To which the Fiend thus answered, frowning stern: “Not that I less endure, or shrink from pain, Insulting Angel! well thou know’st I stood Thy fiercest, when in battle to thy aid The blasting vollied thunder made all speed, And seconded thy else not dreaded spear. But still thy words at random, as before, Argue thy inexperience what behoves, From hard assays and ill successes past, A faithful leader; not to hazard all Through ways of danger by himself untried. I therefore, I alone, first undertook To wing the desolate Abyss, and spy This new-created World, whereof in Hell Fame is not silent; here in hope to find Better abode, and my afflicted powers To settle here on Earth, or in mid air; Though for possession put to try once more What thou and thy gay legions dare against; Whose easier business were to serve their Lord High up in Heaven, with songs to hymn his throne, And practised distances to cringe, not fight.”
To whom the warrior Angel soon replied: “To say and straight unsay, pretending first Wise to fly pain, professing next the spy, Argues no leader, but a liar traced, Satan; and couldst thou ‘faithful’ add? O name, O sacred name of faithfulness profaned! Faithful to whom? to thy rebellious crew? Army of fiends, fit body to fit head, Was this your discipline and faith engaged, Your military obedience, to dissolve Allegiance to the acknowledged Power Supreme? And thou, sly hypocrite, who now wouldst seem Patron of liberty, who more than thou Once fawned, and cringed, and servilely adored Heaven’s awful Monarch? wherefore, but in hope To dispossess him, and thyself to reign? But mark what I areed thee now: Avaunt! Fly thither whence thou fledst. If from this hour Within these hallowed limits thou appear, Back to the infernal pit I drag thee chained, And seal thee so as henceforth not to scorn The facile gates of Hell too slightly barred.”
So threatened he; but Satan to no threats Gave heed, but waxing more in rage replied: