National Epics by Kate Milner Rabb

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The nine-fold gates were of brass, iron, and adamantine rock, reaching
high to the mighty roof, and most horrible were the Shapes that guarded
it.

On one side sat a creature, woman to the waist, below, a serpent,
surrounded by a crew of hell hounds, forever barking and then seeking
refuge within her. On the other, a Shape, black, fierce, terrible, crowned
with the likeness of a kingly crown, and shaking in its hands a dreadful
dart. As he strode, Hell trembled. Satan, undaunted, met him with fierce
words. As the two stood, their lances pointed at each other, the woman
shrieked and ran between them.

"Father, rush not upon thy son! Son, raise not thy hand against thy
father!" She then explained that she was Satan's daughter, Sin, who had
sprung from his head full grown, and that she later became by him the
mother of the creature called Death who sat with her to guard the gates.

Satan at once unfolded to them his plan of seeking the new world and
making a happy home for both Sin and Death, where they could forever find
food to gratify their hideous cravings. Charmed by his highly-colored
pictures, and forgetful of the commands from above, Sin opened the mighty
doors, so that the flames of Hell spread far out into Chaos, but her
strength failed her when she attempted to close them again.

For a moment Satan looked out into the mixture of Hot and Cold and Moist
and Dry that formed Chaos, and then started forth, now rising, now
falling, his wings heavy with the dense masses, now wading, now creeping,
until at last he reached the spot where was fixed the throne of Chaos and
of Night. Here Satan learned of the situation of the new world and soon
caught a glimpse of it, hanging like a star, by a golden chain, from
Heaven.

Sitting in Heaven, high throned above all, God, all-seeing, all-knowing,
was conscious of Satan's escape from Hell and his approach to the new
world. To his Son, sitting on his right hand, he pointed out the fallen
spirit. "No prescribed bounds can shut our Adversary in; nor can the
chains of hell hold him. To our new world he goes, and there, by no fault
of mine, will pervert man, whom I have placed therein, with a free will;
so to remain until he enthralls himself. Man will fall as did Satan, but
as Satan was self-tempted, and man will be deceived by another, the latter
shall find grace where his tempter did not."

Great was the joy of the Son when he learned that man would receive mercy
for his transgression. "Pardon and mercy he shall receive," declared the
Father, "but some one must be willing to expiate his sin for him; the just
must die for the unjust. Who in Heaven is willing to make the sacrifice?"

For a moment all the Heavenly quire stood mute; then the Son of God spoke
and implored his Father to let his anger fall on him, since he could not
wholly die, but could arise from death and subdue his vanquisher.

When his Father accepted the sacrifice, and named him Son of God and Man
who should hereafter be Universal King, Ruler of Heaven and Earth, Heaven
rang with the shouts of the Angels, who, casting down their amaranthine
wreaths until the golden pavement was covered with the garlands, took
their golden harps and sang the praises of the Father and the Son.

While they sang, Satan walked over the vast globe on which he had
alighted, through what in after years, when the world was peopled, was to
be the Paradise of Fools, the spot to which the spirits of all things
transitory and vain, of those who had worked for their reward in life
instead of in Heaven, would come. He walked around the dark globe until,
directed by a gleam of light, he found the spot where a ladder led up to
Heaven. Just below it, down through the spheres, was the seat of Paradise
to which he was bending his way.

Down through the crystal spheres he bent his way toward the Sun, which
attracted him by its superior splendor. Espying Uriel, the Angel of the
Sun, he quickly took the form of a youthful Cherub, and, approaching
Uriel, told him that having heard of the new world he had been seized by a
longing to quit the bands of Cherubim and see for himself the wonderful
work of the Creator.

Directed by the unsuspecting Uriel, Satan sped downward and standing upon
the top of Niphates, surveyed Eden.

As he looked, his spirit was troubled. He had brought Hell with him, and
his unhappy thoughts boiled and surged in his troubled mind. "Sun, I hate
thee, because thy beams recall to me what I was and how I fell. The
matchless King of Heaven deserved no such return from me. His service was
easy. Had I only been created a lower Power!--But even then, might not
some higher one have led me into temptation? What shall I do, whither
shall I fly, to escape infinite wrath, and infinite despair? Hell is
around me, I myself am Hell! There is no hope for me. Submission is the
only way left, and I could not unsay what I have said; I could never
bridge the gulf made by my revolt. Farewell to remorse! Good is forever
lost to me, and I must now make Evil my good. I can at least divide the
empire of the world with the King of Heaven."

As he realized how his bitter thoughts had dimmed his countenance he
smoothed it over with outward calm, but not before Uriel, from the Sun,
had noted and wondered over his strange gestures.

Leaping over the high natural walls of Paradise, Satan, in the form of a
cormorant, perched himself on the Tree of Life. Beautiful was the scene
before him. All the trees and plants were of the noblest kind. In the
midst of them stood the Tree of Life with its golden fruit, and not far
off the Tree of Knowledge. Southward through Eden ran a river, which,
passing under a huge hill, emerged into four great streams wandering
through many afterwards famous realms. Between the rows of trees stretched
level lawns where grazed the happy flocks, and over the green mead were
sprinkled flowers of every hue. No fairer scene ever met living eyes, and
fairest of all were the two stately forms, in whose looks shone the
divinity of their Maker. Hand in hand they passed through the garden,
refreshed themselves with the delicious fruits, and were happy in each
other.

As he gazed on them while the animals fell asleep and the sun sank below
the horizon, Satan, still torn with conflicting emotions, ruminated over
the unhappiness he was to bring the lovely pair. He admired them, he could
love them; they had not harmed him, but he must bring unhappiness upon
them because of their likeness to their Creator. Through them only could
he obtain his longed-for revenge.

Anxious to learn where to attack them, he prowled about them, now as a
lion, now as a tiger, listening to their conversation. They spoke of their
garden, of the Tree of Life, and of the forbidden Tree of Knowledge. "In
the day ye eat thereof, ye shall surely die," had been their warning. Eve
recalled the day of her creation, when she had first fled from Adam, and
then yielded to his embraces, and Satan, watching their caresses, envied
and hardened his heart. "Live while ye may!" he muttered. "Soon will I
return and offer you new woes for your present pleasures."

In the mean time, Gabriel, warned by Uriel, who suspected that an evil
spirit had crept into Paradise, had set watches around the garden.
Ithuriel and Zephon, sent to search for him, spied Satan in the form of a
toad, sitting near the ear of Eve, tainting her dreams with foul whispers.
Touched by Ithuriel's spear, he was forced to resume his own shape and was
taken to Gabriel. The angry Satan attempted to use force, but warned by a
sign from Heaven that his strength was insufficient, fled, murmuring,
through the night.

When morning dawned on Eden, a morn of unimaginable beauty, Adam waked Eve
from her restless slumbers, and heard her troubled dreams, in which she
had been tempted to taste of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. He
comforted her, and after their morning hymn, in which they glorified their
Creator, they set about their pleasant work of pruning the too luxuriant
vines of their Paradise. In the mean time, the Father above, knowing the
design of Satan, and determined that man should not fall without warning,
sent Raphael down to Adam to tell him that he was threatened by an enemy,
and that, as a free agent, if he fell, his sin would be upon his own head.

Six-winged Raphael swept down through the spheres and stood in Paradise,
welcomed by Adam. Eve hastened to set before their guest every delicacy
that Eden knew, and while she was preparing these Adam listened to the
Angel's warning.

To emphasize the sin of disobedience, Raphael related to the pair the
story of Satan's conspiracy with the other powers because the Father had
proclaimed the power of his Son. The Father, knowing Satan's confidence in
himself, had allowed him for two days to fight an equal number of his
legions of angels, among whom was Abdiel who had fled, indignant, from
Satan's ranks, and on the third day, when the legions of evil lay crushed
beneath the mountains which the shining angels had heaped upon them, the
Son of God drove forth in his chariot, and single-handed, forced them
before him, terror-stricken, until, Heaven's wall having opened, they fell
downward for nine days, in horror and confusion into the depths of Hell.
The Messiah, returning home in triumph in his chariot, was welcomed by the
bright orders into the home of his Father.

Delighted by the recital of Raphael, Adam asked him to relate the story of
the Creation, and explain to him the motion of the celestial bodies. He
then told Raphael of his own creation; how he awoke as from a sleep and
found the Sun above him and around him the pleasant groves of Paradise;
how he named the animals as they passed before him, according to the will
of God, and how he had pleaded with his Maker for a companion and equal,
until the Creator, casting him into a sound sleep, took from his side a
rib and formed from it his beauteous Eve. As Adam concluded, the setting
sun warned Raphael to depart.

