And dust shalt eat all the days of thy life. Between thee and the Woman I will put Enmity, and between thine and her seed; Her seed shall bruise thy head, thou bruise heel.'
So spake this oracle-then verified When Jesus, son of Mary, second Eve, Saw Satan fall like lightning down from Heaven, Prince of the Air; then, rising from his grave, Spoiled Principalities and Powers, triumphed In open show, and, with ascension bright, Captivity led captive through the Air, The realm itself of Satan, long usurped, Whom he shall tread at last under our feet, 190 Even he who now foretold his fatal bruise, And to the Woman thus his sentence turned:- Thy sorrow I will greatly multiply
By thy conception; children thou shalt bring In sorrow forth, and to thy husband's will Thine shall submit; he over thee shall rule.' On Adam last thus judgement he pro- nounced:-
Because thou hast hearkened to the voice of thy wife,
And eaten of the tree concerning which
I charged thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat thereof, Curs'd is the ground for thy sake; thou in
Shalt eat thereof all the days of thy life;
Thorns also and thistles it shall bring thee forth Unbid; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; In the sweat of thy face thou shalt eat bread, Till thou return unto the ground; for thou Out of the ground was taken: know thy birth,
The curse of the Woman and the Man
Sin and For dust thou art, and shalt to dust return.' So judged he Man, both Judge and Saviour sent,
And the instant stroke of death, denounced that
day, Removed far off; then, pitying how they stood Before him naked to the air, that now Must suffer change, disdained not to begin Thenceforth the form of servant to assume. As when he washed his servants' feet, so now, As father of his family, he clad
Their nakedness with skins of beasts, or slain, Or, as the snake, with youthful coat repaid; And thought not much to clothe his enemies. Nor he their outward only with the skins Of beasts, but inward nakedness, much more Opprobrious, with his robe of righteousness Arraying, covered from his Father's sight. To him with swift ascent he up returned, Into his blissful bosom reassumed
In glory as of old; to him, appeased,
All, though all-knowing, what had passed with Man
Recounted, mixing intercession sweet.
Meanwhile, ere thus was sinned and judged on Earth,
Within the gates of Hell sat Sin and Death, 230 In counterview within the gates, that now Stood open wide, belching outrageous flame Far into Chaos, since the Fiend passed through, Sin opening; who thus now to Death began:- "O Son, why sit we here, each other viewing Idly, while Satan, our great author, thrives In other worlds, and happier seat provides
For us, his offspring dear? It cannot be But that success attends him; if mishap, Ere this he had returned, with fury driven By his avengers, since no place like this Can fit his punishment, or their revenge. Methinks I feel new strength within me rise, Wings growing, and dominion given me large Beyond this Deep-whatever draws me on, Or sympathy, or some connatural force, Powerful at greatest distance to unite With secret amity things of like kind By secretest conveyance. Thou, my shade Inseparable, must with me along;
For Death from Sin no power can separate. But, lest the difficulty of passing back Stay his return perhaps over this gulf Impassable, impervious, let us try
(Adventurous work, yet to thy power and mine Not unagreeable!) to found a path
Over this main from Hell to that new World Where Satan now prevails-a monument Of merit high to all the infernal host, Easing their passage hence, for intercourse 260 Or transmigration, as their lot shall lead. Nor can I miss the way, so strongly drawn By this new-felt attraction and instinct.' Whom thus the meagre Shadow answered
'Go whither fate and inclination strong Leads thee; I shall not lag behind, nor err The way, thou leading: such a scent I draw Of carnage, prey innumerable, and taste The savour of death from all things there that live.
Their Nor shall I to the work thou enterprisest journey Be wanting, but afford thee equal aid.'
So saying, with delight he snuffed the smell Of mortal change on Earth. As when a flock Of ravenous fowl, though many a league remote, Against the day of battle, to a field
Where armies lie encamped come flying, lured With scent of living carcases designed For death the following day in bloody fight; So scented the grim Feature, and upturned His nostril wide into the murky air, Sagacious of his quarry from so far.
Then both, from out Hell-gates, into the waste Wide anarchy of Chaos, damp and dark, Flew diverse, and, with power (their power was great)
Hovering upon the waters, what they met Solid or slimy, as in raging sea
Tossed up and down, together crowded drove, From each side shoaling, towards the mouth or Hell;
As when two polar winds, blowing adverse Upon the Cronian sea, together drive Mountains of ice, that stop the imagined way Beyond Petsora eastward to the rich
Death with his mace petrific, cold and dry, As with a trident smote, and fixed as firm As Delos, floating once; the rest his look Bound with Gorgonian rigour not to move, And with asphaltic slime; broad as the gate, Deep to the roots of Hell the gathered beach They fastened, and the mole immense wrought
Over the foaming Deep high-arched, a bridge Of length prodigious, joining to the wall Immovable of this now fenceless World, Forfeit to Death-from hence a passage broad, Smooth, easy, inoffensive, down to Hell. So, if great things to small may be compared, Xerxes, the liberty of Greece to yoke, From Susa, his Memnonian palace high, Came to the sea, and, over Hellespont
Bridging his way, Europe with Asia joined, 310 And scourged with many a stroke the indignant
Now had they brought the work by wondrous
Pontifical-a ridge of pendent rock
Over the vexed Abyss, following the track Of Satan, to the self-same place where he First lighted from his wing and landed safe From out of Chaos-to the outside bare Of this round World. With pins of adamant And chains they made all fast, too fast they made
And durable; and now in little space The confines met of empyrean Heaven And of this World, and on the left hand Hell, With long reach interposed; three several ways In sight to each of these three places led. And now their way to Earth they had descried, To Paradise first tending, when, behold Satan, in likeness of an Angel bright, Betwixt the Centaur and the Scorpion steering His zenith, while the Sun in Aries rose ! Disguised he came; but those his children dear Their parent soon discerned, though in disguise.
The Bridge of pendent rock
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