The sword of Satan with steep force to smite
Descending, and in half cut sheer; nor stayed,
But with swift wheel reverse, deep entering, shared
All his right side: then Satan first knew pain,
And writhed him to and fro convolved; so sore
The griding sword with discontinuous wound
Passed through him: but the ethereal substance closed,
Not long divisible, and from the gash

A stream of nectarous humour issuing flowed
Sanguine, such as celestial spirits may bleed,
And all his armour stained, erewhile so bright.
Forthwith on all sides to his aid was run
By angels many and strong, who interposed
Defence, while others bore him on their shields
Back to his chariot, where it stood retired

From off the files of war; there they him laid,
Gnashing for anguish and despite and shame,
To find himself not matchless, and his pride
Humbled by such rebuke, so far beneath
His confidence to equal God in power.

Yet soon he healed; for spirits that live throughout
Vital in every part, not as frail man

In entrails, heart or head, liver or reins,
Cannot but by annihilating die;

Nor in their liquid texture mortal wound
Receive, no more than can the fluid air.
All heart they live, all head, all eye, all ear,
All intellect, all sense; and, as they please,
They limb themselves, and colour, shape or size
Assume, as likes them best, condense or rare.2

"Meanwhile in other parts, like deeds deserved Memorial, where the might of Gabriel fought,

1 i. e. a stream of nectarous humour converted into such liquor as spirits bleed. The same idea is expressed by the Homeric ichor,

Cf. II. v.

"From the clear vein a stream immortal flowed,

Such stream as issues from a wounded god;
Pure emanation! uncorrupted flood;

Unlike our gross, diseased, terrestrial blood;
For not the bread of man their life sustains,
Nor wine's inflaming juice supplies their veins."

Pope.

The whole passage, as indeed all Milton, abounds with Homeric imitations.

2 Thin, transparent.

And with fierce ensigns pierced the deep array
Of Moloch, furious king, who him defied,
And at his chariot wheels to drag him bound
Threatened, nor from the Holy One of Heaven
Refrained his tongue blasphemous; but anon,
Down cloven to the waist, with shattered arms
And uncouth pain fled bellowing. On each wing
Uriel and Raphaël his vaunting foe,

Though huge, and in a rock of diamond armed,
Vanquished Adramelech, and Asmadai,3

Two potent thrones, that to be less than gods

Disdained, but meaner thoughts learned in their flight,
Mangled with ghastly wounds through plate and mail.
Nor stood unmindful Abdiel to annoy

The atheist crew, but with redoubled blow
Ariel and Arioch,5 and the violence

Of Ramiel, scorched and blasted, overthrew
I might relate of thousands, and their names
Eternize here on earth; but those elect
Angels, contented with their fame in Heaven,
Seek not the praise of men: the other sort,
In might though wondrous and in acts of war,
Nor of renown less eager, yet by doom
Cancelled from Heaven and sacred memory,
Nameless in dark oblivion let them dwell.
For strength from truth divided, and from just,
Illaudable, nought merits but dispraise
And ignominy, yet to glory aspires

Vain-glorious, and through infamy seeks fame:
Therefore eternal silence be their doom.

"And now, their mightiest quelled, the battle swerved,R

With many an inroad gored; deformed rout

Entered, and foul disorder; all the ground

With shivered armour strown, and on a heap

Chariot and charioteer lay overturned,

1 Uncouth, i. e. unusual. See Tyrwhitt's Gl. to Chaucer, p. 638, ed. 4to; cf. Spenser, F. Q. i. 11, 20:

"The piercing steel there wrought a wound full wide,
That with the uncouth pain the monster loudly cried."

2 Mighty magnificent king, one of the idols of Sepharvaim, worshipped by them in Samaria, 2 Kings xvii. 31.

And fiery foaming steeds; what1 stood, recoiled
O'er-wearied, through the faint Satanic host
Defensive scarce, or with pale fear surprised,
Then first with fear surprised and sense of pain,
Fled ignominious, to such evil brought
By sin of disobedience, till that hour
Not liable to fear, or flight, or pain.
Far otherwise the inviolable saints,
In cubic2 phalanx firm advanced entire,
Invulnerable, impenetrably armed;
Such high advantages their innocence
Gave them above their foes, not to have sinned,
Not to have disobeyed; in sight they stood
Unwearied, unobnoxious to be pained

By wound, though from their place by violence moved. "Now night her course began, and, over Heaven Inducing darkness, grateful truce imposed,

And silence on the odious din of war:

