joy for Man seduced. However, some tradition they dispersed Among the heathen of their purchase got, And fabled how the Serpent, whom they called Ophion, with Eurynome (the wide- Encroaching Eve perhaps), had first the rule Of high Olympus, thence by Saturn driven And Ops, ere yet Dictaean Jove was born.
Meanwhile in Paradise the Hellish pair Too soon arrived; Sin there in power before, Once actual, now in body, and to dwell Habitual habitant; behind her Death, Close following pace for pace, not mounted yet On his pale horse; to whom Sin thus began:
“Second of Satan sprung, all-conquering Death! What think’st thou of our empire now, though earned With travail difficult? not better far Than still at Hell’s dark threshold to have sat watch, Unnamed, undreaded, and thyself half-starved?”
Whom thus the Sin-born Monster answered soon: “To me, who with eternal famine pine, Alike is Hell, or Paradise, or Heaven; There best, where most with ravin I may meet; Which here, though plenteous, all too little seems To stuff this maw, this vast unhide-bound corpse.”
To whom the incestuous Mother thus replied: “Thou therefore on these herbs, and fruits, and flowers, Feed first; on each beast next, and fish, and fowl, No homely morsels; and whatever thing The scythe of Time mows down devour unspared; Till I, in Man residing, through the race, His thoughts, his looks, words, actions, all infect, And season him thy last and sweetest prey.”
This said, they both betook them several ways, Both to destroy, or unimmortal make All kinds, and for destruction to mature Sooner or later; which the Almighty seeing, From his transcendent seat the Saints among, To those bright Orders uttered thus his voice:
“See with what heat these dogs of Hell advance To waste and havoc yonder World, which I So fair and good created, and had still Kept in