Paradise Regained: The First Book
 
(1665–1667)
 
 
I, WHO erewhile the happy Garden sung 
By one man’s disobedience lost, now sing 
Recovered Paradise to all mankind, 
By one man’s firm obedience fully tried 
Through all temptation, and the Tempter foiled         5
In all his wiles, defeated and repulsed, 
And Eden raised in the waste Wilderness. 
  Thou Spirit, who led’st this glorious Eremite 
Into the desert, his victorious field 
Against the spiritual foe, and brought’st him thence         10
By proof the undoubted Son of God, inspire, 
As thou art wont, my prompted song, else mute, 
And bear through highth or depth of Nature’s bounds, 
With prosperous wing full summed, to tell of deeds 
Above heroic, though in secret done,         15
And unrecorded left through many an age: 
Worthy to have not remained so long unsung. 
  Now had the great Proclaimer, with a voice 
More awful than the sound of trumpet, cried 
Repentance, and Heaven’s kingdom night at hand         20
To all baptized. To his great baptism flocked 
With awe the regions round, and with them came 
From Nazareth the son of Joseph deemed 
To the flood Jordan—came as then obscure, 
Unmarked, unknown. But him the Baptist soon         25
Descried, divinely warned, and witness bore 
As to his worthier, and would have resigned 
To him his heavenly office. Nor was long 
His witness unconfirmed: on him baptized 
Heaven opened, and in likeness of a Dove         30
The Spirit descended, while the Father’s voice 
From Heaven pronounced him his beloved Son. 
That heard the Adversary, who, roving still 
About the world, at that assembly famed 
Would not be last, and, with the voice divine         35
Nigh thunder-struck, the exalted man to whom 
Such high attest was given a while surveyed 
With wonder; then, with envy fraught and rage, 
Flies to his place, nor rests, but in mid air 
To council summons all his mighty Peers,         40
Within thick clouds and dark tenfold involved, 
A gloomy consistory; and them amidst, 
With looks aghast and sad, he thus bespake:— 
  “O ancient Powers of Air and this wide World 
(For much more willingly I mention Air,         45
This our old conquest, than remember Hell, 
Our hated habitation), well ye know 
How many ages, as the years of men, 
This Universe we have possessed, and ruled 
In manner at our will the affairs of Earth,         50
Since Adam and his facile consort Eve 
Lost Paradise, deceived by me, though since 
With dread attending when that fatal wound 
Shall be inflicted by the seed of Eve 
Upon my head. Long the decrees of Heaven         55
Delay, for longest time to Him is short; 
And now, too soon for us, the circling hours 
This dreaded time have compassed, wherein we 
Must bide the stroke of that long-threatened wound 
(At least, if so we can, and by the head         60
Broken be not intended all our power 
To be infringed, our freedom and our being 
In this fair empire won of Earth and Air)— 
For this ill news I bring: The Woman’s Seed, 
Destined to this, is late of woman born.         65
His birth to our just fear gave no small cause; 
But his growth now to youth’s full power, displaying 
All virtue, grace and wisdom to achieve 
Things highest, greatest, multiplies my fear. 
Before him a great Prophet, to proclaim         70
His coming, is sent harbinger, who all 
Invites, and in the consecrated stream 
Pretends to wash off sin, and fit them so 
Purified to receive him pure, or rather 
To do him honour as their King. All come,         75
And he himself among them was baptized— 
Not thence to be more pure, but to receive 
The testimony of Heaven, that who he is 
Thenceforth the nations may not doubt. I saw 
The Prophet do him reverence; on him, rising         80
Out of the water, Heaven above the clouds 
Unfold her crystal doors; thence on his head 
A perfect Dove descend (whate’er it meant); 
And out of Heaven the sovraign voice I heard, 
“This is my Son beloved,—in him am pleased.’         85
His mother, then, is mortal, but his Sire 
He who obtains the monarchy of Heaven; 
And what will He not do to advance his Son? 
His first-begot we know, and sore have felt, 
When his fierce thunder drove us to the Deep;         90
Who this is we must learn, for Man he seems 
In all his lineaments, though in his face 
The glimpses of his Father’s glory shine. 
Ye see our danger on the utmost edge 
Of hazard, which admits no long debate,         95
But must with something sudden be opposed 
(Not force, but well-couched fraud, well-woven snares), 
Ere in the head of nations he appear, 
Their king, their leader, and supreme on Earth. 
I, when no other durst, sole undertook         100
The dismal expedition to find out 
And ruin Adam, and the exploit performed 
Successfully: a calmer voyage now 
Will waft me; and the way found prosperous once 
Induces best to hope of like success.”         105
  He ended, and his words impression left 
Of much amazement to the infernal crew, 
Distracted and surprised with deep dismay 
At these sad tidings. But no time was then 
For long indulgence to their fears or grief:         110
Unanimous they all commit the care 
And management of this main enterprise 
To him, their great Dictator, whose attempt 
At first against mankind so well had thrived 
In Adam’s overthrow, and led their march         115
From Hell’s deep-vaulted den to dwell in light, 
Regents, and potentates, and kings, yea gods, 
Of many a pleasant realm and province wide. 
So to the coast of Jordan he directs 
His easy steps, girded with snaky wiles,         120
Where he might likeliest find this new-declared, 
This man of men, attested Son of God, 
Temptation and all guile on him to try— 
So to subvert whom he suspected raised 
To end his reign on Earth so long enjoyed:         125
But, contrary, unweeting he fulfilled 
The purposed counsel, pre-ordained and fixed, 
Of the Most High, who, in full frequence bright 
Of Angels, thus to Gabriel smiling spake:— 
  “Gabriel, this day, by proof, thou shalt behold,         130
Thou and all Angels conversant on Earth 
With Man or men’s affairs, how I begin 
To verify that solemn message late, 
On which I sent thee to the Virgin pure 
In Galilee, that she should bear a son,         135
Great in renown, and called the Son of God. 
Then told’st her, doubting how these things could be 
To her a virgin, that on her should come 
The Holy Ghosts, and the power of the Highest 
O’ershadow her. This Man, born and now upgrown,         140
To shew him worthy of his birth divine 
And high prediction, henceforth I expose 
To Satan; let him tempt, and now assay 
His utmost subtlety, because he boasts 
And vaunts of his great cunning to the throng         145
Of his Apostasy. He might have learnt 
Less overweening, since he failed in Job, 
Whose constant perseverance overcame 
Whate’er his cruel malice could invent. 
He now shall know I can produce a man,         150
Of female seed, far abler to resist 
All his solicitations, and at length 
All his vast force, and drive him back to Hell— 
Winning by conquest what the first man lost 
By fallacy surprised. But first I mean         155
To exercise him in the Wilderness; 
There he shall first lay down the rudiments 
Of his great warfare, ere I send him forth 
To conquer Sin and Death, the two grand foes. 
By humiliation and strong sufferance         160
His weakness shall o’ercome Satanic strength, 
And all the world, and mass of sinful flesh; 
That all the Angels and æthereal Powers— 
They now, and men hereafter—may discern 
From what consummate virtue I have chose         165
This perfet man, by merit called my Son, 
To earn salvation for the sons of men.” 
  So spake the Eternal Father, and all Heaven 
Admiring stood a space; then into hymns 
Burst forth, and in celestial measures moved,         170
Circling the throne and singing, while the hand 
Sung with the voice, and this the argument:— 
  “Victory and triumph to the Son of God, 
Now entering his great duel, not of arms 
But to vanquish by wisdom hellish wiles!         175
The Father knows the Son; therefore secure 
Ventures his filial virtue, though untried, 
Against whate’er may tempt, whate’er seduce, 
Allure, or terrify, or undermine. 
Be frustrate, all ye stratagems of Hell,         180
And, devilish machinations, come to nought!” 
  So they in Heaven their odes and vigils tuned. 
Meanwhile the Son of God, who yet some days 
Lodged in Bethabara, where John baptized, 
Musing and much revolving in his breast         185
How best the mighty work he might begin 
Of Saviour to mankind, and which way first 
Publish his godlike office now mature, 
One day forth walked alone, the Spirit leading 
And his deep thoughts, the better to converse         190
With solitude, till, far from track of men, 
Thought following thought, and step by step led on, 
He entered now the bordering Desert wild, 
And, with dark shades and rocks environed round, 
His holy meditations thus pursued:—         195
  “O what a multitude of thoughts at once 
Awakened in me swarm, while I consider 
What from within I feel myself, and hear 
What from without comes often to my ears, 
Ill sorting with my present state compared!         200
When I was yet a child, no childish play 
To me was pleasing; all my mind was set 
Serious to learn and know, and thence to do, 
What might be public good; myself I thought 
Born to that end, born to promote all truth,         205
All righteous things. Therefore, above my years, 
The Law of God I read, and found it sweet; 
Made it my whole delight, and in it grew 
To such perfection that, ere yet my age 
Had measured twice six years, at our great Feast         210
I went into the Temple, there to hear 
The teachers of our Law, and to propose 
What might improve my knowledge or their own, 
And was admired by all. Yet this not all 
To which my spirit aspired. Victorious deeds         215
Flamed in my heart, heroic acts—one while 
To rescue Israel from the Roman yoke; 
Then to subdue and quell, o’er all the earth, 
Brute violence and proud tyrannic power, 
Till truth were freed, and equity restored:         220
Yet held it more humane, more heavenly, first 
By winning words to conquer willing hearts, 
And make persuasion do the work of fear; 
At least to try, and teach the erring soul, 
Not wilfully misdoing, but unware         225
Misled; the stubborn only to subdue. 
These growing thoughts my mother soon perceiving, 
By words at times cast forth, inly rejoiced, 
And said to me apart, ‘High are thy thoughts, 
O Son! but nourish them, and let them soar         230
To what highth sacred virtue and true worth 
Can raise them, though above example high; 
By matchless deeds express thy matchless Sire. 
For know, thou art no son of mortal man; 
Though men esteem thee low of parentage,         235
Thy Father is the Eternal King who rules 
All Heaven and Earth, Angels and sons of men 
A messenger from God foretold thy birth 
Conceived in me a virgin; he foretold 
Thou shouldst be great, and sit on David’s throne,         240
And of thy kingdom there should be no end. 
At thy Nativity a glorious quire 
Of Angels, in the fields of Bethlehem, sung 
To shepherds, watching at their folds by night, 
And told them the Messiah now was born,         245
Where they might see him; and to thee they came, 
Directed to the manger where thou lay’st; 
For in the inn was left no better room. 
A Star, not seen before, in heaven appearing, 
Guided the Wise Men thither from the East,         250
To honour thee with incense, myrrh, and gold; 
By whose bright course led on they found the place, 
Affirming it thy star, new-graven in heaven, 
By which they knew thee King of Israel born. 
Just Simeon and prophetic Anna, warned         255
By vision, found thee in the Temple, and spake, 
Before the altar and the vested priest. 
Like things of thee to all that present stood.’ 
This having heard, straight I again revolved 
The Law and Prophets, searching what was writ         260
Concerning the Messiah, to our scribes 
Known partly, and soon found of whom they spake 
I am—this chiefly, that my way must lie 
Through many a hard assay, even to the death, 
Ere I the promised kingdom can attain,         265
Or work redemption for mankind, whose sins’ 
Full weight must be transferred upon my head. 
Yet, neither thus disheartened or dismayed, 
The time prefixed I waited; when behold 
The Baptist (of whose birth I oft had heard,         270
Not knew by sight) now come, who was to come 
Before Messiah, and his way prepare! 
I, as all others, to his baptism came, 
Which I believed was from above; but he 
Straight knew me, and with loudest voice proclaimed         275
Me him (for it was shewn him so from Heaven)— 
Me him whose harbinger he was; and first 
Refused on me baptism to confer, 
As much his greater, and was hardly won. 
But, as I rose out of the laving stream,         280
Heaven opened her eternal doors, from whence 
The Spirit descended on me like a Dove; 
And last, the sum of all, my Father’s voice, 
Audibly heard from Heaven, pronounced me his, 
Me his belovèd Son, in whom alone         285
He was well pleased: by which I knew the time 
Now full, that I no more should live obscure, 
But openly begin, as best becomes 
The authority which I derived from Heaven. 
And now by some strong motion I am led         290
Into this wilderness; to what intent 
I learn not yet. Perhaps I need not know; 
For what concerns my knowledge God reveals.” 
  So spake our Morning Star, then in his rise, 
And, looking round, on every side beheld         295
A pathless desert, dusk with horrid shades. 
The way he came, not having marked return, 
Was difficult, by human steps untrod; 
And he still on was led, but with such thoughts 
Accompanied of things past and to come         300
Lodged in his breast as well might recommend 
Such solitude before choicest society. 
  Full forty days he passed—whether on hill 
Sometimes, anon in shady vale, each night 
Under the covert of some ancient oak         305
Or ceder to defend him from the dew, 
Or harboured in one cave, is not revealed; 
Nor tasted human food, nor hunger felt, 
Till those days ended; hungered then at last 
Among wild beasts. They at his sight grew mild,         310
Nor sleeping him nor waking harmed; his walk 
The fiery serpent fled and noxious worm; 
The lion and fierce tiger glared aloof. 
But now an aged man in rural weeds, 
Following, as seemed, the quest of some stray ewe,         315
Or withered sticks to gather, which might serve 
Against a winter’s day, when winds blow keen, 
To warm him wet returned from field at eve, 
He saw approach; who first with curious eye 
Perused him, then with words thus uttered spake:—         320
  “Sir, what ill chance hath brought thee to this place, 
So far from path or road of men, who pass 
In troop or caravan, for single none 
Durst ever, who returned, and dropt not here 
His carcass, pined with hunger and with drought.         325
I ask the rather, and the more admire, 
For that to me thou seem’st the man whom late 
Our new baptizing Prophet at the ford 
Of Jordan honoured so, and called thee Son 
Of God. I saw and heard, for we sometimes         330
Who dwell this wild, constrained by want, come forth 
To town or village nigh (nighest is far), 
Where aught we hear, and curious are to hear, 
What happens new; fame also finds us out.” 
  To whom the Son of God:—“Who brought me hither         335
Will bring me hence; no other guide I seek.” 
  “By miracle he may,” replied the swain; 
‘What other way I see not; for we here 
Live on tough roots and stubs, to thirst inured 
More than the camel, and to drink go far—         340
Men to much misery and hardship born. 
But, if thou be the Son of God, command 
That out of these hard stones be made thee bread; 
So shalt thou save thyself, and us relieve 
With food, whereof we wretched seldom taste.”         345
  He ended, and the Son of God replied:— 
“Think’st thou such force in bread? Is it not written 
(For I discern thee other than thou seem’st), 
Man lives not by bread only, but each word 
Proceeding from the mouth of God, who fed         350
Our fathers here with manna? In the Mount 
Moses was forty days, nor eat nor drank; 
And forty days Eliah without food 
Wandered this barren waste; the same I now. 
Why dost thou, then, suggest to me distrust,         355
Knowing who I am, as I know who thou art?” 
  Whom thus answered the Arch-Fiend, now undisguised:— 
“’Tis true, I am that Spirit unfortunate 
Who, leagued with millions more in rash revolt, 
Kept not my happy station, but was driven         360
With them from bliss to the bottomless Deep— 
Yet to that hideous place not so confined 
By rigour unconniving but that oft, 
Leaving my dolorous prison, I enjoy 
Large liberty to round this globe of Earth,         365
Or range in the Air; nor from the Heaven of Heavens 
Hath he excluded my resort sometimes. 
I came, among the Sons of God, when he 
Gave up into my hands Uzzean Job, 
To prove him, and illustrate his high worth;         370
And, when to all his Angels he proposed 
To draw the proud king Ahab into fraud, 
That he might fall in Ramoth, they demurring, 
I undertook that office, and the tongues 
Of all his flattering prophets glibbed with lies         375
To his destruction, as I had in charge: 
For what he bids I do. Though I have lost 
Much lustre of my native brightness, lost 
To be beloved of God, I have not lost 
To love, at least contemplate and admire,         380
What I see excellent in good, or fair, 
Or virtuous; I should so have lost all sense. 
What can be then less in me than desire 
To see thee and approach thee, whom I know 
Declared the Son of God, to hear attent         385
Thy wisdom, and behold thy godlike deeds? 
Men generally think me much a foe 
To all mankind. Why should I? they to me 
Never did wrong or violence. By them 
I lost not what I lost; rather by them         390
I gained what I have gained, and with them dwell 
Copartner in these regions of the World, 
If not disposer—lend them oft my aid, 
Oft my advice by presages and signs, 
And answers, oracles, portents, and dreams,         395
Whereby they may direct their future life. 
Envy, they say, excites me, thus to gain 
Companions of my misery and woe! 
At first it may be; but, long since with woe 
Nearer acquainted, now I feel by proof         400
That fellowship in pain divides not smart, 
Nor lightens aught each man’s peculiar load; 
Small consolation, then, were Man adjoined. 
This wounds me most (what can it less?) that Man, 
Man fallen, shall be restored, I never more.”         405
  To whom our Saviour sternly thus replied:— 
“Deservedly thou griev’st, composed of lies 
From the beginning, and in lies wilt end, 
Who boast’st release from Hell, and leave to come 
Into the Heaven of Heavens. Thou com’st indeed,         410
As a poor miserable captive thrall 
Comes to the place where he before had sat 
Among the prime in splendour, now deposed, 
Ejected, emptied, gazed, unpitied, shunned, 
A spectacle of ruin, or of scorn,         415
To all the host of Heaven. The happy place 
Imparts to thee no happiness, no joy— 
Rather inflames thy torment, representing 
Lost bliss, to thee no more communicable; 
So never more in Hell than when in Heaven.         420
But thou art serviceable to Heaven’s King! 
Wilt thou impute to obedience what thy fear 
Extorts, or pleasure to do ill excites? 
What but thy malice moved thee to misdeem 
Of righteous Job, then cruelly to afflict him         425
With all inflictions? but his patience won. 
The other service was thy chosen task, 
To be a liar in four hundred mouths; 
For lying is thy sustenance, thy food. 
Yet thou pretend’st to truth! all oracles         430
By thee are given, and what confessed more true 
Among the nations? That hath been thy craft, 
By mixing somewhat true to vent more lies. 
But what have been thy answers? what but dark, 
Ambiguous, and with double sense deluding,         435
Which they who asked have seldom understood, 
And, not well understood, as good not known? 
Who ever, by consulting at thy shrine, 
Returned the wiser, or the more instruct 
To fly or follow what concerned him most,         440
And run not sooner to his fatal snare? 
For God hath justly given the nations up 
To thy delusions; justly, since they fell 
Idolatrous. But, when his purpose is 
Among them to declare his providence,         445
To thee not known, whence hast thou then thy truth, 
But from him, or his Angels president 
In every province, who, themselves disdaining 
To approach thy temples, give thee in command 
What, to the smallest tittle, thou shalt say         450
To thy adorers? Thou, with trembling fear, 
Or like a fawning parasite, obey’st; 
Then to thyself ascrib’st the truth foretold. 
But this thy glory shall be soon retrenched; 
No more shalt thou by oracling abuse         455
The Gentiles; henceforth oracles are ceased, 
And thou no more with pomp and sacrifice 
Shalt be enquired at Delphos or elsewhere— 
At least in vain, for they shall find thee mute. 
God hath now sent his living Oracle         460
Into the world to teach his final will, 
And sends his Spirit of Truth henceforth to dwell 
In pious hearts, an inward oracle 
To all truth requisite for men to know.” 
  So spake our Saviour; but the subtle Fiend,         465
Though inly stung with anger and disdain, 
Dissembled, and this answer smooth returned:— 
  “Sharply thou hast insisted on rebuke, 
And urged me hard with doings which not will, 
But misery, hath wrested from me. Where         470
Easily canst thou find one miserable, 
And not inforced oft-times to part from truth, 
If it may stand him more in stead to lie, 
Say and unsay, feign, flatter, or abjure? 
But thou art placed above me; thou art Lord;         475
From thee I can, and must, submiss, endure 
Check or reproof, and glad to scape so quit. 
Hard are the ways of truth, and rough to walk, 
Smooth on the tongue discoursed, pleasing to the ear, 
And tunable as sylvan pipe or song;         480
What wonder, then, if I delight to hear 
Her dictates from thy mouth? most men admire 
Virtue who follow not her lore. Permit me 
To hear thee when I come (since no man comes), 
And talk at least, though I despair to attain.         485
Thy Father, who is holy, wise, and pure, 
Suffers the hypocrite or atheous priest 
To tread his sacred courts, and minister 
About his altar, handling holy things, 
Praying or vowing, and voutsafed his voice         490
To Balaam reprobate, a prophet yet 
Inspired: disdain not such access to me.” 
  To whom our Saviour, with unaltered brow:— 
“Thy coming hither, though I know thy scope, 
I bid not, or forbid. Do as thou find’st         495
Permission from above; thou canst not more.” 
  He added not; and Satan, bowing low 
His gray dissimulation, disappeared, 
Into thin air diffused: for now began 
Night with her sullen wing to double-shade         500
The desert; fowls in their clay nests were couched; 
And now wild beasts came forth the woods to roam. 
 