Satan, after fleeing from Gabriel, had hidden in the dark parts of the
earth, so that he could creep in at night unseen of Uriel. After the
eighth night, he crept in past the watchful Cherubim, and stealing into
Paradise, wrapped in the mist rising over the river that, shooting
underground, rose up as a fountain near the Tree of Life, he crept, though
not without loathing, into the serpent, in which form he could best evade
the watchful eyes of the heavenly guards and accomplish his purpose.

When morning dawned, Eve asked Adam for once to permit her to work alone,
so that they might accomplish more. Adam, who constantly desired her
presence, prayed her to remain, warning her of the enemy of whom Raphael
had spoken, and telling her that they could resist temptation more easily
together than when separated. But Eve was obdurate, and Adam finally
consented that she should go alone to work.

As she moved among the groves, tying up the drooping flowers, like to
Pomona in her prime, or to Ceres, the sight of so much beauty, goodness,
and innocence moved even the serpent, as he approached, intent on the
destruction of her happiness. But as he looked, the thought of her joy but
tortured him the more, since happiness was no longer possible for him.

This was before the serpent had been compelled to crawl his whole length
on the ground, and as he moved on, fold on fold, his head proudly reared,
his scales brilliant in color, he was not an unpleasant object to look
upon. He circled about Eve as though lost in admiration, until her
attention was attracted, and then astounded her by addressing her in her
own language. When she demanded by what means he had acquired speech, he
told her by the plucking and eating of a certain tree in the garden, which
he had no sooner tasted than he felt his inward powers to develop until he
found himself capable of speech.

Eve at once asked him to take her to the tree, but when she recognized the
forbidden Tree of Knowledge, she demurred, assuring the serpent that God
had commanded them not to touch it, for if they ate of it, they should
surely die. "Am I not alive?" asked her tempter, "and have I not eaten of
it? Is it not a rank injustice that you should be forbidden to taste it
and to lack the Knowledge of Good and Evil which it would give you? Where
can the offence lie? It must be envy that causes such a prohibition."

His words, the sight of the fruit, and natural hunger all prevailed on
Eve, and she plucked a branch from the tree and tasted the fruit. As she
ate she saw Adam coming in search of her, holding a garland which he had
been binding to crown her. To his reproaches, she replied with the
arguments of her tempter, until Adam, in despair, determined to taste the
apple that he might not lose Eve. Paradise without her would not be
Paradise, and no new wife could make him forget her.

After the first exhilaration of the food was past they began to reproach
each other, mindful of their destiny, of which they had been warned by
Raphael, and, engaged in this fruitless chiding, they were found by the
Son, who, informed of their transgression by the angels, sought them out
in their place of concealment. Adam and Eve he sentenced to a life of
sorrow and labor, the serpent to go despised and ever at enmity with man.
Then, pitying the unhappy pair, he clad them in skins and re-ascended to
Heaven.

While this was occurring in Eden, Sin and Death, feeling in some
mysterious way the success of their parent, determined to leave Hell and
seek their new home. Passing through Chaos, they pushed the heavy elements
this way and that, cementing them with Death's mace until they constructed
of them a bridge from the gates of Hell to the point on earth at which
Satan had first alighted, and here met him, just returning, flushed with
success, to Hell.

All the followers of Satan were gathered in Pandemonium to hear the news
of his success, which he related, overjoyed at having wrought the ruin of
mankind and revenged himself on God by so small a thing as the eating of
an apple. As he concluded and stood waiting their applause, he heard a
universal hiss, and saw himself surrounded by serpents, and himself
changing into an enormous dragon. The great hall was filled with the
monsters, scorpions, asps, hydras, and those who stood waiting without
with applause for their leader were likewise changed into loathsome
reptiles. Without the hall a grove sprang up, loaded with tempting fruit,
but when, tortured with thirst, they tried to eat, it turned in their
mouths to bitter ashes. After a time they were permitted to take again
their own shapes, but were compelled to resume this serpent-form for a
certain number of days each year, to crush their pride.

When God saw the entrance of Sin and Death into the world, he proclaimed
to his Saints that their seeming victory was but temporary, and that
eventually his Son would defeat Sin, Death, and the Grave, and seal up the
mouth of Hell. Then, as the Halleluias rang out, he ordered the angels to
make certain changes in the universe as a punishment to man. The Sun was
so to move as to affect the earth alternately with a cold and heat almost
unbearable; to the Moon were assigned her motions; the other planets were
to join in various ways, often "unbenign." The winds were assigned their
stations to torment the earth and sea, and the thunder was set to strike
terror to the heart of man. The poles of the earth were pushed aslant, and
soon the effects of the changes were felt in heat, cold, wind, and storm.

