Read Online The Complete Poetry of John Milton by John Milton - Free Book Online Page B

1 and the wide-stretching realms / of the English, and now an inviolable covenant / had joined the English kingdoms with Caledonian Scots: / and the peace-maker, happy and rich, was seated [5] / on his new throne, untroubled by secret conspiracy or foe: / when the cruel tyrant 2 reigning over Acheron, which flows with fire, / the father of the Eumenides, the wandering outcast from celestial Olympus, / by chance strayed through the vast circle of the earth, / enumerating the companions of his wickedness and his faithful slaves, [10] / future participants of his rule after their woeful deaths. / Here he stirs ominous tempests in middle air; / there he contrives hatred among harmonious friends, / and arms invincible nations against mutual cordiality, / and turns flourishing kingdoms from olive-bearing peace; [15] / and whatever lovers of pure virtue he spies, / those he seeks to add to his empire, and master of guile, / he tries to corrupt the heart inaccessible to sin / and lays silent plots and stretches unseen snares, / so that he may assault the incautious, as the Caspian tigress [20] / pursues her anxious prey through the waste wildernesses / in the moonless night and under the stars winking in their drowsiness. / With like fears does Summanus 3 harass the people and the cities, / he, wreathed with a smoking tornado of blue flames. / And now the white coasts with their wave-resounding cliffs [25] / appear, and the land highly esteemed by the sea god, / to which Neptune’s son gave his name so long ago, / who, having sailed across the sea, did not hesitate to challenge / fierce Hercules with furious battle / before the unmerciful times of conquered Troy. 4 [30] /
    But as soon as he beholds this land blessed with wealth / and joyful peace, and with fields rich in the gifts of Ceres, / and, what pained him more, a people revering the sacred divinity / of the true god, at length he breaks into sighs / emitting Tartarean fires and ghastly sulphur. [35] / Such sighs does grim and monstrous Typhoeus, 5 enclosed by Jove / under Sicilian Aetna, breathe from his destructive mouth. / His eyes flash and his inflexible row of teeth / hisses like the crash of arms and the blow of spear against spear. / And then, “Throughout the travelled world I found this worthy of tears only,” [40] / he said; “this nation alone is rebellious toward me, / and contemptuous of my yoke and stronger than my art. / Yet if my attempts have power over anyone, it / shall not endure thus with impunity for long; it shall not go unavenged.” / No further did he speak, but floats away on pitch-black wings through [45] / the liquid air; wherever he flies adverse winds precede in a mass, / clouds are thickened, and repeated thunderbolts flash. /
    And now his speed has surmounted the frosty Alps, / and he reaches the borders of Italy; on his left side / was the stormy Apennine range and the ancient Sabines; [50] / on his right Etruria with its infamous magic potions, and besides / he sees the furtive kisses which you are giving to Thetis, 6 O Tiber; / next he stands still on the citadel of Quirinus, born of Mars. 7 / Already had evening twilight bestowed uncertain light, / when the wearer of the triple crown walks around the entire city, [55] / and carries the gods made of bread, and on men’s shoulders / is elevated; kings precede him on bended knee, / and a most lengthy train of mendicant brothers; / and unable to see, they bear wax candles in their hands, / those bom and enduring life in Cimmerian darkness. [60] / Next they enter the temples glittering with many torches / (it was that eve sacred to St. Peter) and the noise of those singing / often fills the hollow domes and the void of those places. / How Bacchus howls, and the followers of Bacchus, / chanting their orgies on Theban Aracynthus, 8 [65] / while astonished Asopus trembles under the glassy waves, / and afar off Cithaeron itself echoes from its hollow rock. /
    Then at last, these things