{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_58/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_58","id":"gutenberg_58","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/58","summary":null,"tags":["Bible. Gospels -- History of Biblical events -- Poetry","Category: British Literature","Category: Classics of Literature","Category: Poetry","Category: Religion/Spirituality","English poetry","Epic poetry","Jesus Christ -- Temptation -- Poetry"],"text":"Paradise Regained\n\nby John Milton\n\n\n\n\nContents\n\n THE FIRST BOOK\n THE SECOND BOOK\n THE THIRD BOOK\n THE FOURTH BOOK\n\n\n\n\nTHE FIRST BOOK\n\n\nI, who erewhile the happy Garden sung\nBy one man\u2019s disobedience lost, now sing\nRecovered Paradise to all mankind,\nBy one man\u2019s firm obedience fully tried\nThrough all temptation, and the Tempter foiled\nIn all his wiles, defeated and repulsed,\nAnd Eden raised in the waste Wilderness.\n    Thou Spirit, who led\u2019st this glorious Eremite\nInto the desert, his victorious field\nAgainst the spiritual foe, and brought\u2019st him thence     10\nBy proof the undoubted Son of God, inspire,\nAs thou art wont, my prompted song, else mute,\nAnd bear through highth or depth of Nature\u2019s bounds,\nWith prosperous wing full summed, to tell of deeds\nAbove heroic, though in secret done,\nAnd unrecorded left through many an age:\nWorthy to have not remained so long unsung.\n    Now had the great Proclaimer, with a voice\nMore awful than the sound of trumpet, cried\nRepentance, and Heaven\u2019s kingdom nigh at hand     20\nTo all baptized. To his great baptism flocked\nWith awe the regions round, and with them came\nFrom Nazareth the son of Joseph deemed\nTo the flood Jordan\u2014came as then obscure,\nUnmarked, unknown. But him the Baptist soon\nDescried, divinely warned, and witness bore\nAs to his worthier, and would have resigned\nTo him his heavenly office. Nor was long\nHis witness unconfirmed: on him baptized\nHeaven opened, and in likeness of a Dove     30\nThe Spirit descended, while the Father\u2019s voice\nFrom Heaven pronounced him his beloved Son.\nThat heard the Adversary, who, roving still\nAbout the world, at that assembly famed\nWould not be last, and, with the voice divine\nNigh thunder-struck, the exalted man to whom\nSuch high attest was given a while surveyed\nWith wonder; then, with envy fraught and rage,\nFlies to his place, nor rests, but in mid air\nTo council summons all his mighty Peers,     40\nWithin thick clouds and dark tenfold involved,\nA gloomy consistory; and them amidst,\nWith looks aghast and sad, he thus bespake:\u2014\n    \u201cO ancient Powers of Air and this wide World\n(For much more willingly I mention Air,\nThis our old conquest, than remember Hell,\nOur hated habitation), well ye know\nHow many ages, as the years of men,\nThis Universe we have possessed, and ruled\nIn manner at our will the affairs of Earth,     50\nSince Adam and his facile consort Eve\nLost Paradise, deceived by me, though since\nWith dread attending when that fatal wound\nShall be inflicted by the seed of Eve\nUpon my head. Long the decrees of Heaven\nDelay, for longest time to Him is short;\nAnd now, too soon for us, the circling hours\nThis dreaded time have compassed, wherein we\nMust bide the stroke of that long-threatened wound\n(At least, if so we can, and by the head     60\nBroken be not intended all our power\nTo be infringed, our freedom and our being\nIn this fair empire won of Earth and Air)\u2014\nFor this ill news I bring: The Woman\u2019s Seed,\nDestined to this, is late of woman born.\nHis birth to our just fear gave no small cause;\nBut his growth now to youth\u2019s full flower, displaying\nAll virtue, grace and wisdom to achieve\nThings highest, greatest, multiplies my fear.\nBefore him a great Prophet, to proclaim     70\nHis coming, is sent harbinger, who all\nInvites, and in the consecrated stream\nPretends to wash off sin, and fit them so\nPurified to receive him pure, or rather\nTo do him honour as their King. All come,\nAnd he himself among them was baptized\u2014\nNot thence to be more pure, but to receive\nThe testimony of Heaven, that who he is\nThenceforth the nations may not doubt. I saw\nThe Prophet do him reverence; on him, rising     80\nOut of the water, Heaven above the clouds\nUnfold her crystal doors; thence on his head\nA perfet Dove descend (whate\u2019er it meant);\nAnd out of Heaven the sovraign voice I heard,\n\u2018This is my Son beloved,\u2014in him am pleased.\u2019\nHis mother, than, is mortal, but his Sire\nHe who obtains the monarchy of Heaven;\nAnd what will He not do to advance his Son?\nHis first-begot we know, and sore have felt,\nWhen his fierce thunder drove us to the Deep;     90\nWho this is we must learn, for Man he seems\nIn all his lineaments, though in his face\nThe glimpses of his Father\u2019s glory shine.\nYe see our danger on the utmost edge\nOf hazard, which admits no long debate,\nBut must with something sudden be opposed\n(Not force, but well-couched fraud, well-woven snares),\nEre in the head of nations he appear,\nTheir king, their leader, and supreme on Earth.\nI, when no other durst, sole undertook     100\nThe dismal expedition to find out\nAnd ruin Adam, and the exploit performed\nSuccessfully: a calmer voyage now\nWill waft me; and the way found prosperous once\nInduces best to hope of like success.\u201d\n    He ended, and his words impression left\nOf much amazement to the infernal crew,\nDistracted and surprised with deep dismay\nAt these sad tidings. But no time was then\nFor long indulgence to their fears or grief:     110\nUnanimous they all commit the care\nAnd management of this man enterprise\nTo him, their great Dictator, whose attempt\nAt first against mankind so well had thrived\nIn Adam\u2019s overthrow, and led their march\nFrom Hell\u2019s deep-vaulted den to dwell in light,\nRegents, and potentates, and kings, yea gods,\nOf many a pleasant realm and province wide.\nSo to the coast of Jordan he directs\nHis easy steps, girded with snaky wiles,     120\nWhere he might likeliest find this new-declared,\nThis man of men, attested Son of God,\nTemptation and all guile on him to try\u2014\nSo to subvert whom he suspected raised\nTo end his reign on Earth so long enjoyed:\nBut, contrary, unweeting he fulfilled\nThe purposed counsel, pre-ordained and fixed,\nOf the Most High, who, in full frequence bright\nOf Angels, thus to Gabriel smiling spake:\u2014\n    \u201cGabriel, this day, by proof, thou shalt behold,     130\nThou and all Angels conversant on Earth\nWith Man or men\u2019s affairs, how I begin\nTo verify that solemn message late,\nOn which I sent thee to the Virgin pure\nIn Galilee, that she should bear a son,\nGreat in renown, and called the Son of God.\nThen told\u2019st her, doubting how these things could be\nTo her a virgin, that on her should come\nThe Holy Ghost, and the power of the Highest\nO\u2019ershadow her. This Man, born and now upgrown,     140\nTo shew him worthy of his birth divine\nAnd high prediction, henceforth I expose\nTo Satan; let him tempt, and now assay\nHis utmost subtlety, because he boasts\nAnd vaunts of his great cunning to the throng\nOf his Apostasy. He might have learnt\nLess overweening, since he failed in Job,\nWhose constant perseverance overcame\nWhate\u2019er his cruel malice could invent.\nHe now shall know I can produce a man,     150\nOf female seed, far abler to resist\nAll his solicitations, and at length\nAll his vast force, and drive him back to Hell\u2014\nWinning by conquest what the first man lost\nBy fallacy surprised. But first I mean\nTo exercise him in the Wilderness;\nThere he shall first lay down the rudiments\nOf his great warfare, ere I send him forth\nTo conquer Sin and Death, the two grand foes.\nBy humiliation and strong sufferance     160\nHis weakness shall o\u2019ercome Satanic strength,\nAnd all the world, and mass of sinful flesh;\nThat all the Angels and aethereal Powers\u2014\nThey now, and men hereafter\u2014may discern\nFrom what consummate virtue I have chose\nThis perfet man, by merit called my Son,\nTo earn salvation for the sons of men.\u201d\n    So spake the Eternal Father, and all Heaven\nAdmiring stood a space; then into hymns\nBurst forth, and in celestial measures moved,     170\nCircling the throne and singing, while the hand\nSung with the voice, and this the argument:\u2014\n    \u201cVictory and triumph to the Son of God,\nNow entering his great duel, not of arms,\nBut to vanquish by wisdom hellish wiles!\nThe Father knows the Son; therefore secure\nVentures his filial virtue, though untried,\nAgainst whate\u2019er may tempt, whate\u2019er seduce,\nAllure, or terrify, or undermine.\nBe frustrate, all ye stratagems of Hell,     180\nAnd, devilish machinations, come to nought!\u201d\n    So they in Heaven their odes and vigils tuned.\nMeanwhile the Son of God, who yet some days\nLodged in Bethabara, where John baptized,\nMusing and much revolving in his breast\nHow best the mighty work he might begin\nOf Saviour to mankind, and which way first\nPublish his godlike office now mature,\nOne day forth walked alone, the Spirit leading\nAnd his deep thoughts, the better to converse     190\nWith solitude, till, far from track of men,\nThought following thought, and step by step led on,\nHe entered now the bordering Desert wild,\nAnd, with dark shades and rocks environed round,\nHis holy meditations thus pursued:\u2014\n    \u201cO what a multitude of thoughts at once\nAwakened in me swarm, while I consider\nWhat from within I feel myself, and hear\nWhat from without comes often to my ears,\nIll sorting with my present state compared!     200\nWhen I was yet a child, no childish play\nTo me was pleasing; all my mind was set\nSerious to learn and know, and thence to do,\nWhat might be public good; myself I thought\nBorn to that end, born to promote all truth,\nAll righteous things. Therefore, above my years,\nThe Law of God I read, and found it sweet;\nMade it my whole delight, and in it grew\nTo such perfection that, ere yet my age\nHad measured twice six years, at our great Feast     210\nI went into the Temple, there to hear\nThe teachers of our Law, and to propose\nWhat might improve my knowledge or their own,\nAnd was admired by all. Yet this not all\nTo which my spirit aspired. Victorious deeds\nFlamed in my heart, heroic acts\u2014one while\nTo rescue Israel from the Roman yoke;\nThen to subdue and quell, o\u2019er all the earth,\nBrute violence and proud tyrannic power,\nTill truth were freed, and equity restored:     220\nYet held it more humane, more heavenly, first\nBy winning words to conquer willing hearts,\nAnd make persuasion do the work of fear;\nAt least to try, and teach the erring soul,\nNot wilfully misdoing, but unware\nMisled; the stubborn only to subdue.\nThese growing thoughts my mother soon perceiving,\nBy words at times cast forth, inly rejoiced,\nAnd said to me apart, \u2018High are thy thoughts,\nO Son! but nourish them, and let them soar     230\nTo what highth sacred virtue and true worth\nCan raise them, though above example high;\nBy matchless deeds express thy matchless Sire.\nFor know, thou art no son of mortal man;\nThough men esteem thee low of parentage,\nThy Father is the Eternal King who rules\nAll Heaven and Earth, Angels and sons of men.\nA messenger from God foretold thy birth\nConceived in me a virgin; he foretold\nThou shouldst be great, and sit on David\u2019s throne,     240\nAnd of thy kingdom there should be no end.\nAt thy nativity a glorious quire\nOf Angels, in the fields of Bethlehem, sung\nTo shepherds, watching at their folds by night,\nAnd told them the Messiah now was born,\nWhere they might see him; and to thee they came,\nDirected to the manger where thou lay\u2019st;\nFor in the inn was left no better room.