Adam, though absorbed in his own misery and momentarily expecting Death,
saw the changes, and bemoaned his woes the more. How would his mysterious
progeny despise him, since he was the cause of their being brought into
the world of woe! When Eve attempted to comfort him he drove her from him
with harsh words, saying that in time to come women would be the unhappy
cause of all man's misery, as she had been of his. At last, seeing the
futility of his outcries Adam began to cheer his wife, recalling the
promise that their offspring should crush the head of the serpent, and
suggested to her that they go to their former place of prayer and pour
forth to God their true contrition and repentance.

The glad Son, presenting these prayers at his Father's throne, interceded
with him for them, since their contrition now was worth more than their
worship in a state of innocence. His intercession was accepted, but since
they had lost the two gifts of Happiness and Immortality, they must leave
the garden lest they be tempted to taste next of the Tree of Life and make
their woe eternal.

Michael was sent down to drive them from the garden, and if the pair
seemed repentant and disconsolate he was ordered to comfort them with the
promise of better days and to reveal to them somewhat of the future. In
habit as a man Michael descended and declared to Adam and Eve that they
could no longer abide in Paradise. When Adam, himself broken with grief,
attempted to console the heart-broken Eve, the Angel comforted her also,
and causing a sleep to fall upon her, led Adam to a hill-top, whence could
be seen the hemisphere of the earth, soon to be covered by the seats of
empires.

Touching Adam's eyes with three drops from the well of life, the Angel
showed him a long panorama, beginning with the crime of Cain, and showing
the building of the Ark and its landing on Ararat. When he perceived that
Adam's eyes were weary, he recited to him the story of Abraham, of the
deliverance from Egypt, the wandering in the Wilderness, of the royal
stock of David from which would spring the seed so often promised Adam,
who should ascend the hereditary throne, and whose glory should be
universal.

Overjoyed, Adam inquired when would take place the final death stroke to
Satan, the bruising with the Victor's heel. Michael responded that Satan
was not to be destroyed, but his works in Adam and his seed, and that the
sacrifice of the Son's life for man would forever crush the strength of
Satan's progeny, Sin and Death. Then, to that Heaven to which he would
reascend, the faithful would go when the time came for the world's
dissolution, and there would be received into the bliss eternal.

Strengthened and sustained, Adam went down from the mount and met Eve,
just awaking from comforting dreams.

The Cherubim descended, and, urged by the Angel, the two took their way
into the wide world that lay before them, and looking back beheld the
flaming swords of the Cherubim at the gates of their lost Paradise.

SELECTIONS FROM PARADISE LOST.

SATAN.

After having been thrown out of Heaven with his crew, Satan lay nine days
in the burning lake into which he fell. Then, rousing himself, he rose
from the liquid flames, flew over the lake, and alighting upon the solid
though burning land, thus addressed Beelzebub, who had accompanied him.

"Is this the region, this the soil, the clime,"
Said then the lost Archangel, "this the seat
That we must change for Heaven?--this mournful gloom
For that celestial light? Be it so, since He
Who now is sovran can dispose and bid
What shall be right: farthest from Him is best,
Whom reason hath equalled, force hath made supreme
Above his equals. Farewell, happy fields,
Where joy forever dwells! Hail, horrors! hail,
Infernal World! and thou, profoundest Hell,
Receive thy new possessor--one who brings
A mind not to be changed by place or time.
The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.
What matter where, if I be still the same,
And what I should be, all but less than he
Whom thunder hath made greater? Here at least
We shall be free; the Almighty hath not built
Here for his envy, will not drive us hence:
Here we may reign secure; and, in my choice,
To reign is worth ambition, though in Hell:
Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.
But wherefore let we then our faithful friends,
The associates and co-partners of our loss,
Lie thus astonished on the oblivious pool,
And call them not to share with us their part
In this unhappy mansion, or once more
With rallied arms to try what may be yet
Regained in Heaven, or what more lost in Hell?"

So Satan spake; and him Beelzebub
Thus answered:--"Leader of those armies bright
Which, but the Omnipotent, none could have foiled!
If once they hear that voice, their liveliest pledge
Of hope in fears and dangers--heard so oft
In worst extremes, and on the perilous edge
Of battle, when it raged, in all assaults
Their surest signal--they will soon resume
New courage and revive, though now they lie
Grovelling and prostrate on yon lake of fire,
As we erewhile, astounded and amazed;
No wonder, fallen from such pernicious highth!"