Under her cloudy covert both retired,

Victor and vanquished: on the foughten field
Michaël and his angels prevalent

Encamping, placed in guard their watches round,
Cherubic waving fires: on the other part.
Satan with his rebellious disappeared,
Far in the dark dislodged; and, void of rst,
His potentates to council called by night;
And in the midst thus undismayed began:

"O now in danger tried, now known in arms
Not to be overpowered, companions dear,
Found worthy not of liberty alone,

Too mean pretence, but what we more affect,
Honour, dominion, glory, and renown;
Who have sustained one day in doubtful fight
(And if one day, why not eternal days?)
What Heaven's Lord had powerfullest to send
Against us from about his throne, and judged
Sufficient to subdue us to his will,

But proves not so: then fallible, it seems,
Of future we may deem him, though till now
Omniscient thought. True is,3 less firmly arined,
Some disadvantage we endured, and pain,

1 Those who.

2 This epithet must be taken rather as der ting the compactnes than the form of the phalanx

3 True it is.

'Till now not known, but, known, as soon contemned;

Since now we find this our empyreal form

Incapable of mortal injury,

Imperishable, and though pierced with wound,
Soon closing, and by native vigour healed.
Of evil then so small as easy think
The remedy; perhaps more valid arms,
Weapons more violent, when next we meet,
May serve to better us, and worse our foes,
Or equal what between us made the odds,
In nature none; if other hidden cause
Left them superior, while we can preserve
Unhurt our minds and understanding sound,
Due search and consultation will disclose.'

“He sat: and in the assembly next upstood
Nisroch,' of principalities the prime;
As one he stood escaped from cruel fight,
Sore toiled, his riven arms to havoc hewn,
And cloudy in aspéct thus answering spake :
"Deliverer from new lords, leader to free
Enjoyment of our right as gods; yet hard
For gods, and too unequal work we find,
Against unequal arms to fight in pain,
Against unpained, impassive; from which evil
Ruin must needs ensue; for what avails

Valour or strength, though matchless, quelled with pain
Which all subdues, and makes remiss the hands

Of mightiest? Sense of pleasure we may well

Spare out of life, perhaps, and not repine,

But live content, which is the calmest life:
But pain is perfect misery, the worst
Of evils, and, excessive, overturns
All patience. He who therefore can invent
With what more forcible we may offend
Our yet unwounded enemies, or arm
Ourselves with like defence, to me3 deserves
No less than for deliverance what we owe.'

1 Great eagle, an idol of the Ninevites, represented in their sculptures with a hawk's head. See Layard's Nineveh.

2 Nisroch is made to talk agreeably to the sentiments of Hiero. nymus, and those philosophers who maintained that pain was the greatest of evils; there might be a possibility of living without pleasure, but there was no living in pain. A notion suitable enough to a deity of the effeminate Assyrians.-Newton. 3 In my opinion.

66

Whereto, with look composed, Satan replied:
Not uninvented that, which thou aright
Believ'st so main to our success, I bring.
Which of us who beholds the bright surface
Of this ethereous mould whereon we stand,
This continent of spacious Heaven, adorned
With plant, fruit, flower ambrosial, gems and gold;
Whose eye so superficially surveys

These things, as not to mind from whence they grow
Deep under ground, materials dark and crude,

Of spirituous and fiery spume, till touched

With Heaven's ray, and tempered, they shoot forth
So beauteous, opening to the ambient light?
These, in their dark nativity, the deep1

Shall yield us, pregnant with infernal flame;
Which into hollow engines long and round
Thick-rammed, at the other bore with touch of fire
Dilated and infuriate, shall send forth

From far, with thundering noise, among our foes,
Such implements of mischief, as shall dash
To pieces, and o'erwhelm whatever stands
Adverse, that they shall fear we have disarmed
The Thunderer of his only dreaded bolt.

Nor long shall be our labour; yet, ere dawn,
Effect shall end our wish. Meanwhile revive;
Abandon fear; to strength and counsel joined
Think nothing hard, much less to be despaired.'
"He ended, and his words their drooping cheer
Enlightened, and their languished hope revived.
The invention all admired, and each, how he
To be the inventor missed; so easy it seemed
Once found, which yet unfound most would have thought
Impossible: yet haply of thy race

In future days, if malice should abound,
Some one intent on mischief, or inspired
With devilish machination, might devise
Like instrument to plague the sons of men
For sin, on war and mutual slaughter bent.
Forthwith from council to the work they flew ;

1 i. e. the space below the surface of the ground.

2 Great guns, the first invention whereof is very properly ascribed to the author of all evil. And Ariosto has described them in the same manner in his Orlando Furioso, cant. 9, st. 28, and attributes the invention to the devil.