\nA Star, not seen before, in heaven appearing,\nGuided the Wise Men thither from the East,     250\nTo honour thee with incense, myrrh, and gold;\nBy whose bright course led on they found the place,\nAffirming it thy star, new-graven in heaven,\nBy which they knew thee King of Israel born.\nJust Simeon and prophetic Anna, warned\nBy vision, found thee in the Temple, and spake,\nBefore the altar and the vested priest,\nLike things of thee to all that present stood.\u2019\nThis having heart, straight I again revolved\nThe Law and Prophets, searching what was writ     260\nConcerning the Messiah, to our scribes\nKnown partly, and soon found of whom they spake\nI am\u2014this chiefly, that my way must lie\nThrough many a hard assay, even to the death,\nEre I the promised kingdom can attain,\nOr work redemption for mankind, whose sins\u2019\nFull weight must be transferred upon my head.\nYet, neither thus disheartened or dismayed,\nThe time prefixed I waited; when behold\nThe Baptist (of whose birth I oft had heard,     270\nNot knew by sight) now come, who was to come\nBefore Messiah, and his way prepare!\nI, as all others, to his baptism came,\nWhich I believed was from above; but he\nStraight knew me, and with loudest voice proclaimed\nMe him (for it was shewn him so from Heaven)\u2014\nMe him whose harbinger he was; and first\nRefused on me his baptism to confer,\nAs much his greater, and was hardly won.\nBut, as I rose out of the laving stream,     280\nHeaven opened her eternal doors, from whence\nThe Spirit descended on me like a Dove;\nAnd last, the sum of all, my Father\u2019s voice,\nAudibly heard from Heaven, pronounced me his,\nMe his beloved Son, in whom alone\nHe was well pleased: by which I knew the time\nNow full, that I no more should live obscure,\nBut openly begin, as best becomes\nThe authority which I derived from Heaven.\nAnd now by some strong motion I am led     290\nInto this wilderness; to what intent\nI learn not yet. Perhaps I need not know;\nFor what concerns my knowledge God reveals.\u201d\n    So spake our Morning Star, then in his rise,\nAnd, looking round, on every side beheld\nA pathless desert, dusk with horrid shades.\nThe way he came, not having marked return,\nWas difficult, by human steps untrod;\nAnd he still on was led, but with such thoughts\nAccompanied of things past and to come     300\nLodged in his breast as well might recommend\nSuch solitude before choicest society.\n    Full forty days he passed\u2014whether on hill\nSometimes, anon in shady vale, each night\nUnder the covert of some ancient oak\nOr cedar to defend him from the dew,\nOr harboured in one cave, is not revealed;\nNor tasted human food, nor hunger felt,\nTill those days ended; hungered then at last\nAmong wild beasts. They at his sight grew mild,     310\nNor sleeping him nor waking harmed; his walk\nThe fiery serpent fled and noxious worm;\nThe lion and fierce tiger glared aloof.\nBut now an aged man in rural weeds,\nFollowing, as seemed, the quest of some stray eye,\nOr withered sticks to gather, which might serve\nAgainst a winter\u2019s day, when winds blow keen,\nTo warm him wet returned from field at eve,\nHe saw approach; who first with curious eye\nPerused him, then with words thus uttered spake:\u2014     320\n    \u201cSir, what ill chance hath brought thee to this place,\nSo far from path or road of men, who pass\nIn troop or caravan? for single none\nDurst ever, who returned, and dropt not here\nHis carcass, pined with hunger and with droughth.\nI ask the rather, and the more admire,\nFor that to me thou seem\u2019st the man whom late\nOur new baptizing Prophet at the ford\nOf Jordan honoured so, and called thee Son\nOf God. I saw and heard, for we sometimes     330\nWho dwell this wild, constrained by want, come forth\nTo town or village nigh (nighest is far),\nWhere aught we hear, and curious are to hear,\nWhat happens new; fame also finds us out.\u201d\n    To whom the Son of God:\u2014\u201cWho brought me hither\nWill bring me hence; no other guide I seek.\u201d\n    \u201cBy miracle he may,\u201d replied the swain;\n\u201cWhat other way I see not; for we here\nLive on tough roots and stubs, to thirst inured\nMore than the camel, and to drink go far\u2014     340\nMen to much misery and hardship born.\nBut, if thou be the Son of God, command\nThat out of these hard stones be made thee bread;\nSo shalt thou save thyself, and us relieve\nWith food, whereof we wretched seldom taste.\u201d\n    He ended, and the Son of God replied:\u2014\n\u201cThink\u2019st thou such force in bread? Is it not written\n(For I discern thee other than thou seem\u2019st),\nMan lives not by bread only, but each word\nProceeding from the mouth of God, who fed     350\nOur fathers here with manna? In the Mount\nMoses was forty days, nor eat nor drank;\nAnd forty days Eliah without food\nWandered this barren waste; the same I now.\nWhy dost thou, then, suggest to me distrust\nKnowing who I am, as I know who thou art?\u201d\n    Whom thus answered the Arch-Fiend, now undisguised:\u2014\n\u201c\u2019Tis true, I am that Spirit unfortunate\nWho, leagued with millions more in rash revolt,\nKept not my happy station, but was driven     360\nWith them from bliss to the bottomless Deep\u2014\nYet to that hideous place not so confined\nBy rigour unconniving but that oft,\nLeaving my dolorous prison, I enjoy\nLarge liberty to round this globe of Earth,\nOr range in the Air; nor from the Heaven of Heavens\nHath he excluded my resort sometimes.\nI came, among the Sons of God, when he\nGave up into my hands Uzzean Job,\nTo prove him, and illustrate his high worth;     370\nAnd, when to all his Angels he proposed\nTo draw the proud king Ahab into fraud,\nThat he might fall in Ramoth, they demurring,\nI undertook that office, and the tongues\nOf all his flattering prophets glibbed with lies\nTo his destruction, as I had in charge:\nFor what he bids I do. Though I have lost\nMuch lustre of my native brightness, lost\nTo be beloved of God, I have not lost\nTo love, at least contemplate and admire,     380\nWhat I see excellent in good, or fair,\nOr virtuous; I should so have lost all sense.\nWhat can be then less in me than desire\nTo see thee and approach thee, whom I know\nDeclared the Son of God, to hear attent\nThy wisdom, and behold thy godlike deeds?\nMen generally think me much a foe\nTo all mankind. Why should I? they to me\nNever did wrong or violence. By them\nI lost not what I lost; rather by them     390\nI gained what I have gained, and with them dwell\nCopartner in these regions of the World,\nIf not disposer\u2014lend them oft my aid,\nOft my advice by presages and signs,\nAnd answers, oracles, portents, and dreams,\nWhereby they may direct their future life.\nEnvy, they say, excites me, thus to gain\nCompanions of my misery and woe!\nAt first it may be; but, long since with woe\nNearer acquainted, now I feel by proof     400\nThat fellowship in pain divides not smart,\nNor lightens aught each man\u2019s peculiar load;\nSmall consolation, then, were Man adjoined.\nThis wounds me most (what can it less?) that Man,\nMan fallen, shall be restored, I never more.\u201d\n    To whom our Saviour sternly thus replied:\u2014\n\u201cDeservedly thou griev\u2019st, composed of lies\nFrom the beginning, and in lies wilt end,\nWho boast\u2019st release from Hell, and leave to come\nInto the Heaven of Heavens. Thou com\u2019st, indeed,     410\nAs a poor miserable captive thrall\nComes to the place where he before had sat\nAmong the prime in splendour, now deposed,\nEjected, emptied, gazed, unpitied, shunned,\nA spectacle of ruin, or of scorn,\nTo all the host of Heaven. The happy place\nImparts to thee no happiness, no joy\u2014\nRather inflames thy torment, representing\nLost bliss, to thee no more communicable;\nSo never more in Hell than when in Heaven.     420\nBut thou art serviceable to Heaven\u2019s King!\nWilt thou impute to obedience what thy fear\nExtorts, or pleasure to do ill excites?\nWhat but thy malice moved thee to misdeem\nOf righteous Job, then cruelly to afflict him\nWith all inflictions? but his patience won.\nThe other service was thy chosen task,\nTo be a liar in four hundred mouths;\nFor lying is thy sustenance, thy food.\nYet thou pretend\u2019st to truth! all oracles     430\nBy thee are given, and what confessed more true\nAmong the nations? That hath been thy craft,\nBy mixing somewhat true to vent more lies.\nBut what have been thy answers? what but dark,\nAmbiguous, and with double sense deluding,\nWhich they who asked have seldom understood,\nAnd, not well understood, as good not known?\nWho ever, by consulting at thy shrine,\nReturned the wiser, or the more instruct\nTo fly or follow what concerned him most,     440\nAnd run not sooner to his fatal snare?\nFor God hath justly given the nations up\nTo thy delusions; justly, since they fell\nIdolatrous. But, when his purpose is\nAmong them to declare his providence,\nTo thee not known, whence hast thou then thy truth,\nBut from him, or his Angels president\nIn every province, who, themselves disdaining\nTo approach thy temples, give thee in command\nWhat, to the smallest tittle, thou shalt say     450\nTo thy adorers? Thou, with trembling fear,\nOr like a fawning parasite, obey\u2019st;\nThen to thyself ascrib\u2019st the truth foretold.\nBut this thy glory shall be soon retrenched;\nNo more shalt thou by oracling abuse\nThe Gentiles; henceforth oracles are ceased,\nAnd thou no more with pomp and sacrifice\nShalt be enquired at Delphos or elsewhere\u2014\nAt least in vain, for they shall find thee mute.\nGod hath now sent his living Oracle     460\nInto the world to teach his final will,\nAnd sends his Spirit of Truth henceforth to dwell\nIn pious hearts, an inward oracle\nTo all truth requisite for men to know.\u201d\n    So spake our Saviour; but the subtle Fiend,\nThough inly stung with anger and disdain,\nDissembled, and this answer smooth returned:\u2014\n    \u201cSharply thou hast insisted on rebuke,\nAnd urged me hard with doings which not will,\nBut misery, hath wrested from me. Where     470\nEasily canst thou find one miserable,\nAnd not inforced oft-times to part from truth,\nIf it may stand him more in stead to lie,\nSay and unsay, feign, flatter, or abjure?\nBut thou art placed above me; thou art Lord;\nFrom thee I can, and must, submiss, endure\nCheek or reproof, and glad to scape so quit.\nHard are the ways of truth, and rough to walk,\nSmooth on the tongue discoursed, pleasing to the ear,\nAnd tunable as sylvan pipe or song;     480\nWhat wonder, then, if I delight to hear\nHer dictates from thy mouth? most men admire\nVirtue who follow not her lore. Permit me\nTo hear thee when I come (since no man comes),\nAnd talk at least, though I despair to attain.\nThy Father, who is holy, wise, and pure,\nSuffers the hypocrite or atheous priest\nTo tread his sacred courts, and minister\nAbout his altar, handling holy things,\nPraying or vowing, and voutsafed his voice     490\nTo Balaam reprobate, a prophet yet\nInspired: disdain not such access to me.\u201d\n    To whom our Saviour, with unaltered brow:\u2014\n\u201cThy coming hither, though I know thy scope,\nI bid not, or forbid. Do as thou find\u2019st\nPermission from above; thou canst not more.\u201d\n    He added not; and Satan, bowling low\nHis gray dissimulation, disappeared,\nInto thin air diffused: for now began\nNight with her sullen wing to double-shade     500\nThe desert; fowls in their clay nests were couched;\nAnd now wild beasts came forth the woods to roam.\n\n\n\n\nTHE SECOND BOOK\n\n\nMeanwhile the new-baptized, who yet remained\nAt Jordan with the Baptist, and had seen\nHim whom they heard so late expressly called\nJesus Messiah, Son of God, declared,\nAnd on that high authority had believed,\nAnd with him talked, and with him lodged\u2014I mean\nAndrew and Simon, famous after known,\nWith others, though in Holy Writ not named\u2014\nNow missing him, their joy so lately found,\nSo lately found and so abruptly gone,     10\nBegan to doubt, and doubted many days,\nAnd, as the days increased, increased their doubt.