Paradise Regained: The Second Book
 
 
MEANWHILE the new-baptized, who yet remained 
At Jordan with the Baptist, and had seen 
Him whom they heard so late expressly called 
Jesus Messiah, Son of God, declared, 
And on that high authority had believed,         5
And with him talked, and with him lodged—I mean 
Andrew and Simon, famous after known, 
With others, though in Holy Writ not named— 
Now missing him, their joy so lately found, 
So lately found and so abruptly gone,         10
Began to doubt, and doubted many days, 
And, as the days increased, increased their doubt. 
Sometimes they thought he might be only shewn, 
And for a time caught up to God, as once 
Moses was in the Mount and missing long,         15
And the great Thisbite, who on fiery wheels 
Rode up to Heaven, yet once again to come. 
Therefore, as those young prophets then with care 
Sought lost Eliah, so in each place these 
Nigh to Bethabara—in Jericho         20
The city of Palms, Ænon, and Salem old, 
Machærus, and each town or city walled 
On this side the broad lake Genezaret, 
Or in Peræa—but returned in vain. 
Then on the bank of Jordan, by a creek,         25
Where winds with reeds and osiers whispering play, 
Plain fishermen (no greater men them call), 
Close in a cottage low together got, 
Their unexpected loss and plaints outbreathed:— 
  “Alas, from what high hope to what relapse         30
Unlooked for are we fallen! Our eyes beheld 
Messiah certainly now come, so long 
Expected of our fathers; we have heard 
His words, his wisdom full of grace and truth. 
‘Now, now, for sure, deliverance is at hand;         35
The kingdom shall to Israel be restored:’ 
Thus we rejoiced, but soon our joy is turned 
Into perplexity and new amaze. 
For whither is he gone? what accident 
Hath rapt him from us? will he now retire         40
After appearance, and again prolong 
Our expectation? God of Israel, 
Send thy Messiah forth; the time is come. 
Behold the kings of the earth, how they oppress 
Thy Chosen, to what highth their power unjust         45
They have exalted, and behind them cast 
All fear of Thee; arise, and vindicate 
Thy glory; free thy people from their yoke! 
But let us wait; thus far He hath performed— 
Sent his Anointed, and to us revealed him         50
By his great Prophet pointed at and shown 
In public, and with him we have conversed. 
Let us be glad of this, and all our fears 
Lay on his providence; He will not fail, 
Nor will withdraw him now, nor will recall—         55
Mock us with his blest sight, then snatch him hence: 
Soon we shall see our hope, our joy, return.” 
  Thus they out of their plaints new hope resume 
To find whom at the first they found unsought. 
But to his mother Mary, when she saw         60
Others returned from baptism, not her Son, 
Nor left at Jordan tidings of him none, 
Within her breast though calm, her breast though pure, 
Motherly cares and fears got head, and raised 
Some troubled thoughts, which she in sight thus clad:—         65
  “Oh, what avails me now that honour high, 
To have conceived of God, or that salute, 
‘Hail, highly favoured, among women blest!’ 
While I to sorrows am no less advanced, 
And fears as eminent above the lot         70
Of other women, by the birth I bore: 
In such a season born, when scarce a shed 
Could be obtained to shelter him or me 
From the bleak air? A stable was our warmth, 
A manger his; yet soon enforced to fly         75
Thence into Egypt, till the murderous king 
Were dead, who sought his life, and, missing, filled 
With infant blood the streets of Bethlehem. 
From Egypt home returned, in Nazareth 
Hath been our dwelling many years; his life         80
Private, unactive, calm, contemplative, 
Little suspicious to any king. But now, 
Full grown to man, acknowledged, as I hear, 
By John the Baptist, and in public shewn, 
Son owned from Heaven by his Father’s voice,         85
I looked for some great change, To honour? no; 
But trouble, as old Simeon plain foretold, 
That to the fall and rising he should be 
Of many in Israel, and to a sign 
Spoken against—that through my very soul         90
A sword shall pierce. This is my favoured lot, 
My exaltation to afflictions high! 
Afflicted I may be, it seems, and blest! 
I will not argue that, nor will repine. 
But where delays he now? Some great intent         95
Conceals him. When twelve years he scarce had seen, 
I lost him, but so found as well I saw 
He could not lose himself, but went about 
His Father’s business. What he meant I mused— 
Since understand; much more his absence now         100
Thus long to some great purpose he obscures. 
But I to wait with patience am inured; 
My heart hath been a storehouse long of things 
And sayings laid up, portending strange events.” 
  Thus, Mary, pondering oft, and oft to mind         105
Recalling what remarkably had passed 
Since first her Salutation heard, with thoughts 
Meekly composed awaited the fulfilling: 
The while her Son, tracing the desert wild, 
Sole, but with holiest meditations fed,         110
Into himself descended, and at once 
All his great work to come before him set— 
How to begin, how to accomplish best 
His end of being on Earth, and mission high. 
For Satan, with sly preface to return,         115
Had left him vacant, and with speed was gone 
Up to the middle region of thick air, 
Where all his Potentates in council sate. 
There, without sign of boast, or sign of joy, 
Solicitous and blank, he thus began:—         120
  “Princes, Heaven’s ancient Sons, Æthereal Thrones— 
Dæmonian Spirits now, from the element 
Each of reign allotted, rightlier called 
Powers of Fire, Air, Water, and Earth beneath 
(So may we hold our place and these mild seats         125
Without new trouble!)—such an enemy 
Is risen to invade us, who no less 
Threatens than our expulsion down to Hell. 
I, as I undertook, and with the vote 
Consenting in full frequence was impowered,         130
Have found him, viewed him, tasted him; but find 
Far other labour to be undergone 
Than when I dealt with Adam, first of men, 
Though Adam by his wife’s allurement fell, 
However to this Man inferior far—         135
If he be Man by mother’s side, at least 
With more than human gifts from Heaven adorned, 
Perfections absolute, graces divine, 
And amplitude of mind to greatest deeds. 
Therefore I am returned, lest confidence         140
Of my success with Eve in Paradise 
Deceive ye to persuasion over-sure 
Of like succeeding here. I summon all 
Rather to be in readiness with hand 
Or counsel to assist, lest I, who erst         145
Thought none my equal, now be overmatched.” 
  So spoke the old Serpent, doubting, and from all 
With clamour was assured their utmost aid 
At his command; when from amidst them rose 
Belial, the dissolutest Spirit that fell,         150
The sensualest, and, after Asmodai, 
The fleshliest Incubus, and thus advise.— 
  “Set women in his eye and in his walk, 
Among daughters of men the fairest found. 
Many are in each region passing fair         155
As the noon sky, more like to goddesses 
Than mortal creatures, graceful and discreet, 
Expert in amorous arts, enchanting tongues 
Persuasive, virgin majesty with mild 
And sweet allayed, yet terrible to approach,         160
Skilled to retire, and in retiring draw 
Hearts after them tangled in amorous nets. 
Such object hath the power to soften and tame 
Severest temper, smooth the rugged’st brow, 
Enerve, and with voluptuous hope dissolve,         165
Draw out with credulous desire, and lead 
At will the manliest, resolutest breast, 
As the magnetic hardest iron draws. 
Women, when nothing else, beguiled the heart 
Of wisest Solomon, and made him build,         170
And made him bow, to the gods of his wives.” 
  To whom quick answer Satan thus returned:— 
“Belial, in much uneven scale thou weigh’st 
All others by thyself. Because of old 
Thou thyself doat’st on womankind, admiring         175
Their shape, their colour, and attractive grace, 
None are, thou think’st, but taken with such toys. 
Before the Flood, thou, with thy lusty crew, 
False titled Sons of God, roaming the Earth, 
Cast wanton eyes on the daughters of men,         180
And coupled with them, and begot a race. 
Have we not seen, or by relation heard, 
In courts and regal chambers how thou lurk’st, 
In wood or grove, by mossy fountain-side, 
In valley or green meadow, to waylay         185
Some beauty rare, Calisto, Clymene, 
Daphne, or Semele, Antiopa, 
Or Amymone, Syrinx, many more 
Too long—then lay’st thy scapes on names adored, 
Apollo, Neptune, Jupiter, or Pan,         190
Satyr, or Faun, or Silvan? But these haunts 
Delight not all. Among the sons of men 
How many have with a smile made small account 
Of beauty and her lures, easily scorned 
All her assaults, on worthier things intent!         195
Remember that Pellean conqueror, 
A youth, how all the beauties of the East 
He slightly viewed, and slightly overpassed; 
How he surnamed of Africa dismissed, 
In his prime youth, the fair Iberian maid.         200
For Solomon, he lived at ease, and, full 
Of honour, wealth, high fare, aimed not beyond 
Higher design than to enjoy his state; 
Thence to the bait of women lay exposed. 
But he whom we attempt is wiser far         205
Than Solomon, of more exalted mind, 
Made and set wholly on the accomplishment 
Of greatest things. What woman will you find, 
Though of this age the wonder and the fame, 
On whom his leisure will voutsafed an eye         210
Of fond desire? Or should she, confident, 
As sitting queen adored on Beauty’s throne, 
Descend with all her winning charms begirt 
To enamour, as the zone of Venus once 
Wrought that effect on Jove (so fables tell),         215
How would one look from his majestic brow, 
Seated as on the top of Virtue’s hill, 
Discountenance her despised, and put to rout 
All her array, her female pride deject, 
Or turn to reverent awe! For Beauty stands         220
In the admiration only of weak minds 
Led captive; cease to admire, and all her plumes 
Fall flat, and shrink into a trivial toy, 
At every sudden slighting quite abashed. 
Therefore, with manlier objects we must try         225
His constancy—with such as have more shew 
Of worth, of honour, glory, and popular praise 
(Rocks whereon greatest men have oftest wrecked); 
Or that which only seems to satisfy 
Lawful desires of nature, not beyond.         230
And now I know he hungers, where no food 
Is to be found, in the wide Wilderness: 
The rest commit to me; I shall let pass 
No advantage, and his strength as oft assay.” 
  He ceased, and heard their grant in loud acclaim;         235
The forthwith to him takes a chosen band 
Of Spirits likest to himself in guile, 
To be at hand and at his beck appear, 
If cause were to unfold some active scene 
Of various persons, each to know his part;         240
Then to the desert takes with these his flight, 
Where still, from shade to shade, the Son of God, 
After forty days’ fasting, had remained, 
Now hungering first, and to himself thus said:— 
  “Where will this end? Four times ten days I have passed         245
Wandering this woody maze, and human food 
Nor tasted, nor had appetite. That fast 
To virtue I impute not, or count part 
Of what I suffer here. If nature need not, 
Or God support nature without repast,         250
Though needing, what praise is it to endure? 
But now I feel I hunger; which declares 
Nature hath need of what she asks. Yet God 
Can satisfy that need some other way, 
Though hunger still remain. So it remain         255
Without this body’s wasting, I content me, 
And from the sting of famine fear no harm; 
Nor mind it, fed with better thoughts, that feed 
Me hungering more to do my Father’s will.” 
  It was the hour of night, when thus the Son         260
Communed in silent walk, then laid him down 
Under the hospitable covert nigh 
Of trees thick interwoven. There he slept, 
And dreamed, as appetite is wont to dream, 
Of meats and drinks, nature’s refreshment sweet.         265
Him thought he by the brook of Cherith stood, 
And saw the ravens with their horny beaks 
Food to Elijah bringing even and morn— 
Though ravenous, taught to abstain from what they brought; 
He saw the Prophet also, how he fled         270
Into the desert, and how there he slept 
Under a juniper—then how, awaked, 
He found his supper on the coals prepared, 
And by the Angel was bid rise and eat, 
And eat the second time after repose,         275
The strength whereof sufficed him forty days: 
Sometimes that with Elijah he partook, 
Or as a guest with Daniel at his pulse. 
Thus wore out night; and now the herald Lark 
Left his ground-nest, high towering to descry         280
The Morn’s approach, and greet her with his song. 
As lightly from his grassy couch up rose 
Our Saviour, and found all was but a dream; 
Fasting he went to sleep, and fasting waked. 
Up to a hill anon his steps he reared,         285
From whose high top to ken the prospect round, 
If cottage were in view, sheep-cote, or herd; 
But cottage, herd, or sheep-cote, none he saw— 
Only in a bottom saw a pleasant grove, 
With chaunt of tuneful birds resounding loud.         290
Thither he bent his way, determined there 
To rest at noon, and entered soon the shade 
High-roofed, and walks beneath, and alleys brown, 
That opened in the midst a woody scene; 
Nature’s own work it seemed (Nature taught Art),         295
And, to a superstitious eye, the haunt 
Of wood-gods and wood-nymphs. He viewed it round; 
When suddenly a man before him stood, 
Not rustic as before, but seemlier clad, 
As one in city or court or palace bred,         300
And with fair speech these words to him addressed:— 
  “With granted leave officious I return, 
But much more wonder that the Son of God 
In this wild solitude so long should bide, 
Of all things destitute, and, well I know,         305
Not without hunger. Others of some note, 
As story tells, have trod this wilderness: 
The fugitive Bond-woman, with her son, 
Outcast Nebaioth, yet found here relief 
By a providing Angel; all the race         310
Of Israel here had famished, had not God 
Rained from heaven manna; and that Prophet bold, 
Native of Thebez, wandering here, was fed 
Twice by a voice inviting him to eat. 
Of thee these forty days none hath regard,         315
Forty and more deserted here indeed.” 
  To whom thus Jesus:—“What conclud’st thou hence? 
They all had need; I, as thou seest, have none.” 
  “How hast thou hunger then?” Satan replied. 
“Tell me, if food were now before thee set,         320
Wouldst thou not eat?” “Thereafter as I like 
The giver,” answered Jesus. “Why should that 
Cause thy refusal?” said the subtle Fiend. 
“Hast thou not right to all created things? 
Owe not all creatures, by just right, to thee         325
Duty and service, nor to stay till bid, 
But tender all their power? Nor mention I 
Meats by the law unclean, or offered first 
To idols—those young Daniel could refuse; 
Nor proffered by an enemy—though who         330
Would scruple that, with want oppressed? Behold, 
Nature ashamed, or, better to express, 
Troubled, that thou shouldst hunger, hath purveyed 
From all the elements her choicest store, 
To treat thee as beseems, and as her Lord         335
With honour. Only deign to sit and eat.” 
  He spake no dream: for, as his words had end, 
Our Saviour, lifting up his eyes, beheld, 
In ample space under the broadest shade, 
A table richly spread in regal mode,         340
With dishes piled and meats of noblest sort 
And savour-beasts of chase, or fowl of game, 
In pastry built, or from the spit, or boiled, 
Grisamber-steamed; all fish, from sea or shore, 
Freshet or purling brook, of shell or fin,         345
And exquisitest name, for which was drained 
Pontus, and Lucrine bay, and Afric coast 
Alas! how simple, to these cates compared, 
Was that crude Apple that diverted Eve! 
And at a stately sideboard, by the wine,         350
That fragrant smell diffused, in order stood 
Tall stripling youths rich-clad, of fairer hue 
Than Ganymed or Hylas; distant more, 
Under the trees now tripped, now solemn stood, 
Nymphs of Diana’s train, and Naiades         355
With fruits and flowers from Amalthea’s horn, 
And ladies of the Hesperides, that seemed 
Fairer than feigned of old, or fabled since 
Of faery damsels met in forest wide 
By knights of Logres, or of Lyones,         360
Lancelot, or Pelleas, or Pellenore. 
And all the while harmonious airs were heard 
Of chiming strings or charming pipes; and winds 
Of gentlest gale Arabian odours fanned 
From their soft wings, and Flora’s earliest smells.         365
Such was the splendour; and the Tempter now 
His invitation earnestly renewed:— 
  “What doubts the Son of God to sit and eat? 
These are not fruits forbidden; no interdict 
Defends the touching of these viands pure;         370
Their taste no knowledge works, at least of evil, 
But life preserves, destroys life’s enemy, 
Hunger, with sweet restorative delight. 
All these are Spirits of air, and woods, and springs, 
Thy gentle ministers, who come to pay         375
Thee homage, and acknowledge thee their Lord. 
What doubt’st thou, Son of God? Sit down and eat.” 
  To whom thus Jesus temperately replied:— 
“Said’st thou not that to all things I had right? 
And who withholds my power that right to use?         380
Shall I receive by gift what of my own, 
When and where likes me best, I can command? 
I can at will, doubt not, as soon as thou, 
Command a table in this wilderness, 
And call swift flights of Angels ministrant,         385
Arrayed in glory, on my cup to attend: 
Why shouldst thou, then, obtrude this diligence 
In vain, where no acceptance it can find? 
And with my hunger what hast thou to do? 
Thy pompous delicacies I contemn,         390
And count thy specious gifts no gifts, but guiles.” 
  To whom thus answered Satan, malecontent:— 
“That I have also power to give thou seest; 
If of that power I bring thee voluntary 
What I might have bestowed on whom I pleased,         395
And rather opportunely in this place 
Chose to impart to thy apparent need, 
Why shouldst thou not accept it? But I see 
What I can do or offer is suspect. 
Of these things others quickly will dispose,         400
Whose pains have earned the far-fet spoil.” With that 
Both table and provision vanished quite, 
With sound of harpies’ wings and talons heard; 
Only the impor’tune Tempter still remained, 
And with these words his temptation pursued:—         405
  “By hunger, that each other creature tames, 
Thou art not to be harmed, therefore not moved; 
Thy temperance, invincible besides, 
For no allurement yields to appetite; 
And all thy heart is set on high designs,         410
High actions. But wherewith to be achieved? 
Great acts require great means of enterprise; 
Thou art unknown, unfriended, low of birth, 
A carpenter thy father known, thyself 
Bred up in poverty and straits at home,         415
Lost in a desert here and hunger-bit. 
Which way, or from what hope, dost thou aspire 
To greatness? whence authority deriv’st? 
What followers, what retin’ue canst thou gain, 
Or at thy heels the dizzy multitude,         420
Longer than thou canst feed them on thy cost? 
Money brings honour, friends, conquest, and realms. 
What raised Antipater the Edomite, 
And his son Herod placed on Juda’s throne, 
Thy throne, but gold, that got him puissant friends?         425
Therefore, if at great things thou wouldst arrive, 
Get riches first, get wealth, and treasure heap— 
Not difficult, if thou hearken to me. 
Riches are mine, fortune is in my hand; 
They whom I favour thrive in wealth amain,         430
While virtue, valour, wisdom, sit in want.” 
  To whom thus Jesus patiently replied:— 
“Yet wealth without these three is impotent 
To gain dominion, or to keep it gained— 
Witness those ancient empires of the earth,         435
In highth of all their flowing wealth dissolved; 
But men endued with these have oft attained, 
In lowest poverty, to highest deeds— 
Gideon, and Jephtha, and the shepherd lad 
Whose offspring on the throne of Juda sate         440
So many ages, and shall yet regain 
That seat, and reign in Israel without end. 
Among the Heathen (for throughout the world 
To me is not unknown what hath been done 
Worthy of memorial) canst thou not remember         445
Quintius, Fabricius, Curius, Regulus? 
For I esteem those names of men so poor, 
Who could do mighty things, and could contemn 
Riches, though offered from the hand of kings 
And what in me seems wanting but that I         450
May also in this poverty as soon 
Accomplish what they did, perhaps and more? 
Extol not riches, then, the toil of fools, 
The wise man’s cumbrance, if not snare; more apt 
To slacken virtue and abate her edge         455
Than prompt her to do aught may merit praise. 
What if with like aversion I reject 
Riches and realms! Yet not for that a crown, 
Golden in shew, is but a wreath of thorns, 
Brings dangers, troubles, cares, and sleepless nights,         460
To him who wears the regal diadem, 
When on his shoulders each man’s burden lies; 
For therein stands the office of a king, 
His honour, virtue, merit, and chief praise, 
That for the public all this weight he bears.         465
Yet he who reigns within himself, and rules 
Passions, desires, and fears, is more a king— 
Which every wise and virtuous man attains; 
And who attains not, ill aspires to rule 
Cities of men, or headstrong multitudes,         470
Subject himself to anarchy within, 
Or lawless passions in him, which he serves. 
But to guide nations in the way of truth 
By saving doctrine, and from error lead 
To know, and, knowing, worship God aright,         475
Is yet more kingly. This attracts the soul, 
Governs the inner man, the nobler part; 
That other o’er the body only reigns, 
And oft by force—which to a generous mind 
So reigning can be no sincere delight.         480
Besides, to give a kingdom hath been thought 
Greater and nobler done, and to lay down 
Far more magnanimous, than to assume. 
Riches are needless, then, both for themselves, 
And for thy reason why they should be sought—         485
To gain a sceptre, oftest better missed.” 
 

