Paradise Lost. Джон Мильтон

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       On duty, sleeping found by whom they dread,

       Rouse and bestir themselves ere well awake.

       Nor did they not perceive the evil plight

       In which they were, or the fierce pains not feel;

       Yet to their General's voice they soon obeyed

       Innumerable. As when the potent rod

       Of Amram's son, in Egypt's evil day,

       Waved round the coast, up-called a pitchy cloud

       Of locusts, warping on the eastern wind,

       That o'er the realm of impious Pharaoh hung

       Like Night, and darkened all the land of Nile;

       So numberless were those bad Angels seen

       Hovering on wing under the cope of Hell,

       'Twixt upper, nether, and surrounding fires;

       Till, as a signal given, th' uplifted spear

       Of their great Sultan waving to direct

       Their course, in even balance down they light

       On the firm brimstone, and fill all the plain:

       A multitude like which the populous North

       Poured never from her frozen loins to pass

       Rhene or the Danaw, when her barbarous sons

       Came like a deluge on the South, and spread

       Beneath Gibraltar to the Libyan sands.

       Forthwith, form every squadron and each band,

       The heads and leaders thither haste where stood

       Their great Commander—godlike Shapes, and Forms

       Excelling human; princely Dignities;

       And Powers that erst in Heaven sat on thrones,

       Though on their names in Heavenly records now

       Be no memorial, blotted out and rased

       By their rebellion from the Books of Life.

       Nor had they yet among the sons of Eve

       Got them new names, till, wandering o'er the earth,

       Through God's high sufferance for the trial of man,

       By falsities and lies the greatest part

       Of mankind they corrupted to forsake

       God their Creator, and th' invisible

       Glory of him that made them to transform

       Oft to the image of a brute, adorned

       With gay religions full of pomp and gold,

       And devils to adore for deities:

       Then were they known to men by various names,

       And various idols through the heathen world.

       Say, Muse, their names then known, who first, who last,

       Roused from the slumber on that fiery couch,

       At their great Emperor's call, as next in worth

       Came singly where he stood on the bare strand,

       While the promiscuous crowd stood yet aloof?

       The chief were those who, from the pit of Hell

       Roaming to seek their prey on Earth, durst fix

       Their seats, long after, next the seat of God,

       Their altars by his altar, gods adored

       Among the nations round, and durst abide

       Jehovah thundering out of Sion, throned

       Between the Cherubim; yea, often placed

       Within his sanctuary itself their shrines,

       Abominations; and with cursed things

       His holy rites and solemn feasts profaned,

       And with their darkness durst affront his light.

       First, Moloch, horrid king, besmeared with blood

       Of human sacrifice, and parents' tears;

       Though, for the noise of drums and timbrels loud,

       Their children's cries unheard that passed through fire

       To his grim idol. Him the Ammonite

       Worshiped in Rabba and her watery plain,

       In Argob and in Basan, to the stream

       Of utmost Arnon. Nor content with such

       Audacious neighbourhood, the wisest heart

       Of Solomon he led by fraud to build

       His temple right against the temple of God

       On that opprobrious hill, and made his grove

       The pleasant valley of Hinnom, Tophet thence

       And black Gehenna called, the type of Hell.

       Next Chemos, th' obscene dread of Moab's sons,

       From Aroar to Nebo and the wild

       Of southmost Abarim; in Hesebon

       And Horonaim, Seon's real, beyond

       The flowery dale of Sibma clad with vines,

       And Eleale to th' Asphaltic Pool:

       Peor his other name, when he enticed

       Israel in Sittim, on their march from Nile,

       To do him wanton rites, which cost them woe.

       Yet thence his lustful orgies he enlarged

       Even to that hill of scandal, by the grove

       Of Moloch homicide, lust hard by hate,

       Till good Josiah drove them thence to Hell.

       With these came they who, from the bordering flood

       Of old Euphrates to the brook that parts

       Egypt from Syrian ground, had general names

       Of Baalim and Ashtaroth—those male,

       These feminine. For Spirits, when СКАЧАТЬ