\nSometimes they thought he might be only shewn,\nAnd for a time caught up to God, as once\nMoses was in the Mount and missing long,\nAnd the great Thisbite, who on fiery wheels\nRode up to Heaven, yet once again to come.\nTherefore, as those young prophets then with care\nSought lost Eliah, so in each place these\nNigh to Bethabara\u2014in Jericho     20\nThe city of palms, AEnon, and Salem old,\nMachaerus, and each town or city walled\nOn this side the broad lake Genezaret,\nOr in Peraea\u2014but returned in vain.\nThen on the bank of Jordan, by a creek,\nWhere winds with reeds and osiers whispering play,\nPlain fishermen (no greater men them call),\nClose in a cottage low together got,\nTheir unexpected loss and plaints outbreathed:\u2014\n    \u201cAlas, from what high hope to what relapse     30\nUnlooked for are we fallen! Our eyes beheld\nMessiah certainly now come, so long\nExpected of our fathers; we have heard\nHis words, his wisdom full of grace and truth.\n\u2018Now, now, for sure, deliverance is at hand;\nThe kingdom shall to Israel be restored:\u2019\nThus we rejoiced, but soon our joy is turned\nInto perplexity and new amaze.\nFor whither is he gone? what accident\nHath rapt him from us? will he now retire     40\nAfter appearance, and again prolong\nOur expectation? God of Israel,\nSend thy Messiah forth; the time is come.\nBehold the kings of the earth, how they oppress\nThy Chosen, to what highth their power unjust\nThey have exalted, and behind them cast\nAll fear of Thee; arise, and vindicate\nThy glory; free thy people from their yoke!\nBut let us wait; thus far He hath performed\u2014\nSent his Anointed, and to us revealed him     50\nBy his great Prophet pointed at and shown\nIn public, and with him we have conversed.\nLet us be glad of this, and all our fears\nLay on his providence; He will not fail,\nNor will withdraw him now, nor will recall\u2014\nMock us with his blest sight, then snatch him hence:\nSoon we shall see our hope, our joy, return.\u201d\n    Thus they out of their plaints new hope resume\nTo find whom at the first they found unsought.\nBut to his mother Mary, when she saw     60\nOthers returned from baptism, not her Son,\nNor left at Jordan tidings of him none,\nWithin her breast though calm, her breast though pure,\nMotherly cares and fears got head, and raised\nSome troubled thoughts, which she in sighs thus clad:\u2014\n    \u201cOh, what avails me now that honour high,\nTo have conceived of God, or that salute,\n\u2018Hail, highly favoured, among women blest!\u2019\nWhile I to sorrows am no less advanced,\nAnd fears as eminent above the lot     70\nOf other women, by the birth I bore:\nIn such a season born, when scarce a shed\nCould be obtained to shelter him or me\nFrom the bleak air? A stable was our warmth,\nA manger his; yet soon enforced to fly\nThence into Egypt, till the murderous king\nWere dead, who sought his life, and, missing, filled\nWith infant blood the streets of Bethlehem.\nFrom Egypt home returned, in Nazareth\nHath been our dwelling many years; his life     80\nPrivate, unactive, calm, contemplative,\nLittle suspicious to any king. But now,\nFull grown to man, acknowledged, as I hear,\nBy John the Baptist, and in public shewn,\nSon owned from Heaven by his Father\u2019s voice,\nI looked for some great change. To honour? no;\nBut trouble, as old Simeon plain foretold,\nThat to the fall and rising he should be\nOf many in Israel, and to a sign\nSpoken against\u2014that through my very soul     90\nA sword shall pierce. This is my favoured lot,\nMy exaltation to afflictions high!\nAfflicted I may be, it seems, and blest!\nI will not argue that, nor will repine.\nBut where delays he now? Some great intent\nConceals him. When twelve years he scarce had seen,\nI lost him, but so found as well I saw\nHe could not lose himself, but went about\nHis Father\u2019s business. What he meant I mused\u2014\nSince understand; much more his absence now     100\nThus long to some great purpose he obscures.\nBut I to wait with patience am inured;\nMy heart hath been a storehouse long of things\nAnd sayings laid up, pretending strange events.\u201d\n    Thus Mary, pondering oft, and oft to mind\nRecalling what remarkably had passed\nSince first her Salutation heard, with thoughts\nMeekly composed awaited the fulfilling:\nThe while her Son, tracing the desert wild,\nSole, but with holiest meditations fed,     110\nInto himself descended, and at once\nAll his great work to come before him set\u2014\nHow to begin, how to accomplish best\nHis end of being on Earth, and mission high.\nFor Satan, with sly preface to return,\nHad left him vacant, and with speed was gone\nUp to the middle region of thick air,\nWhere all his Potentates in council sate.\nThere, without sign of boast, or sign of joy,\nSolicitous and blank, he thus began:\u2014     120\n    \u201cPrinces, Heaven\u2019s ancient Sons, AEthereal Thrones\u2014\nDaemonian Spirits now, from the element\nEach of his reign allotted, rightlier called\nPowers of Fire, Air, Water, and Earth beneath\n(So may we hold our place and these mild seats\nWithout new trouble!)\u2014such an enemy\nIs risen to invade us, who no less\nThreatens than our expulsion down to Hell.\nI, as I undertook, and with the vote\nConsenting in full frequence was impowered,     130\nHave found him, viewed him, tasted him; but find\nFar other labour to be undergone\nThan when I dealt with Adam, first of men,\nThough Adam by his wife\u2019s allurement fell,\nHowever to this Man inferior far\u2014\nIf he be Man by mother\u2019s side, at least\nWith more than human gifts from Heaven adorned,\nPerfections absolute, graces divine,\nAnd amplitude of mind to greatest deeds.\nTherefore I am returned, lest confidence     140\nOf my success with Eve in Paradise\nDeceive ye to persuasion over-sure\nOf like succeeding here. I summon all\nRather to be in readiness with hand\nOr counsel to assist, lest I, who erst\nThought none my equal, now be overmatched.\u201d\n    So spake the old Serpent, doubting, and from all\nWith clamour was assured their utmost aid\nAt his command; when from amidst them rose\nBelial, the dissolutest Spirit that fell,     150\nThe sensualest, and, after Asmodai,\nThe fleshliest Incubus, and thus advised:\u2014\n    \u201cSet women in his eye and in his walk,\nAmong daughters of men the fairest found.\nMany are in each region passing fair\nAs the noon sky, more like to goddesses\nThan mortal creatures, graceful and discreet,\nExpert in amorous arts, enchanting tongues\nPersuasive, virgin majesty with mild\nAnd sweet allayed, yet terrible to approach,     160\nSkilled to retire, and in retiring draw\nHearts after them tangled in amorous nets.\nSuch object hath the power to soften and tame\nSeverest temper, smooth the rugged\u2019st brow,\nEnerve, and with voluptuous hope dissolve,\nDraw out with credulous desire, and lead\nAt will the manliest, resolutest breast,\nAs the magnetic hardest iron draws.\nWomen, when nothing else, beguiled the heart\nOf wisest Solomon, and made him build,     170\nAnd made him bow, to the gods of his wives.\u201d\n    To whom quick answer Satan thus returned:\u2014\n\u201cBelial, in much uneven scale thou weigh\u2019st\nAll others by thyself. Because of old\nThou thyself doat\u2019st on womankind, admiring\nTheir shape, their colour, and attractive grace,\nNone are, thou think\u2019st, but taken with such toys.\nBefore the Flood, thou, with thy lusty crew,\nFalse titled Sons of God, roaming the Earth,\nCast wanton eyes on the daughters of men,     180\nAnd coupled with them, and begot a race.\nHave we not seen, or by relation heard,\nIn courts and regal chambers how thou lurk\u2019st,\nIn wood or grove, by mossy fountain-side,\nIn valley or green meadow, to waylay\nSome beauty rare, Calisto, Clymene,\nDaphne, or Semele, Antiopa,\nOr Amymone, Syrinx, many more\nToo long\u2014then lay\u2019st thy scapes on names adored,\nApollo, Neptune, Jupiter, or Pan,     190\nSatyr, or Faun, or Silvan? But these haunts\nDelight not all. Among the sons of men\nHow many have with a smile made small account\nOf beauty and her lures, easily scorned\nAll her assaults, on worthier things intent!\nRemember that Pellean conqueror,\nA youth, how all the beauties of the East\nHe slightly viewed, and slightly overpassed;\nHow he surnamed of Africa dismissed,\nIn his prime youth, the fair Iberian maid.     200\nFor Solomon, he lived at ease, and, full\nOf honour, wealth, high fare, aimed not beyond\nHigher design than to enjoy his state;\nThence to the bait of women lay exposed.\nBut he whom we attempt is wiser far\nThan Solomon, of more exalted mind,\nMade and set wholly on the accomplishment\nOf greatest things. What woman will you find,\nThough of this age the wonder and the fame,\nOn whom his leisure will voutsafe an eye     210\nOf fond desire? Or should she, confident,\nAs sitting queen adored on Beauty\u2019s throne,\nDescend with all her winning charms begirt\nTo enamour, as the zone of Venus once\nWrought that effect on Jove (so fables tell),\nHow would one look from his majestic brow,\nSeated as on the top of Virtue\u2019s hill,\nDiscountenance her despised, and put to rout\nAll her array, her female pride deject,\nOr turn to reverent awe! For Beauty stands     220\nIn the admiration only of weak minds\nLed captive; cease to admire, and all her plumes\nFall flat, and shrink into a trivial toy,\nAt every sudden slighting quite abashed.\nTherefore with manlier objects we must try\nHis constancy\u2014with such as have more shew\nOf worth, of honour, glory, and popular praise\n(Rocks whereon greatest men have oftest wrecked);\nOr that which only seems to satisfy\nLawful desires of nature, not beyond.     230\nAnd now I know he hungers, where no food\nIs to be found, in the wide Wilderness:\nThe rest commit to me; I shall let pass\nNo advantage, and his strength as oft assay.\u201d\n    He ceased, and heard their grant in loud acclaim;\nThen forthwith to him takes a chosen band\nOf Spirits likest to himself in guile,\nTo be at hand and at his beck appear,\nIf cause were to unfold some active scene\nOf various persons, each to know his part;     240\nThen to the desert takes with these his flight,\nWhere still, from shade to shade, the Son of God,\nAfter forty days\u2019 fasting, had remained,\nNow hungering first, and to himself thus said:\u2014\n    \u201cWhere will this end? Four times ten days I have passed\nWandering this woody maze, and human food\nNor tasted, nor had appetite. That fast\nTo virtue I impute not, or count part\nOf what I suffer here. If nature need not,\nOr God support nature without repast,     250\nThough needing, what praise is it to endure?\nBut now I feel I hunger; which declares\nNature hath need of what she asks. Yet God\nCan satisfy that need some other way,\nThough hunger still remain. So it remain\nWithout this body\u2019s wasting, I content me,\nAnd from the sting of famine fear no harm;\nNor mind it, fed with better thoughts, that feed\nMe hungering more to do my Father\u2019s will.\u201d\n    It was the hour of night, when thus the Son     260\nCommuned in silent walk, then laid him down\nUnder the hospitable covert nigh\nOf trees thick interwoven. There he slept,\nAnd dreamed, as appetite is wont to dream,\nOf meats and drinks, nature\u2019s refreshment sweet.\nHim thought he by the brook of Cherith stood,\nAnd saw the ravens with their horny beaks\nFood to Elijah bringing even and morn\u2014\nThough ravenous, taught to abstain from what they brought;\nHe saw the Prophet also, how he fled     270\nInto the desert, and how there he slept\nUnder a juniper\u2014then how, awaked,\nHe found his supper on the coals prepared,\nAnd by the Angel was bid rise and eat,\nAnd eat the second time after repose,\nThe strength whereof sufficed him forty days:\nSometimes that with Elijah he partook,\nOr as a guest with Daniel at his pulse.