Paradise Regained: The Third Book
 
 
SO SPAKE the Son of God; and Satan stood 
A while as mute, confounded what to say, 
What to reply, confuted and convinced 
Of his weak arguing and fallacious drift; 
At length, collecting all his serpent wiles,         5
With soothing words renewed, him thus accosts:— 
  “I see thou know’st what is of use to know, 
What best to say canst say, to do canst do; 
Thy actions to thy words accord; thy words 
To thy large heart give utterance due; thy heart         10
Contains of good, wise, just, the perfet shape. 
Should kings and nations from thy mouth consult, 
Thy counsel would be as the oracle 
Urim and Thummim, those oraculous gems 
On Aaron’s breast, or tongue of Seers old         15
Infallible; or, wert thou sought to deeds 
That might require the array of war, thy skill 
Of conduct would be such that all the world 
Could not sustain thy prowess, or subsist 
In battle, though against thy few in arms.         20
These godlike virtues wherefore dost thou 
Affecting private life, or more obscure 
In savage wilderness, wherefore deprive 
All Earth her wonder at thy acts, thyself 
The fame and glory—glory, the reward         25
That sole excites to high attempts the flame 
Of most erected spirits, most tempered pure 
Æthereal, who all pleasures else despise, 
All treasures and all gain esteem as dross, 
And dignities and powers, all but the highest?         30
Thy years are ripe, and over-ripe. The son 
Of Macedonian Philip had ere these 
Won Asia, and the throne of Cyrus held 
At his dispose; young Scipio had brought down 
The Carthaginian pride; young Pompey quelled         35
The Pontic king, and in triumph’ had rode. 
Yet years, and to ripe years judgment mature, 
Quench not the thirst of glory, but augment. 
Great Julius, whom now all the world admires, 
The more he grew in years, the more inflamed         40
With glory, wept that he had lived so long 
Inglorious. But thou yet art not too late.” 
  To whom our Saviour calmly thus replied:— 
“Thou neither dost persuade me to seek wealth 
For empire’s sake, nor empire to affect         45
For glory’s sake, by all thy argument. 
For what is glory but the blaze of fame, 
The people’s praise, if always praise unmixed? 
And what the people but a herd confused, 
A miscellaneous rabble, who extol         50
Things vulgar, and, well weighed, scarce worth the praise? 
They praise and they admire they know not what, 
And know not whom, but as one leads the other; 
And what delight to be by such extolled, 
To live upon their tongues, and be their talk?         55
Of whom to be dispraised were no small praise— 
His lot who dares be singularly good. 
The intelligent among them and the wise 
Are few, and glory scarce of few is raised. 
This is true glory and renown—when God,         60
Looking on the Earth, with approbation marks 
The just man, and divulges him through Heaven 
To all his Angels, who with true applause 
Recount his praises. Thus he did to Job, 
When, to extend his fame through Heaven and Earth,         65
As thou to thy reproach may’st well remember, 
He asked thee, ‘Hast thou seen my servant Job?’ 
Famous he was in Heaven; on Earth less known, 
Where glory is false glory, attributed 
To things not glorious, men not worthy of fame.         70
They err who count it glorious to subdue 
By conquest far and wide, to overrun 
Large countries, and in field great battles win, 
Great cities by assault. What do these worthies 
But rob and spoil, burn, slaughter, and enslave         75
Peaceable nations, neighbouring or remote, 
Made captive, yet deserving freedom more 
Than those their conquerors, who leave behind 
Nothing but ruin wheresoe’er they rove, 
And all the flourishing works of peace destroy;         80
Then swell with pride, and must be titled Gods, 
Great Benefactors of mankind, Deliverers, 
Worshipped with temple, priest, and sacrifice? 
One is the son of Jove, of Mars the other; 
Till conqueror Death discover them scarce men,         85
Rowling in brutish vices, and deformed, 
Violent or shameful death their due reward. 
But, if there be in glory aught of good; 
It may by means far different be attained, 
Without ambition, war, or violence—         90
By deeds of peace, by wisdom eminent, 
By patience, temperance. I mention still 
Him whom thy wrongs, with saintly patience borne, 
Made famous in a land and times obscure; 
Who names not now with honour patient Job?         95
Poor Socrates, (who next more memorable?) 
By what he taught and suffered for so doing, 
For truth’s sake suffering death unjust, lives now 
Equal in fame to proudest conquerors. 
Yet, if for fame and glory aught be done,         100
Aught suffered—if young African for fame 
His wasted country freed from Punic rage— 
The deed becomes unpraised, the man at least, 
And loses, though but verbal, his reward. 
Shall I seek glory, then, as vain men seek,         105
Oft not deserved? I seek not mine, but His 
Who sent me, and thereby witness whence I am.” 
To whom the Tempter, murmuring, thus replied: 
“Think not so slight of glory, therein least 
Resembling thy great Father. He seeks glory,         110
And for his glory all things made, all things 
Orders and governs; nor content in Heaven, 
By all his Angels glorified, requires 
Glory from men, from all men, good or bad, 
Wise or unwise, no difference, no exemption.         115
Above all sacrifice, or hallowed gift, 
Glory he requires, and glory he receives, 
Promiscuous from all nations, Jew, or Greek, 
Or Barbarous, nor exception hath declared; 
From us, his foes pronounced, glory he exacts.”         120
  To whom our Saviour fervently replied: 
“And reason; since his Word all things produced, 
Though chiefly not for glory as prime end, 
But to shew forth his goodness, and impart 
His good communicable to every soul         125
Freely; of whom what could He less expect 
Than glory and benediction—that is, thanks— 
The slightest, easiest, readiest recompense 
From them who could return him nothing else, 
And, not returning that, would likeliest render         130
Contempt instead, dishonour, obloquy? 
Hard recompense, unsuitable return 
For so much good, so much beneficence! 
But why should man seek glory, who of his own 
Hath nothing, and to whom nothing belongs         135
But condemnation, ignominy, and shame— 
Who, for so many benefits received, 
Turned recreant to God, ingrate and false, 
And so of all true good himself despoiled; 
Yet, sacrilegious, to himself would take         140
That which to God alone of right belongs? 
Yet so much bounty is in God, such grace, 
That who advance his glory, not their own, 
Them he himself to glory will advance.” 
  So spake the Son of God; and here again         145
Satan had not to answer, but stood struck 
With guilt of his own sin—for he himself, 
Insatiable of glory, had lost all; 
Yet of another plea bethought him soon:— 
  “Of glory, as thou wilt,” said he, “so deem;         150
Worth or not worth the seeking, let it pass. 
But to a Kingdom thou art born—ordained 
To sit upon thy father David’s throne, 
By mother’s side thy father, though thy right 
Be now in powerful hands, that will not part         155
Easily from possession won with arms. 
Judæa now and all the Promised Land, 
Reduced a province under Roman yoke, 
Obeys Tiberius, nor is always ruled 
With temperate sway: oft have they violated         160
The Temple, oft the Law, with foul affronts, 
Abominations rather, as did once 
Antiochus. And think’st thou to regain 
Thy right by sitting still, or thus retiring? 
So did not Machabeus. He indeed         165
Retired unto the Desert, but with arms; 
And o’er a mighty king so oft prevailed 
That by strong hand his family obtained, 
Though priests, the crown, and David’s throne usurped, 
With Modin and her suburbs once content.         170
If kingdom move thee not, let move thee zeal 
And duty—zeal and duty are not slow, 
But on Occasion’s forelock watchful wait: 
They themselves rather are occasion best— 
Zeal of thy Father’s house, duty to free         175
Thy country from her heathen servitude. 
So shalt thou best fulfil, best verify, 
The Prophets old, who sung thy endless reign— 
The happier reign the sooner it begins. 
Reign then; what canst thou better do the while?”         180
  To whom our Saviour answer thus returned:— 
“All things are best fulfilled in their due time; 
And time there is for all things, Truth hath said. 
If of my reign Prophetic Writ hath told 
That it shall never end, so, when begin         185
The Father in his purpose hath decreed— 
He in whose hand all times and seasons rowl. 
What if he hath decreed that I shall first 
Be tried in humble state, and things adverse, 
By tribulations, injuries, insults,         190
Contempts, and scorns, and snares, and violence, 
Suffering, abstaining, quietly expecting 
Without distrust or doubt, that He may know 
What I can suffer, how obey? Who best 
Can suffer best can do, best reign who first         195
Well hath obeyed—just trial ere I merit 
My exaltation without change or end. 
But what concerns it thee when I begin 
My everlasting Kingdom? Why art thou 
Solicitous? What moves thy inquisition?         200
Know’st thou not that my rising is thy fall, 
And my promotion will be thy destruction?” 
  To whom the Tempter, inly racked, replied:— 
“Let that come when it comes. All hope is lost 
Of my reception into grace; what worse?         205
For where no hope is left is left no fear. 
If there be worse, the expectation more 
Of worse torments me than the feeling can. 
I would be at the worst; worst is my port, 
My harbour, and my ultimate repose,         210
The end I would attain, my final good. 
My error was my error, and my crime 
My crime; whatever, for itself condemned, 
And will alike be punished, whether thou 
Reign or reign not—though to that gentle brow         215
Willingly I could fly, and hope thy reign, 
From that placid aspect and meek regard, 
Rather than aggravate my evil state, 
Would stand between me and thy Father’s ire 
(Whose ire I dread more than the fire of Hell)         220
A shelter and a kind of shading cool 
Interposition, as a summer’s cloud. 
If I, then, to the worst that can be haste, 
Why move thy feet so slow to what is best? 
Happiest, both to thyself and all the world,         225
That thou, who worthiest art, shouldst be their King! 
Perhaps thou linger’st in deep thoughts detained 
Of the enterprise so hazardous and high! 
No wonder; for, though in thee be united 
What of perfection can in Man be found,         230
Or human nature can receive, consider 
Thy life hath yet been private, most part spent 
At home, scarce viewed the Galilean towns, 
And once a year Jerusalem, few days’ 
Short sojourn; and what thence couldst thou observe?         235
The world thou hast not seen, much less her glory, 
Empires, and monarchs, and their radiant courts— 
Best school of best experience, quickest in sight 
In all things that to greatest actions lead. 
The wisest, unexperienced, will be ever         240
Timorous, and loth, with novice modesty 
(As he who, seeking asses, found a kingdom) 
Irresolute, unhardy, unadventurous. 
But I will bring thee where thou soon shalt quit 
Those rudiments, and see before thine eyes         245
The monarchies of the Earth, their pomp and state— 
Sufficient introduction to inform 
Thee, of thyself so apt, in regal arts, 
And regal mysteries; that thou may’st know 
How best their opposition to withstand.”         250
  With that (such power was given him then), he took 
The Son of God up to a mountain high. 
It was a mountain at whose verdant feet 
A spacious plain outstretched in circuit wide 
Lay pleasant; from his side two rivers flowed,         255
The one winding, the other straight, and left between 
Fair champaign, with less rivers intervened, 
Then meeting joined their tribute to the sea. 
Fertile of corn the glebe, of oil, and wine; 
With herds the pasture thronged, with flocks the hills;         260
Huge cities and high-towered, that well might seem 
The seats of mightiest monarchs; and so large 
The prospect was that here and there was room 
For barren desert, fountainless and dry. 
To this high mountain-top the Tempter brought         265
Our Saviour, and new train of words began:— 
  “Well have we speeded, and o’er hill and dale, 
Forest, and field, and flood, temples and towers, 
Cut shorter many a league. Here thou behold’st 
Assyria, and her empire’s ancient bounds,         270
Araxes and the Caspian lake; thence on 
As far as Indus east, Euphrates west, 
And oft beyond; to south the Persian bay, 
And, inaccessible, the Arabian drouth: 
Here, Nineveh, of length within her wall         275
Several days’ journey, built by Ninus old, 
Of that first golden monarchy the seat, 
And seat of Salmanassar, whose success 
Israel in long captivity still mourns; 
There Babylon, the wonder of all tongues,         280
As ancient, but rebuilt by him who twice 
Judah and all thy father David’s house 
Led captive, and Jerusalem laid waste, 
Till Cyrus set them free; Persepolis, 
His city, there thou seest, and Bactra there;         285
Ecbatana her structure vast there shews, 
And Hecatompylos her hundred gates; 
There Susa by Choaspes, amber stream, 
The drink of none but kings; of later fame, 
Built by Emathian or by Parthian hands,         290
The great Seleucia, Nisibis, and there 
Artaxata, Teredon, Ctesiphon, 
Turning with easy eye, thou may’st behold. 
All these the Parthian (now some ages past 
By great Arsaces led, who founded first         295
That empire) under his dominion holds, 
From the luxurious kings of Antioch won. 
And just in time thou com’st to have a view 
Of his great power; for now the Parthian king 
In Ctesiphon hath gathered all his host         300
Against the Scythian, whose incursions wild 
Have wasted Sogdiana; to her aid 
He marches now in haste. See, though from far, 
His thousands, in what martial equipage 
They issue forth, steel bows and shafts their arms,         305
Of equal dread in flight or in pursuit— 
All horsemen, in which flight they must excel; 
See how in warlike muster they appear, 
In rhombs, and wedges, and half-moons, and wings.” 
  He looked, and saw what numbers numberless         310
The city gates outpoured, light-armed troops 
In coats of mail and military pride. 
In mail their horses clad, yet fleet and strong, 
Prauncing their riders bore, the flower and choice 
Of many provinces from bound to bound—         315
From Arachosia, from Candaor east, 
And Margiana, to the Hyrcanian cliffs 
Of Caucasus, and dark Iberian dales; 
From Atropatia, and the neighbouring plains 
Of Adiabene, Media, and the south         320
Of Susiana, to Balsara’s haven. 
He saw them in their forms of battle ranged, 
How quick they wheeled, and flying behind them shot 
Sharp sleet of arrowy showers against the face 
Of their pursuers, and overcame by flight;         325
The field all iron cast a gleaming brown. 
Nor wanted clouds of foot, nor, on each horn, 
Cuirassiers all in steel for standing flight, 
Chariots, or elephants indorsed with towers 
Of archers; nor of labouring pioners         330
A multitude, with spades and axes armed, 
To lay hills plain, fell woods, or valleys fill, 
Or where plain was raise hill, or overlay 
With bridges rivers proud, as with a yoke: 
Mules after these, camels and dromedaries,         335
And waggons fraught with utensils of war. 
Such forces met not, nor so wide a camp, 
When Agrican, with all his northern powers, 
Besieged Albracca, as romances tell, 
The city of Gallaphrone, from thence to win         340
The fairest of her sex, Angelica, 
His daughter, sought by many prowest knights, 
Both Paynim and the peers of Charlemane. 
Such and so numerous was their chivalry; 
At sight whereof the Fiend yet more presumed,         345
And to our Saviour thus his words renewed:— 
  “That thou may’st know I seek not to engage 
Thy virtue, and not every way secure 
On no slight grounds thy safety, hear and mark 
To what end I have brought thee hither, and shew         350
All this fair sight. Thy kingdom, though foretold 
By Prophet or by Angel, unless thou 
Endeavour, as thy father David did, 
Thou never shalt obtain: prediction still 
In all things, and all men, supposes means;         355
Without means used, what it predicts revokes. 
But say thou wert possessed of David’s throne 
By free consent of all, none opposite, 
Samaritan or Jew; how couldst thou hope 
Long to enjoy it quiet and secure         360
Between two such enclosing enemies, 
Roman and Parthian? Therefore one of these 
Thou must make sure thy own: the Parthian first, 
By my advice, as nearer, and of late 
Found able by invasion to annoy         365
Thy country, and captive lead away her kings, 
Antigonus and old Hyrcanus, bound, 
Maugre the Roman. It shall be my task 
To render thee the Parthian at dispose, 
Choose which thou wilt, by conquest or by league.         370
By him thou shalt regain, without him not, 
That which alone can truly reinstall thee 
In David’s royal seat, his true successor— 
Deliverance of thy brethren, those Ten Tribes 
Whose offspring in his territory yet serve         375
In Habor, and among the Medes dispersed: 
Ten sons of Jacob, two of Joseph, lost 
Thus long from Israel, serving, as of old 
Their fathers in the land of Egypt served, 
This offer sets before thee to deliver.         380
These if from servitude thou shalt restore 
To their inheritance, then, nor till then, 
Thou on the throne of David in full glory, 
From Egypt to Euphrates and beyond, 
Shalt reign, and Rome or Caesar not need fear.”         385
  To whom our Saviour answered thus, unmoved:— 
“Much ostentation vain of fleshly arm 
And fragile arms, much instrument of war, 
Long in preparing, soon to nothing brought, 
Before mine eyes thou hast set, and in my ear         390
Vented much policy, and projects deep 
Of enemies, of aids, battles, and leagues, 
Plausible to the world, to me worth naught. 
Means I must use, thou say’st; prediction else 
Will unpredict, and fail me of the throne!         395
My time, I told thee (and that time for thee 
Were better farthest off), is not yet come. 
When that comes, think not thou to find me slack 
On my part aught endeavouring, or to need 
Thy politic maxims, or that cumbersome         400
Luggage of war there shewn me—argument 
Of human weakness rather than of strength. 
My brethren, as thou call’st them, those Ten Tribes, 
I must deliver, if I mean to reign 
David’s true heir, and his full sceptre sway         405
To just extent over all Israel’s sons! 
But whence to thee this zeal? Where was it then 
For Israel, or for David, or his throne, 
When thou stood’st up his tempter to the pride 
Of numbering Israel—which cost the lives         410
Of threescore and ten thousand Israelites 
By three days’ pestilence? Such was thy zeal 
To Israel then, the same that now to me. 
As for those captive tribes, themselves were they 
Who wrought their own captivity, fell off         415
From God to worship calves, the deities 
Of Egypt, Baal next and Ashtaroth, 
And all the idolatries of heathen round, 
Besides their other worse than heathenish crimes; 
Nor in the land of their captivity         420
Humbled themselves, or penitent besought 
The God of their forefathers, but so died 
Impenitent, and left a race behind 
Like to themselves, distinguishable scarce 
From Gentiles, but by circumcision vain,         425
And God with idols in their worship joined. 
Should I of these the liberty regard, 
Who, freed, as to their ancient patrimony, 
Unhumbled, unrepentant, unreformed, 
Headlong would follow, and to their gods perhaps         430
Of Bethel and of Dan? No; let them serve 
Their enemies who serve idols with God. 
Yet He at length, time to himself best known, 
Remembering Abraham, by some wondrous call 
May bring them back, repentant and sincere,         435
And at their passing cleave the Assyrian flood, 
While to their native land with joy they haste, 
As the Red Sea and Jordan once he cleft, 
When to the Promised Land their fathers passed. 
To his due time and providence I leave them.”         440
  So spake Israel’s true King, and to the Fiend 
Made answer meet, that made void all his wiles. 
So fares it when with truth falsehood contends.

