Paradise Lost + Paradise Regained (2 Unabridged Classics + Original Illustrations by Gustave Doré). Джон Мильтон

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СКАЧАТЬ on the calmer wave by dubious light

      And like a weather-beaten Vessel holds

      Gladly the Port, though Shrouds and Tackle torn;

      Or in the emptier waste, resembling Air,

      Weighs his spread wings, at leasure to behold

      Farr off th’ Empyreal extended wide

      In circuit, undetermind square or round,

      With Opal Towrs and Battlements adorn’d

      Of living Saphire, once his native Seat;

      And fast by hanging in a golden Chain

      This pendant world, in bigness as a Starr

      Of smallest Magnitude close by the Moon.

      Thither full fraught with mischievous revenge,

      Accurst, and in a cursed hour he hies.

      Book III

      The Argument

      Table of Contents

      God sitting on his Throne sees Satan flying towards this world, then newly created; shews him to the Son who sat at his right hand; foretells the success of Satan in perverting mankind; clears his own justice and Wisdom from all imputation, having created Man free and able enough to have withstood his Tempter; yet declares his Purpose of grace towards him, in regard he fell not of his own malice, as did Satan, but by him seduc’t. The Son of God renders praises to his Father for the manifestation of his gracious purpose towards Man; but God again declares, that Grace cannot be extended towards Man without the satisfaction of divine justice; Man hath offended the majesty of God by aspiring to Godhead, and therefore with all his Progeny devoted to death must dye, unless some one can be found sufficient to answer for his offence, and undergoe his Punishment. The Son of God freely offers himself a Ransome for Man: the Father accepts him, ordains his incarnation, pronounces his exaltation above all Names in Heaven and Earth; commands all the Angels to adore him; they obey, and hymning to their Harps in full Quire, celebrate the Father and the Son. Mean while Satan alights upon the bare convex of this Worlds outermost Orb; where wandring he first finds a place since call’d The Lymbo of Vanity; what persons and things fly up thither; thence comes to the Gate of Heaven, describ’d ascending by stairs, and the waters above the Firmament that flow about it: His passage thence to the Orb of the Sun; he finds there Uriel the Regent of that Orb, but first changes himself into the shape of a meaner Angel; and pretending a zealous desire to behold the new Creation and Man whom God had plac’t here, inquires of him the place of his habitation, and is directed; alights first on Mount Niphates.

      HAIL holy light, ofspring of Heav’n first-born,

      Or of th’ Eternal Coeternal beam

      May I express thee unblam’d? since God is light,

      And never but in unapproached light

      Dwelt from Eternitie, dwelt then in thee,

      Bright effluence of bright essence increate.

      Or hear’st thou rather pure Ethereal stream,

      Whose Fountain who shall tell? before the Sun,

      Before the Heavens thou wert, and at the voice

      Of God, as with a Mantle didst invest

      The rising world of waters dark and deep,

      Won from the void and formless infinite.

      Thee I re-visit now with bolder wing,

      Escap’t the Stygian Pool, though long detain’d

      In that obscure sojourn, while in my flight

      Through utter and through middle darkness borne

      With other notes then to th’ Orphean Lyre

      I sung of Chaos and Eternal Night,

      Taught by the heav’nly Muse to venture down

      The dark descent, and up to reascend,

      Though hard and rare: thee I revisit safe,

      And feel thy sovran vital Lamp; but thou

      Revisit’st not these eyes, that rowle in vain

      To find thy piercing ray, and find no dawn;

      So thick a drop serene hath quencht thir Orbs,

      Or dim suffusion yeild. Yet not the more

      Cease I to wander where the Muses haunt

      Cleer Spring, or shadie Grove, or Sunnie Hill,

      Smit with the love of sacred song; but chief

      Thee Sion and the flowrie Brooks beneath

      That wash thy hallowd feet, and warbling flow,

      Nightly I visit: nor somtimes forget

      Those other two equal’d with me in Fate,

      So were I equal’d with them in renown,

      Blind Thamyris and blind Maeonides,

      And Tiresias and Phineus Prophets old.

      Then feed on thoughts, that voluntarie move

      Harmonious numbers; as the wakeful Bird

      Sings darkling, and in shadiest Covert hid

      Tunes her nocturnal Note. Thus with the Year

      Seasons return, but not to me returns

      Day, or the sweet approach of Ev’n or Morn,

      Or sight of vernal bloom, or Summers Rose,

      Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine;

      But cloud in stead, and ever-during dark

      Surrounds me, from the chearful waies of men

      Cut off, and for the Book of knowledge fair

      Presented with a Universal blanc

      Of Natures works to mee expung’d and ras’d,

      And wisdome at one entrance quite shut out.

      So much the rather thou Celestial light

      Shine inward, and the mind through all her powers

      Irradiate, there plant eyes, all mist from thence

      Purge and disperse, that I may СКАЧАТЬ