\nThus wore out night; and now the harald Lark\nLeft his ground-nest, high towering to descry     280\nThe Morn\u2019s approach, and greet her with his song.\nAs lightly from his grassy couch up rose\nOur Saviour, and found all was but a dream;\nFasting he went to sleep, and fasting waked.\nUp to a hill anon his steps he reared,\nFrom whose high top to ken the prospect round,\nIf cottage were in view, sheep-cote, or herd;\nBut cottage, herd, or sheep-cote, none he saw\u2014\nOnly in a bottom saw a pleasant grove,\nWith chaunt of tuneful birds resounding loud.     290\nThither he bent his way, determined there\nTo rest at noon, and entered soon the shade\nHigh-roofed, and walks beneath, and alleys brown,\nThat opened in the midst a woody scene;\nNature\u2019s own work it seemed (Nature taught Art),\nAnd, to a superstitious eye, the haunt\nOf wood-gods and wood-nymphs. He viewed it round;\nWhen suddenly a man before him stood,\nNot rustic as before, but seemlier clad,\nAs one in city or court or palace bred,     300\nAnd with fair speech these words to him addressed:\u2014\n    \u201cWith granted leave officious I return,\nBut much more wonder that the Son of God\nIn this wild solitude so long should bide,\nOf all things destitute, and, well I know,\nNot without hunger. Others of some note,\nAs story tells, have trod this wilderness:\nThe fugitive Bond-woman, with her son,\nOutcast Nebaioth, yet found here relief\nBy a providing Angel; all the race     310\nOf Israel here had famished, had not God\nRained from heaven manna; and that Prophet bold,\nNative of Thebez, wandering here, was fed\nTwice by a voice inviting him to eat.\nOf thee those forty days none hath regard,\nForty and more deserted here indeed.\u201d\n    To whom thus Jesus:\u2014\u201cWhat conclud\u2019st thou hence?\nThey all had need; I, as thou seest, have none.\u201d\n    \u201cHow hast thou hunger then?\u201d Satan replied.\n\u201cTell me, if food were now before thee set,     320\nWouldst thou not eat?\u201d \u201cThereafter as I like\nthe giver,\u201d answered Jesus. \u201cWhy should that\nCause thy refusal?\u201d said the subtle Fiend.\n\u201cHast thou not right to all created things?\nOwe not all creatures, by just right, to thee\nDuty and service, nor to stay till bid,\nBut tender all their power? Nor mention I\nMeats by the law unclean, or offered first\nTo idols\u2014those young Daniel could refuse;\nNor proffered by an enemy\u2014though who     330\nWould scruple that, with want oppressed? Behold,\nNature ashamed, or, better to express,\nTroubled, that thou shouldst hunger, hath purveyed\nFrom all the elements her choicest store,\nTo treat thee as beseems, and as her Lord\nWith honour. Only deign to sit and eat.\u201d\n    He spake no dream; for, as his words had end,\nOur Saviour, lifting up his eyes, beheld,\nIn ample space under the broadest shade,\nA table richly spread in regal mode,     340\nWith dishes piled and meats of noblest sort\nAnd savour\u2014beasts of chase, or fowl of game,\nIn pastry built, or from the spit, or boiled,\nGrisamber-steamed; all fish, from sea or shore,\nFreshet or purling brook, of shell or fin,\nAnd exquisitest name, for which was drained\nPontus, and Lucrine bay, and Afric coast.\nAlas! how simple, to these cates compared,\nWas that crude Apple that diverted Eve!\nAnd at a stately sideboard, by the wine,     350\nThat fragrant smell diffused, in order stood\nTall stripling youths rich-clad, of fairer hue\nThan Ganymed or Hylas; distant more,\nUnder the trees now tripped, now solemn stood,\nNymphs of Diana\u2019s train, and Naiades\nWith fruits and flowers from Amalthea\u2019s horn,\nAnd ladies of the Hesperides, that seemed\nFairer than feigned of old, or fabled since\nOf faery damsels met in forest wide\nBy knights of Logres, or of Lyones,     360\nLancelot, or Pelleas, or Pellenore.\nAnd all the while harmonious airs were heard\nOf chiming strings or charming pipes; and winds\nOf gentlest gale Arabian odours fanned\nFrom their soft wings, and Flora\u2019s earliest smells.\nSuch was the splendour; and the Tempter now\nHis invitation earnestly renewed:\u2014\n    \u201cWhat doubts the Son of God to sit and eat?\nThese are not fruits forbidden; no interdict\nDefends the touching of these viands pure;     370\nTheir taste no knowledge works, at least of evil,\nBut life preserves, destroys life\u2019s enemy,\nHunger, with sweet restorative delight.\nAll these are Spirits of air, and woods, and springs,\nThy gentle ministers, who come to pay\nThee homage, and acknowledge thee their Lord.\nWhat doubt\u2019st thou, Son of God? Sit down and eat.\u201d\n    To whom thus Jesus temperately replied:\u2014\n\u201cSaid\u2019st thou not that to all things I had right?\nAnd who withholds my power that right to use?     380\nShall I receive by gift what of my own,\nWhen and where likes me best, I can command?\nI can at will, doubt not, as soon as thou,\nCommand a table in this wilderness,\nAnd call swift flights of Angels ministrant,\nArrayed in glory, on my cup to attend:\nWhy shouldst thou, then, obtrude this diligence\nIn vain, where no acceptance it can find?\nAnd with my hunger what hast thou to do?\nThy pompous delicacies I contemn,     390\nAnd count thy specious gifts no gifts, but guiles.\u201d\n    To whom thus answered Satan, male-content:\u2014\n\u201cThat I have also power to give thou seest;\nIf of that power I bring thee voluntary\nWhat I might have bestowed on whom I pleased,\nAnd rather opportunely in this place\nChose to impart to thy apparent need,\nWhy shouldst thou not accept it? But I see\nWhat I can do or offer is suspect.\nOf these things others quickly will dispose,     400\nWhose pains have earned the far-fet spoil.\u201d With that\nBoth table and provision vanished quite,\nWith sound of harpies\u2019 wings and talons heard;\nOnly the importune Tempter still remained,\nAnd with these words his temptation pursued:\u2014\n    \u201cBy hunger, that each other creature tames,\nThou art not to be harmed, therefore not moved;\nThy temperance, invincible besides,\nFor no allurement yields to appetite;\nAnd all thy heart is set on high designs,     410\nHigh actions. But wherewith to be achieved?\nGreat acts require great means of enterprise;\nThou art unknown, unfriended, low of birth,\nA carpenter thy father known, thyself\nBred up in poverty and straits at home,\nLost in a desert here and hunger-bit.\nWhich way, or from what hope, dost thou aspire\nTo greatness? whence authority deriv\u2019st?\nWhat followers, what retinue canst thou gain,\nOr at thy heels the dizzy multitude,     420\nLonger than thou canst feed them on thy cost?\nMoney brings honour, friends, conquest, and realms.\nWhat raised Antipater the Edomite,\nAnd his son Herod placed on Juda\u2019s throne,\nThy throne, but gold, that got him puissant friends?\nTherefore, if at great things thou wouldst arrive,\nGet riches first, get wealth, and treasure heap\u2014\nNot difficult, if thou hearken to me.\nRiches are mine, fortune is in my hand;\nThey whom I favour thrive in wealth amain,     430\nWhile virtue, valour, wisdom, sit in want.\u201d\n    To whom thus Jesus patiently replied:\u2014\n\u201cYet wealth without these three is impotent\nTo gain dominion, or to keep it gained\u2014\nWitness those ancient empires of the earth,\nIn highth of all their flowing wealth dissolved;\nBut men endued with these have oft attained,\nIn lowest poverty, to highest deeds\u2014\nGideon, and Jephtha, and the shepherd lad\nWhose offspring on the throne of Juda sate     440\nSo many ages, and shall yet regain\nThat seat, and reign in Israel without end.\nAmong the Heathen (for throughout the world\nTo me is not unknown what hath been done\nWorthy of memorial) canst thou not remember\nQuintius, Fabricius, Curius, Regulus?\nFor I esteem those names of men so poor,\nWho could do mighty things, and could contemn\nRiches, though offered from the hand of kings.\nAnd what in me seems wanting but that I     450\nMay also in this poverty as soon\nAccomplish what they did, perhaps and more?\nExtol not riches, then, the toil of fools,\nThe wise man\u2019s cumbrance, if not snare; more apt\nTo slacken virtue and abate her edge\nThan prompt her to do aught may merit praise.\nWhat if with like aversion I reject\nRiches and realms! Yet not for that a crown,\nGolden in shew, is but a wreath of thorns,\nBrings dangers, troubles, cares, and sleepless nights,     460\nTo him who wears the regal diadem,\nWhen on his shoulders each man\u2019s burden lies;\nFor therein stands the office of a king,\nHis honour, virtue, merit, and chief praise,\nThat for the public all this weight he bears.\nYet he who reigns within himself, and rules\nPassions, desires, and fears, is more a king\u2014\nWhich every wise and virtuous man attains;\nAnd who attains not, ill aspires to rule\nCities of men, or headstrong multitudes,     470\nSubject himself to anarchy within,\nOr lawless passions in him, which he serves.\nBut to guide nations in the way of truth\nBy saving doctrine, and from error lead\nTo know, and, knowing, worship God aright,\nIs yet more kingly. This attracts the soul,\nGoverns the inner man, the nobler part;\nThat other o\u2019er the body only reigns,\nAnd oft by force\u2014which to a generous mind\nSo reigning can be no sincere delight.     480\nBesides, to give a kingdom hath been thought\nGreater and nobler done, and to lay down\nFar more magnanimous, than to assume.\nRiches are needless, then, both for themselves,\nAnd for thy reason why they should be sought\u2014\nTo gain a sceptre, oftest better missed.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nTHE THIRD BOOK\n\n\nSo spake the Son of God; and Satan stood\nA while as mute, confounded what to say,\nWhat to reply, confuted and convinced\nOf his weak arguing and fallacious drift;\nAt length, collecting all his serpent wiles,\nWith soothing words renewed, him thus accosts:\u2014\n    \u201cI see thou know\u2019st what is of use to know,\nWhat best to say canst say, to do canst do;\nThy actions to thy words accord; thy words\nTo thy large heart give utterance due; thy heart     10\nContains of good, wise, just, the perfet shape.\nShould kings and nations from thy mouth consult,\nThy counsel would be as the oracle\nUrim and Thummim, those oraculous gems\nOn Aaron\u2019s breast, or tongue of Seers old\nInfallible; or, wert thou sought to deeds\nThat might require the array of war, thy skill\nOf conduct would be such that all the world\nCould not sustain thy prowess, or subsist\nIn battle, though against thy few in arms.     20\nThese godlike virtues wherefore dost thou hide?\nAffecting private life, or more obscure\nIn savage wilderness, wherefore deprive\nAll Earth her wonder at thy acts, thyself\nThe fame and glory\u2014glory, the reward\nThat sole excites to high attempts the flame\nOf most erected spirits, most tempered pure\nAEthereal, who all pleasures else despise,\nAll treasures and all gain esteem as dross,\nAnd dignities and powers, all but the highest?     30\nThy years are ripe, and over-ripe. The son\nOf Macedonian Philip had ere these\nWon Asia, and the throne of Cyrus held\nAt his dispose; young Scipio had brought down\nThe Carthaginian pride; young Pompey quelled\nThe Pontic king, and in triumph had rode.\nYet years, and to ripe years judgment mature,\nQuench not the thirst of glory, but augment.\nGreat Julius, whom now all the world admires,\nThe more he grew in years, the more inflamed     40\nWith glory, wept that he had lived so long\nIngloroious. But thou yet art not too late.\u201d\n    To whom our Saviour calmly thus replied:\u2014\n\u201cThou neither dost persuade me to seek wealth\nFor empire\u2019s sake, nor empire to affect\nFor glory\u2019s sake, by all thy argument.