Caught in a fiery tempest, shall be hurla Each on hus rock, transixd the sport and prey Ot wracking whirlwinds, or forever sunk Under you boiling ocean wrapt in chains; There to converse with everlasting groans,
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 Thund'rer's aim
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 Heav'n, 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.
He ceased and next him Moloch, scepter'd king,
Stood up,
the strongest and the fiercest Sp'rit
That fought in Heav'n, now fiercer by despair. 45
His trust was with th' 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
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 lingʼring here
Heav'n'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 Heav'n's high tow'rs to force resistless way,
Turning our tortures into horrid arms
Against the torturer; when to meet the noise
Of his almighty engine he shall hear,
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.
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? Th' ascent is easy then;
Th' 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
Fear to be worse destroy'd. What can be worse 85 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
Inexorably, and the tort'ring 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
His utmost ire? which to the height enraged
Will either quite consume us, and reduce
To nothing this essential, happier far
Than mis'rable 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 pow'r sufficient to disturb his Heav'n,
And with perpetual inroads to alarm,
Though inaccessible, his fatal throne:
89. Exercised, this word is here used in the sense of the Latin exerceo, that is, to vex or trouble.
91. Inexorably-in some editions, inexorable.
92. By calling to penance, Milton seems to intimate, that the sufferings of the condemned spirits are not always equally severe. 104. Fatal, that is, upheld by fate.
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