Space may produce new worlds, whereof so rife
There went a fame in Heaven that he ere long
Intended to create, and therein plant
A generation whom his choice regard
Should favour equal to the sons of Heaven:
Thither, if but to pry, should be perhaps
Our first eruption-thither or elsewhere;
For this infernal pit shall never hold
Celestial Spirits in bondage, nor the Abyss
Long under darkness cover! But these thoughts
Full counsel must mature: Peace is despaired,
For who can think submission? War then, War
Open or understood [secret], must be resolved!"

He spake, and to confirm his words outflew
Millions of flaming swords, drawn from the thighs
Of mighty Cherubim-the sudden blaze

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Far round illumined Hell: highly [vehemently] they raged
Against the Highest, and fierce with grasped arms
Clashed on their sounding shields the din of war,
Hurling defiance toward the vault of Heaven!

There stood a hill not far, whose grisly top
Belched fire and rolling smoke; the rest entire
Shone with a glossy scurf, undoubted sign
That in his womb was hid metallic ore,

The work of sulphur. Thither, winged with speed,
A numerous brigad hastened: as when bands

Of pioneers, with spade and pickaxe armed,
Forerun the royal camp to trench a field

Or cast a rampart. Mammon led them on-
Mammon, the least erected Spirit that fell

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From Heaven; for even in Heaven his looks and thoughts 680

Were always downward bent, admiring more

The riches of Heaven's pavement (trodden gold)

Than aught divine or holy else enjoyed

In vision beatific: by him first

Men also, and by his suggestion taught,

Ransacked the centre [the Earth'] and with impious hands

1 "The planets and this centre"-Troilus and Cressida, Act i.

Sc. iii.-then believed to be the centre of the universe.

Pandemonium is Built of Gold.

Rifled the bowels of their mother earth

For treasures better hid. Soon had his crew

Opened into the hill a spacious wound,

And digged out ribs of gold. (Let none admire [wonder] 690 That riches grow in Hell-that soil may best

Deserve the precious bane !)

}

And here let those
Who boast in mortal things, and wondering tell
Of Babel and the works of Memphian kings,
Learn how their greatest monuments of fame,
And [of] strength and art, are easily outdone
By spirits reprobate, and in an hour
What in an age they with incessant toil
And hands innumerable scarce perform.
Nigh on the plain, in many cells prepared
That underneath had veins of liquid fire
Sluiced from the lake, a second multitude
With wondrous art founded [melted] the massy ore,
Severing each kind, and scummed the bullion dross:
A third as soon had formed within the ground

A various mould, and from the boiling cells,
By strange conveyance, filled each hollow nook:
As in an organ from one blast of wind

To many a row of pipes the soundboard breathes.
Anon out of the earth a fabric huge
Rose like an exhalation-with the sound

Of dulcet symphonies [music] and voices sweet—
Built like a temple, where pilasters round
Were set, and Doric pillars overlaid

With golden architrave; nor did there want
Cornice or frieze, with bossy sculptures graven:
The roof was fretted [carved] gold.

Nor great Alcairo such magnificence

Not Babylon

Equalled in all their glories—to enshrine
Belus or Serapis, their gods, or seat

Their kings-when Egypt with Assyria strove

In wealth and luxury. The ascending pile

Stood fixed her stately height; and straight the doors,

Opening their brazen folds, discover wide

Within her ample spaces o'er the smooth

PARADISE LOST-BK. I.]

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And level pavement: from the arched roof,
Pendent by subtle magic, many a row

Of starry lamps and blazing cressets, fed
With naphtha and asphaltus, yielded light
As from a sky. The vasty multitude
Admiring entered, and the work some praise
And some the architect: his hand was known
In Heaven by many a towered structure high
(Where sceptred angels held their residence
And sat as princes, whom the supreme King
Exalted to such power, and gave to rule,
Each in his hierarchy, the Orders bright);
Nor was his name unheard or unadored
In ancient Greece, and in Ausonian land [Italy]
Men called him Mulciber; and how he fell
From Heaven they fabled, thrown by angry Jove
Sheer o'er the crystal battlements—from morn
To noon he fell, from noon to dewy eve,
A summer's day, and with the setting sun
Dropped from the zenith, like a falling star,
On Lemnos, the Ægean isle. Thus they relate,
Erring, for he with his rebellious rout

Fell long before; nor aught availed him now

To have built in Heaven high towers, nor did he scape
By all his engines, but was headlong sent

With his industrious crew to build in Hell.

Meanwhile the winged heralds, by command

Of sovran power, with awful ceremony

And trumpets' sound, throughout the host proclaim
A solemn council forthwith to be held

At Pandemonium, the high capital

Of Satan and his peers. Their summons called
From every band and squared regiment,

By place or choice, the worthiest; they anon

With hundreds and with thousands trooping came

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Attended all access [the entrance] was thronged, the gates

And porches wide, but chief the spacious hall

(Though like a covered field where champions bold

Wont ride in armed, and at the Soldan's chair

A Solemn Council.

Defied the best of Panim chivalry

To mortal combat or career [tilt] with lance)
Thick swarmed, both on the ground and in the air,
Brushed with the hiss of rustling wings. As bees
In spring-time, when the sun with Taurus rides,
Pour forth their populous youth about the hive
In clusters, they among fresh dews and flowers
Fly to and fro, or on the smoothed plank
(The suburb of their straw-built citadel),

New rubbed with balm, expatiate [roam] and confer
Their state affairs: so thick the aëry crowd

Swarmed and were straitened; till, the signal given-
Behold a wonder !-they but now who seemed

In bigness to surpass Earth's giant sons,

Now less than smallest dwarfs in narrow room

Throng numberless. Like that Pygmëan race

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780

Beyond the Indian mount [the Himalayas], or fairy elves Whose midnight revels by a forest side

Or fountain some belated peasant sees,

s-while overhead the moon

Or dreams he sees

Sits arbitress [witness] and nearer to the earth

Wheels her pale course-they, on their mirth and dance

Intent, with jocund music charm his ear,

At once with joy and fear his heart rebounds:

Thus incorporeal spirits to smallest forms

Reduced their shapes immense, and were at large
Though without number still.

Amidst the hall

Of that infernal court, but far within,

And in their own dimensions like themselves,
The great Seraphic Lords and Cherubim
In close [private] recess and secret conclave sat,
A thousand demi-gods on golden seats,
Frequent 1 and full. After short silence then,
And summons read, the great consult began.

1 In large numbers-the literal use of frequens.

790

}

BOOK II.

The consultation begun, Satan debates whether another battle be to be hazarded for the recovery of Heaven: some advise it, others dissuade a third proposal is preferred, mentioned before by Satan, to search the truth of that prophecy or tradition in Heaven concerning another world, and another kind of creature, equal or not much inferior to themselves, about this time to be created. Their doubt, who shall be sent on this difficult search; Satan, their chief, undertakes alone the voyage, is honoured and applauded. The council thus ended, the rest betake them several ways and to several employments, as their inclinations lead them, to entertain the time till Satan return. He passes on his journey to Hellgates; finds them shut, and who sat there to guard them; by whom at length they are opened, and discover to him the great gulf between Hell and Heaven; with what difficulty he passes through, directed by Chaos, the Power of that place, to the sight of this new world which he sought.