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 his 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, a while 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, head and tail, Scorpion, and asp, and amphisbaena dire, Cerastes horned, hydrus, and ellops drear, And dipsas (not so thick swarmed once the soil Bedropt with blood of Gorgon, or the isle