Paradise Regained: The Fourth Book
 
 
PERPLEXED and troubled at his bad success 
The Tempter stood, nor had what to reply, 
Discovered in his fraud, thrown from his hope 
So oft, and the persuasive rhetoric 
That sleeked his tongue, and won so much on Eve,         5
So little here, nay lost. But Eve was Eve; 
This far his over-match, who, self-deceived 
And rash, beforehand had no better weighed 
The strength he was to cope with, or his own. 
But—as a man who had been matchless held         10
In cunning, over-reached where least he thought, 
To salve his credit, and for very spite, 
Still will be tempting him who foils him still, 
And never cease, though to his shame the more; 
Or as a swarm of flies in vintage-time,         15
About the wine-press where sweet must is poured, 
Beat off, returns as oft with humming sound; 
Or surging waves against a solid rock, 
Though all to shivers dashed, the assault renew, 
(Vain battery!) and in froth or bubbles end—         20
So Satan, whom repulse upon repulse 
Met ever, and to shameful silence brought, 
Yet gives not o’er, though desperate of success, 
And his vain importunity pursues. 
He brought our Saviour to the western side         25
Of that high mountain, whence he might behold 
Another plain, long, but in breadth not wide, 
Washed by the southern sea, and on the north 
To equal length backed with a ridge of hills 
That screened the fruits of the earth and seats of men         30
From cold Septentrion blasts; thence in the midst 
Divided by a river, off whose banks 
On each side an Imperial City stood, 
With towers and temples proudly elevate 
On seven small hills, with palaces adorned,         35
Porches and theatres, baths, aqueducts, 
Statues and trophies, and triumphal arcs, 
Gardens and groves, presented to his eyes 
Above the highth of mountains interposed— 
By what strange parallax, or optic skill         40
Of vision, multiplied through air, or glass 
Of telescope, were curious to enquire. 
And now the Tempter thus his silence broke:— 
  “The city which thou seest no other deem 
Than great and glorious Rome, Queen of the Earth         45
So far renowned, and with the spoils enriched 
Of nations. There the Capitol thou seest, 
Above the rest lifting his stately head 
On the Tarpeian rock, her citadel 
Impregnable; and there Mount Palatine,         50
The imperial palace, compass huge, and high 
The structure, skill of noblest architects, 
With gilded battlements, conspicuous far, 
Turrets, and terraces, and glittering spires. 
Many a fair edifice besides, more like         55
Houses of gods—so well I have disposed 
My aerie microscope—thou may’st behold, 
Outside and inside both, pillars and roofs 
Carved work, the hand of famed artificers 
In cedar, marble, ivory, or gold.         60
Thence to the gates cast round thine eye, and see 
What conflux issuing forth, or entering in: 
Praetors, proconsuls to their provinces 
Hasting, or on return, in robes of state; 
Lictors and rods, the ensigns of their power;         65
Legions and cohorts, turms of horse and wings; 
Or embassies from regions far remote, 
In various habits, on the Appian road, 
Or on the Æmilian—some from farthest south, 
Syene, and where the shadow both way falls,         70
Meroë, Nilotic isle, and, more to west, 
The realm of Bocchus to the Blackmoor sea; 
From the Asian kings (and Parthian among these), 
From India and the Golden Chersoness, 
And utmost Indian isle Taprobane,         75
Dusk faces with white silken turbants wreathed; 
From Gallia, Gades, and the British west; 
Germans, and Scythians, and Sarmatians north 
Beyond Danubius to the Tauric pool. 
All nations now to Rome obedience pay—         80
To Rome’s great Emperor, whose wide domain, 
In ample territory, wealth and power, 
Civility of manners, arts and arms, 
And long renown, thou justly may’st prefer 
Before the Parthian. These two thrones except,         85
The rest are barbarous, and scarce worth the sight, 
Shared among petty kings too far removed; 
These having shewn thee, I have shewn thee all 
The kingdoms of the world, and all their glory. 
This Emperor hath no son, and now is old,         90
Old and lascivious, and from Rome retired 
To Capreæ, an island small but strong 
On the Campanian shore, with purpose there 
His horrid lusts in private to enjoy; 
Committing to a wicked favourite         95
All public cares, and yet of him suspicious; 
Hated of all, and hating. With what ease, 
Endued with regal virtues as thou art, 
Appearing, and beginning noble deeds, 
Might’st thou expel this monster from his throne,         100
Now made a sty, and, in his place ascending, 
A victor-people free from servile yoke! 
And with my help thou may’st; to me the power 
Is given, and by that right I give it thee. 
Aim, therefore, at no less than all the world;         105
Aim at the highest; without the highest attained, 
Will be for thee no sitting, or not long, 
On David’s throne, be prophesied what will.” 
  To whom the Son of God, unmoved, replied:— 
“Nor doth this grandeur and majestic shew         110
Of luxury, though called magnificence, 
More than of arms before, allure mine eye, 
Much less my mind; though thou should’st add to tell 
Their sumptuous gluttonies, and gorgeous feasts 
On citron tables or Atlantic stone         115
(For I have also heard, perhaps have read), 
Their wines of Setia, Cales, and Falerne, 
Chios and Crete, and how they quaff in gold, 
Crystal, and myrrhine cups, imbossed with gems 
And studs of pearl—to me should’st tell, who thirst         120
And hunger still. Then embassies thou shew’st 
From nations far and nigh! What honour that, 
But tedious waste of time, to sit and hear 
So many hollow compliments and lies, 
Outlandish flatteries? Then proceed’st to talk         125
Of the Emperor, how easily subdued, 
How gloriously. I shall, thou say’st, expel 
A brutish monster: what if I withal 
Expel a Devil who first made him such? 
Let his tormentor, Conscience, find him out;         130
For him I was not sent, nor yet to free 
That people, victor once, now vile and base, 
Deservedly made vassal—who, once just, 
Frugal and mild, and temperate, conquered well, 
But govern ill the nations under yoke,         135
Peeling their provinces, exhausted all 
By lust and rapine; first ambitious grown 
Of triumph, that insulting vanity; 
Then cruel, by their sports to blood inured 
Of fighting beasts, and men to beasts exposed;         140
Luxurious by their wealth, and greedier still, 
And from the daily Scene effeminate. 
What wise and valiant man would seek to free 
These, thus degenerate, by themselves enslaved, 
Or could of inward slaves make outward free?         145
Know, therefore, when my season comes to sit 
On David’s throne, it shall be like a tree 
Spreading and overshadowing all the earth, 
Or as a stone that shall to pieces dash 
All monarchies besides throughout the world;         150
And of my Kingdom there shall be no end. 
Means there shall be to this; but what the means 
Is not for thee to know, nor me to tell.” 
  To whom the Tempter, impudent, replied:— 
“I see all offers made by me how slight         155
Thou valuest, because offered, and reject’st. 
Nothing will please the difficult and nice, 
Or nothing more than still to contradict. 
On the other side know also thou that I 
On what I offer set as high esteem,         160
Nor what I part with mean to give for naught. 
All these, which in a moment thou behold’st, 
The kingdoms of the world, to thee I give 
(For, given to me, I give to whom I please), 
No trifle; yet with this reserve, not else—         165
On this condition, if thou wilt fall down, 
And worship me as thy superior Lord 
(Easily done), and hold them all of me; 
For what can less so great a gift deserve?” 
  Whom thus our Saviour answered with disdain:—         170
“I never liked thy talk, thy offers less; 
Now both abhor, since thou hast dared to utter 
The abominable terms, impious condition. 
But I endure the time, till which expired 
Thou hast permission on me. It is written,         175
The first of all commandments, ‘Thou shalt worship 
The Lord thy God, and only Him shalt serve;’ 
And dar’st thou to the Son of God propound 
To worship thee, accursed? now more accursed 
For this attempt, bolder than that on Eve,         180
And more blasphémous; which expect to rue. 
The kingdoms of the world to thee were given! 
Permitted rather, and by thee usurped; 
Other donation none thou canst produce. 
If given, by whom but by the King of kings,         185
God over all supreme? If given to thee, 
By thee how fairly is the Giver now 
Repaid! But gratitude in thee is lost 
Long since. Wert thou so void of fear or shame 
As offer them to me, the Son of God—         190
To me my own, on such abhorred pact, 
That I fall down and worship thee as God? 
Get thee behind me! Plain thou now appear’st 
That Evil One, Satan for ever damned.” 
  To whom the Fiend, with fear abashed, replied:—         195
“Be not so sore offended, Son of God— 
Though Sons of God both Angels are and Men— 
If I, to try whether in higher sort 
Than these thou bear’st that title, have proposed 
What both from Men and Angels I receive,         200
Tetrarchs of Fire, Air, Flood, and on the Earth 
Nations besides from all the quartered winds— 
God of this World invoked, and World beneath. 
Who then thou art, whose coming is foretold 
To me most fatal, me it most concerns.         205
The trial hath indamaged thee no way, 
Rather more honour left and more esteem; 
Me naught advantaged, missing what I aimed. 
Therefore let pass, as they are transitory, 
The kingdoms of this world; I shall nor more         210
Advise thee; gain them as thou canst, or not. 
And thou thyself seem’st otherwise inclined 
Than to a worldly crown, addicted more 
To contemplation and profound dispute; 
As by that early action may be judged,         215
When, slipping from thy mother’s eye, thou went’st 
Alone into the Temple, there wast found 
Among the gravest Rabbies, disputant 
On points and questions fitting Moses’ chair, 
Teaching, not taught. The childhood shews the man,         220
As morning shews the day. Be famous, then, 
By wisdom; as thy empire must extend, 
So let extend thy mind o’er all the world 
In knowledge; all things in it comprehend. 
All knowledge is not couched in Moses’ law,         225
The Pentateuch, or what the Prophets wrote; 
The Gentiles also know, and write, and teach 
To admiration, led by Nature’s light; 
And with the Gentiles much thou must converse, 
Ruling them by persuasion, as thou mean’st.         230
Without their learning, how wilt thou with them, 
Or they with thee, hold conversation meet? 
How wilt thou reason with them, how refute 
Their idolisms, traditions, paradoxes? 
Error by his own arms is best evinced.         235
Look once more, ere we leave this specular mount, 
Westward, much nearer by south-west; behold 
Where on the &Aelig;gean shore a city stands, 
Built nobly, pure the air and light the soil— 
Athens, the eye of Greece, mother of arts         240
And eloquence, native to famous wits 
Or hospitable, in her sweet recess, 
City of suburban, studious walks and shades. 
See there the olive-grove of Academe, 
Plato’s retirement, where the Attic bird         245
Trills her thick-warbled notes the summer long; 
There, flowery hill, Hymettus, with the sound 
Of bees’ industrious murmur, oft invites 
To studious musing; there Ilissus rowls 
His whispering stream. Within the walls then view         250
The schools of ancient sages—his who bred 
Great Alexander to subdue the world, 
Lyceum there; and painted Stoa next. 
There thou shalt hear and learn the secret power 
Of harmony, in tones and numbers hit         255
By voice or hand, and various-measured verse, 
Æolian charms and Dorian lyric odes, 
And his who gave them breath, but higher sung, 
Blind Melesigenes, thence Homer called, 
Whose poem Phœbus challenged for his own.         260
Thence what the lofty grave Tragedians taught 
In chorus or iambic, teachers best 
Of moral prudence, with delight received 
In brief sententious precepts, while they treat 
Of fate, and chance, and change in human life,         265
High actions and high passions best describing. 
Thence to the famous Orators repair, 
Those ancient whose resistless eloquence 
Wielded at will that fierce democraty, 
Shook the Arsenal, and fulmined over Greece         270
To Macedon and Artaxerxes’ throne. 
To sage Philosophy next lend thine ear, 
From heaven descended to the low-roofed house 
Of Socrates—see there his tenement— 
Whom, well inspired, the Oracle pronounced         275
Wisest of men; from whose mouth issued forth 
Mellifluous streams, that watered all the schools 
Of Academics old and new, with those 
Surnamed Peripatetics, and the sect 
Epicurean, and the Stoic severe.         280
These here revolve, or, as thou likest, at home, 
Till time mature thee to a kingdom’s weight; 
These rules will render thee a king complete 
Within thyself, much more with empire joined.” 
  To whom our Saviour sagely thus replied:—         285
“Think not but that I know these things; or, think 
I know them not, not therefore am I short 
Of knowing what I ought. He who receives 
Light from above, from the Fountain of Light, 
No other doctrine needs, though granted true;         290
But these are false, or little else but dreams, 
Conjectures, fancies, built on nothing firm. 
The first and wisest of them all professed 
To know this only, that he nothing knew; 
The next to fabling fell and smooth conceits;         295
A third sort doubted all things, though plain sense; 
Others in virtue placed felicity, 
But virtue joined with riches and long life; 
In corporal pleasure he, and careless ease; 
The Stoic last in philosophic pride,         300
By him called virtue, and his virtuous man, 
Wise, perfect in himself, and all possessing, 
Equal to God, oft shames not to prefer, 
As fearing God nor man, contemning all 
Wealth, pleasure, pain or torment, death and life—         305
Which, when he lists, he leaves, or boasts he can; 
For all his tedious talk is but vain boast, 
Or subtle shifts conviction to evade. 
Alas! what can they teach, and not mislead, 
Ignorant of themselves, of God much more,         310
And how the World began, and how Man fell, 
Degraded by himself, on grace depending? 
Much of the Soul they talk, but all awry; 
And in themselves seek virtue; and to themselves 
All glory arrogate, to God give none;         315
Rather accuse him under usual names, 
Fortune and Fate, as one regardless quite 
Of mortal things. Who, therefore, seeks in these 
True wisdom finds her not, or by delusion 
Far worse, her false resemblance only meets,         320
An empty cloud. However, many books, 
Wise men have said, are wearisome; who reads 
Incessantly, and to his reading brings not 
A spirit and judgment equal or superior, 