\nFor what is glory but the blaze of fame,\nThe people\u2019s praise, if always praise unmixed?\nAnd what the people but a herd confused,\nA miscellaneous rabble, who extol     50\nThings vulgar, and, well weighed, scarce worth the praise?\nThey praise and they admire they know not what,\nAnd know not whom, but as one leads the other;\nAnd what delight to be by such extolled,\nTo live upon their tongues, and be their talk?\nOf whom to be dispraised were no small praise\u2014\nHis lot who dares be singularly good.\nThe intelligent among them and the wise\nAre few, and glory scarce of few is raised.\nThis is true glory and renown\u2014when God,     60\nLooking on the Earth, with approbation marks\nThe just man, and divulges him through Heaven\nTo all his Angels, who with true applause\nRecount his praises. Thus he did to Job,\nWhen, to extend his fame through Heaven and Earth,\nAs thou to thy reproach may\u2019st well remember,\nHe asked thee, \u2018Hast thou seen my servant Job?\u2019\nFamous he was in Heaven; on Earth less known,\nWhere glory is false glory, attributed\nTo things not glorious, men not worthy of fame.     70\nThey err who count it glorious to subdue\nBy conquest far and wide, to overrun\nLarge countries, and in field great battles win,\nGreat cities by assault. What do these worthies\nBut rob and spoil, burn, slaughter, and enslave\nPeaceable nations, neighbouring or remote,\nMade captive, yet deserving freedom more\nThan those their conquerors, who leave behind\nNothing but ruin wheresoe\u2019er they rove,\nAnd all the flourishing works of peace destroy;     80\nThen swell with pride, and must be titled Gods,\nGreat benefactors of mankind, Deliverers,\nWorshipped with temple, priest, and sacrifice?\nOne is the son of Jove, of Mars the other;\nTill conqueror Death discover them scarce men,\nRowling in brutish vices, and deformed,\nViolent or shameful death their due reward.\nBut, if there be in glory aught of good;\nIt may be means far different be attained,\nWithout ambition, war, or violence\u2014     90\nBy deeds of peace, by wisdom eminent,\nBy patience, temperance. I mention still\nHim whom thy wrongs, with saintly patience borne,\nMade famous in a land and times obscure;\nWho names not now with honour patient Job?\nPoor Socrates, (who next more memorable?)\nBy what he taught and suffered for so doing,\nFor truth\u2019s sake suffering death unjust, lives now\nEqual in fame to proudest conquerors.\nYet, if for fame and glory aught be done,     100\nAught suffered\u2014if young African for fame\nHis wasted country freed from Punic rage\u2014\nThe deed becomes unpraised, the man at least,\nAnd loses, though but verbal, his reward.\nShall I seek glory, then, as vain men seek,\nOft not deserved? I seek not mine, but His\nWho sent me, and thereby witness whence I am.\u201d\n    To whom the Tempter, murmuring, thus replied:\u2014\n\u201cThink not so slight of glory, therein least\nResembling thy great Father. He seeks glory,     110\nAnd for his glory all things made, all things\nOrders and governs; nor content in Heaven,\nBy all his Angels glorified, requires\nGlory from men, from all men, good or bad,\nWise or unwise, no difference, no exemption.\nAbove all sacrifice, or hallowed gift,\nGlory he requires, and glory he receives,\nPromiscuous from all nations, Jew, or Greek,\nOr Barbarous, nor exception hath declared;\nFrom us, his foes pronounced, glory he exacts.\u201d     120\n    To whom our Saviour fervently replied:\n\u201cAnd reason; since his Word all things produced,\nThough chiefly not for glory as prime end,\nBut to shew forth his goodness, and impart\nHis good communicable to every soul\nFreely; of whom what could He less expect\nThan glory and benediction\u2014that is, thanks\u2014\nThe slightest, easiest, readiest recompense\nFrom them who could return him nothing else,\nAnd, not returning that, would likeliest render     130\nContempt instead, dishonour, obloquy?\nHard recompense, unsuitable return\nFor so much good, so much beneficience!\nBut why should man seek glory, who of his own\nHath nothing, and to whom nothing belongs\nBut condemnation, ignominy, and shame\u2014\nWho, for so many benefits received,\nTurned recreant to God, ingrate and false,\nAnd so of all true good himself despoiled;\nYet, sacrilegious, to himself would take     140\nThat which to God alone of right belongs?\nYet so much bounty is in God, such grace,\nThat who advances his glory, not their own,\nThem he himself to glory will advance.\u201d\n    So spake the Son of God; and here again\nSatan had not to answer, but stood struck\nWith guilt of his own sin\u2014for he himself,\nInsatiable of glory, had lost all;\nYet of another plea bethought him soon:\u2014\n    \u201cOf glory, as thou wilt,\u201d said he, \u201cso deem;     150\nWorth or not worth the seeking, let it pass.\nBut to a Kingdom thou art born\u2014ordained\nTo sit upon thy father David\u2019s throne,\nBy mother\u2019s side thy father, though thy right\nBe now in powerful hands, that will not part\nEasily from possession won with arms.\nJudaea now and all the Promised Land,\nReduced a province under Roman yoke,\nObeys Tiberius, nor is always ruled\nWith temperate sway: oft have they violated     160\nThe Temple, oft the Law, with foul affronts,\nAbominations rather, as did once\nAntiochus. And think\u2019st thou to regain\nThy right by sitting still, or thus retiring?\nSo did not Machabeus. He indeed\nRetired unto the Desert, but with arms;\nAnd o\u2019er a mighty king so oft prevailed\nThat by strong hand his family obtained,\nThough priests, the crown, and David\u2019s throne usurped,\nWith Modin and her suburbs once content.     170\nIf kingdom move thee not, let move thee zeal\nAnd duty\u2014zeal and duty are not slow,\nBut on Occasion\u2019s forelock watchful wait:\nThey themselves rather are occasion best\u2014\nZeal of thy Father\u2019s house, duty to free\nThy country from her heathen servitude.\nSo shalt thou best fulfil, best verify,\nThe Prophets old, who sung thy endless reign\u2014\nThe happier reign the sooner it begins.\nRein then; what canst thou better do the while?\u201d     180\n    To whom our Saviour answer thus returned:\u2014\n\u201cAll things are best fulfilled in their due time;\nAnd time there is for all things, Truth hath said.\nIf of my reign Prophetic Writ hath told\nThat it shall never end, so, when begin\nThe Father in his purpose hath decreed\u2014\nHe in whose hand all times and seasons rowl.\nWhat if he hath decreed that I shall first\nBe tried in humble state, and things adverse,\nBy tribulations, injuries, insults,     190\nContempts, and scorns, and snares, and violence,\nSuffering, abstaining, quietly expecting\nWithout distrust or doubt, that He may know\nWhat I can suffer, how obey? Who best\nCan suffer best can do, best reign who first\nWell hath obeyed\u2014just trial ere I merit\nMy exaltation without change or end.\nBut what concerns it thee when I begin\nMy everlasting Kingdom? Why art thou\nSolicitous? What moves thy inquisition?     200\nKnow\u2019st thou not that my rising is thy fall,\nAnd my promotion will be thy destruction?\u201d\n    To whom the Tempter, inly racked, replied:\u2014\n\u201cLet that come when it comes. All hope is lost\nOf my reception into grace; what worse?\nFor where no hope is left is left no fear.\nIf there be worse, the expectation more\nOf worse torments me than the feeling can.\nI would be at the worst; worst is my port,\nMy harbour, and my ultimate repose,     210\nThe end I would attain, my final good.\nMy error was my error, and my crime\nMy crime; whatever, for itself condemned,\nAnd will alike be punished, whether thou\nReign or reign not\u2014though to that gentle brow\nWillingly I could fly, and hope thy reign,\nFrom that placid aspect and meek regard,\nRather than aggravate my evil state,\nWould stand between me and thy Father\u2019s ire\n(Whose ire I dread more than the fire of Hell)     220\nA shelter and a kind of shading cool\nInterposition, as a summer\u2019s cloud.\nIf I, then, to the worst that can be haste,\nWhy move thy feet so slow to what is best?\nHappiest, both to thyself and all the world,\nThat thou, who worthiest art, shouldst be their King!\nPerhaps thou linger\u2019st in deep thoughts detained\nOf the enterprise so hazardous and high!\nNo wonder; for, though in thee be united\nWhat of perfection can in Man be found,     230\nOr human nature can receive, consider\nThy life hath yet been private, most part spent\nAt home, scarce viewed the Galilean towns,\nAnd once a year Jerusalem, few days\u2019\nShort sojourn; and what thence couldst thou observe?\nThe world thou hast not seen, much less her glory,\nEmpires, and monarchs, and their radiant courts\u2014\nBest school of best experience, quickest in sight\nIn all things that to greatest actions lead.\nThe wisest, unexperienced, will be ever     240\nTimorous, and loth, with novice modesty\n(As he who, seeking asses, found a kingdom)\nIrresolute, unhardy, unadventrous.\nBut I will bring thee where thou soon shalt quit\nThose rudiments, and see before thine eyes\nThe monarchies of the Earth, their pomp and state\u2014\nSufficient introduction to inform\nThee, of thyself so apt, in regal arts,\nAnd regal mysteries; that thou may\u2019st know\nHow best their opposition to withstand.\u201d     250\n    With that (such power was given him then), he took\nThe Son of God up to a mountain high.\nIt was a mountain at whose verdant feet\nA spacious plain outstretched in circuit wide\nLay pleasant; from his side two rivers flowed,\nThe one winding, the other straight, and left between\nFair champaign, with less rivers interveined,\nThen meeting joined their tribute to the sea.\nFertil of corn the glebe, of oil, and wine;\nWith herds the pasture thronged, with flocks the hills;     260\nHuge cities and high-towered, that well might seem\nThe seats of mightiest monarchs; and so large\nThe prospect was that here and there was room\nFor barren desert, fountainless and dry.\nTo this high mountain-top the Tempter brought\nOur Saviour, and new train of words began:\u2014\n    \u201cWell have we speeded, and o\u2019er hill and dale,\nForest, and field, and flood, temples and towers,\nCut shorter many a league. Here thou behold\u2019st\nAssyria, and her empire\u2019s ancient bounds,     270\nAraxes and the Caspian lake; thence on\nAs far as Indus east, Euphrates west,\nAnd oft beyond; to south the Persian bay,\nAnd, inaccessible, the Arabian drouth:\nHere, Nineveh, of length within her wall\nSeveral days\u2019 journey, built by Ninus old,\nOf that first golden monarchy the seat,\nAnd seat of Salmanassar, whose success\nIsrael in long captivity still mourns;\nThere Babylon, the wonder of all tongues,     280\nAs ancient, but rebuilt by him who twice\nJudah and all thy father David\u2019s house\nLed captive, and Jerusalem laid waste,\nTill Cyrus set them free; Persepolis,\nHis city, there thou seest, and Bactra there;\nEcbatana her structure vast there shews,\nAnd Hecatompylos her hunderd gates;\nThere Susa by Choaspes, amber stream,\nThe drink of none but kings; of later fame,\nBuilt by Emathian or by Parthian hands,     290\nThe great Seleucia, Nisibis, and there\nArtaxata, Teredon, Ctesiphon,\nTurning with easy eye, thou may\u2019st behold.\nAll these the Parthian (now some ages past\nBy great Arsaces led, who founded first\nThat empire) under his dominion holds,\nFrom the luxurious kings of Antioch won.\nAnd just in time thou com\u2019st to have a view\nOf his great power; for now the Parthian king\nIn Ctesiphon hath gathered all his host     300\nAgainst the Scythian, whose incursions wild\nHave wasted Sogdiana; to her aid\nHe marches now in haste. See, though from far,\nHis thousands, in what martial equipage\nThey issue forth, steel bows and shafts their arms,\nOf equal dread in flight or in pursuit\u2014\nAll horsemen, in which fight they most excel;\nSee how in warlike muster they appear,\nIn rhombs, and wedges, and half-moons, and wings.