He scarce had ceased when the superior Fiend
Was moving toward the shore; his ponderous shield,
Ethereal temper, massy, large, and round,
Behind him cast. The broad circumference
Hung on his shoulders like the moon, whose orb
Through optic glass the Tuscan artist views
At evening, from the top of Fesole,
Or in Valdarno, to descry new lands,
Rivers, or mountains, in her spotty globe.
His spear--to equal which the tallest pine
Hewn on Norwegian hills, to be the mast
Of some great ammiral, were but a wand--
He walked with, to support uneasy steps
Over the burning marle, not like those steps
On Heaven's azure; and the torrid clime
Smote on him sore besides, vaulted with fire.
Nathless he so endured, till on the beach
Of that inflamed sea he stood, and called
His legions--Angel Forms, who lay entranced
Thick as autumnal leaves that strow the brooks
In Vallombrosa, where the Etrurian shades
High over-arched embower; or scattered sedge
Afloat, when the fierce winds Orion armed
Hath vexed the Red-Sea coast, whose waves o'erthrew
Busiris and his Memphian chivalry,
While with perfidious hatred they pursued
The sojourners of Goshen, who beheld
From the safe shore their floating carcases
And broken chariot wheels. So thick bestrewn,
Abject and lost, lay these, covering the flood,
Under amazement of their hideous change.
He called so loud that all the hollow deep
Of Hell resounded:--"Princes, Potentates,
Warriors, the Flower of Heaven--once yours; now lost,
If such astonishment as this can seize
Eternal Spirits! Or have ye chosen this place
After the toil of battle to repose
Your wearied virtue, for the ease you find
To slumber here, as in the vales of Heaven?
Or in this abject posture have ye sworn
To adore the Conqueror, who now beholds
Cherub and Seraph rolling in the flood
With scattered arms and ensigns, till anon
His swift pursuers from Heaven-gates discern
The advantage, and descending, tread us down
Thus drooping, or with linked thunderbolts
Transfix us to the bottom of this gulf?--
Awake, arise, or be for ever fallen!"
_Book I._, 240-330.

APOSTROPHE TO LIGHT.

This passage forms the beginning of Book III., in which the poet visits
the realms of light after having described Hell and its inhabitants.

Hail, holy Light, offspring of Heaven first-born!
Or of the Eternal coeternal beam
May I express thee unblamed? since God is light,
And never but in unapproached light
Dwelt from eternity--dwelt then in thee,
Bright effluence of bright essence increate!
Or hear'st thou rather pure Ethereal stream,
Whose fountain who shall tell? Before the Sun,
Before the Heavens, thou wert, and at the voice
Of God, as with a mantle, didst invest
The rising World of waters dark and deep,
Won from the void and formless Infinite!
Thee I revisit now with bolder wing,
Escaped the Stygian Pool, though long detained
In that obscure sojourn, while in my flight,
Through utter and through middle Darkness borne,
With other notes than to the Orphean lyre
I sung of Chaos and eternal Night,
Taught by the Heavenly Muse to venture down
The dark descent, and up to re-ascend,
Though hard and rare. Thee I revisit safe,
And feel thy sovran vital lamp; but thou
Revisit'st not these eyes, that roll in vain
To find thy piercing ray, and find no dawn;
So thick a drop serene hath quenched their orbs,
Or dim suffusion veiled. Yet not the more
Cease I to wander where the Muses haunt
Clear spring, or shady grove, or sunny hill,
Smit with the love of sacred song; but chief
Thee, Sion, and the flowery brooks beneath,
That wash thy hallowed feet, and warbling flow,
Nightly I visit: nor sometimes forget
Those other two equalled with me in fate,
So were I equalled with them in renown,
Blind Thamyris and blind Maeonides,
And Tiresias and Phineus, prophets old:
Then feed on thoughts that voluntary move
Harmonious numbers; as the wakeful bird
Sings darkling, and, in shadiest covert hid,
Tunes her nocturnal note. Thus with the year
Seasons return; but not to me returns
Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn,
Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose,
Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine;
But cloud instead and ever-during dark
Surrounds me, from the cheerful ways of men
Cut off, and, for the book of knowledge fair,
Presented with a universal blank
Of Nature's works, to me expunged and rased,
And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out.
So much the rather thou, Celestial Light,
Shine inward, and the mind through all her powers
Irradiate; there plant eyes; all mist from thence
Purge and disperse, that I may see and tell
Of things invisible to mortal sight.
_Book III_

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