Prudent, lest, from his resolution rais'd,
Others among the chief might offer now
(Certain to be refus'd) what erst they fear'd;
And, so refus'd, might in opinion stand
His rivals; winning cheap the high repute,
Which he through hazard huge must earn.
Dreaded not more th' adventure, than his voice
Forbidding; and at once with him they rose.
The remainder of the book is occupied with an account of the various ways in which the fallen angels endeavour to beguile the time during their leader's absence, and with a narrative of the journey of Satan. He, on coming to the gates of hell, finds them guarded by two monsters, Sin and Death. Death at first opposes Satan's further progress, but is pacified by Sin, his mother, who opens the gates. Satan passes out, traverses the region of Chaos with great difficulty, and comes at last within sight of this world.
The third book introduces us to heaven, where God the Father, sitting on his throne, sees Satan advancing to this world, and foretells to his angels the success which the Tempter would enjoy, and the fall and misery of man. At the same time he declares his intention to extend mercy to fallen man, if any would undertake to satisfy justice in his stead. The Son of God offers himself as a ransom amid the adorations of the angels. Satan's arrival in this world is then described as follows.
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.
MEANWHILE upon the firm opacous globe
Of this round world, whose first convex divides
The luminous inferior orbs, enclos'd
From Chaos, and th' inroad of darkness old,
Satan alighted walks: a globe far off
It seem'd, now seems a boundless continent,
Dark, waste, and wild, under the frown of night
Starless expos'd, and ever-threat'ning storms
Of Chaos blustering round, inclement sky;
Save on that side which from the wall of heav'n,
Though distant far, some small reflection gains
Of glimm'ring air, less vex'd with tempest loud:
Here walk'd the Fiend at large in spacious field. 430
As when a vulture on Imaüs bred,
Whose snowy ridge the roving Tartar bounds,
Dislodging from a region scarce of prey,
To gorge the flesh of lambs or yeanling kids,
On hills where flocks are fed, flies to'ards the springs
Of Ganges or Hydaspes, Indian streams:
But in his way lights on the barren plains
Of Sericana, where Chineses drive
With sails and wind their cany waggons light:
So, on this windy sea of land, the Fiend
Walk'd up and down alone, bent on his prey.
And long he wander'd, till at last a gleam
Of dawning light turn'd thitherward in haste
His travell'd steps: far distant he descries,
Ascending by degrees magnificent
Up to the wall of heav'n a structure high;
At top whereof, but far more rich, appear'd
The work as of a kingly palace-gate,
With frontispiece of diamond and gold
Embellish'd; thick with sparkling orient gems
The portal shone, inimitable on earth
By model, or by shading pencil drawn.
The stairs were such as whereon Jacob saw
Angels ascending and descending, bands
Of guardians bright, when he from Esau fled
To Padan-Aram, in the field of Luz,
Dreaming by night under the open sky,
And waking cried, "This is the gate of heav'n." 515
Each stair mysteriously was meant, nor stood
There always, but drawn up to heav'n sometimes
Viewless; and underneath a bright sea flow'd
Of jasper, or of liquid pearl, whereon
Who after came from earth, sailing arriv'd
Wafted by angels, or flew o'er the lake
Rapt in a chariot drawn by fiery steeds.
The stairs were then let down, whether to dare
The Fiend by easy ascent, or aggravate
His sad exclusion from the doors of bliss:
Direct against which open'd from beneath,
Just o'er the blissful seat of Paradise,
A passage down to th' earth, a passage wide,
Wider by far than that of after-times
Over mount Sion, and, though that were large, 530 Over the Promis'd Land, to God so dear;
By which, to visit oft those happy tribes,
On high behests, his angels to and fro
Pass'd frequent, and his eye with choice regard,
From Paneas, the fount of Jordan's flood,
To Beërsába, where the Holy Land
Borders on Egypt and th' Arabian shore;
So wide the op'ning seem'd, where bounds were set
To darkness, such as bound the ocean wave.
Satan from hence, now on the lower stair,
That scal'd by steps of gold to heaven-gate,
Looks down with wonder at the sudden view
Of all this world at once. As when a scout,
Through dark and desert ways with peril gone
All night, at last by break of cheerful dawn
Obtains the brow of some high-climbing hill,
Which to his eye discovers unaware
The goodly prospect of some foreign land
First seen, or some renown'd metropolis
With glist'ring spires and pinnacles adorn'd,
Which now the rising sun gilds with his beams:
Such wonder seiz'd, though after heaven seen,
The sp'rit malign; but much more envy seiz'd,
At sight of all this world beheld so fair.
Round he surveys, (and well might, where he stood So high above the circling canopy
Of night's extended shade,) from eastern point
Of Libra, to the fleecy star that bears
Andromeda far off Atlantic seas,
Beyond th' horizon: then from pole to pole
He views in breadth, and without longer pause
Downright into the world's first region throws
His flight precipitant, and winds with ease
Through the pure marble air his oblique way
Amongst innumerable stars, that shone
Stars distant, but nigh hand seem'd other worlds;
Or other worlds they seem'd, or happy isles,
Like those Hesperian gardens fam'd of old,
Fortunate fields, and groves, and flow'ry vales,
Thrice happy isles; but who dwelt happy there 570
He stay'd not to inquire: above them all
The golden sun, in splendour likest heav'n,
Allur'd his eye; thither his course he bends
Through the calm firmament, (but up or down,
By centre or eccentric, hard to tell,
Or longitude,) where the great luminary
Aloof the vulgar constellations thick,
That from his lordly eye keep distance due,
Dispenses light from far: they, as they move
Their starry dance in numbers that compute
Days, months, and years, to'ards his all-cheering lamp
Turn swift their various motions, or are turn'd
By his magnetic beam, that gently warms
The universe, and to each inward part
With gentle penetration, though unseen,
Shoots invisible virtue even to the deep;
So wondrously was set his station bright.
There lands the Fiend, a spot like which, perhaps
Astronomer in the sun's lucent orb,
Through his glaz'd optic tube, yet never saw.
The place he found beyond expression bright,
Compar'd with aught on earth, metal or stone;
Not all parts like, but all alike inform'd
With radiant light, as glowing iron with fire;
If metal, part seem'd gold, part silver clear;
If stone, carbuncle most or chrysolite,
Ruby or topaz, to the twelve that shone
In Aaron's breast-plate, and a stone besides
Imagin'd rather oft than elsewhere seen;
That stone, or like to that, which here below
Philosophers in vain so long have sought,
In vain, though by their powerful art they bind
Volatile Hermes, and call up unbound
In various shapes old Proteus from the sea,
Drain'd through a limbec to his native form.
What wonder then if fields and regions here
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