\u201d\n    He looked, and saw what numbers numberless     310\nThe city gates outpoured, light-armed troops\nIn coats of mail and military pride.\nIn mail their horses clad, yet fleet and strong,\nPrauncing their riders bore, the flower and choice\nOf many provinces from bound to bound\u2014\nFrom Arachosia, from Candaor east,\nAnd Margiana, to the Hyrcanian cliffs\nOf Caucasus, and dark Iberian dales;\nFrom Atropatia, and the neighbouring plains\nOf Adiabene, Media, and the south     320\nOf Susiana, to Balsara\u2019s haven.\nHe saw them in their forms of battle ranged,\nHow quick they wheeled, and flying behind them shot\nSharp sleet of arrowy showers against the face\nOf their pursuers, and overcame by flight;\nThe field all iron cast a gleaming brown.\nNor wanted clouds of foot, nor, on each horn,\nCuirassiers all in steel for standing fight,\nChariots, or elephants indorsed with towers\nOf archers; nor of labouring pioners     330\nA multitude, with spades and axes armed,\nTo lay hills plain, fell woods, or valleys fill,\nOr where plain was raise hill, or overlay\nWith bridges rivers proud, as with a yoke:\nMules after these, camels and dromedaries,\nAnd waggons fraught with utensils of war.\nSuch forces met not, nor so wide a camp,\nWhen Agrican, with all his northern powers,\nBesieged Albracea, as romances tell,\nThe city of Gallaphrone, from thence to win     340\nThe fairest of her sex, Angelica,\nHis daughter, sought by many prowest knights,\nBoth Paynim and the peers of Charlemane.\nSuch and so numerous was their chivalry;\nAt sight whereof the Fiend yet more presumed,\nAnd to our Saviour thus his words renewed:\u2014\n    \u201cThat thou may\u2019st know I seek not to engage\nThy virtue, and not every way secure\nOn no slight grounds thy safety, hear and mark\nTo what end I have brought thee hither, and shew     350\nAll this fair sight. Thy kingdom, though foretold\nBy Prophet or by Angel, unless thou\nEndeavour, as thy father David did,\nThou never shalt obtain: prediction still\nIn all things, and all men, supposes means;\nWithout means used, what it predicts revokes.\nBut say thou wert possessed of David\u2019s throne\nBy free consent of all, none opposite,\nSamaritan or Jew; how couldst thou hope\nLong to enjoy it quiet and secure     360\nBetween two such enclosing enemies,\nRoman and Parthian? Therefore one of these\nThou must make sure thy own: the Parthian first,\nBy my advice, as nearer, and of late\nFound able by invasion to annoy\nThy country, and captive lead away her kings,\nAntigonus and old Hyrcanus, bound,\nMaugre the Roman. It shall be my task\nTo render thee the Parthian at dispose,\nChoose which thou wilt, by conquest or by league.     370\nBy him thou shalt regain, without him not,\nThat which alone can truly reinstall thee\nIn David\u2019s royal seat, his true successor\u2014\nDeliverance of thy brethren, those Ten Tribes\nWhose offspring in his territory yet serve\nIn Habor, and among the Medes dispersed:\nThe sons of Jacob, two of Joseph, lost\nThus long from Israel, serving, as of old\nTheir fathers in the land of Egypt served,\nThis offer sets before thee to deliver.     380\nThese if from servitude thou shalt restore\nTo their inheritance, then, nor till then,\nThou on the throne of David in full glory,\nFrom Egypt to Euphrates and beyond,\nShalt reign, and Rome or Caesar not need fear.\u201d\n    To whom our Saviour answered thus, unmoved:\u2014\n\u201cMuch ostentation vain of fleshly arm\nAnd fragile arms, much instrument of war,\nLong in preparing, soon to nothing brought,\nBefore mine eyes thou hast set, and in my ear     390\nVented much policy, and projects deep\nOf enemies, of aids, battles, and leagues,\nPlausible to the world, to me worth naught.\nMeans I must use, thou say\u2019st; prediction else\nWill unpredict, and fail me of the throne!\nMy time, I told thee (and that time for thee\nWere better farthest off), is not yet come.\nWhen that comes, think not thou to find me slack\nOn my part aught endeavouring, or to need\nThy politic maxims, or that cumbersome     400\nLuggage of war there shewn me\u2014argument\nOf human weakness rather than of strength.\nMy brethren, as thou call\u2019st them, those Ten Tribes,\nI must deliver, if I mean to reign\nDavid\u2019s true heir, and his full sceptre sway\nTo just extent over all Israel\u2019s sons!\nBut whence to thee this zeal? Where was it then\nFor Israel, or for David, or his throne,\nWhen thou stood\u2019st up his tempter to the pride\nOf numbering Israel\u2014which cost the lives     410\nof threescore and ten thousand Israelites\nBy three days\u2019 pestilence? Such was thy zeal\nTo Israel then, the same that now to me.\nAs for those captive tribes, themselves were they\nWho wrought their own captivity, fell off\nFrom God to worship calves, the deities\nOf Egypt, Baal next and Ashtaroth,\nAnd all the idolatries of heathen round,\nBesides their other worse than heathenish crimes;\nNor in the land of their captivity     420\nHumbled themselves, or penitent besought\nThe God of their forefathers, but so died\nImpenitent, and left a race behind\nLike to themselves, distinguishable scarce\nFrom Gentiles, but by circumcision vain,\nAnd God with idols in their worship joined.\nShould I of these the liberty regard,\nWho, freed, as to their ancient patrimony,\nUnhumbled, unrepentant, unreformed,\nHeadlong would follow, and to their gods perhaps     430\nOf Bethel and of Dan? No; let them serve\nTheir enemies who serve idols with God.\nYet He at length, time to himself best known,\nRemembering Abraham, by some wondrous call\nMay bring them back, repentant and sincere,\nAnd at their passing cleave the Assyrian flood,\nWhile to their native land with joy they haste,\nAs the Red Sea and Jordan once he cleft,\nWhen to the Promised Land their fathers passed.\nTo his due time and providence I leave them.\u201d     440\n    So spake Israel\u2019s true King, and to the Fiend\nMade answer meet, that made void all his wiles.\nSo fares it when with truth falsehood contends.\n\n\n\n\nTHE FOURTH BOOK\n\n\nPerplexed and troubled at his bad success\nThe Tempter stood, nor had what to reply,\nDiscovered in his fraud, thrown from his hope\nSo oft, and the persuasive rhetoric\nThat sleeked his tongue, and won so much on Eve,\nSo little here, nay lost. But Eve was Eve;\nThis far his over-match, who, self-deceived\nAnd rash, beforehand had no better weighed\nThe strength he was to cope with, or his own.\nBut\u2014as a man who had been matchless held     10\nIn cunning, over-reached where least he thought,\nTo salve his credit, and for very spite,\nStill will be tempting him who foils him still,\nAnd never cease, though to his shame the more;\nOr as a swarm of flies in vintage-time,\nAbout the wine-press where sweet must is poured,\nBeat off, returns as oft with humming sound;\nOr surging waves against a solid rock,\nThough all to shivers dashed, the assault renew,\n(Vain battery!) and in froth or bubbles end\u2014     20\nSo Satan, whom repulse upon repulse\nMet ever, and to shameful silence brought,\nYet gives not o\u2019er, though desperate of success,\nAnd his vain importunity pursues.\nHe brought our Saviour to the western side\nOf that high mountain, whence he might behold\nAnother plain, long, but in breadth not wide,\nWashed by the southern sea, and on the north\nTo equal length backed with a ridge of hills\nThat screened the fruits of the earth and seats of men     30\nFrom cold Septentrion blasts; thence in the midst\nDivided by a river, off whose banks\nOn each side an Imperial City stood,\nWith towers and temples proudly elevate\nOn seven small hills, with palaces adorned,\nPorches and theatres, baths, aqueducts,\nStatues and trophies, and triumphal arcs,\nGardens and groves, presented to his eyes\nAbove the highth of mountains interposed\u2014\nBy what strange parallax, or optic skill     40\nOf vision, multiplied through air, or glass\nOf telescope, were curious to enquire.\nAnd now the Tempter thus his silence broke:\u2014\n    \u201cThe city which thou seest no other deem\nThan great and glorious Rome, Queen of the Earth\nSo far renowned, and with the spoils enriched\nOf nations. There the Capitol thou seest,\nAbove the rest lifting his stately head\nOn the Tarpeian rock, her citadel\nImpregnable; and there Mount Palatine,     50\nThe imperial palace, compass huge, and high\nThe structure, skill of noblest architects,\nWith gilded battlements, conspicuous far,\nTurrets, and terraces, and glittering spires.\nMany a fair edifice besides, more like\nHouses of gods\u2014so well I have disposed\nMy aerie microscope\u2014thou may\u2019st behold,\nOutside and inside both, pillars and roofs\nCarved work, the hand of famed artificers\nIn cedar, marble, ivory, or gold.     60\nThence to the gates cast round thine eye, and see\nWhat conflux issuing forth, or entering in:\nPraetors, proconsuls to their provinces\nHasting, or on return, in robes of state;\nLictors and rods, the ensigns of their power;\nLegions and cohorts, turms of horse and wings;\nOr embassies from regions far remote,\nIn various habits, on the Appian road,\nOr on the AEmilian\u2014some from farthest south,\nSyene, and where the shadow both way falls,     70\nMeroe, Nilotic isle, and, more to west,\nThe realm of Bocchus to the Blackmoor sea;\nFrom the Asian kings (and Parthian among these),\nFrom India and the Golden Chersoness,\nAnd utmost Indian isle Taprobane,\nDusk faces with white silken turbants wreathed;\nFrom Gallia, Gades, and the British west;\nGermans, and Scythians, and Sarmatians north\nBeyond Danubius to the Tauric pool.\nAll nations now to Rome obedience pay\u2014     80\nTo Rome\u2019s great Emperor, whose wide domain,\nIn ample territory, wealth and power,\nCivility of manners, arts and arms,\nAnd long renown, thou justly may\u2019st prefer\nBefore the Parthian. These two thrones except,\nThe rest are barbarous, and scarce worth the sight,\nShared among petty kings too far removed;\nThese having shewn thee, I have shewn thee all\nThe kingdoms of the world, and all their glory.\nThis Emperor hath no son, and now is old,     90\nOld and lascivious, and from Rome retired\nTo Capreae, an island small but strong\nOn the Campanian shore, with purpose there\nHis horrid lusts in private to enjoy;\nCommitting to a wicked favourite\nAll public cares, and yet of him suspicious;\nHated of all, and hating. With what ease,\nEndued with regal virtues as thou art,\nAppearing, and beginning noble deeds,\nMight\u2019st thou expel this monster from his throne,     100\nNow made a sty, and, in his place ascending,\nA victor-people free from servile yoke!\nAnd with my help thou may\u2019st; to me the power\nIs given, and by that right I give it thee.\nAim, therefore, at no less than all the world;\nAim at the highest; without the highest attained,\nWill be for thee no sitting, or not long,\nOn David\u2019s throne, be prophesied what will.\u201d\n    To whom the Son of God, unmoved, replied:\u2014\n\u201cNor doth this grandeur and majestic shew     110\nOf luxury, though called magnificence,\nMore than of arms before, allure mine eye,\nMuch less my mind; though thou should\u2019st add to tell\nTheir sumptuous gluttonies, and gorgeous feasts\nOn citron tables or Atlantic stone\n(For I have also heard, perhaps have read),\nTheir wines of Setia, Cales, and Falerne,\nChios and Crete, and how they quaff in gold,\nCrystal, and myrrhine cups, imbossed with gems\nAnd studs of pearl\u2014to me should\u2019st tell, who thirst     120\nAnd hunger still. Then embassies thou shew\u2019st\nFrom nations far and nigh! What honour that,\nBut tedious waste of time, to sit and hear\nSo many hollow compliments and lies,\nOutlandish flatteries? Then proceed\u2019st to talk\nOf the Emperor, how easily subdued,\nHow gloriously. I shall, thou say\u2019st, expel\nA brutish monster: what if I withal\nExpel a Devil who first made him such?