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What I have done, what suffer'd, with what pain 470
Voyag'd th' unreal, vaft, unbounded deep
Of horrible confufion, over which,

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By Sin and Death,a broad way now is pav'd
To expedite your glorious march; but I
Toil'd out my uncouth passage, forc'd to ride
Th' untractable abyss, plung'd in the womb
Of unoriginal Night and Chaos wild,
That,jealous of their secrets, fiercely oppos'd
My journey strange, with clamorous uproar
Protesting Fate fupreme; thence how I found 480
The new created world, which fame in Heaven
Long had foretold, a fabric wonderful

Of abfolute perfection; therein Man
Plac'd in a Paradise, by our exile

Made happy: Him by fraud I have seduc'd
From his Creator, and the more to increase
Your wonder, with an apple; he, thereat
Offended, worth your laughter, hath giv'n up
Both his beloved Man and all his world,
To Sin and Death a prey, and so to us,
Without our hazard, labor, or alarm,
To range in, and to dwell, and over Man
To rule, as over all he should have rul'd.
True is, me also he hath judg'd, or rather

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Me not, but the brute serpent in whose shape 495 Man I deceiv'd: that which to me belongs,

Is enmity, which he will put between

Me

Me and mankind; I am to bruise his heel;

His seed, when is not set, shall bruise my head:
A world who would not purchase with a bruise, 500
Or much more grievous pain? Ye have th' account
Of my performance: What remains, ye Gods,
But up and enter now into full blifs?

So having said, a while he stood, expecting
Their univerfal fhout and high applause
To fill his ear, when,contrary, he hears
On all fides, from innumerable tongues,
A dismal universal hifs, the found

Of public fcorn; he wonder'd, but not long
Had leisure, wond'ring at himself now more;
His visage drawn he felt to sharp and spare,
His arms clung to his ribs, his legs intwining
Each other, till,fupplanted, down he fell
A monftrous serpent,on his belly prone;
Reluctant, but in vain; a greater power
Now rul'd him, punish'd in the shape he finn'd,
According to his doom: he would have spoke,
But hiss for hifs return'd with forked tongue
return'd,with
To forked tongue; for now were all transform'd
Alike, to ferpents all, as acceffories

To his bold riot: dreadful was the din

Of hiffing through the hall, thick fwarming now
With complicated monsters, head and tail,
Scorpion, and Afp, and Amphisbæna dire,
Ceraftes horn'd, Hydrus, and Elops drear,
U u

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And

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And Dipfas (not fo thick fwarm'd once the foil
Bedropt with blood of Gorgon, or the ile
Ophiufa) but ftill greatest he the midft,
Now Dragon grown, larger than whom the fun
Ingender'd in the Pythian vale on flime,
Huge Python, and his pow'r no lefs he seem'd
Above the rest still to retain; they all
Him follow'diffuing forth to th'open field,
Where all yet left of that revolted rout,
Heav'n-fall'n, in ftation flood or just array,
Sublime with expectation,when to fee

In triumph issuing forth their glorious chief;
They faw, but other fight instead, a crowd
Of ugly ferpents; horror on them fell,

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And horrid sympathy; for what they saw,

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They felt themselves now changing; down their arms,
Down fell both spear and shield, down they as fast,
And the dire hifs renew'd, and the dire form,
Catch'd by contagion, like in punishment,
As in their crime. Thus was th'applause they meant,
Turn'd to exploding hiss, triumph to shame 546
Cafton themselves from their own mouths. Thereftood
A grove hard by, fprung up with this their change,
His will who reigns above, to aggravate
Their penance, laden with fair fruit, like that
Which grew in Paradife, the bait of Eve

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Us'd by the Tempter: on that prospect ftrange
Their earnest eyes they fix'd, imagining

For

For one forbidden tree a multitude

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Now ris'n, to work them further woe or shame; 555
Yet,parch'd with scalding thirst and hunger fierce,
Though to delude them fent, could not abftain,
But on they roll'd in heaps, and up the trees
Climbing, fat thicker than the snaky locks
That curl'd Megara: greedily they pluck'd
The fruitage fair to fight, like that which grew
Near that bituminous lake where Sodom flam'd;
This more delufive, not the touch, but tafte
Deceiv'd; they, fondly thinking to allay
Their appetite with guft, instead of fruit
Chew'd bitter ashes, which th' offended tafte
With spattering noise rejected: oft they assay'd,
Hunger and thirst constraining, drug'd as oft,
With hatefulleft difrelish,writh'd their jaws
With foot and cinders fill'd; so oft they fell
Into the fame illufion; not as Man
Whom they triumph'd once laps'd. Thus were they
And worn with famin, long and ceaseless hiss,
Till their loft shape, permitted, they resum'd;
Yearly injoin'd, some say, to undergo
This annual humbling certain number'd days,
To dash their pride, and joy for Man seduc'd.
However some tradition they difpers'd

Among the Heathen of their purchase got,

570 (plagu'd

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And fabled how the Serpent, whom they call'd 580 Ophion,with Eurynome, the wide

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Encroaching Eve perhaps, had firft the rule

Of high Olympus, thence by Saturn driven
And Ops, ere yet Dictaan Jove was born.

Mean while in Paradise the hellish pair
Too soon arriv'd; Sin there in Pow'r before,
Once actual, now in body, and to dwell
Habitual habitant; behind her Death
Close following pace for pace, not mounted yet
On his pale horse: to whom Sin thus began.

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590 Second of Satan fprung, all conqu'ring Death, What think'ft thou of our empire now, though earn'd With travel difficult, not better far Than ftill at Hell's dark threshold to have fat watch, Unnam'd, undreaded, and thyself half starv'd? 595

Whom thus the Sin-born monster answer'd soon.

To me, who with eternal famin pine,
Alike is Hell, or Paradise, or Heaven,

There beft, where most with ravin I may meet;
Which here, though plenteous, all too little feems 600
To fluff this maw, this vaft unhide-bound corps.
To whom th’incefluous mother thus reply'd.
Thou,therefore,on these herbs, and fruits, and flowers
Feed firft, on each beaft next, and fish, and fowl,
No homely morfels; and whatever thing 605
The fithe of Time mowes down, devour unspar'd;
Till I,in Man refiding, through the race,
His thoughts, his looks, words, actions all infect,
And season him thy laft and sweetest prey.

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