Poem 10

Ophiusa); but still greatest he the midst, Now dragon grown, larger than whom the sun Engendered in the Pythian vale on slime, Huge Python; 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 They felt themselves now changing: down their arms, Down fell both spear and shield; down they as fast, And the dire hiss renewed, and the dire form Catched by contagion, like in punishment, As in their crime. Thus was the applause they meant Turned to exploding hiss, triumph to shame Cast on themselves from their own mouths. There stood A grove hard by, sprung up with this their change, His will who reigns above, to aggravate Their penance, laden with fair fruit, like that Which grew in Paradise, the bait of Eve Used by the Tempter. On that prospect strange Their earnest eyes they fixed, imagining For one forbidden tree a multitude Now risen, to work them further woe or shame; Yet, parched with scalding thirst and hunger fierce, Though to delude them sent, could not abstain, But on they rolled in heaps, and, up the trees Climbing, sat thicker than the snaky locks That curled Megaera. Greedily they plucked The fruitage fair to sight, like that which grew Near that bituminous lake where Sodom flamed; This, more delusive, not the touch, but taste Deceived; they, fondly thinking to allay Their appetite with gust, instead of fruit Chewed bitter ashes, which the offended taste With spattering noise rejected. Oft they assayed, Hunger and thirst constraining; drugged as oft, With hatefulest disrelish writhed their jaws, With soot and cinders filled; so oft they fell Into the same illusion, not as Man Whom they triumphed once lapsed. Thus were they plagued And worn with famine long, and ceaseless hiss, Till their lost shape, permitted, they resumed; Yearly enjoined, some say, to undergo This annual humbling certain numbered days, To dash their pride, and