\nLet his tormentor, Conscience, find him out;     130\nFor him I was not sent, nor yet to free\nThat people, victor once, now vile and base,\nDeservedly made vassal\u2014who, once just,\nFrugal, and mild, and temperate, conquered well,\nBut govern ill the nations under yoke,\nPeeling their provinces, exhausted all\nBy lust and rapine; first ambitious grown\nOf triumph, that insulting vanity;\nThen cruel, by their sports to blood inured\nOf fighting beasts, and men to beasts exposed;     140\nLuxurious by their wealth, and greedier still,\nAnd from the daily Scene effeminate.\nWhat wise and valiant man would seek to free\nThese, thus degenerate, by themselves enslaved,\nOr could of inward slaves make outward free?\nKnow, therefore, when my season comes to sit\nOn David\u2019s throne, it shall be like a tree\nSpreading and overshadowing all the earth,\nOr as a stone that shall to pieces dash\nAll monarchies besides throughout the world;     150\nAnd of my Kingdom there shall be no end.\nMeans there shall be to this; but what the means\nIs not for thee to know, nor me to tell.\u201d\n    To whom the Tempter, impudent, replied:\u2014\n\u201cI see all offers made by me how slight\nThou valuest, because offered, and reject\u2019st.\nNothing will please the difficult and nice,\nOr nothing more than still to contradict.\nOn the other side know also thou that I\nOn what I offer set as high esteem,     160\nNor what I part with mean to give for naught,\nAll these, which in a moment thou behold\u2019st,\nThe kingdoms of the world, to thee I give\n(For, given to me, I give to whom I please),\nNo trifle; yet with this reserve, not else\u2014\nOn this condition, if thou wilt fall down,\nAnd worship me as thy superior Lord\n(Easily done), and hold them all of me;\nFor what can less so great a gift deserve?\u201d\n    Whom thus our Saviour answered with disdain:\u2014     170\n\u201cI never liked thy talk, thy offers less;\nNow both abhor, since thou hast dared to utter\nThe abominable terms, impious condition.\nBut I endure the time, till which expired\nThou hast permission on me. It is written,\nThe first of all commandments, \u2018Thou shalt worship\nThe Lord thy God, and only Him shalt serve.\u2019\nAnd dar\u2019st thou to the Son of God propound\nTo worship thee, accursed? now more accursed\nFor this attempt, bolder than that on Eve,     180\nAnd more blasphemous; which expect to rue.\nThe kingdoms of the world to thee were given!\nPermitted rather, and by thee usurped;\nOther donation none thou canst produce.\nIf given, by whom but by the King of kings,\nGod over all supreme? If given to thee,\nBy thee how fairly is the Giver now\nRepaid! But gratitude in thee is lost\nLong since. Wert thou so void of fear or shame\nAs offer them to me, the Son of God\u2014     190\nTo me my own, on such abhorred pact,\nThat I fall down and worship thee as God?\nGet thee behind me! Plain thou now appear\u2019st\nThat Evil One, Satan for ever damned.\u201d\n    To whom the Fiend, with fear abashed, replied:\u2014\n\u201cBe not so sore offended, Son of God\u2014\nThough Sons of God both Angels are and Men\u2014\nIf I, to try whether in higher sort\nThan these thou bear\u2019st that title, have proposed\nWhat both from Men and Angels I receive,     200\nTetrarchs of Fire, Air, Flood, and on the Earth\nNations besides from all the quartered winds\u2014\nGod of this World invoked, and World beneath.\nWho then thou art, whose coming is foretold\nTo me most fatal, me it most concerns.\nThe trial hath indamaged thee no way,\nRather more honour left and more esteem;\nMe naught advantaged, missing what I aimed.\nTherefore let pass, as they are transitory,\nThe kingdoms of this world; I shall no more     210\nAdvise thee; gain them as thou canst, or not.\nAnd thou thyself seem\u2019st otherwise inclined\nThan to a worldly crown, addicted more\nTo contemplation and profound dispute;\nAs by that early action may be judged,\nWhen, slipping from thy mother\u2019s eye, thou went\u2019st\nAlone into the Temple, there wast found\nAmong the gravest Rabbies, disputant\nOn points and questions fitting Moses\u2019 chair,\nTeaching, not taught. The childhood shews the man,     220\nAs morning shews the day. Be famous, then,\nBy wisdom; as thy empire must extend,\nSo let extend thy mind o\u2019er all the world\nIn knowledge; all things in it comprehend.\nAll knowledge is not couched in Moses\u2019 law,\nThe Pentateuch, or what the Prophets wrote;\nThe Gentiles also know, and write, and teach\nTo admiration, led by Nature\u2019s light;\nAnd with the Gentiles much thou must converse,\nRuling them by persuasion, as thou mean\u2019st.     230\nWithout their learning, how wilt thou with them,\nOr they with thee, hold conversation meet?\nHow wilt thou reason with them, how refute\nTheir idolisms, traditions, paradoxes?\nError by his own arms is best evinced.\nLook once more, ere we leave this specular mount,\nWestward, much nearer by south-west; behold\nWhere on the AEgean shore a city stands,\nBuilt nobly, pure the air and light the soil\u2014\nAthens, the eye of Greece, mother of arts     240\nAnd Eloquence, native to famous wits\nOr hospitable, in her sweet recess,\nCity or suburban, studious walks and shades.\nSee there the olive-grove of Academe,\nPlato\u2019s retirement, where the Attic bird\nTrills her thick-warbled notes the summer long;\nThere, flowery hill, Hymettus, with the sound\nOf bees\u2019 industrious murmur, oft invites\nTo studious musing; there Ilissus rowls\nHis whispering stream. Within the walls then view     250\nThe schools of ancient sages\u2014his who bred\nGreat Alexander to subdue the world,\nLyceum there; and painted Stoa next.\nThere thou shalt hear and learn the secret power\nOf harmony, in tones and numbers hit\nBy voice or hand, and various-measured verse,\nAEolian charms and Dorian lyric odes,\nAnd his who gave them breath, but higher sung,\nBlind Melesigenes, thence Homer called,\nWhose poem Phoebus challenged for his own.     260\nThence what the lofty grave Tragedians taught\nIn chorus or iambic, teachers best\nOf moral prudence, with delight received\nIn brief sententious precepts, while they treat\nOf fate, and chance, and change in human life,\nHigh actions and high passions best describing.\nThence to the famous Orators repair,\nThose ancient whose resistless eloquence\nWielded at will that fierce democraty,\nShook the Arsenal, and fulmined over Greece     270\nTo Macedon and Artaxerxes\u2019 throne.\nTo sage Philosophy next lend thine ear,\nFrom heaven descended to the low-roofed house\nOf Socrates\u2014see there his tenement\u2014\nWhom, well inspired, the Oracle pronounced\nWisest of men; from whose mouth issued forth\nMellifluous streams, that watered all the schools\nOf Academics old and new, with those\nSurnamed Peripatetics, and the sect\nEpicurean, and the Stoic severe.     280\nThese here revolve, or, as thou likest, at home,\nTill time mature thee to a kingdom\u2019s weight;\nThese rules will render thee a king complete\nWithin thyself, much more with empire joined.\u201d\n    To whom our Saviour sagely thus replied:\u2014\n\u201cThink not but that I know these things; or, think\nI know them not, not therefore am I short\nOf knowing what I ought. He who receives\nLight from above, from the Fountain of Light,\nNo other doctrine needs, though granted true;     290\nBut these are false, or little else but dreams,\nConjectures, fancies, built on nothing firm.\nThe first and wisest of them all professed\nTo know this only, that he nothing knew;\nThe next to fabling fell and smooth conceits;\nA third sort doubted all things, though plain sense;\nOthers in virtue placed felicity,\nBut virtue joined with riches and long life;\nIn corporal pleasure he, and careless ease;\nThe Stoic last in philosophic pride,     300\nBy him called virtue, and his virtuous man,\nWise, perfect in himself, and all possessing,\nEqual to God, oft shames not to prefer,\nAs fearing God nor man, contemning all\nWealth, pleasure, pain or torment, death and life\u2014\nWhich, when he lists, he leaves, or boasts he can;\nFor all his tedious talk is but vain boast,\nOr subtle shifts conviction to evade.\nAlas! what can they teach, and not mislead,\nIgnorant of themselves, of God much more,     310\nAnd how the World began, and how Man fell,\nDegraded by himself, on grace depending?\nMuch of the Soul they talk, but all awry;\nAnd in themselves seek virtue; and to themselves\nAll glory arrogate, to God give none;\nRather accuse him under usual names,\nFortune and Fate, as one regardless quite\nOf mortal things. Who, therefore, seeks in these\nTrue wisdom finds her not, or, by delusion\nFar worse, her false resemblance only meets,     320\nAn empty cloud. However, many books,\nWise men have said, are wearisome; who reads\nIncessantly, and to his reading brings not\nA spirit and judgment equal or superior,\n(And what he brings what needs he elsewhere seek?)\nUncertain and unsettled still remains,\nDeep-versed in books and shallow in himself,\nCrude or intoxicate, collecting toys\nAnd trifles for choice matters, worth a sponge,\nAs children gathering pebbles on the shore.     330\nOr, if I would delight my private hours\nWith music or with poem, where so soon\nAs in our native language can I find\nThat solace? All our Law and Story strewed\nWith hymns, our Psalms with artful terms inscribed,\nOur Hebrew songs and harps, in Babylon\nThat pleased so well our victor\u2019s ear, declare\nThat rather Greece from us these arts derived\u2014\nIll imitated while they loudest sing\nThe vices of their deities, and their own,     340\nIn fable, hymn, or song, so personating\nTheir gods ridiculous, and themselves past shame.\nRemove their swelling epithetes, thick-laid\nAs varnish on a harlot\u2019s cheek, the rest,\nThin-sown with aught of profit or delight,\nWill far be found unworthy to compare\nWith Sion\u2019s songs, to all true tastes excelling,\nWhere God is praised aright and godlike men,\nThe Holiest of Holies and his Saints\n(Such are from God inspired, not such from thee);     350\nUnless where moral virtue is expressed\nBy light of Nature, not in all quite lost.\nTheir orators thou then extoll\u2019st as those\nThe top of eloquence\u2014statists indeed,\nAnd lovers of their country, as may seem;\nBut herein to our Prophets far beneath,\nAs men divinely taught, and better teaching\nThe solid rules of civil government,\nIn their majestic, unaffected style,\nThan all the oratory of Greece and Rome.     360\nIn them is plainest taught, and easiest learnt,\nWhat makes a nation happy, and keeps it so,\nWhat ruins kingdoms, and lays cities flat;\nThese only, with our Law, best form a king.\u201d\n    So spake the Son of God; but Satan, now\nQuite at a loss (for all his darts were spent),\nThus to our Saviour, with stern brow, replied:\u2014\n    \u201cSince neither wealth nor honour, arms nor arts,\nKingdom nor empire, pleases thee, nor aught\nBy me proposed in life contemplative     370\nOr active, tended on by glory or fame,\nWhat dost thou in this world? The Wilderness\nFor thee is fittest place: I found thee there,\nAnd thither will return thee. Yet remember\nWhat I foretell thee; soon thou shalt have cause\nTo wish thou never hadst rejected, thus\nNicely or cautiously, my offered aid,\nWhich would have set thee in short time with ease\nOn David\u2019s throne, or throne of all the world,\nNow at full age, fulness of time, thy season,     380\nWhen prophecies of thee are best fulfilled.\nNow, contrary\u2014if I read aught in heaven,\nOr heaven write aught of fate\u2014by what the stars\nVoluminous, or single characters\nIn their conjunction met, give me to spell,\nSorrows and labours, opposition, hate,\nAttends thee; scorns, reproaches, injuries,\nViolence and stripes, and, lastly, cruel death.