Pyrrhus. Hermione may have her charms, and I
May love her still, tho' not her father's slave. vi
I may in time give proofs that I am a lover;
But never must forget that I am a king.
Meanwhile, sir, you may see fair Helen's daughter:
I know how near in blood you stand ally'd.
That done, you have my answer, prince. The Greeks, No doubt, expect your quick return.
XIX. Satan's speech to his Angels at the opening the debate in Pandemonium.
Pow'ns and dominions! deities of heaven!
For (since no deep within her gulph can hold
Celestial vigour, though opprest and fallen)
I give not heav'n for lost. From this descent
Celestial virtues rising will appear
More glorious, and more dread, than from no fall,
And trust themselves to fear no second fate.
Me though just right, and the fix'd laws of heav'n,
Did first create your leader, next free choice,
With what beside, in council, or in fight,
Hath been achiev'd of merit; yet this loss
Thus far, at least, recover'd, hath much more
Establish'd in a safe, un-envied throne
Yielded with full consent. The happier state
In heav'n, which follows dignity, might draw
Envy from each inferior; but who here
Will envy whom.the highest place exposes
Foremost to stand against the thund'rer's aim
Your bulwark, and condemns to greatest share
Of endless pain. With this advantage then
To union and firm faith, and firm accord,
More than can be in heav'n, we now return
To claim our just inheritance of old,
Surer to prosper, than prosperity
Could have assur'd us, and by what best way,
Whether of open war, or covert guile,
We now debate. Who can advise, may speak.
XX. Moloch's oration for war.
My sentence is for open war: of wiles,
More unexpert, I boast not: them let those
Contrive who need; or when they need; not now.
For while they sit contriving, shall the rest,
Millions that stand in arms, and longing wait
The signal to ascend, sit ling'ring here
Heav'n's fugitives, and for their dwelling-place
Accept this dark opprobrious den of shame,
The prison of his tyranny who reigns
By our delay! No,-let us rather choose,
Arm'd with hell flames and fury, all at once
O'er heav'n's high tow'rs to force resistless way,
Turning our tortures into horrid arms
Against the torturer; when to meet the noise
Of his almighty engine he shall hear
Infernal thunder; and, for lightning, see
Black fire and horror shot with equal rage
Among his angels: and his throne itself
Mix'd with Tartarean sulphur, and strange fire,
His own invented torments.-But perhaps
The way seems difficult, and steep to scale
With upright wing against a higher foc.
Let such bethink them, if the sleepy drench
Of that forgetful lake benumb not still,
That in our proper motion we ascend
Up to our native seat: descent and fall
To us is adverse. Who but felt of late
When the fierce foe hung on our broken rear
Insulting, and pursu'd us through the deep,
With what compulsion and laborious flight
We sunk thus low?-Th' ascent is easy then :-
Th' event is fear'd:-should we again provoke
Our stronger, some worse way his wrath may find
To our destruction; if there be in hell
Fear to be worse destroy'd. What can be worse
Than to dwell here, driv'n out from bliss, condemn'd
In this abhorred deep to utter woe;
Where pain of unextinguishable fire
Must exercise us without hope of end,
The vassals of his anger, when the scourge
Inexorable, and the torturing hour
Call us to penance?-More destroy'd than thus,
We should be quite abolish'd, and expire.
What fear we then?-what doubt we to incense
His utmost ire? which, to the height enrag'd,
Will either quite consume us, and reduce
To nothing this essential; happier far,
Than miserable to have eternal being;
Or if our substance be indeed divine,
And cannot cease to be, we are, at worst,
On this side nothing; and by proof we feel
Our pow'r sufficient to disturb his heaven,
And with perpetual inroad to alarm,
Though inaccessible, his fatal throne;
Which, if not victory, is yet revenge.
XXI. The speech of Belial dissuading war.
I SHOULD be much for open war,
As not behind in hate, if what were urg'd
Main reason to persuade immediate war,
Did not dissuade me more, and seem to cast
Ominous conjecture on the whole success;
When he who most excels in fact of arms,
In what he counsels, and in what excels,
Mistrustful, grounds his courage on despair,
And utter dissolution, as the scope
Of all his aim, after some dire revenge.
