PARADISE LOST

Book I. After intimating he intends “no middle flight,” but proposes to “justify the ways of God to man,” Milton states the fall was due to the serpent, who, in revenge for being cast out of heaven with his hosts, induced the mother of mankind to sin.  He adds how, hurled from the ethereal sky to the bottomless pit, Satan lands in a burning lake of asphalt.  There, oppressed by the sense of lost happiness and lasting pain, he casts his eyes about him, and, flames making the darkness visible, beholds those enveloped in his doom suffering the same dire pangs.  Full of immortal hate, unconquerable will, and a determination never to submit or yield, Satan, confident his companions will not fail him, and enriched by past experiences, determines to continue disputing the mastery of heaven from the Almighty.

Beside Satan, on the burning marl, lies Beelzebub, his bold compeer, who dreads lest the Almighty comes after them and further punish them.  But Satan, rejoining that “to be weak is miserable, doing or suffering,” urges that they try and pervert God’s aims.  Then, gazing upward, he perceives God has recalled his avenging hosts, that the rain of sulphur has ceased, and that lightning no longer furrows the sky.  He, therefore, deems this a fitting opportunity to rise from the burning lake, reconnoitre their new place of abode, and take measures to redeem their losses.

  “Seest thou yon dreary plain, forlorn and wild,
  The seat of desolation, void of light,
  Save what the glimmering of these livid flames
  Casts pale and dreadful?  Thither let us tend
  From off the tossing of these fiery waves,
  There rest, if any rest can harbor there,
  And, reassembling our afflicted powers,
  Consult how we may henceforth most offend
  Our enemy; our own loss how repair;
  How overcome this dire calamity;
  What reinforcement we may gain from hope;
  If not, what resolution from despair.”

Striding through parting flames to a neighboring hill, Satan gazes around him, contrasting the mournful gloom of this abode with the refulgent light to which he has been accustomed, and, notwithstanding the bitter contrast, concluding, “it is better to reign in hell than serve in heaven,” ere he bids Beelzebub call the fallen angels.

His moon-like shield behind him, Beelzebub summons the legions lying on the asphalt lake, “thick as autumn leaves that strew the brooks of Vallombroso.”  Like guilty sentinels caught sleeping, they hastily arise, and, numerous as the locusts which ravaged Egypt, flutter around the cope of hell before alighting at their master’s feet.  Among them Milton descries various idols, later to be worshipped in Palestine, Egypt, and Greece.  Then, contrasting the downcast appearance of this host with its brilliancy in heaven, he goes on to describe how they saluted Satan’s banner with “a shout that tore hell’s conclave and beyond frighted the reign of Chaos and old Night.”  Next, their standards fluttering in the breeze, they perform their wonted evolutions, and Satan, seeing so mighty a host still at his disposal, feels his heart distend with pride.