(And what he brings what needs he elsewhere seek?)         325
Uncertain and unsettled still remains, 
Deep-versed in books and shallow in himself, 
Crude or intoxicate, collecting toys 
And trifles for choice matters, worth a sponge, 
As children gathering pebbles on the shore.         330
Or, if I would delight my private hours 
With music or with poem, where so soon 
As in our native language can I find 
That solace? All our Law and Story strewed 
With hymns, our Psalms with artful terms inscribed,         335
Our Hebrew songs and harps, in Babylon 
That pleased so well our victor’s ear, declare 
That rather Greece from us there arts derived— 
Ill imitated while they loudest sing 
The vices of their deities, and their own,         340
In fable, hymn, or song, so personating 
Their gods ridiculous, and themselves past shame. 
Remove their swelling epithetes, thick-laid 
As varnish on a harlot’s cheek, the rest 
Thin-sown with aught of profit or delight,         345
Will far be found unworthy to compare 
With Sion’s songs, to all true tastes excelling, 
Where God is praised aright and godlike men, 
The Holiest of Holies and his Saints 
(Such are from God inspired, not such from thee);         350
Unless where moral virtue is expressed 
By light of Nature, not in all quite lost. 
Their orators thou then extoll’st as those 
The top of eloquence—statists indeed, 
And lovers of their country, as may seem;         355
But herein to our Prophets far beneath, 
As men divinely taught, and better teaching 
The solid rules of civil government, 
In their majestic, unaffected style, 
Than all the oratory of Greece and Rome.         360
In them is plainest taught, and easiest learnt, 
What makes a nation happy, and keeps it so, 
What ruins kingdoms, and lays cities flat; 
These only, with our Law, best form a king.” 
  So spake the Son of God; but Satan, now         365
Quite at a loss (for all his darts were spent), 
Thus to our Saviour, with stern brow, replied:— 
  “Since neither wealth nor honour, arms nor arts, 
Kingdom nor empire, pleases thee, nor aught 
By me proposed in life contemplative         370
Or active, tended on by glory or fame, 
What dost thou in this world? The Wilderness 
For thee is fittest place: I found thee there, 
And thither will return thee. Yet remember 
What I foretell thee; soon thou shalt have cause         375
To wish thou never hadst rejected, thus 
Nicely or cautiously, my offered aid, 
Which would have set thee in short time with ease 
On David’s throne, or throne of all the world, 
Now at full age, fulness of time, thy season,         380
When prophecies of thee are best fulfilled. 
Now, contrary—if I read aught in heaven, 
Or heaven write aught of fate—by what the stars 
Voluminous, or single characters 
In their conjunction met, give me to spell,         385
Sorrows and labours, opposition, hate, 
Attend thee; scorns, reproaches, injuries, 
Violence and stripes, and, lastly, cruel death. 
A kingdom they portend thee, but what kingdom, 
Real or allegoric, I discern not;         390
Nor when: eternal sure—as without end, 
Without beginning; for no date prefixed 
Directs me in the starry rubric set.” 
  So saying, he took (for still he knew his power 
Not yet expired), and to the Wilderness         395
Brought back, the Son of God, and left him there, 
Feigning to disappear. Darkness now rose, 
As daylight sunk, and brought in louring Night, 
Her shadowy offspring, unsubstantial both, 
Privation mere of light and absent day.         400
Our Saviour, meek, and with untroubled mind 
After his aerie jaunt, though hurried sore, 
Hungry and cold, betook him to his rest, 
Wherever, under some concourse of shades, 
Whose branching arms thick intertwined might shield         405
From dews and damps of night his sheltered head; 
But, sheltered, slept in vain; for at his head 
The Tempter watched, and soon with ugly dreams 
Disturbed his sleep. And either tropic now 
’Gan thunder, and both ends of heaven; the clouds         410
From many a horrid rift abortive poured 
Fierce rain with lightning mixed, water with fire 
In ruin reconciled; nor slept the winds 
Within their stony caves, but rushed abroad 
From the four hinges of the world, and fell         415
On the vexed wilderness, whose tallest pines, 
Though rooted deep as high, and sturdiest oaks, 
Bowed their stiff necks, loaden with stormy blasts, 
Or torn up sheer. Ill was thou shrouded then, 
O patient Son of God, yet only stood’st         420
Unshaken! Nor yet staid the terror there: 
Infernal ghosts and hellish furies round 
Environed thee; some howled, some yelled, some shrieked, 
Some bent at thee their fiery darts, while thou 
Sat’st unappalled in calm and sinless peace.         425
Thus passed the night so foul, till Morning fair 
Came forth with pilgrim steps, in amice grey, 
Who with her radiant finger stilled the roar 
Of thunder, chased the clouds, and laid the winds, 
And griesly spectres, which the Fiend had raised         430
To tempt the Son of God with terrors dire. 
And now the sun with more effectual beams 
Had cheered the face of earth, and dried the wet 
From drooping plant, or dropping tree; the birds, 
Who all things now behold more fresh and green,         435
After a night of storm so ruinous, 
Cleared up their choicest notes in bush and spray, 
To gratulate the sweet return of morn. 
Nor yet, amidst this joy and brightest morn, 
Was absent, after all his mischief done,         440
The Prince of Darkness; glad would also seem 
Of this fair change, and to our Saviour came; 
Yet with no new device (they all were spent), 
Rather by this his last affront resolved, 
Desperate of better course, to vent his rage         445
And mad despite to be so oft repelled. 
Him walking on a sunny hill he found, 
Backed on the north and west by a thick wood; 
Out of the wood he starts in wonted shape, 
And in a careless mood thus to him said:—         450
  “Fair morning yet betides thee, Son of God, 
After a dismal night. I heard the wrack, 
As earth and sky would mingle; but myself 
Was distant; and these flaws, though mortals fear them, 
As dangerous to the pillared frame of Heaven,         455
Or to the Earth’s dark basis underneath, 
Are to the main as inconsiderable 
And harmless, if not wholesome, as a sneeze 
To man’s less universe, and soon are gone. 
Yet, as being ofttimes noxious where they light         460
On man, beast, plant, wasteful and turbulent, 
Like turbulencies in the affairs of men, 
Over whose heads they roar, and seem to point, 
They oft fore-signify and threaten ill. 
This tempest at this desert most was bent;         465
Of men at thee, for only thou here dwell’st. 
Did I not tell thee, if thou didst reject 
The perfect season offered with my aid 
To win thy destined seat, but wilt prolong 
All to the push of fate, pursue thy way         470
Of gaining David’s throne no man knows when 
(For both the when and how is nowhere told), 
Thou shalt be what thou art ordained, no doubt; 
For Angels have proclaimed it, but concealing 
The time and means? Each act is rightliest done         475
Not when it must, but when it may be best. 
If thou observe not this, be sure to find 
What I foretold thee—many a hard assay 
Of dangers, and adversities, and pains, 
Ere thou of Israel’s sceptre get fast hold;         480
Whereof this ominous night that closed thee round, 
So many terrors, voices, prodigies, 
May warn thee, as a sure foregoing sign.” 
  So talked he, while the Son of God went on, 
And staid not, but in brief him answered thus:—         485
  “Me worse than wet thou find’st not; other harm 
Those terrors which thou speak’st of did me none 
, never feared they could, though noising loud 
And threatening nigh: what they can do as signs 
Betokening or ill-boding I contemn         490
As false portents, not sent from God, but thee; 
Who, knowing I shall reign past thy preventing, 
Obtrud’st thy offered aid, that I, accepting, 
At least might seem to hold all power of thee, 
Ambitious Spirit! and would’st be thought my God;         495
And storm’st, refused, thinking to terrify 
Me to thy will! Desist (thou art discerned, 
And toil’st in vain), nor me in vain molest.” 
  To whom the Fiend, now swoln with rage, replied:— 
“Then hear, O Son of David, virgin-born!         500
For Son of God to me is yet in doubt. 
Of the Messiah I have heard foretold 
By all the Prophets; of thy birth, at length 
Announced by Gabriel, with the first I knew, 
And of the angelic song in Bethlehem field,         505
On thy birth-night, that sung thee Saviour born. 
From that time seldom have I ceased to eye 
Thy infancy, thy childhood, and thy youth, 
Thy manhood last, though yet in private bred; 
Till, at the ford of Jordan, whither all         510
Flocked to the Baptist, I among the rest 
(Though not to be baptized), by voice from Heaven 
Heard thee pronounced the Son of God beloved. 
Thenceforth I thought thee worth my nearer view 
And narrower scrutiny, that I might learn         515
In what degree or meaning thou art called 
The Son of God, which bears no single sense. 
The Son of God I also am, or was; 
And, if I was, I am; relation stands: 
All men are Sons of God; yet thee I thought         520
In some respect far higher so declared. 
Therefore, I watched thy footsteps from that hour, 
And followed thee still on to this waste wild, 
Where, by all best conjectures, I collect 
Thou art to be my fatal enemy.         525
Good reason, then, if I beforehand seek 
To understand my adversary, who 
And what he is; his wisdom, power, intent; 
By parle or composition, truce or league, 
To win him, or win from him what I can.         530
And opportunity I here have had 
To try thee, sift thee, and confess have found thee 
Proof against all temptation, as a rock 
Of adamant and as a centre, firm 
To the utmost of mere man both wise and good,         535
Not more; for honours, riches, kingdoms, glory, 
Have been before contemned, and may again. 
Therefore, to know what more thou art than man, 
Worth naming Son of God by voice from Heaven, 
Another method I must now begin.”         540
  So saying, he caught him up, and, without wing 
Of hippogrif, bore through the air sublime, 
Over the wilderness and o’er the plain, 
Till underneath them fair Jerusalem, 
The Holy City, lifted high her towers,         545
And higher yet the glorious Temple reared 
Her pile, far off appearing like a mount 
Of alabaster, topt with golden spires: 
There, on the highest pinnacle, he set 
The Son of God, and added thus in scorn:—         550
  “There stand, if thou wilt stand; to stand upright 
Will ask thee skill. I to thy Father’s house 
Have brought thee, and highest placed: highest is best. 
Now shew thy progeny; if not to stand, 
Cast thyself down. Safely, if Son of God;         555
For it is written, ‘He will give command 
Concerning thee to his Angels; in their hands 
They shall uplift thee, lest at any time 
Thou chance to dash thy foot against a stone.’“ 
  To whom thus Jesus: “Also it is written,         560
‘Tempt not the Lord thy God.’“ He said, and stood; 
But Satan, smitten with amazement, fell. 
As when Earth’s son, Antæus (to compare 
Small things with greatest), in Irassa strove 
With Jove’s Alcides, and, oft foiled, still rose,         565
Receiving from his mother Earth new strength, 
Fresh from his fall, and fiercer grapple joined, 
Throttled at length in the air expired and fell, 
So, after many a foil, the Tempter proud, 
Renewing fresh assaults, amidst his pride         570
Fell whence he stood to see his victor fall; 
And, as that Theban monster that proposed 
Her riddle, and him who solved it not devoured, 
That once found out and solved, for grief and spite 
Cast herself headlong from the Ismenian steep,         575
So, strook with dread and anguish, fell the Fiend, 
And to his crew, that sat consulting, brought 
Joyless triumphals of his hoped success, 
Ruin, and desperation, and dismay, 
Who durst so proudly tempt the Son of God.         580
So Satan fell; and straight a fiery globe 
Of Angels on full sail of wing flew nigh, 
Who on their plumy vans received Him soft 
From his uneasy station, and upbore, 
As on a floating couch, through the blithe air;         585
Then, in a flowery valley, set him down 
On a green bank, and set before him spread 
A table of celestial food, divine 
Ambrosial fruits fetched from the Tree of Life, 
And from the Fount of Life ambrosial drink,         590
That soon refreshed him wearied, and repaired 
What hunger, if aught hunger, had impaired, 
Or thirst; and, as he fed, Angelic quires 
Sung heavenly anthems of his victory 
Over temptation and the Tempter proud:—         595
  “True Image of the Father, whether throned 
In the bosom of bliss, and light of light 
Conceiving, or, remote from Heaven, enshrined 
In fleshly tabernacle and human form, 
Wandering the wilderness—whatever place,         600
Habit, or state, or motion, still expressing 
The Son of God, with Godlike force endued 
Against the attempter of thy Father’s throne 
And thief of Paradise! Him long of old 
Thou didst debel, and down from Heaven cast         605
With all his army; now thou hast avenged 
Supplanted Adam, and, by vanquishing 
Temptation, hast regained lost Paradise, 
And frustrated the conquest fraudulent. 
He never more henceforth will dare set foot         610
In Paradise to tempt; his snares are broke. 
For, though that seat of earthly bliss be failed, 
A fairer Paradise is founded now 
For Adam and his chosen sons, whom thou, 
A Saviour, art come down to reinstall;         615
Where they shall dwell secure, when time shall be, 
Of tempter and temptation without fear. 
But thou, Infernal Serpent! shalt not long 
Rule in the clouds. Like an autumnal star, 
Or lighting, thou shalt fall from Heaven, trod down         620
Under his feet. For proof, ere this thou fell’st 
Thy wound (yet not thy last and deadliest wound) 
By this repulse received, and hold’st in Hell 
No triumph; in all her gates Abaddon rues 
Thy bold attempt. Hereafter learn with awe         625
To dread the Son of God. He, all unarmed, 
Shall chase thee, with the terror of his voice, 
From thy demoniac holds, possession foul— 
Thee and thy legions; yelling they shall fly, 
And beg to hide them in a herd of swine,         630
Lest he command them down into the Deep, 
Bound, and to torment sent before their time. 
Hail, Son of the Most High, heir of both Worlds, 
Queller of Satan! On thy glorious work 
Now enter, and begin to save Mankind.”         635
  Thus they the Son of God, our Saviour meek, 
Sung victor, and, from heavenly feast refreshed, 
Brought on his way with joy. He, unobserved, 
Home to his mother’s house private returned.

Milton’s Introduction to Samson Agonistes
 
 
         Aristot. Poet. cap. 6. [Greek], &c.—Tragœdia est imitatio actionis seriæ, &c., per misericordiam et metum perficiens talium affectuum lustrationem.