\nA kingdom they portend thee, but what kingdom,\nReal or allegoric, I discern not;     390\nNor when: eternal sure\u2014as without end,\nWithout beginning; for no date prefixed\nDirects me in the starry rubric set.\u201d\n    So saying, he took (for still he knew his power\nNot yet expired), and to the Wilderness\nBrought back, the Son of God, and left him there,\nFeigning to disappear. Darkness now rose,\nAs daylight sunk, and brought in louring Night,\nHer shadowy offspring, unsubstantial both,\nPrivation mere of light and absent day.     400\nOur Saviour, meek, and with untroubled mind\nAfter hisaerie jaunt, though hurried sore,\nHungry and cold, betook him to his rest,\nWherever, under some concourse of shades,\nWhose branching arms thick intertwined might shield\nFrom dews and damps of night his sheltered head;\nBut, sheltered, slept in vain; for at his head\nThe Tempter watched, and soon with ugly dreams\nDisturbed his sleep. And either tropic now\n\u2019Gan thunder, and both ends of heaven; the clouds     410\nFrom many a horrid rift abortive poured\nFierce rain with lightning mixed, water with fire,\nIn ruin reconciled; nor slept the winds\nWithin their stony caves, but rushed abroad\nFrom the four hinges of the world, and fell\nOn the vexed wilderness, whose tallest pines,\nThough rooted deep as high, and sturdiest oaks,\nBowed their stiff necks, loaden with stormy blasts,\nOr torn up sheer. Ill wast thou shrouded then,\nO patient Son of God, yet only stood\u2019st     420\nUnshaken! Nor yet staid the terror there:\nInfernal ghosts and hellish furies round\nEnvironed thee; some howled, some yelled, some shrieked,\nSome bent at thee their fiery darts, while thou\nSat\u2019st unappalled in calm and sinless peace.\nThus passed the night so foul, till Morning fair\nCame forth with pilgrim steps, in amice grey,\nWho with her radiant finger stilled the roar\nOf thunder, chased the clouds, and laid the winds,\nAnd griesly spectres, which the Fiend had raised     430\nTo tempt the Son of God with terrors dire.\nAnd now the sun with more effectual beams\nHad cheered the face of earth, and dried the wet\nFrom drooping plant, or dropping tree; the birds,\nWho all things now behold more fresh and green,\nAfter a night of storm so ruinous,\nCleared up their choicest notes in bush and spray,\nTo gratulate the sweet return of morn.\nNor yet, amidst this joy and brightest morn,\nWas absent, after all his mischief done,     440\nThe Prince of Darkness; glad would also seem\nOf this fair change, and to our Saviour came;\nYet with no new device (they all were spent),\nRather by this his last affront resolved,\nDesperate of better course, to vent his rage\nAnd mad despite to be so oft repelled.\nHim walking on a sunny hill he found,\nBacked on the north and west by a thick wood;\nOut of the wood he starts in wonted shape,\nAnd in a careless mood thus to him said:\u2014     450\n    \u201cFair morning yet betides thee, Son of God,\nAfter a dismal night. I heard the wrack,\nAs earth and sky would mingle; but myself\nWas distant; and these flaws, though mortals fear them,\nAs dangerous to the pillared frame of Heaven,\nOr to the Earth\u2019s dark basis underneath,\nAre to the main as inconsiderable\nAnd harmless, if not wholesome, as a sneeze\nTo man\u2019s less universe, and soon are gone.\nYet, as being ofttimes noxious where they light     460\nOn man, beast, plant, wasteful and turbulent,\nLike turbulencies in the affairs of men,\nOver whose heads they roar, and seem to point,\nThey oft fore-signify and threaten ill.\nThis tempest at this desert most was bent;\nOf men at thee, for only thou here dwell\u2019st.\nDid I not tell thee, if thou didst reject\nThe perfect season offered with my aid\nTo win thy destined seat, but wilt prolong\nAll to the push of fate, pursue thy way     470\nOf gaining David\u2019s throne no man knows when\n(For both the when and how is nowhere told),\nThou shalt be what thou art ordained, no doubt;\nFor Angels have proclaimed it, but concealing\nThe time and means? Each act is rightliest done\nNot when it must, but when it may be best.\nIf thou observe not this, be sure to find\nWhat I foretold thee\u2014many a hard assay\nOf dangers, and adversities, and pains,\nEre thou of Israel\u2019s sceptre get fast hold;     480\nWhereof this ominous night that closed thee round,\nSo many terrors, voices, prodigies,\nMay warn thee, as a sure foregoing sign.\u201d\n    So talked he, while the Son of God went on,\nAnd staid not, but in brief him answered thus:\u2014\n    \u201cMe worse than wet thou find\u2019st not; other harm\nThose terrors which thou speak\u2019st of did me none.\nI never feared they could, though noising loud\nAnd threatening nigh: what they can do as signs\nBetokening or ill-boding I contemn     490\nAs false portents, not sent from God, but thee;\nWho, knowing I shall reign past thy preventing,\nObtrud\u2019st thy offered aid, that I, accepting,\nAt least might seem to hold all power of thee,\nAmbitious Spirit! and would\u2019st be thought my God;\nAnd storm\u2019st, refused, thinking to terrify\nMe to thy will! Desist (thou art discerned,\nAnd toil\u2019st in vain), nor me in vain molest.\u201d\n    To whom the Fiend, now swoln with rage, replied:\u2014\n\u201cThen hear, O Son of David, virgin-born!     500\nFor Son of God to me is yet in doubt.\nOf the Messiah I have heard foretold\nBy all the Prophets; of thy birth, at length\nAnnounced by Gabriel, with the first I knew,\nAnd of the angelic song in Bethlehem field,\nOn thy birth-night, that sung thee Saviour born.\nFrom that time seldom have I ceased to eye\nThy infancy, thy childhood, and thy youth,\nThy manhood last, though yet in private bred;\nTill, at the ford of Jordan, whither all     510\nFlocked to the Baptist, I among the rest\n(Though not to be baptized), by voice from Heaven\nHeard thee pronounced the Son of God beloved.\nThenceforth I thought thee worth my nearer view\nAnd narrower scrutiny, that I might learn\nIn what degree or meaning thou art called\nThe Son of God, which bears no single sense.\nThe Son of God I also am, or was;\nAnd, if I was, I am; relation stands:\nAll men are Sons of God; yet thee I thought     520\nIn some respect far higher so declared.\nTherefore I watched thy footsteps from that hour,\nAnd followed thee still on to this waste wild,\nWhere, by all best conjectures, I collect\nThou art to be my fatal enemy.\nGood reason, then, if I beforehand seek\nTo understand my adversary, who\nAnd what he is; his wisdom, power, intent;\nBy parle or composition, truce or league,\nTo win him, or win from him what I can.     530\nAnd opportunity I here have had\nTo try thee, sift thee, and confess have found thee\nProof against all temptation, as a rock\nOf adamant and as a centre, firm\nTo the utmost of mere man both wise and good,\nNot more; for honours, riches, kingdoms, glory,\nHave been before contemned, and may again.\nTherefore, to know what more thou art than man,\nWorth naming the Son of God by voice from Heaven,\nAnother method I must now begin.\u201d     540\n    So saying, he caught him up, and, without wing\nOf hippogrif, bore through the air sublime,\nOver the wilderness and o\u2019er the plain,\nTill underneath them fair Jerusalem,\nThe Holy City, lifted high her towers,\nAnd higher yet the glorious Temple reared\nHer pile, far off appearing like a mount\nOf alablaster, topt with golden spires:\nThere, on the highest pinnacle, he set\nThe Son of God, and added thus in scorn:\u2014     550\n    \u201cThere stand, if thou wilt stand; to stand upright\nWill ask thee skill. I to thy Father\u2019s house\nHave brought thee, and highest placed: highest is best.\nNow shew thy progeny; if not to stand,\nCast thyself down. Safely, if Son of God;\nFor it is written, \u2018He will give command\nConcerning thee to his Angels; in their hands\nThey shall uplift thee, lest at any time\nThou chance to dash thy foot against a stone.\u2019\u201d\n    To whom thus Jesus: \u201cAlso it is written,     560\n\u2018Tempt not the Lord thy God.\u2019\u201d He said, and stood;\nBut Satan, smitten with amazement, fell.\nAs when Earth\u2019s son, Antaeus (to compare\nSmall things with greatest), in Irassa strove\nWith Jove\u2019s Alcides, and, oft foiled, still rose,\nReceiving from his mother Earth new strength,\nFresh from his fall, and fiercer grapple joined,\nThrottled at length in the air expired and fell,\nSo, after many a foil, the Tempter proud,\nRenewing fresh assaults, amidst his pride     570\nFell whence he stood to see his victor fall;\nAnd, as that Theban monster that proposed\nHer riddle, and him who solved it not devoured,\nThat once found out and solved, for grief and spite\nCast herself headlong from the Ismenian steep,\nSo, strook with dread and anguish, fell the Fiend,\nAnd to his crew, that sat consulting, brought\nJoyless triumphals of his hoped success,\nRuin, and desperation, and dismay,\nWho durst so proudly tempt the Son of God.     580\nSo Satan fell; and straight a fiery globe\nOf Angels on full sail of wing flew nigh,\nWho on their plumy vans received Him soft\nFrom his uneasy station, and upbore,\nAs on a floating couch, through the blithe air;\nThen, in a flowery valley, set him down\nOn a green bank, and set before him spread\nA table of celestial food, divine\nAmbrosial fruits fetched from the Tree of Life,\nAnd from the Fount of Life ambrosial drink,     590\nThat soon refreshed him wearied, and repaired\nWhat hunger, if aught hunger, had impaired,\nOr thirst; and, as he fed, Angelic quires\nSung heavenly anthems of his victory\nOver temptation and the Tempter proud:\u2014\n    \u201cTrue Image of the Father, whether throned\nIn the bosom of bliss, and light of light\nConceiving, or, remote from Heaven, enshrined\nIn fleshly tabernacle and human form,\nWandering the wilderness\u2014whatever place,     600\nHabit, or state, or motion, still expressing\nThe Son of God, with Godlike force endued\nAgainst the attempter of thy Father\u2019s throne\nAnd thief of Paradise! Him long of old\nThou didst debel, and down from Heaven cast\nWith all his army; now thou hast avenged\nSupplanted Adam, and, by vanquishing\nTemptation, hast regained lost Paradise,\nAnd frustrated the conquest fraudulent.\nHe never more henceforth will dare set foot     610\nIn paradise to tempt; his snares are broke.\nFor, though that seat of earthly bliss be failed,\nA fairer Paradise is founded now\nFor Adam and his chosen sons, whom thou,\nA Saviour, art come down to reinstall;\nWhere they shall dwell secure, when time shall be,\nOf tempter and temptation without fear.\nBut thou, Infernal Serpent! shalt not long\nRule in the clouds. Like an autumnal star,\nOr lightning, thou shalt fall from Heaven, trod down     620\nUnder his feet. For proof, ere this thou feel\u2019st\nThy wound (yet not thy last and deadliest wound)\nBy this repulse received, and hold\u2019st in Hell\nNo triumph; in all her gates Abaddon rues\nThy bold attempt. Hereafter learn with awe\nTo dread the Son of God. He, all unarmed,\nShall chase thee, with the terror of his voice,\nFrom thy demoniac holds, possession foul\u2014\nThee and thy legions; yelling they shall fly,\nAnd beg to hide them in a herd of swine,     630\nLest he command them down into the Deep,\nBound, and to torment sent before their time.\nHail, Son of the Most High, heir of both Worlds,\nQueller of Satan! On thy glorious work\nNow enter, and begin to save Mankind.\u201d\n    Thus they the Son of God, our Saviour meek,\nSung victor, and, from heavenly feast refreshed,\nBrought on his way with joy. He, unobserved,\nHome to his mother\u2019s house private returned.","title":"Paradise Regained","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":15874}