Mammon, the least erected spirit that fell
From Heaven, for even in Heaven his looks and thoughts Were always downward bent, admiring more
The richest of Heaven's pavement, trodden gold, Than aught divine or holy else enjoyed In vision beatific: by him first
Men also, and by his suggestion taught, Ransacked the centre, and with impious hands Rifled the bowels of their mother earth For treasures better hid. Soon had his crew Opened into the hill a spacious wound, And digged out ribs of gold. Let none admire That riches grow in Hell; that soil may best Deserve the precious bane. And here let those Who boast in mortal things, and wondering tell Of Babel and the works of Memphian kings, Learn how their greatest monuments of fame And strength and art are easily outdone By spirits reprobate, and in an hour
What in an age they with incessant toil And hands innumerable1 scarce perform. Nigh on the plain in many cells prepared, That underneath had veins of liquid fire Sluiced from the lake, a second multitude With wondrous art founded the massy ore, Severing each kind, and scummed the bullion dross: A third as soon had formed within the ground A various mould, and from the boiling cells
By strange conveyance filled each hollow nook, As in an organ3 from one blast of wind
To many a row of pipes the sound-board breathes. Anon out of the earth a fabric huge
Rose like an exhalation, with the sound Of dulcet symphonies and voices sweet, Built like a temple, where pilasters round Were set, and Doric pillars overlaid
1 There were 360,000 men employed for nearly twenty years upon a single pyramid.
2 Bullion is here an adjective. The sense is: "they founded or melted the ore that was in the mass, by separating or severing each kind, that is, the sulphur, earth, &c., from the metal; and after that they scummed the dross that floated on the top of the burning ore."Pearce.
3 On which instrument Milton was himself a performer.
With golden architrave; nor did there want Cornice or frieze, with bossy sculptures graven; The roof was fretted gold. Not Babylon, Nor great Alcairo1 such magnificence Equalled in all their glories, to inshrine Belus or Serapis2 their gods, or seat
Their kings, when Egypt with Assyria strove In wealth and luxury. The ascending pile Stood fixed her stately height, and straight the doors Opening their brazen folds discover wide Within, her ample spaces, o'er the smooth And level pavement: from the archéd roof Pendent by subtle magic many a row Of starry lamps and blazing cressets 3 fed With naphtha and asphaltus yielded light As from a sky. The hasty multitude Admiring entered; and the work some praise, And some the architect: his hand was known In Heaven by many a towered structure high, Where sceptred angels held their residence, And sat as princes, whom the Supreme King Exalted to such power, and gave to rule, Each in his hierarchy, the orders bright. Nor was his name unheard or unadored In ancient Greece; and in Ausonian land Men called him Mulciber; and how he fell
1 This introduction of a modern name is rather clumsy.
2 Belus the son of Nimrod, second king of Babylon, and the first man worshipped for a god, by the Chaldæans styled Bel, by the Phoenicians, Baal. Serapis, the same with Apis, the god of the Egyptians.-Hume.
3 A cresset is any great blazing light, as a beacon. So Shakspeare, 1 Hen. IV. act. iii. :
The front of Heaven was full of fiery shapes, Of burning cressets."
4 Compare Homer, Il. i., where Vulcan (the same as Mulciber) describes his misfortune:
"Once in your cause I felt his matchless might,
Hurled headlong downward, from the ethereal height,
Tost all the day in rapid circles round;
Nor, till the sun descended, touched the ground;
Breathless I fell, in giddy motion lost;
The Sinthians raised me on the Lemnian coast."-Pope.
From Heaven, they fabled, thrown by angry Jove Sheer o'er the crystal battlements; from morn To noon he fell, from noon to dewy eve, A summer's day; and with the setting sun Dropped from the zenith like a falling star, On Lemnos the Ægean isle: thus they relate, Erring; for he with this rebellious rout
Fell long before; nor aught availed him now To have built in Heaven high towers; nor did he 'scape By all his engines,' but was headlong sent With his industrious crew to build in Hell.
Meanwhile the wingéd heralds by command
Of sovereign power, with awful ceremony
And trumpet's sound, throughout the host proclaim A solemn council forthwith to be held
At Pandemonium, the high capital
Of Satan and his peers: their summons called From every band and squared regiment
By place or choice the worthiest; they anon With hundreds and with thousands trooping came Attended: all access was thronged, the gates And porches wide, but chief the spacious hall (Though like a covered field, where champicns bold Wont ride in armed, and at the Soldan's chair Defied the best of Panim2 chivalry
To mortal combat, or career with lance),
Thick swarmed, both on the ground and in the air Brushed with the hiss of rustling wings. As bees 3 In spring time, when the sun with Taurus rides, Pour forth their populous youth about the hive In clusters; they among fresh dews and flowers Fly to and fro, or on the smoothed plank, The suburb of their straw-built citadel, New rubbed with balm, expatiate and confer Their state affairs. So thick the airy crowd
3 "As from some rocky clift the shepherd sees Clustering in heaps on heaps the driving bees, Rolling, and blackening, swarms succeeding swarms, With deeper murmurs and more hoarse alarms; Dusky they spread, a close embodied crowd, And o'er the vale descends the living cloud."
Swarmed and were straitened; till, the signal given, Behold a wonder! they but now who seemed In bigness to surpass earth's giant sons Now less than smallest dwarfs, in narrow room Throng numberless, like that pygmean race Beyond the Indian mount, or fairy elves, Whose midnight revels by a forest side Or fountain some belated peasant sees, Or dreams he sees, while overhead the moon1 Sits arbitress, and nearer to the earth
Wheels her pale course; they, on their mirth and dance Intent, with jocund music charm his ear;
At once with joy and fear his heart rebounds. Thus incorporeal spirits to smallest forms
Reduced their shapes immense, and were at large, Though without number still amidst the hall Of that infernal court. But far within, And in their own dimensions like themselves, The great seraphic lords and cherubim In close recess and secret conclave sat, A thousand demigods on golden seats, Frequent and full.2 After short silence then And summons read, the great consult began.
1 This alludes to the part which the moon is supposed to play in the revels of elves and fairies.
2 So we have in Latin frequens senatus, a full house. And he makes use of the same expression in English prose. "The assembly was full and frequent according to summons.' See his History of England in the reign of Edward the Confessor.-Newton.
The consultation begun, Satan debates whether another battle be to be hazarded for the recovery of Heaven: some advise it, others dissuade a third proposal is preferred, mentioned before by Satan, to search the truth of that prophecy or tradition in Heaven concerning another world, and another kind of creature equal or not much inferior to themselves, about this time to be created: their doubt who should be sent on this difficult search: Satan their chief undertakes alone the voyage, is honoured and applauded. The council thus ended, the rest betake them several ways, and to several employments, as their inclinations lead them, to entertain the time till Satan return. He passes on his journey to Hellgates, finds them shut, and who sat there to guard them, by whom at length they are opened, and discover to him the great gulf between Hell and Heaven; with what difficulty he passes through, directed by Chaos, the power of that place, to the sight of this new world which he sought.
HIGH on a throne of royal state, which far Outshone the wealth of Ormus1 and of Ind, Or where the gorgeous east with richest hand Showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold, Satan exalted sat, by merit raised
To that bad eminence; and from despair
1 An island in the Persian Gulf, celebrated for its wealth in diamonds.
2 Not that Ormus and Ind were in the west, but the sense is that the throne of Satan outshone diamonds, or pearls and gold, the choicest whereof are produced in the east. Spenser expresses the same thought thus, F. Q. iii. 4, 23.
The wealth of th' east, and pomp of Persian kings."
And the east is said to "shower them on her kings," in allusion to the
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