Of That Sort of Dramatic Poem Called Tragedy

  TRAGEDY, as it was anciently composed, hath been ever held the gravest, moralest, and most profitable of all other Poems; therefore said by Aristotle to be of power, by raising pity and fear, or terror, to purge the mind of those and such-like passions—that is, to temper and reduce them to just measure with a kind of delight, stirred up by reading or seeing those passions well imitated. Nor is Nature wanting in her own effects to make good his assertion; for so, in Physic, things of melancholic hue and quality are used against melancholy, sour against sour, salt to remove salt humours. Hence philosophers and other gravest writers, as Cicero, Plutarch, and others, frequently cite out of tragic poets, both to adorn and illustrate their discourse. The Apostle Paul himself thought it not unworthy to insert a verse of Euripides into the text of Holy Scripture, 1 Cor. xv. 33; and Paræus, commenting on the Revelation, divides the whole Book, as a Tragedy, into acts, distinguished each by a Chorus of Heavenly Harpings and Song between. Heretofore men in highest dignity have laboured not a little to be thought able to compose a tragedy. Of that honour Dionysius the elder was no less ambitious than before of his attaining to the tyranny. Augustus Cæsar also had begun his Ajax, but, unable to please his own judgment with what he had begun, left it unfinished. Seneca, the philosopher, is by some thought the author of those tragedies (at least the best of them) that go under that name. Gregory Nazianzen, a Father of the Church, thought it not unbeseemingly the sanctity of his person to write a tragedy, which he entitled Christ Suffering. This is mentioned to vindicate Tragedy from the small esteem, or rather infamy, which in the account of many it undergoes at this day, with other common Interludes; happening through the poet’s error of intermixing comic stuff with tragic sadness and gravity, or introducing trivial and vulgar persons: which by all judicious hath been counted absurd, and brought in without discretion, corruptly to gratify the people. And, though ancient Tragedy use no Prologue, yet using sometimes, in case of self-defence or explanation, that which Martial calls an Epistle, in behalf of this tragedy, coming forth after the ancient manner, much different from what among us passes for best, thus much beforehand may be epistled—that Chorus is here introduced after the Greek manner, not ancient only, but modern, and still in use among the Italians, In the modelling therefore of this poem, with good reason, the Ancients and Italians are rather followed, as of much more authority and fame. The measure of verse used in the Chorus is of all sorts, called by the Greeks Monostrophic, or rather Apolelymenon, without regard had to Strophe, Antistrophe, or Epode,—which were a kind of stanzas framed only for the music, then used with the Chorus that sung; not essential to the poem, and therefore not material; or, being divided into stanzas or pauses, they may be called Allæostropha. Division into act and scene, referring chiefly to the stage (to which this work never was intended), is here omitted. 
It suffices if the whole drama be found not produced beyond the fifth act. Of the style and uniformity, and that commonly called the plot, whether intricate or explicit—which is nothing indeed but such oe;conomy, or disposition of the fable, as may stand best with verisimilitude and decorum—they only will best judge who are not unacquainted with Æschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, the three tragic poets unequalled yet by any, and the best rule to all who endeavour to write Tragedy. The circumscription of time, wherein the whole drama begins and ends, is, according to ancient rule and best example, within the space of twenty-four hours 

Samson Agonistes: Lines 1-249
 
(1667–1671)
 
 
SAMSON. A little onward lend thy guiding hand 
To these dark steps, a little further on; 
For yonder bank hath choice of sun or shade. 
There I am wont to sit, when any chance 
Relieves me from my task of servile toil,         5
Daily in the common prison else enjoined me, 
Where I, a prisoner chained, scarce freely draw 
The air, imprisoned also, close and damp, 
Unwholesome draught. But here I feel amends— 
The breath of Heaven fresh blowing, pure and sweet,         10
With day-spring born; here leave me to respire. 
This day a solemn feast the people hold 
To Dagon, their sea-idol, and forbid 
Laborious works. Unwillingly this rest 
Their superstition yields me; hence, with leave         15
Retiring from the popular noise, I seek 
This unfrequented place to find some ease— 
Ease to the body some, none to the mind 
From restless thoughts, that, like a deadly swarm 
Of hornets armed, no sooner found alone         20
But rush upon me thronging, and present 
Times past, what once I was, and what am now. 
Oh, wherefore was my birth from Heaven foretold 
Twice by an Angel, who at last, in sight 
Of both my parents, all in flames ascended         25
From off the altar where an offering burned, 
As in a fiery column charioting 
His godlike presence, and from some great act 
Or benefit revealed to Abraham’s race? 
Why was my breeding ordered and prescribed         30
As of a person separate to God, 
Designed for great exploits, if I must die 
Betrayed, captived, and both my eyes put out, 
Made of my enemies the scorn and gaze, 
To grind in brazen fetters under task         35
With this heaven-gifted strength? O glorious strength, 
Put to the labour of a beast, debased 
Lower than bond-slave! Promise was that I 
Should Israel from Philistian yoke deliver! 
Ask for this great Deliverer now, and find him         40
Eyeless in Gaza, at the mill with slaves, 
Himself in bonds under Philistian yoke. 
Yet stay; let me not rashly call in doubt 
Divine prediction. What if all foretold 
Had been fulfilled but through mine own default?         45
Whom have I to complain of but myself, 
Who this high gift of strength committed to me, 
In what part lodged, how easily bereft me, 
Under the seal of silence could not keep, 
But weakly to a woman must reveal it,         50
O’ercome with importunity and tears? 
O impotence of mind in body strong! 
But what is strength without a double share 
Of wisdom? Vast, unwieldly, burdensome, 
Proudly secure, yet liable to fall         55
By weakest subtleties; not made to rule, 
But to subserve where wisdom bears command. 
God, when he gave me strength, to shew withal 
How slight the gift was, hung it in my hair. 
But peace! I must not quarrel with the will         60
Of highest dispensation, which herein 
Haply had ends above my reach to know. 
Suffices that to me strength is my bane, 
And proves the source of all my miseries— 
So many, and so huge, that each apart         65
Would ask a life to wail. But, chief of all, 
O loss of sight, of thee I most complain! 
Blind among enemies! O worse than chains, 
Dungeon, or beggary, or decrepit age! 
Light, the prime work of God, to me is extinct,         70
And all her various objects of delight 
Annulled, which might in part my grief have eased. 
Inferior to the vilest now become 
Of man or worm, the vilest here excel me: 
They creep, yet see; I, dark in light, exposed         75
To daily fraud, contempt, abuse and wrong, 
Within doors, or without, still as a fool, 
In power of others, never in my own— 
Scarce half I seem to live, dead more than half. 
O dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon,         80
Irrecoverábly dark, total eclipse 
Without all hope of day! 
O first-created Beam, and thou great Word, 
“Let there be light, and light was over all,” 
Why am I thus bereaved thy prime decree?         85
The Sun to me is dark 
And silent as the Moon, 
When she deserts the night, 
Hid in her vacant interlunar cave. 
Since light so necessary is to life,         90
And almost life itself, if it be true 
That light is in the soul, 
She all in every part, why was the sight 
To such a tender ball as the eye confined, 
So obvious and so easy to be quenched,         95
And not, as feeling, through all parts diffused, 
That she might look at will through every pore? 
Then had I not been thus exiled from light, 
As in the land of darkness, yet in light, 
To live a life half dead, a living death,         100
And buried; but, O yet more miserable! 
Myself my sepulchre, a moving grave; 
Buried, yet not exempt, 
By privilege of death and burial, 
From worst of other evils, pains, and wrongs;         105
But made hereby obnoxious more 
To all the miseries of life, 
Life in captivity 
Among inhuman foes. 
But who are these? for with joint pace I hear         110
The tread of many feet steering this way; 
Perhaps my enemies, who come to stare 
At my affliction, and perhaps to insult— 
Their daily practice to afflict me more. 
  Chor. This, this is he; softly a while;         115
Let us not break in upon him. 
O change beyond report, thought, or belief! 
See how he lies at random, carelessly diffused, 
With languished head unpropt, 
As one past hope, abandoned,         120
And by himself given over, 
In slavish habit, ill-fitted weeds 
O’er-worn and soiled. 
Or do my eyes misrepresent? Can this be he, 
That heroic, that renowned,         125
Irresistible Samson? whom, unarmed, 
No strength of man, or fiercest wild beast, could withstand; 
Who tore the lion as the lion tears the kid; 
Ran on embattled armies clad in iron, 
And, weaponless himself,         130
Made arms ridiculous, useless the forgery 
Of brazen shield and spear, the hammered cuirass, 
Chalybean-tempered steel, and frock of mail 
Adamantean proof: 
But safest he who stood aloof,         135
When insupportably his foot advanced, 
In scorn of their proud arms and warlike tools, 
Spurned them to death by troops. The bold Ascalonite 
Fled from his lion ramp; old warriors turned 
Their plated backs under his heel,         140
Or grovelling soiled their crested helmets in the dust. 
Then with what trivial weapon came to hand, 
The jaw of a dead ass, his sword of bone, 
A thousand foreskins fell, the flower of Palestine, 
In Ramath-lechi, famous to this day:         145
Then by main force pulled up, and on his shoulders bore, 
The gates of Azza, post and massy bar, 
Up to the hill by Hebron, seat of giants old— 
No journey of a sabbath-day, and loaded so— 
Like whom the Gentiles feign to bear up Heaven.         150
Which shall I first bewail— 
Thy bondage or lost sight, 
Prison within prison 
Inseparably dark? 
Thou art become (O worst imprisonment!)         155
The dungeon of thyself; thy soul 
(Which men enjoying sight oft without cause complain) 
Imprisoned now indeed, 
In real darkness of the body dwells, 
Shut up from outward light         160
To incorporate with gloomy night; 
For inward light, alas! 
Puts forth no visual beam. 
O mirror of our fickle state, 
Since man on earth, unparalleled,         165
The rarer thy example stands, 
By how much from the top of wondrous glory, 
Strongest of mortal men, 
To lowest pitch of abject fortune thou art fallen. 
For him I reckon not in high estate         170
Whom long descent of birth, 
Or the sphere of fortune, raises; 
But them whose strength, while virtue was her mate, 
Might have subdued the Earth, 
Universally crowned with highest praises.         175
  Sams. I hear the sound of words; their sense the air 
Dissolves unjointed ere it reach my ear. 
  Chor. He speaks: let us draw nigh. Matchless in might, 
The glory late of Israel, now the grief! 
We come, thy friends and neighbours not unknown.         180
From Eshtaol and Zora’s fruitful vale, 
To visit or bewail thee; or, if better, 
Counsel or consolation we may bring, 
Salve to thy sores: apt words have power to swage 
The tumours of a troubled mind,         185
And are as balm to festered wounds. 
  Sams. Your coming, friends, revives me; for I learn 
Now of my own experience, not by talk, 
How counterfeit a coin they are who “friends” 
Bear in their superscription (of the most         190
I would be understood). In prosperous days 
They swarm, but in adverse withdraw their head, 
Not to be found, though sought. Ye see, O friends, 
How many evils have enclosed me round; 
Yet that which was the worst now least afflicts me,         195
Blindness; for, had I sight, confused with shame, 
How could I once look up, or heave the head, 
Who, like a foolish pilot, have shipwrecked 
My Vessel trusted to me from above, 
Gloriously rigged, and for a word, a tear,         200
Fool! have divulged the secret gift of God 
To a deceitful woman? Tell me, friends, 
Am I not sung and proverbed for a fool 
In every street? Do they not say, “How well 
Are come upon him his deserts”? Yet why?         205
Immeasurable strength they might behold 
In me; of wisdom nothing more than mean. 
This with the other should at least have paired; 
These two, proportioned ill, drove me transverse. 
  Chor. Tax not divine disposal. Wisest men         210
Have erred, and by bad women been deceived; 
And shall again, pretend they ne’er so wise. 
Deject not, then, so overmuch thyself, 
Who hast of sorrow thy full load besides. 
Yet, truth to say, I oft have heard men wonder         215
Why thou should’st wed Philistian women rather 
Than of thine own tribe fairer, or as fair, 
At least of thy own nation, and as noble. 
  Sams. The first I saw at Timna, and she pleased 
Me, not my parents, that I sought to wed         220
The daughter of an Infidel. They knew not 
That what I motioned was of God; I knew 
From intimate impulse, and therefore urged 
The marriage on, that, by occasion hence, 
I might begin Israel’s deliverance—         225
The work to which I was divinely called. 
She proving false, the next I took to wife 
(O that I never had! found wish too late!) 
Was in the vale of Sorec, Dalila, 
That specious monster, my accomplished snare.         230
I thought it lawful from my former act, 
And the same end, still watching to oppress 
Israel’s oppressors. Of what now I suffer 
She was not the prime cause, but I myself, 
Who, vanquished with a peal of words, (O weakness!)         235
Gave up my fort of silence to a woman. 
  Chor. In seeking just occasion to provoke 
The Philistine, thy country’s enemy, 
Thou never wast remiss, I bear thee witness; 
Yet Israel still serves with all his sons.         240
  Sams. That fault I take not on me, but transfer 
On Israel’s governors and heads of tribes, 
Who, seeing those great acts which God had done 
Singly be me against their conquerors, 
Acknowledged not, or not at all considered,         245
Deliverance offered. I, on the other side, 
Used no ambition to commend my deeds; 
The deeds themselves, though mute, spoke loud the doer. 
But they persisted deaf, and would not seem

Samson Agonistes: Lines 250-499
 
 
To count them things worth notice, till at length         250
Their lords, the Philistines, with gathered powers, 
Entered Judea, seeking me, who then 
Safe to the rock of Etham was retired— 
Not flying, but forecasting in what place 
To set upon them, what advantaged best.         255
Meanwhile the men of Judah, to prevent 
The harass of their land, beset me round; 
I willingly on some conditions came 
Into their hands, and they as gladly yield me 
To the Uncircumcised a welcome prey,         260
Bound with two cords. But cords to me were threads 
Touched with the flame: on their whole host I flew 
Unarmed, and with a trivial weapon felled 
Their choicest youth; they only lived who fled. 
Had Judah that day joined, or one whole tribe,         265
They had by this possessed the Towers of Gath, 
And lorded over them whom now they serve. 
But what more oft, in nations grown corrupt, 
And by their vices brought to servitude, 
Than to love bondage more than liberty—         270
Bondage with ease than strenuous liberty— 
And to despise, or envy, or suspect, 
Whom God hath of his special favour raised 
As their deliverer? If he aught begin, 
How frequent to desert him and at last         275
To heap ingratitude on worthiest deeds! 
  Chor. Thy words to my remembrance bring 
How Succoth and the fort of Penuel 
Their great deliverer contemned, 
The matchless Gideon, in pursuit         280
Of Madian, and her vanquished kings;;And how ingrateful Ephraim 
Had dealt with Jephtha, who by argument, 
Not worse than by his shield and spear, 
Defended Israel from the Ammonite, 
Had not his prowess quelled their pride         285
In that sore battle when so many died 
Without reprieve, adjudged to death 
For want of well pronouncing Shibboleth. 
  Sams. Of such examples add me to the roll. 
Me easily indeed mine may neglect,         290
But God’s proposed deliverance not so. 
  Chor. Just are the ways of God, 
And justifiable to men, 
Unless there be who think not God at all. 
If any be, they walk obscure;         295
For of such doctrine never was there school, 
But the heart of the Fool, 
And no man therein doctor but himself. 
  Yet more there be who doubt his ways not just, 
As to his own edicts found contradicting;         300
Then give the reins to wandering thought, 
Regardless of his glory’s diminution, 
Till, by their own perplexities involved, 
They ravel more, still less resolved, 
But never find self-satisfying solution.         305
  As if they would confine the Interminable, 
And tie him to his own prescript, 
Who made our laws to bind us, not himself, 
And hath full right to exempt 
Whomso it pleases him by choice         310
From national obstriction, without taint 
Of sin, or legal debt; 
For with his own laws he can best dispense. 
  He would not else, who never wanted means, 
Nor in respect of the enemy just cause,         315
To set his people free, 
Have prompted this heroic Nazarite, 
Against his vow of strictest purity, 
To seek in marriage that fallacious bride, 
Unclean, unchaste.         320
  Down, Reason, then; at least, vain reasonings down; 
Though Reason here aver 
That moral verdict quits her of unclean: 
Unchaste was subsequent; her stain, not his. 
  But see! here comes thy reverend sire,         325
With careful step, locks white as down, 
Old Manoa: advise 
Forthwith how thou ought’st to receive him. 
  Sams. Ay me! another inward grief, awaked 
With mention of that name, renews the assault.         330
  Man. Brethren and men of Dan (for such ye seem 
Though in this uncouth place), if old respect, 
As I suppose, towards your once gloried friend, 
My son, now captive, hither hath informed 
Your younger feet, while mine, cast back with age,         335
Came lagging after, say if he be here. 
  Chor. As signal now in low dejected state 
As erst in highest, behold him where he lies. 
  Man. O miserable change! Is this the man, 
That invincible Samson, far renowned,         340
The dread of Israel’s foes, who with a strength 
Equivalent to Angels’ walked their streets, 
None offering fight; who, single combatant, 
Duelled their armies ranked in proud array, 
Himself an Army—now unequal match         345
To save himself against a coward armed 
At one spear’s length? O ever-failing trust 
In mortal strength! and, oh, what not in man 
Deceivable and vain? Nay, what thing good 
Prayed for, but often proves our woe, our bane?         350
I prayed for children, and thought barrenness 
In wedlock a reproach; I gained a son, 
And such a son as all men hailed me happy: 
Who would be now a father in my stead? 
Oh, wherefore did God grant me my request,         355
And as a blessing with such pomp adorned? 
Why are his gifts desirable, to tempt 
Our earnest prayers, then, given with solemn hand 
As graces, draw a scorpion’s tail behind? 
For this did the Angel twice descend? for this         360
Ordained thy nurture holy, as of a plant 
Select and sacred? glorious for a while, 
The miracle of men; then in an hour 
Ensnared, assaulted, overcome, led bound, 
Thy foes’ derision, captive, poor and blind,         365
Into a dungeon thrust, to work with slaves! 
Alas! methinks whom God hath chosen once 
To worthiest deeds, if he through frailty err, 
He should not so o’erwhelm, and as a thrall 
Subject him to so foul indignities,         370
Be it but for honour’s sake of former deeds. 
  Sams. Appoint not heavenly disposition, father 
Nothing of all these evils hath befallen me 
But justly; I myself have brought them on; 
Sole author I, sole cause. If aught seem vile,         375
As vile hath been my folly, who have profaned 
The mystery of God, given me under pledge 
Of vow, and have betrayed it to a woman, 
A Canaanite, my faithless enemy. 
This well I knew, nor was at all surprised,         380
But warned by oft experience. Did not she 
Of Timna first betray me, and reveal 
The secret wrested from me in her highth 
Of nuptial love professed, carrying it straight 
To them who had corrupted her, my spies         385
And rivals? In this other was there found 
More faith, who, also in her prime of love, 
Spousal embraces, vitiated with gold, 
Though offered only, by the scent conceived 
Her spurious first-born, Treason against me?         390
Thrice she assayed, with flattering prayers and sighs, 
And amorous reproaches, to win from me 
My capital secret, in what part my strength 
Lay stored, in what part summed, that she might know; 
Thrice I deluded her, and turned to sport         395
Her importunity, each time perceiving 
How openly and with what impudence 
She purposed to betray me, and (which was worse 
Than undissembled hate) with what contempt 
She sought to make me traitor to myself.         400
Yet, the fourth time, when, mustering all her wiles, 
With blandished parleys, feminine assaults, 
Tongue-batteries, she surceased not day nor night 
To storm me, over-watched and wearied out, 
At times when men seek most repose and rest,         405
I yielded, and unlocked her all my heart, 
Who, with a grain of manhood well resolved, 
Might easily have shook off all her snares; 
But foul effeminacy held me yoked 
Her bond-slave. O indignity, O blot         410
To Honour and Religion! servile mind 
Rewarded well with servile punishment! 
The base degree to which I now am fallen, 
These rags, this grinding, is not yet so base 
As was my former servitude, ignoble,         415
Unmanly, ignominious, infamous, 
True slavery; and that blindness worse than this, 
That saw not how degenerately I served. 
  Man. I cannot praise thy marriage-choices, son— 
Rather approved them not; but thou didst plead         420
Divine impulsion prompting how thou might’st 
Find some occasion to infest our foes. 
I state not that; this I am sure—our foes 
Found soon occasion thereby to make thee 
Their captive, and their triumph; thou the sooner         425
Temptation found’st, or over-potent charms, 
To violate the sacred trust of silence 
Deposited within thee—which to have kept 
Tacit was in thy power. True; and thou bear’st 
Enough, and more, the burden of that fault,         430
Bitterly hast thou paid, and still art paying; 
That rigid score. A worse thing yet remains: 
This day the Philistines a popular feast 
Here celebrate in Gaza, and proclaim 
Great pomp, and sacrifice, and praises loud,         435
To Dagon, as their god who hath delivered 
Thee, Samson, bound and blind, into their hands— 
Them out of thine, who slew’st them many a slain. 
So Dagon shall be magnified, and God, 
Besides whom is no god, compared with idols,         440
Disglorified, blasphemed, and had in scorn 
By the idolatrous rout amidst their wine; 
Which to have come to pass by means of thee, 
Samson, of all thy sufferings think the heaviest, 
Of all reproach the most with shame that ever         445
Could have befallen thee and thy father’s house. 
  Sams. Father, I do acknowledge and confess 
That I this honour, I this pomp, have brought 
To Dagon, and advanced his praises high 
Among the Heathen round—to God have brought         450
Dishonour, obloquy, and oped the mouths 
Of idolists and atheists; have brought scandal 
To Israel, diffidence of God, and doubt 
In feeble hearts, propense enough before 
To waver, or fall off and join with idols:         455
Which is my chief affliction, shame and sorrow, 
The anguish of my soul, that suffers not 
Mine eye to harbour sleep, or thoughts to rest. 
This only hope relieves me, that the strife 
With me hath end. All the contest is now         460
’Twixt God and Dagon. Dagon hath presumed, 
Me overthrown, to enter lists with God, 
His deity comparing and preferring 
Before the God of Abraham. He, be sure, 
Will not connive, or linger, thus provoked,         465
But will arise, and his great name assert. 
Dagon must stoop, and shall ere long receive 
Such a discomfit as shall quite despoil him 
Of all these boasted trophies won on me, 
And with confusion blank his Worshipers.         470
  Man. With cause this hope relieves thee; and these words 
I as a prophecy receive; for God 
(Nothing more certain) will not long defer 
To vindicate the glory of his name 
Against all competition, nor will long         475
Endure it doubtful whether God be Lord 
Or Dagon. But for thee what shall be done? 
Thou must not in the meanwhile, here forgot, 
Lie in this miserable loathsome plight 
Neglected. I already have made way         480
To some Philistian lords, with whom to treat 
About thy ransom. Well they may by this 
Have satisfied their utmost of revenge, 
By pains and slaveries, worse than death, inflicted 
On thee, who now no more canst do them harm.         485
  Sams. Spare that proposal, father; spare the trouble 
Of that solicitation. Let me here, 
As I deserve, pay on my punishment, 
And expiate, if possible, my crime, 
Shameful garrulity. To have revealed         490
Secrets of men, the secrets of a friend, 
How heinous had the fact been, how deserving 
Contempt and scorn of all—to be excluded 
All friendship, and avoided as a blab, 
The mark of fool set on his front!         495
But I God’s counsel have not kept, his holy secret 
Presumptuously have published, impiously, 
Weakly at least and shamefully—a sin 
That Gentiles in their parables condemn 
 

