Vain war with Heaven; and, by success untaught,
His proud imagination thus display'd:

'Powers and dominions, deities of heaven;
For since no deep within her gulf can hold
Immortal vigor, though oppress'd and fall'n,
I give not heaven for lost. From this descent
Celestial virtues rising, will appear

More glorious and more dread than from no fall,
And trust themselves to fear no second fate.
Me though just right, and the fix'd laws of heaven,
Did first create your leader; next, free choice,
With what besides, in council or in fight,
Hath been achieved of merit; yet this loss,
Thus far at least recover'd, hath much more
Establish'd in a safe unenvied throne,
Yielded with full consent. The happier state
In heaven, which follows dignity, might draw
Envy from each inferior; but who here
Will envy whom the highest place exposes
Foremost to stand against the Thunderer's aim,

10

15

20

25

9. Success is here synonymous with event; and the expression implies the same as untaught by experience.' CowPER. See l. 123. 11. As St. Paul calls the Angels, Thrones or dominions or principalities or powers,' Col. i. 16.' N. See below 310. 430. v. 601. Thrones, dominations, princedoms, virtues, powers :'

iii. 60.

'Sanctities of heaven.'

17. trust themselves, &c. have such confidence in themselves as to fear no second fate.

21. achieved: from the Fr. achever, to finish: fr. chef, the head or end.

24. The higher in dignity any being was in heaven, the happier his state was; and therefore inferiors might envy superiors, because they were happier too.' PEARCE

Your bulwark, and condemns to greatest share
Of endless pain? Where there is then no good
For which to strive, no strife can grow up there
From faction; for none sure will claim in hell
Precedence, none whose portion is so small
Of present pain, that with ambitious mind
Will covet more.
With this advantage then

To union, and firm faith, and firm accord,
More than can be in heaven, we now return
To claim our just inheritance of old,

Surer to prosper than prosperity

Could have assured us; and, by what best way,
Whether of open war, or covert guile,

We now debate: who can advise, may speak.'

30

35

40

He ceased; and next him Moloch, scepter'd king, Stood up, the strongest and the fiercest spirit

That fought in heaven, now fiercer by despair; 45
His trust was with the Eternal to be deem'd
Equal in strength; and rather than be less
Cared not to be at all; with that care lost
Went all his fear of God, or hell, or worse,

He reck'd not; and these words thereafter spake : 50

29. To stand as your bulwark against the Thunderer's uim. Bulwark, Ger. bollwerk; a projecting or outwork: Épkos čkovтwv, Hom. Il. xv. 646.

32. none sure will: elliptically for, there is surely no one who

will.

36. fust accord, Bentl. Union of powers and agreement in senti

ments.

43. scepter'd king: σкηπтоûxos Bariλeùs, Hom.

48. Cared not: if this reading be correct, the syntax is faulty, the only nominative being his trust: Bentley reads: he rather than be less.

50. He recked not: made no account of: to reck is much the

My sentence is for open war of wiles,
More unexpert, I boast not; them let those
Contrive who need, or when they need, not now.
For, while they sit contriving, shall the rest,
Millions that stand in arms, and longing wait
The signal to ascend, sit lingering here
Heaven's fugitives, and for their dwelling-place
Accept this dark, opprobrious den of shame,
The prison of his tyranny who reigns
By our delay? No, let us rather choose,
Arm'd with hell flames and fury, all at once,

O'er heaven's high towers to force resistless way,
Turning our tortures into horrid arms

55

60

Against the torturer; when to meet the noise

Of his almighty engine he shall hear

65

Infernal thunder; and, for lightning, see
Black fire and horror shot with equal rage
Among his angels; and his throne itself

Mix'd with Tartarean sulphur, and strange fire,
His own invented torments. But perhaps

The

way seems difficult and steep to scale With upright wing against a higher foe.

70

same as to reckon : thereafter spake, i. e. accordingly, as one who made no account of God or Hell.' N.

56. sit remain in a state of rest or idleness: Numb. xxxii. 6. Shall your brethren go to war, and shall ye sit here?

69. Mix'd signifies filled with: Virg. Æn. ii. 487.

At domus interior gemitu miseroque tumultu
Miscetur." PEARCE.

strange fire: Levit. x. 1. Nadab and Abihu offered strange fire before the Lord.

72. upright wing: with upright flight, ascent; in a perpendicular direction.

Let such bethink them, if the sleepy drench
Of that forgetful lake benumb not still,
That in our proper motion we ascend
Up to our native seat: descent and fall
To us is adverse. Who but felt of late,
When the fierce foe hung on our broken rear
Insulting, and pursued us through the deep,
With what compulsion and laborious flight
We sunk thus low? The ascent is easy then ;
The event is fear'd; should we again provoke
Our stronger, some worse way his wrath may find
To our destruction; if there be in hell

75

80

85

Fear to be worse destroy'd; what can be worse
Than to dwell here, driv'n out from bliss, condemn'd
In this abhorred deep to utter woe;

Where pain of unextinguishable fire
Must exercise us without hope of end,
The vassals of his anger, when the scourge
Inexorable, and the torturing hour,

Calls us to penance? More destroy'd than thus,
We should be quite abolish'd, and expire.
What fear we then? what doubt we to incense

90

74. forgetful: causing forgetfulness: so abortive 441: thus pallida mors, Hor.

89. exercise: like the Latin exerceo, which signifies to vex and trouble, as well as to practise and employ: as, Virg. G. iv. 453. Non te nullius exercent numinis iræ.'' N.

90. The devils are the vassals of the Almighty; thence Mammon says ii. 252. our state of splendid vassalage. But yet when I remember St. Paul's words, Rom. ix. 22. the vessels of wrath filled to destruction,' σkeun pyns, I suspect that Milton here, as perpetually, kept close to the Scripture style; and leave it to the reader's choice, vassals or vessels.' BENTLEY.

94. what, as the Lat. quid, for what, why? so v. 329. ' What

His utmost ire? which, to the highth enraged,
Will either quite consume us, and reduce
To nothing this essential; happier far
Than miserable to have eternal being:
Or, if our substance be indeed divine,

And cannot cease to be, we are at worst
On this side nothing; and by proof we feel
Our power sufficient to disturb his heaven,
And with perpetual inroads to alarm,
Though inaccessible, his fatal throne;
Which, if not victory, is yet revenge.'

He ended frowning, and his look denounced
Desperate revenge, and battle dangerous
To less than gods. On the other side uprose
Belial, in act more graceful and humane :
A fairer person lost not heaven; he seem'd
For dignity composed, and high exploit ;
But all was false and hollow; though his tongue
Dropt manna, and could make the worse appear

95

100

105

110

sit we here projecting peace or war?' but Johnson, in his Dict. uuder Doubt, quotes the passage, 'why doubt we to incense?'

97. essential: existence, being.

98. Thus our Saviour declared of Judas the traitor: it had been good for that man if he had not been born!' Mark xxvi. 24.

100. We are already in the worst situation we can be on this side of annihilation.

104. his fatal throne: upheld by fate, as he elsewhere expresses it, i. 133.' N.

108. to less than gods: demigods, angels: vi. 366.

Two potent thrones, that to be less than gods
Disdain'd.'

113. Like Nestor, in Homer:

τοῦ καὶ ἀπὸ γλώσσης μέλιτος γλυκίων ῥέεν αὐτή.

Ib. From the known profession of the ancient Sophists, Tov λόγον τὸν ἥττω κρείττω ποιεῖν. BENTLEY.