BOOK FIRST
��107
��Waved round the coast, up-called a pitchy
cloud 340
Of locusts, warping on the eastern wind, That o'er the realm of impious Pharaoh
hung Like Night, and darkened all the land of
Nile;
So numberless were those bad Angels seen Hovering on wing under the cope of Hell, 'Twixt upper, nether, and surrounding fires ; Till, as a signal given, the uplifted spear Of their great Sultan waving to direct Their course, in even balance down they
light On the firm brimstone, and fill all the
plain: 35 o
A multitude like which the populous North Poured never from her frozen loins to pass Rhene or the Danaw, when her barbarous
sons Came like a deluge on the South, and
spread
Beneath Gibraltar to the Libyan sands. Forthwith, from every squadron and each
band, The heads and leaders thither haste where
stood Their great Commander godlike Shapes,
and Forms
Excelling human; princely Dignities; And Powers that erst in Heaven sat on
thrones, 360
Though of their names in Heavenly records
now
Be no memorial, blotted out and rased By their rebellion from the Books of Life. Nor had they yet among the sons of Eve Got them new names, till, wandering o'er
the earth, Through God's high sufferance for the trial
of man,
By falsities and lies the greatest part Of mankind they corrupted to forsake God their Creator, and the invisible Glory of Him that made them to trans- form 370 Oft to the image of a brute, adorned With gay religions full of pomp and gold, And devils to adore for deities: Then were they known to men by various
names, And various idols through the heathen
world. Say, Muse, their names then known, who
first, who last,
��Roused from the slumber on that fiery
couch, At their great Emperor's call, as next in
worth Came singly where he stood on the bare
strand, While the promiscuous crowd stood yet
aloof. 380
The chief were those who, from the pit
of Hell Roaming to seek their prey on Earth, durst
fix Their seats, long after, next the seat of
God,
Their altars by His altar, gods adored Among the nations round, and durst abide Jehovah thundering out of Sion, throned Between the Cherubim ; yea, often placed Within His sanctuary itself their shrines, Abominations; and with cursed things His holy rites and solemn feasts pro- faned, 390 And with their darkness durst affront His
light. First, Moloch, horrid King, besmeared with
blood
Of human sacrifice, and parents' tears; Though, for the noise of drums and tim- brels loud, Their children's cries unheard that passed
through fire
To his grim idol. Him the Ammonite Worshiped in Rabba and her watery plain, In Argob and in Basan, to the stream Of utmost Arnon. Nor content with such Audacious neighbourhood, the wisest
heart 400
Of Solomon he led by fraud to build His temple right against the temple of
God On that opprobrious hill, and made his
grove The pleasant valley of Hinnom, Tophet
thence
And black Gehenna called, the type of Hell. Next Chemos, the obscene dread of Moab's
sons,
From A roar to Nebo and the wild Of southmost Abarim; in Hesebon And Horouaim, Seon's realm, beyond The flowery dale of Sibma clad with
vines, 410
And Eleale to the Asphaltick Pool: Peor his other name, when he enticed Israel in Sittim, on their march from Nile,
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