Samson Agonistes: Lines 500-749
 
 
To their Abyss and horrid pains confined.         500
  Man. Be penitent, and for thy fault contrite; 
But act not in thy own affliction, son. 
Repent the sin; but, if the punishment 
Thou canst avoid, self-preservation bids; 
Or the execution leave to high disposal,         505
And let another hand, not thine, exact 
Thy penal forfeit from thyself. Perhaps 
God will relent, and quit thee all his debt; 
Who ever more approves and more accepts 
(Best pleased with humble and filial submission)         510
Him who, imploring mercy, sues for life, 
Than who, self-rigorous, chooses death as due; 
Which argues over-just, and self-displeased 
For self-offence more than for God offended. 
Reject not, then, what offered means who knows         515
But God hath set before us to return thee 
Home to thy country and his sacred house. 
Where thou may’st bring thy offerings, to avert 
His further ire, with prayers and vows renewed. 
  Sams. His pardon I implore; but, as for life,         520
To what end should I seek it? When in strength 
All mortals I excelled, and great in hopes, 
With youthful courage, and magnanimous thoughts 
Of birth from Heaven foretold and high exploits, 
Full of divine instinct, after some proof         525
Of acts indeed heroic, far beyond 
The sons of Anak, famous now and blazed, 
Fearless of danger, like a petty god 
I walked about, admired of all, and dreaded 
On hostile ground, none daring my affront—         530
Then, swollen with pride, into the snare I fell 
Of fair fallacious looks, venereal trains, 
Softened with pleasure and voluptuous life 
At length to lay my head and hallowed pledge 
Of all my strength in the lascivious lap         535
Of a deceitful Concubine, who shore me, 
Like a tame wether, all my precious fleece, 
Then turned me out ridiculous, despoiled, 
Shaven, and disarmed among my enemies. 
  Chor. Desire of wine and all delicious drinks,         540
Which many a famous warrior overturns, 
Thou could’st repress; nor did the dancing ruby, 
Sparkling out-poured, the flavour or the smell, 
Or taste, that cheers the heart of gods and men, 
Allure thee from the cool crystal’lin stream.         545
  Sams. Wherever fountain or fresh current flowed 
Against the eastern ray, translucent, pure 
With touch æthereal of Heaven’s fiery rod, 
I drank, from the clear milky juice allaying 
Thirst, and refreshed; nor envied them the grape         550
Whose heads that turbulent liquor fills with fumes. 
  Chor. O madness! to think use of strongest wines 
And strongest drinks our chief support of health, 
When God with these forbidden made choice to rear 
His mighty Champion, strong above compare,         555
Whose drink was only from the liquid brook! 
  Sams. But what availed this temperance, not complete 
Against another object more enticing? 
What boots it at one gate to make defence, 
And at another to let in the foe,         560
Effeminately vanquished? by which means, 
Now blind, disheartened, shamed, dishonoured, quelled, 
To what can I be useful? wherein serve 
My nation, and the work from Heaven imposed? 
But to sit idle on the household hearth,         565
A burdenous drone; to visitants a gaze, 
Or pitied object; these redundant locks, 
Robustious to no purpose, clustering down, 
Vain monument of strength; till length of years 
And sedentary numbness craze my limbs         570
To a contemptible old age obscure. 
Here rather let me drudge, and earn my bread, 
Till vermin, or the draff of servile food, 
Consume me, and oft-invocated death 
Hasten the welcome end of all my pains.         575
  Man. Wilt thou then serve the Philistines with that gift 
Which was expressly given thee to annoy them? 
Better at home lie bed-rid, not only idle, 
Inglorious, unimployed, with age outworn. 
But God, who caused a fountain at thy prayer         580
From the dry ground to spring, thy thirst to allay 
After the brunt of battel, can as easy 
Cause light again within thy eyes to spring, 
Wherewith to serve him better than thou hast. 
And I persuade me so. Why else this strength         585
Miraculous yet remaining in those locks? 
His might continues in thee not for naught, 
Nor shall his wondrous gifts be frustrate thus. 
  Sams. All otherwise to me my thoughts portend— 
That these dark orbs no more shall treat with light,         590
Nor the other light of life continue long, 
But yield to double darkness nigh at hand; 
So much I feel my genial spirits droop, 
My hopes all flat: Nature within me seems 
In all her functions weary of herself;         595
My race of glory run, and race of shame, 
And I shall shortly be with them that rest. 
  Man. Believe not these suggestions, which proceed 
From anguish of the mind, and humours black 
That mingle with thy fancy. I, however,         600
Must not omit a father’s timely care 
To prosecute the means of thy deliverance 
By ransom or how else: meanwhile be calm, 
And healing words from these thy friends admit. 
  Sams. Oh, that torment should not be confined         605
To the body’s wounds and sores, 
With maladies innumerable 
In heart, head, breast, and reins, 
But must secret passage find 
To the inmost mind,         610
There exercise all his fierce accidents, 
And on her purest spirits prey, 
As on entrails, joints, and limbs, 
With answerable pains, but more intense, 
Though void of corporal sense!         615
  My griefs not only pain me 
As a lingering disease, 
But, finding no redress, ferment and rage; 
Nor less than wounds immedicable 
Rankle, and fester, and gangrene,         620
To black mortification. 
Thoughts, my tormentors, armed with deadly stings, 
Mangle my apprehensive tenderest parts, 
Exasperate, exulcerate, and raise 
Dire inflammation, which no cooling herb         625
Or medicinal liquor can assuage, 
Nor breath of vernal air from snowy Alp. 
Sleep hath forsook and given me o’er 
To death’s benumbing opium as my only cure; 
Thence faintings, swoonings of despair,         630
And sense of Heaven’s desertion. 
  I was his nursling once and choice delight, 
His destined from the womb, 
Promised by heavenly message twice descending. 
Under his special eye         635
Abstemious I grew up and thrived amain; 
He led me on to mightiest deeds, 
Above the nerve of mortal arm, 
Against the Uncircumcised, our enemies: 
But now hath cast me off as never known,         640
And to those cruel enemies, 
Whom I by his appointment had provoked, 
Left me all helpless, with the irreparable loss 
Of sight, reserved alive to be repeated 
The subject of their cruelty or scorn.         645
Nor am I in the list of them that hope; 
Hopeless are all my evils, all remediless. 
This one prayer yet remains, might I be heard, 
No long petition—speedy death, 
The close of all my miseries and the balm.         650
  Chor. Many are the sayings of the wise, 
In ancient and in modern books enrolled, 
Extolling patience as the truest fortitude, 
And to the bearing well of all calamities, 
All chances incident to man’s frail life,         655
Consolatories writ 
With studied argument, and much persuasion sought, 
Lenient of grief and anxious thought. 
But with the afflicted in his pangs their sound 
Little prevails, or rather seems a tune         660
Harsh, and of dissonant mood from his complaint, 
Unless he feel within 
Some source of consolation from above, 
Secret refreshings that repair his strength 
And fainting spirits uphold.         665
  God of our fathers! what is Man, 
That thou towards him with hand so various— 
Or might I say contrarious?— 
Temper’st thy providence through his short course: 
Not evenly, as thou rul’st         670
The angelic orders, and inferior creatures mute, 
Irrational and brute? 
Nor do I name of men the common rout, 
That, wandering loose about, 
Grow up and perish as the summer fly,         675
Heads without name, no more remembered; 
But such as thou hast solemnly elected, 
With gifts and graces eminently adorned 
To some great work, thy glory, 
And people’s safety, which in part they effect.         680
Yet toward these, thus dignified, thou oft, 
Amidst their highth of noon, 
Changest thy countenance and thy hand, with no regard 
Of highest favours past 
From thee on them, or them to thee of service         685
  Nor only dost degrade them, or remit 
To life obscured, which were a fair dismission, 
But throw’st them lower than thou didst exalt them high— 
Unseemly falls in human eye, 
Too grievous for the trespass or omission;         690
Oft leav’st them to the hostile sword 
Of heathen and profane, their carcasses 
To dogs and fowls a prey, or else captived, 
Or to the unjust tribunals, under change of times, 
And condemnation of the ungrateful multitude.         695
If these they scape, perhaps in poverty 
With sickness and disease thou bow’st them down, 
Painful diseases and deformed, 
In crude old age; 
Though not disordinate, yet causeless suffering         700
The punishment of dissolute days. In fine, 
Just or unjust alike seem miserable, 
For oft alike both come to evil end. 
  So deal not with this once thy glorious Champion, 
The image of thy strength, and mighty minister.         705
What do I beg? how hast thou dealt already! 
Behold him in this state calamitous, and turn 
His labours, for thou canst, to peaceful end. 
  But who is this? what thing of sea or land— 
Female of sex it seems—         710
That, so bedecked, ornate, and gay, 
Comes this way sailing, 
Like a stately ship 
Of Tarsus, bound for the isles 
Of Javan or Gadire,         715
With all her bravery on, and tackle trim, 
Sails filled, and streamers waving, 
Courted by all the winds that hold them play; 
An amber scent of odorous perfume 
Her harbinger, a damsel train behind?         720
Some rich Philistian matron she may seem; 
And now, at nearer view, no other certain 
Than Dalila thy wife. 
  Sams. My wife! my traitress! let her not come near me. 
  Chor. Yet on she moves; now stands and eyes thee fixed,         725
About to have spoke; but now, with head declined, 
Like a fair flower surcharged with dew, she weeps, 
And words addressed seem into tears dissolved, 
Wetting the borders of her silken veil. 
But now again she makes address to speak.         730
  Dal. With doubtful feet and wavering resolution 
I came, I still dreading thy displeasure, Samson; 
Which to have merited, without excuse, 
I cannot but acknowledge. Yet, if tears 
May expiate (though the fact more evil drew         735
In the perverse event than I foresaw), 
My penance hath not slackened, though my pardon 
No way assured. But conjugal affection, 
Prevailing over fear and timorous doubt, 
Hath led me on, desirous to behold         740
Once more thy face, and know of thy estate, 
If aught in my ability may serve 
To lighten what thou suffer’st, and appease 
Thy mind with what amends is in my power— 
Though late, yet in some part to recompense         745
My rash but more unfortunate misdeed. 
  Sams. Out, out, Hyæna! These are thy wonted arts, 
And arts of every woman false like thee— 
To break all faith, all vows, deceive, betray;

