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Of horrible confusion; over which, By Sin and Death, a broad way now is paved, To expedite your glorious march; but I Toiled out my uncouth passage, forced to ride The untractable Abyss, plunged in the womb Of unoriginal Night and Chaos wild, That, jealous of their secrets, fiercely opposed My journey strange, with clamorous uproar Protesting fate supreme; thence, how I found The new-created world, which fame in heaven Long had foretold; a fabric wonderful, Of absolute perfection; therein man, Placed in a Paradise, by our exile Made happy. Him by fraud I have seduced From his Creator; and, the more to increase Your wonder, with an apple. He, thereat Offended-worth your laughter-hath given up Both his beloved Man and all this world, To Sin and Death a prey, and so to us, Without our hazard, labour, or alarm, To range in, and to dwell, and over man To rule as over all He should have ruled. True is, me also he hath judged, or rather Me not, but the brute serpent, in whose shape Man I deceived. That which to me belongs Is enmity, which he will put between Me and mankind. I am to bruise his heel; His seed, when is not set, shall bruise my head. A world who would not purchase with a bruise, Or much more grievous pain? Ye have the account Of my performance. What remains, ye gods, But up, and enter now into full bliss?

So having said, awhile he stood, expecting

Their universal shout, and high applause

To fill his ear, when, contrary, he hears,

On all sides, from innumerable tongues,

A dismal universal hiss, the sound Of public scorn. He wondered, but not long Had leisure, wondering at himself now more. His visage drawn he felt to sharp and spare, His arms clung to his ribs, his legs entwining Each other, till, supplanted, down he fell A monstrous serpent, on his belly prone, Reluctant, but in vain; a greater Power Now ruled him, punished in the shape he sinned, According to his doom. He would have spoke, But hiss for hiss returned with forked tongue To forked tongue. For now were all transformed Alike, to serpents all, as accessories To his bold riot. Dreadful was the din Of hissing through the hall, thick-swarming now With complicated monsters,2 head and tail, Scorpion, and Asp, and Amphisbæna dire, Cerastes horned, Hydrus, and Ellops drear, And Dipsas-not so thick swarmed once the soil Bedropt with blood of Gorgon, or the isle Ophiusa-but still greatest he the midst, Now Dragon grown, larger than whom the sun Ingendered in the Pythian vale on slime, Huge Python,3 and his power no less he seemed Above the rest still to retain. They all Him followed, issuing forth to the open field, Where all yet left of that revolted rout, Heaven-fallen, in station stood, or just array, Sublime with expectation when to see In triumph issuing forth their glorious chief. They saw, but other sight instead—a crowd Of ugly serpents! Horror on them fell, And horrid sympathy-for, what they saw,

Reluctant, but in vain.—Unwilling to move on the belly prone, but forced to do so.

^\\Complicated monsters.—The "scorpion" mentioned among these "monsters" was not a serpent; the remainder are mentioned by Lucan. Pliny, and other ancient writers.

\\Huge Python.—The great serpent said to have come from the slime left by the deluge in the time of Deucalion.