First, what revenge?-The tow'rs of heav'n arè fill'd
With armed watch, that render all access
Impregnable: oft on the bord'ring deep
Encamp their legions: or, with obscure wing,
Scout far and wide into the realms of night,
$ Scorning surprise. Or could we break our way
By force, and at our heels, all hell should rise
With blackest insurrection, to confound
Heav'n's purest light; yet our great enemy,
All incorruptible, would, on his throne,
Sit unpolluted; and th' etherial mould,
Incapable of stain, would soon expel
Her mischief, and purge off the baser fire,
Victorious. Thus repuls'd, our final hope
Is flat despair; we must exasperate
Th' almighty victor to spend all his rage,
And that must end us; that must be our cure
To be no more.-Sad cure!—for who would lose,
Though full of pain, this intellectual being,
Those thoughts that wander through eternity,-
To perish rather, swallow'd up and lost
In the wide tomb of uncreated night,
Devoid of sense and motion?-And who knows
(Let this be good) whether our angry foe
Can give it, or will ever? how he can,
Is doubtful; that he never will, is sure.
Will he, so wise, let loose at once his ire,
Belike through impotence, or unawares,
To give his enemies their wish, and end
Them in his anger, whom his anger saves
To punish endless? "Wherefore cease we then?
Say they, "who counsel war; we are decreed,
Reserv'd, and destin❜d to eternal woe:
Whatever doing, what can we suffer more,
What can we suffer worse?" Is this then worst,
Thus sitting, thus consulting, thus in arms?
What, when we fled amain, pursu'd and struck
With heav'n's afflicting thunder, and besought
The deep to shelter us? this hell then seem'd
A refuge from those wounds! or when we lay
Chain'd on the burning lake? that sure was worse.
What if the breath that kindled those grim fires,
Awak'd, should blow them into sev❜nfold rage,
And plunge us in the flames? or, from above,
Should intermitted vengeance arm again
His red right hand to plague us? what if all
Her stores were open'd, and this firmament
Of hell should spout her cataracts of fire,
Impending horrors, threat'ning hideous fall
One day upon our heads; while we, perhaps,
Designing or exhorting glorious war,
Caught in a fiery tempest, shall be hurl'd
Each on his rock transfix'd, the sport and prey
Of wracking whirlwinds; or for ever sunk
Under yon boiling ocean, wrapt in chains;
There to converse with everlasting groans,
Unrespited, unpitied, unrepriev'd,
Ages of hopeless end?-this would be worse.
War, therefore, open or conceal'd, alike
My voice dissuades.
XXII. Old Nestor's speech, endeavouring to reconcile Achilles and Agamemnon.
YE gods! great sorrow falls on Greece to-day.
Priam, and Priam's sons, with all in Troy—
Oh how will they exult, what triumph feel,
Once hearing of this strife aris'n between
The prime of Greece in council and in arms.
But be persuaded; ye are younger both
Than I, and I was conversant of old
With princes your superiors, yet from them
No disrespect at any time received.
Their equals saw I never; never shall;
Pirithous, Dryas, godlike Polypheme,
Exadius, Caneus, and the hero son
Of Egeus, mighty Theseus; warriors, all,
In force superior to the race of man.
Brave chiefs they were, and with brave foes they fought,
With the rude dwellers on the mountain-heights
The Centaurs, whom with havock such as fame
Shall never cease to celebrate, they slew.
With these men I consorted erst, what time
From Pylus, though a land from theirs remote,
They call'd me forth, and such as was my strength,
With all that strength I serv'd them. Who is he?
What prince or chief of the degen'rate race
Now seen on earth, who might with these compare?
Yet even these would listen to my voice,
Which hear ye also; for compliance proves
Ofttimes the safer and the manlier course.
Thou, Agamemnon, valiant as thou art,
Seize not the maid, his portion from the Greeks,
But leave her his; nor thou, Achilles, strive
With our imperial chief; for never king
Had equal honour at the hands of Jove
With Agamemnon, or was thron'd so high.
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