Samson Agonistes: Lines 750-999
 
 
Then, as repentant, to submit beseech,         750
And reconcilement move with feigned remorse, 
Confess, and promise wonders in her change— 
Not truly penitent, but chief to try 
Her husband, how far urged his patience bears, 
His virtue or weakness which way to assail:         755
Then, with more cautious and instructed skill, 
Again transgresses, and again submits; 
That wisest and best men, full oft beguiled, 
With goodness principled not to reject 
The penitent, but ever to forgive,         760
Are drawn to wear out miserable days, 
Entangled with a poisonous bosom-snake, 
If not by quick destruction soon cut off, 
As I by thee, to ages an example. 
  Dal. Yet hear me, Samson; not that I endeavour         765
To lessen or extenuate my offence, 
But that, on the other side, if it be weighed 
By itself, with aggravations not surcharged, 
Or else with just allowance counterpoised, 
I may, if possible, thy pardon find         770
The easier towards me, or thy hatred less. 
First granting, as I do, it was a weakness 
In me, but incident to all our sex, 
Curiosity, inquisitive, importune 
Of secrets, then with like infirmity         775
To publish them—both common female faults— 
Was it not weakness also to make known 
For importunity, that is for naught, 
Wherein consisted all thy strength and safety? 
To what I did thou shew’dst me first the way.         780
But I to enemies revealed, and should not! 
Nor should’st thou have trusted that to woman’s frailty: 
Ere I to thee, thou to thyself wast cruel. 
Let weakness, then, with weakness come to parle, 
So near related, or the same of kind;         785
Thine forgive mine, that men may censure thine 
The gentler, if severely thou exact not 
More strength from me than in thyself was found. 
And what if love, which thou interpret’st hate, 
The jealousy of love, powerful of sway         790
In human hearts, nor less in mine towards thee, 
Caused what I did? I saw thee mutable 
Of fancy; feared lest one day thou would’st leave me 
As her at Timna; sought by all means, therefore, 
How to endear, and hold thee to me firmest:         795
No better way I saw than my importuning 
To learn thy secrets, get into my power 
Thy key of strength and safety. Thou wilt say, 
“Why, then, revealed?” I was assured by those 
Who tempted me that nothing was designed         800
Against thee but safe custody and hold. 
That made for me; I knew that liberty 
Would draw thee forth to perilous enterprises, 
While I at home sat full of cares and fears, 
Wailing thy absence in my widowed bed;         805
Here I should still enjoy thee, day and night, 
Mine and love’s prisoner, not the Philistines’, 
Whole to myself, unhazarded abroad, 
Fearless at home of partners in my love. 
These reasons in Love’s law have passed for good,         810
Though fond and reasonless to some perhaps; 
And love hath oft, well meaning, wrought much woe, 
Yet always pity or pardon hath obtained. 
Be not unlike all others, not a stere 
As thou art strong, inflexible as steel.         815
If thou in strength all mortals dost exceed, 
In uncompassionate anger do not so. 
  Sams. How cunningly the Sorceress displays 
Her own transgressions, to upbraid me mine! 
That malice, not repentance, brought thee hither         820
By this appears. I gave, thou say’st, the example, 
I led the way—bitter reproach, but true; 
I to myself was false ere thou to me. 
Such pardon, therefore, as I give my folly 
Take to thy wicked deed; which when thou seest         825
Impartial, self-severe, inexorable, 
Thou wilt renounce thy seeking, and much rather 
Confess it feigned. Weakness is thy excuse, 
And I believe it—weakness to resist 
Philistian gold. If weakness may excuse,         830
What murtherer, what traitor, parricide, 
Incestuous, sacrilegious, but may plead it? 
All wickedness is weakness; that plea, therefore, 
With God or Man will gain thee no remission. 
But love constrained thee! Call it furious rage         835
To satisfy thy lust. Love seeks to have love; 
My love how could’st thou hope, who took’st the way 
To raise in me inexpiable hate, 
Knowing, as needs I must, by thee betrayed? 
In vain thou striv’st to cover shame with shame,         840
Or by evasions thy crime uncover’st more. 
  Dal. Since thou determin’st weakness for no plea 
In man or woman, though to thy own condemning, 
Hear what assaults I had, what snares besides, 
What sieges girt me round, ere I consented;         845
Which might have awed the best-resolved of men, 
The constantest, to have yielded without blame. 
It was not gold, as to my charge thou lay’st, 
That wrought with me. Thou know’st the Magistrates 
And Princes of my country came in person,         850
Solicited, commanded, threatened, urged, 
Adjured by all the bonds of civil duty 
And of religion—pressed how just it was, 
How honourable, how glorious, to entrap 
A common enemy, who had destroyed         855
Such numbers of our nation: and the Priest 
Was not behind, but ever at my ear, 
Preaching how meritorious with the gods 
It would be to ensnare an irreligious 
Dishonourer of Dagon. What had I         860
To oppose against such powerful arguments? 
Only my love of thee held long debate, 
And combated in silence all these reasons 
With hard contest. At length, that grounded maxim, 
So rife and celebrated in the mouths         865
Of wisest men, that to the public good 
Private respects must yield, with grave authority 
Took full possession of me, and prevailed; 
Virtue, as I thought, truth, duty, so enjoining. 
  Sams. I thought where all thy circling wiles would end—         870
In feigned religion, smooth hypocrisy! 
But, had thy love, still odiously pretended, 
Been, as it ought, sincere, it would have taught thee 
Far other reasonings, brought forth other deeds. 
I, before all the daughters of my tribe         875
And of my nation, chose thee from among 
My enemies, loved thee, as too well thou knew’st; 
Too well; unbosomed all my secrets to thee, 
Not out of levity, but overpowered 
By thy request, who could deny thee nothing;         880
Yet now am judged an enemy. Why, then, 
Didst thou at first receive me for thy husband— 
Then, as since then, thy country’s foe professed? 
Being once a wife, for me thou wast to leave 
Parents and country; nor was I their subject,         885
Nor under their protection, but my own; 
Thou mine, not theirs. If aught against my life 
Thy country sought of thee, it sought unjustly, 
Against the law of nature, law of nations; 
No more thy country, but an impious crew         890
Of men conspiring to uphold their state 
By worse than hostile deeds, violating the ends 
For which our country is a name so dear; 
Not therefore to be obeyed. But zeal moved thee; 
To please thy gods thou didst it! Gods unable         895
To acquit themselves and prosecute their foes 
But by ungodly deeds, the contradiction 
Of their own deity, Gods cannot be— 
Less therefore to be pleased, obeyed, or feared. 
These false pretexts and varnished colours failing,         900
Bare in thy guilt, how foul must thou appear! 
  Dal. In argument with men a woman ever 
Goes by the worse, whatever be her cause. 
  Sams. For want of words, no doubt, or lack of breath! 
Witness when I was worried with thy peals.         905
  Dal. I was a fool, too rash, and quite mistaken 
In what I thought would have succeeded best. 
Let me obtain forgiveness, of thee Samson; 
Afford me place to shew what recompense 
Towards thee I intend for what I have misdone,         910
Misguided. Only what remains past cure 
Bear not too sensibly, nor still insist 
To afflict thyself in vain. Though sight be lost, 
Life yet hath many solaces, enjoyed 
Where other senses want not their delights—         915
At home, in leisure and domestic ease, 
Exempt from many a care and chance to which 
Eyesight exposes, daily, men abroad. 
I to the Lords will intercede, not doubting 
Their favourable ear, that I may fetch thee         920
From forth this loathsome prison-house, to abide 
With me, where my redoubled love and care, 
With nursing diligence, to me glad office, 
May ever tend about thee to old age, 
With all things grateful cheered, and so supplied         925
That what by me thou hast lost thou least shalt miss. 
  Sams. No, no; of my condition take no care; 
It fits not; thou and I long since are twain; 
Nor think me so unwary or accursed 
To bring my feet again into the snare         930
Where once I have been caught. I know thy trains, 
Though dearly to my cost, thy gins, and toils. 
Thy fair enchanted cup, and warbling charms, 
No more on me have power; their force is nulled; 
So much of adder’s wisdom I have learned,         935
To fence my ear against thy sorceries. 
If in my flower of youth and strength, when all men 
Loved, honoured, feared me, thou alone could hate me, 
Thy husband, slight me, sell me, and forgo me, 
How would’st thou use me now, blind, and thereby         940
Deceivable, in most things as a child 
Helpless, thence easily contemned and scorned, 
And last neglected! How would’st thou insult, 
When I must live uxorious to thy will 
In perfect thraldom! how again betray me,         945
Bearing my words and doings to the lords 
To gloss upon, and, censuring, frown or smile! 
This gaol I count the house of Liberty 
To thine, whose doors my feet shall never enter. 
  Dal. Let me approach at least, and touch thy hand.         950
  Sams. Not for thy life, lest fierce remembrance wake 
My sudden rage to tear thee joint by joint. 
At distance I forgive thee; go with that; 
Bewail thy falsehood, and the pious works 
It hath brought forth to make thee memorable         955
Among illustrious women, faithful wives; 
Cherish thy hastened widowhood with the gold 
Of matrimonial treason: so farewell. 
  Dal. I see thou art implacable, more deaf 
To prayers than winds and seas. Yet winds to seas         960
Are reconciled at length, and sea to shore: 
Thy anger, unappeasable, still rages, 
Eternal tempest never to be calmed. 
Why do I humble thus myself, and, suing 
For peace, reap nothing but repulse and hate,         965
Bid go with evil omen, and the brand 
Of infamy upon my name denounced? 
To mix with thy concernments I desist 
Henceforth, nor too much disapprove my own. 
Fame, if not double-faced, is double-mouthed,         970
And with contrary blast proclaims most deeds; 
On both his wings, one black, the other white, 
Bears greatest names in his wild aerie flight. 
My name, perhaps, among the Circumcised 
In Dan, in Judah, and the bordering Tribes,         975
To all posterity may stand defamed, 
With malediction mentioned, and the blot 
Of falsehood most unconjugal traduced. 
But in my country, where I most desire, 
In Ecron, Gaza, Asdod, and in Gath,         980
I shall be named among the famousest 
Of women, sung at solemn festivals, 
Living and dead recorded, who, to save 
Her country from a fierce destroyer, chose 
Above the faith of wedlock bands; my tomb         985
With odours visited and annual flowers; 
Not less renowned than in Mount Ephraim 
Jael, who, with inhospitable guile, 
Smote Sisera sleeping, through the temples nailed. 
Nor shall I count it heinous to enjoy         990
The public marks of honour and reward 
Conferred upon me for the piety 
Which to my country I was judged to have shewn. 
At this whoever envies or repines, 
I leave him his lot, and like my own.         995
  Chor. she’s gone—a manifest Serpent by her sting 
Discovered in the end, till now concealed. 
  Sams. So let her go. God sent her to debase me, 
And aggravate my folly, who committed

Samson Agonistes: Lines 1000-1249
 
 
To such a viper his most sacred trust         1000
Of secrecy, my safety, and my life. 
  Chor. Yet beauty, though injurious, hath strange power, 
After offence returning, to regain 
Love once possessed, nor can be easily 
Repulsed, without much inward passion felt,         1005
And secret sting of amorous remorse. 
  Sams. Love-quarrels oft in pleasing concord end; 
Not wedlock-treachery endangering life. 
  Chor. It is not virtue, wisdom, valour, wit, 
Strength, comeliness of shape, or amplest merit,         1010
That woman’s love can win, or long inherit; 
But what it is, hard is to say, 
Harder to hit, 
Which way soever men refer it, 
(Much like thy riddle, Samson) in one day         1015
Or seven though one should musing sit. 
  If any of these, or all, the Timnian bride 
Had not so soon preferred 
Thy Paranymph, worthless to thee compared, 
Successor in thy bed,         1020
Nor both so loosely disallied 
Their nuptials, nor this last so treacherously 
Had shorn the fatal harvest of thy head. 
Is it for that such outward ornament 
Was lavished on their sex, that inward gifts         1025
Were left for haste unfinished, judgment scant, 
Capacity not raised to apprehend 
Or value what is best, 
In choice, but oftest to affect the wrong? 
Or was too much of self-love mixed,         1030
Of constancy no root infixed, 
That either they love nothing, or not long? 
  Whate’er it be, to wisest men and best, 
Seeming at first all heavenly under virgin veil, 
Soft, modest, meek, demure,         1035
Once joined, the contrary she proves—a thorn 
Intestine, far within defensive arms 
A cleaving mischief, in his way to virtue 
Adverse and turbulent; or by her charms 
Draws him awry, enslaved         1040
With dotage, and his sense depraved 
To folly and shameful deeds, which ruin ends. 
What pilot so expert but needs must wreck, 
Embarked with such a steers-mate at the helm? 
  Favoured of Heaven who finds         1045
One virtuous, rarely found, 
That in domestic good combines! 
Happy that house! his way to peace is smooth: 
But virtue which breaks through all opposition, 
And all temptation can remove,         1050
Most shines and most is acceptable above. 
  Therefore God’s universal law 
Gave to the man despotic power 
Over his female in due awe, 
Nor from that right to part an hour,         1055
Smile she or lour: 
So shall he least confusion draw 
On his whole life, not swayed 
By female usurpation, nor dismayed. 
  But had we best retire? I see a storm.         1060
  Sams. Fair days have oft contracted wind and rain. 
  Chor. But this another kind of tempest brings. 
  Sams. Be less abstruse; my riddling days are past. 
  Chor. Look now for no inchanting voice, nor fear 
The bait of honeyed words; a rougher tongue         1065
Draws hitherward; I know him by his stride, 
The giant Harapha of Gath, his look 
Haughty, as is his pile high-built and proud. 
Comes he in peace? What wind hath blown him hither 
I less conjecture than when first I saw         1070
The sumptuous Dalila floating this way: 
His habit carries peace, his brow defiance. 
  Sams. Or peace or not, alike to me he comes. 
  Chor. His fraught we soon shalt know: he now arrives. 
  Har. I come not, Samson, to condole thy chance,         1075
As these perhaps, yet wish it had not been, 
Though for no friendly intent. I am of Gath; 
Men call me Harapha, of stock renowned 
As Og, or Anak, and the Emims old 
That Kiriathaim held. Thou know’st me now,         1080
If thou at all art known. Much I have heard 
Of thy prodigious might and feats performed, 
Incredible to me, in this displeased, 
That I was never present on the place 
Of those encounters, where we might have tried         1085
Each other’s force in camp or listed field; 
And now am come to see of whom such noise 
Hath walked about, and each limb to survey, 
If thy appearance answer loud report. 
  Sams. The way to know were not to see, but taste.         1090
  Har. Dost thou already single me? I thought 
Gyves and the mill had tamed thee. O that fortune 
Had brought me to the field where thou art famed 
To have wrought such wonders with an ass’ jaw! 
I should have forced thee soon with other arms,         1095
Or left thy carcass where the ass lay thrown; 
So had the glory of prowess been recovered 
To Palestine, won by a Philistine 
From the unforeskinned race, of whom thou bear’st 
The highest name for valiant acts. That honour,         1100
Certain to have won by mortal duel from thee, 
I lose, prevented by thy eyes put out. 
  Sams. Boast not of what thou would’st have done, but do 
What then thou would’st; thou seest it in thy hand. 
  Har. To combat with a blind man I disdain,         1105
And thou hast need much washing to be touched. 
  Sams. Such usage as your honourable Lords 
Afford me, assassinated and betrayed; 
Who durst not with their whole united powers 
In fight withstand me single and unarmed,         1110
Nor in the house with chamber-ambushes 
Close-banded durst attack me, no, not sleeping, 
Till they had hired a woman with their gold, 
Breaking her marriage-faith, to circumvent me. 
Therefore, without feign’d shifts, let be assigned         1115
Some narrow place enclosed, where sight may give thee, 
Or rather flight, nor great advantage on me; 
Then put on all thy gorgeous arms, thy helmet 
And brigandine of brass, thy broad habergeon, 
Vant-brass and greaves and gauntlet; add thy spear,         1120
A weaver’s beam, and seven-times-folded shield: 
I only with an oaken staff will meet thee, 
And raise such outcries on thy clattered iron, 
Which long shall not withhold me from thy head, 
That in a little time, while breath remains thee,         1125
Thou oft shalt wish thyself at Gath, to boast 
Again in safety what thou would’st have done 
To Samson, but shalt never see Gath more. 
  Har. Thou durst not thus disparage glorious arms 
Which greatest heroes have in battle worn,         1130
Their ornament and safety, had not spells 
And black inchantments, some magician’s art, 
Armed thee or charmed thee strong, which thou from Heaven 
Feign’dst at thy birth was given thee in thy hair, 
Where strength can least abide, though all thy hairs         1135
Were bristles ranged like those that ridge the back 
Of chafed wild boars or ruffled porcupines. 
  Sams. I know no spells, use no forbidden arts; 
My trust is in the Living God, who gave me, 
At my nativity, this strength, diffused         1140
No less through all my sinews, joints, and bones, 
Than thine, while I preserved these locks unshorn, 
The pledge of my unviolated vow. 
For proof hereof, if Dagon be thy god, 
Go to his temple, invocate his aid         1145
With solemnest devotion, spread before him 
How highly it concerns his glory now 
To frustrate and dissolve these magic spells, 
Which I to be the power of Israel’s God 
Avow, and challenge Dagon to the test,         1150
Offering to combat thee, his Champion bold, 
With the utmost of his godhead seconded: 
Then thou shalt see, or rather to thy sorrow 
Soon feel, whose God is strongest, thine or mine. 
  Har. Presume not on thy God. Whate’er he be,         1155
Thee he regards not, owns not, hath cut off 
Quite from his people, and delivered up 
Into thy enemies’ hand; permitted them 
To put out both thine eyes, and fettered send thee 
Into the common prison, there to grind         1160
Among the slaves and asses, thy comrades, 
As good for nothing else, no better service 
With those thy boisterous locks; no worthy match 
For valour to assail, nor by the sword 
Of noble warrior, so to stain his honour,         1165
But by the barber’s razor best subdued. 
  Sams. All these indignities, for such they are 
From thine, these evils I deserve and more, 
Acknowledge them from God inflicted on me 
Justly, yet despair not of his final pardon,         1170
Whose ear is ever open, and his eye 
Gracious to re-admit the suppliant; 
In confidence whereof I once again 
Defy thee to the trial of mortal fight, 
By combat to decide whose god is God,         1175
Thine, or whom I with Israel’s sons adore. 
  Har. Fair honour that thou dost thy God, in trusting 
He will accept thee to defend his cause, 
A murtherer, a revolter, and a robber! 
  Sams. Tongue-doughty giant, how dost thou prove me these?         1180
  Har. Is not thy nation subject to our Lords? 
Their magistrates confessed it when they took thee 
As a league-breaker, and delivered bound 
Into our hands; for hadst thou not committed 
Notorious murder on those thirty men         1185
At Ascalon, who never did thee harm, 
Then, like a robber, stripp’dst them of their robes? 
The Philistines, when thou hadst broke the league, 
Went up with armed powers thee only seeking, 
To others did no violence nor spoil.         1190
  Sams. Among the daughters of the Philistines 
I chose a wife, which argued me no foe, 
And in your city held my nuptial feast; 
But your ill-meaning politician lords, 
Under pretence of bridal friends and guests,         1195
Appointed to await me thirty spies, 
Who, threatening cruel death, constrained the bride 
To wring from me, and tell to them, my secret, 
That solved the riddle which I had proposed. 
When I perceived all set on enmity,         1200
As on my enemies, wherever chanced, 
I used hostility, and took their spoil, 
To pay my underminers in their coin. 
My nation was subjected to your lords! 
It was the force of conquest; force with force         1205
Is well ejected when the conquered can. 
But I, a private person, whom my country 
As a league-breaker gave up bound, presumed 
Single rebellion, and did hostile acts! 
I was no private, but a person raised,         1210
With strength sufficient, and command from Heaven, 
To free my country. If their servile minds 
Me, their Deliverer sent, would not receive, 
But to their masters gave me up for nought, 
The unworthier they; whence to this day they serve.         1215
I was to do my part from Heaven assigned, 
And had performed it if my known offence 
Had not disabled me, not all your force. 
These shifts refuted, answer thy appellant, 
Though by his blindness maimed for high attempts,         1220
Who now defies thee thrice to single fight, 
As a petty enterprise of small enforce. 
  Har. With thee, a man condemned, a slave enrolled, 
Due by the law to capital punishment? 
To fight with thee no man of arms will deign.         1225
  Sams. Cam’st thou for this, vain boaster, to survey me, 
To descant on my strength, and give thy verdict? 
Come nearer; part not hence so slight informed; 
But take good heed my hand survey not thee. 
  Har. O Baal-zebub! can my ears unused         1230
Hear these dishonours, and not render death? 
  Sams. No man withholds thee; nothing from thy hand 
Fear I incurable; bring up thy van; 
My heels are fettered, but my fist is free. 
  Har. This insolence other kind of answer fits.         1235
  Sams. Go, baffled coward, lest I run upon thee, 
Though in these chains, bulk without spirit vast, 
And with one buffet lay thy structure low, 
Or swing thee in the air, then dash thee down, 
To the hazard of thy brains and shattered sides.         1240
  Har. By Astaroth, ere long thou shalt lament 
These braveries, in irons loaden on thee. 
  Chor. His Giantship is gone somewhat crest-fallen, 
Stalking with less unconscionable strides, 
And lower looks, but in a sultry chafe.         1245
  Sams. I dread him not, nor all his giant brood, 
Though fame divulge him father of five sons, 
All of gigantic size, Goliah chief. 
  Chor. He will directly to the lords, I fear,