PARADISE LOST 1658-1665 THE VERSE The measure is English heroic verse without rime, as that of Homer in Greek, and of Virgil in Latin-rime being no necessary adjunct or true ornament of poem or good verse, in longer works especially, but the invention of a barbarous age, to set off wretched matter and lame metre; graced indeed since by the use of some famous modern poets, carried away by custom, but much to their own vexation, hindrance, and constraint to express many things otherwise, and for the most part worse, than else they would have expressed them. Not without cause therefore some both Italian and Spanish poets of prime note have rejected rime both in longer and shorter works, as have also long since our best English tragedies, as a thing of itself, to all judicious ears, trivial and of no true musical delight; which consists only in apt numbers, fit quantity of syllables, and the sense variously drawn out from one verse into another, not in the jingling sound of like endings a fault avoided by the learned ancients both in poetry and all good oratory. This neglect then of rime so little is to be taken for a defect, though it may seem so perhaps to vulgar readers, that it rather is to be esteemed an example set, the first in English, of ancient liberty recovered to heroic poem from the troublesome and modern bondage of riming. BOOK I THE ARGUMENT This First Book proposes, first in brief, the whole subject-Man's disobedience, and the loss thereupon of Paradise, wherein he was placed: then touches the prime cause of his fall-the Serpent, or rather Satan in the Serpent; who, revolting from God, and drawing to his side many legions of Angels, was, by the command of God, driven out of Heaven, with all his crew, into the great Deep. Which action passed over, the Poem hastes into the midst of things; presenting Satan, with his Angels, now fallen into Hell-described here not in the Centre (for heaven and earth may be supposed as yet not made, certainly not yet accursed), but in a place of utter darkness, fitliest called Chaos. Here Satan, with his Angels lying on the burning lake, thunderstruck and astonished, after a certain space recovers, as from confusion; calls up him who, next in order and dignity, lay by him: they confer of their miserable fall. Satan awakens all his legions, who lay till then in the same manner confounded. They rise: their numbers; array of battle; their chief leaders named, according to the idols known afterwards in Canaan and the countries adjoining. To these Satan directs his speech; comforts them with hope yet of regaining Heaven; but tells them, lastly, of a new world and new kind of creature to be created, according to an ancient prophecy, or report, in Heaven -- for that Angels were long before this visible creation was the opinion of many ancient Fathers. To find out the truth of this prophecy, and what to determine thereon, he refers to a full council. What his associates thence attempt. Pandemonium, the palace of Satan, rises, suddenly built out of the Deep: the infernal Peers there sit in council. Or Man's first disobedience, and the fruit woe, With loss of Eden, till one greater Man And shook his throne. What though the field be lost? 109 All is not lost the unconquerable will, That were an ignominy and shame beneath This downfall; since, by fate, the strength of Gods, And this empyreal substance, cannot fail; Since, through experience of this great event, In arms not worse, in foresight much advanced, We may with more successful hope resolve 120 Here swallowed up in endless misery. 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, Whereto with speedy words the Arch- 160 "Fallen Cherub, to be weak is miserable, But see! the angry Victor hath recalled rous hail, From off the tossing of these fiery waves; Our Enemy, our own loss how repair, If not what resolution from despair." 190 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 200 Leviathan, which God of all his works Created hugest that swim the ocean-stream. Him, haply slumbering on the Norway foam, The pilot of some small night-foundered skiff, Deeming some island, oft, as seamen tell, Chained on the burning lake; nor ever thence 210 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 sovran can dispose and bid What shall be right: fardest 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, 250 Infernal World! and thou, profoundest A mind not to be changed by place or time. 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 290 Through optic glass the Tuscan artist views |