock the gates, but, when Satan urges that if she will only let him pa.s.s, she and Death will be supplied with congenial occupations in the new world, she produces a key, and, ”rolling toward the gates on scaly folds,” flings wide the ma.s.sive doors which no infernal power can ever close again. Through these gaping portals one now descries Chaos, where hot and cold, moist and dry contend for mastery, and where Satan will have to make his way through the elements in confusion to reach the place whither he is bound.
The poet now graphically describes how, by means of his wings or on foot, Satan scrambles up high battlements and plunges down deep abysses, thus gradually working his way to the place where Chaos and Night sit enthroned, contemplating the world ”which hangs from heaven by a golden chain.” Addressing these deities, Satan commiserates them for having lost Tartarus, now the abode of the fallen angels, as well as the region of light occupied by the new world. When he proposes to restore to them that part of their realm by frustrating G.o.d's plans, they gladly speed him toward earth, whither ”full fraught with mischievous revenge accursed in an accursed hour he hies.”
_Book III._ After a pathetic invocation to light, the offspring of heaven, whose rays will never s.h.i.+ne through his darkness, Milton expresses a hope that like other blind poets and seers he may describe all the more clearly what is ever before his intellectual sight. Then he relates how the Eternal Father, gazing downward, contemplates h.e.l.l, the newly-created world, and the wide cleft between, where he descries Satan ”hovering in the dun air sublime.” Summoning his hosts, the Almighty addresses his Only Begotten Son,--whose arrival in heaven has caused Satan's rebellion,--and, pointing out the Adversary, declares he is bent on revenge which will redound on his own head. Then G.o.d adds that, although the angels fell by their own suggestion, and are hence excluded from all hope of redemption, man will fall deceived by Satan, so that, although he will thus incur death, he will not forever be unforgiven if some one will pay the penalty of his sin. Because none of the angels feel holy enough to make so great a sacrifice, there is ”silence in heaven,” until the Son of G.o.d, ”in whom all fulness dwells of love divine,” seeing man will be lost unless he interferes, declares his willingness to surrender to death all of himself that can die. He entreats, however, that the Father will not leave him in the loathsome grave, but will permit his soul to rise victorious, leading to heaven those ransomed from sin, death, and h.e.l.l through his devotion. The angels, hearing this proposal, are seized with admiration, and the Father, bending a loving glance upon the Son, accepts his sacrifice, proclaiming he shall in due time appear on earth in the flesh to take the place of our first father, and that, just ”as in Adam all were lost, so in him all shall be saved.” Then, further to recompense his Son for his devotion, G.o.d promises he shall reign his equal for ever and judge mankind, ere he bids the heavenly host wors.h.i.+p their new master. Removing their crowns of amaranth and gold, the angels kneel before Christ in adoration, and, tuning their harps, sing the praises of Father and Son, proclaiming the latter ”Saviour of man.”
While the angels are thus occupied, Satan, speeding through Chaos, pa.s.ses through a place peopled by the idolatries, superst.i.tions, and vanities of the world, all of which are to be punished here later on.
Then, past the stairway leading up to heaven, he hurries to a pa.s.sage leading down to earth, toward which he whirls through s.p.a.ce like a tumbler pigeon, landing at last upon the sun. There, in the guise of a stripling cherub, Satan tells the archangel Uriel that, having been absent at the time of creation, he longs to behold the earth so as to glorify G.o.d. Thereupon Uriel proudly rejoins he witnessed the performance, and describes how at G.o.d's voice darkness fled and solids converged into spheres, which began to roll around their appointed orbits. Then he points out to Satan the newly-created earth, whither the Evil Spirit eagerly speeds.
Thus said, he turned; and Satan, bowing low, As to superior spirits is wont in heaven, Where honor due and reverence none neglects, Took leave, and toward the coast of earth beneath, Down from the ecliptic, sped with hoped success, Throws his steep flight in many an airy wheel, Nor stayed, till on Niphates' top he lights.
_Book IV._ Wis.h.i.+ng his voice were loud enough to warn our first parents of coming woe and thus forestall the misfortunes ready to pounce upon them, the poet describes how Satan, ”with h.e.l.l raging in his heart,” gazes from the hill, upon which he has alighted, into Paradise. The fact that he is outcast both from heaven and earth fills Satan with alternate sorrow and fierce wrath, under impulse of which emotions his face becomes fearfully distorted. This change and his fierce gestures are seen by Uriel, who curiously follows his flight, and who now for the first time suspects he may have escaped from h.e.l.l.
After describing the wonders of Eden--which far surpa.s.s all fairy tales,--Milton relates how Satan, springing lightly over the dividing wall, lands within its precincts, and in the guise of a cormorant perches upon a tree, whence he beholds two G.o.d-like shapes ”in naked majesty clad.” One of these is Adam, formed for contemplation and valor, the other Eve, formed for softness and grace. They two sit beneath a tree, the beasts of the earth playing peacefully around them, and Satan, watching them, wonders whether they are destined to occupy his former place in heaven, and vows he will ruin their present happiness and deliver them up to woe! After arguing he must do so to secure a better abode for himself and his followers, the fiend transforms himself first into one beast and then into another, and, having approached the pair unnoticed, listens to their conversation.
In this way he learns Eve's wonder on first opening her eyes and gazing around her on the flowers and trees, her amazement at her own reflection in the water, and her following a voice which promised to lead her to her counterpart, who would make her mother of the human race. But, the figure she thus found proving less attractive than the one she had just seen in the waters, she was about to retreat, when Adam claimed her as the other half of his being. Since then, they two have dwelt in bliss in this garden, where everything is at their disposal save the fruit of one tree. Thus Satan discovers the prohibition laid upon our first parents. He immediately Dedie's to bring about their ruin by inciting them to scorn divine commands, a.s.suring them that the knowledge of good and evil will make them equal to G.o.d, and having discovered this method of compa.s.sing his purpose, steals away to devise means to reach his ends.
Meantime, near the eastern gate of Paradise, Gabriel, chief of the angelic host, watches the joyful evolutions of the guards who at nightfall are to patrol the boundaries of Paradise. While thus engaged, Uriel comes glancing down through the evening air on a sunbeam, to warn him that one of the banished crew has escaped, and was seen at noon near these gates. In return Gabriel a.s.sures Uriel no creature of any kind pa.s.sed through them, and that if an evil spirit overleapt the earthly bounds he will be discovered before morning, no matter what shape he has a.s.sumed. While Uriel returns to his post in the sun, gray twilight steals over the earth, and Michael, having appointed bands of angels to circle Paradise in opposite directions, despatches two of his lieutenants to search for the hidden foe.
Our first parents, after uniting in prayer, are about to retire, when Eve, who derives all her information from Adam, asks why the stars s.h.i.+ne at night, when they are asleep and cannot enjoy them? In reply Adam states that the stars gem the sky to prevent darkness from resuming its sway, and a.s.sures his wife that while they sleep angels mount guard, for he has often heard their voices at midnight. Then the pair enter the bower selected for their abode by the sovereign planter, where the loveliest flowers bloom in profusion, and where no bird, beast, insect, or worm dares venture.
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