Latest / Philosophy and Faith / 18 - Paradise Lost - John Milton
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Book three, Part two. No sooner had the Almighty ceased,
- 0:05Speaker 1: but all the multitude of angels with a shout, loud
- 0:08Speaker 1: as from numbers without number, sweet as from blessed voices
- 0:13Speaker 1: uttering joy, Heaven rung with jubilee, and loud hosannas filled
- 0:18Speaker 1: the eternal regions. Lowly reverent, Towards either throne they bow,
- 0:23Speaker 1: and to the ground, with solemn adoration, down they cast
- 0:26Speaker 1: their crowns in wove with amorant and gold, immortal amorant.
- 0:31Speaker 1: A flower which, once in Paradise, fast by the tree
- 0:35Speaker 1: of life, began to bloom, but soon for man's offense
- 0:39Speaker 1: to Heaven, removed where first it grew, There grows and
- 0:43Speaker 1: flowers aloft, shading the fount of life, and where the
- 0:47Speaker 1: river of Bliss, through midst of Heaven rolls, or Elisian
- 0:51Speaker 1: flowers her amber stream. With these that never fade, the
- 0:55Speaker 1: spirits elect bind their resplendent locks in wreathed with beams.
- 1:00Speaker 1: Now in loose garlands, thick thrown off the bright pavement,
- 1:04Speaker 1: that like a sea of jasper shone impurpled with celestial roses, smiled,
- 1:09Speaker 1: then crowned again their golden harps. They took harps ever
- 1:13Speaker 1: tuned that glittering by their side like quivers hung and
- 1:17Speaker 1: with preamble suite of charming symphony, they introduced their sacred
- 1:22Speaker 1: song and waken raptures high no voice exempt, no voice,
- 1:27Speaker 1: but well could join melodious part. Such concord is in
- 1:30Speaker 1: heaven thee Father. First they sung omnipotent, immutable, immortal, infinite,
- 1:38Speaker 1: eternal King, THEE, Author of all being, fountain of light,
- 1:43Speaker 1: thyself invisible amidst the glorious brightness where thou sit'st throned inaccessible.
- 1:49Speaker 1: But when thou shadest the full blaze of thy beams,
- 1:53Speaker 1: and through a cloud drawn round about thee like a
- 1:56Speaker 1: radiant shrine, dark with excessive bright, thy gertz appear yet
- 2:01Speaker 1: dazzle Heaven that brightest Seraphim approached not but with both
- 2:06Speaker 1: wings veil their eyes. The next they sang of all creation,
- 2:11Speaker 1: first begotten Son, divine Similitude, in whose conspicuous countenance, without
- 2:17Speaker 1: cloud made visible, the Almighty Father shines, whom else no
- 2:22Speaker 1: creature can behold. On thee. Impressed, the effulgence of His
- 2:26Speaker 1: glory abides transfused on thee. His ample spirit rests he
- 2:32Speaker 1: Heaven of heavens, and all the powers therein by THEE
- 2:35Speaker 1: created and by THEE threw down the aspiring dominations. Thou
- 2:40Speaker 1: that day thy father's dreadful thunder didst not spare nor
- 2:44Speaker 1: stop thy flaming chariot wheels that shook Heaven's everlasting frame.
- 2:49Speaker 1: While o'er the next thou drovest of warring angels disarrayed
- 2:54Speaker 1: back from pursuit thy powers. With loud acclaim. THEE only
- 2:58Speaker 1: extolled Son of thy thy father's might to execute fierce
- 3:02Speaker 1: vengeance on his foes, not so on man him through
- 3:06Speaker 1: their malice fallen father of mercy and grace, Thou didst
- 3:10Speaker 1: not doom so strictly, but much more to pity incline.
- 3:15Speaker 1: No sooner did thy dear and only son perceive THEE
- 3:18Speaker 1: purposed not to doom frail man so strictly, but much
- 3:22Speaker 1: more to pity inclind. He to appease thy wrath and
- 3:26Speaker 1: end the strife of mercy and justice in thy face discerned,
- 3:30Speaker 1: regardless of the bliss wherein he sat second to THEE,
- 3:33Speaker 1: offered himself to die for man's offense. O unexampled love,
- 3:39Speaker 1: love nowhere to be found less than divine hail son,
- 3:43Speaker 1: of God, Savior of Man. Thy name shall be the
- 3:47Speaker 1: copious matter of my song henceforth, and never shall my
- 3:51Speaker 1: harp thy praise forget, nor from thy father's praise disjoin.
- 3:57Speaker 1: Thus they in heaven above the starry, their happy hours,
- 4:01Speaker 1: in joy and hemming, spent meanwhile upon the firm, opacous
- 4:06Speaker 1: globe of this round world, whose first convex divides the
- 4:10Speaker 1: luminous inferior orbs enclosed from chaos, and the inroad of darkness.
- 4:15Speaker 1: Old Satan alighted, walks a globe far off, it seemed,
- 4:21Speaker 1: now seems a boundless continent, dark, waste and wild, under
- 4:26Speaker 1: the frown of night, starless exposed and ever threatening storms
- 4:31Speaker 1: of chaos blustering round inclement sky, save on that side
- 4:35Speaker 1: which from the wall of heaven, though distant far, some
- 4:39Speaker 1: small reflection gains of glimmering air less vexed with tempest loud.
- 4:44Speaker 1: Here walked the fiend at large in spacious field, as
- 4:48Speaker 1: when a vulture on Immaeus bread, whose snowy ridge the
- 4:51Speaker 1: roving tartar bounds, dislodging from a region scarce of prey,
- 4:56Speaker 1: to gorge the flesh of lambs or yeeling kids on
- 4:59Speaker 1: hills where flocks are fed, flies toward the springs of
- 5:03Speaker 1: Ganges or Hidaspis Indian streams. But in his way lights
- 5:08Speaker 1: on the barren plains of Sarakhana, where Chineses drive with
- 5:11Speaker 1: sails and wind their caney wagons light so on this
- 5:15Speaker 1: windy sea of land. The fiend walked up and down alone,
- 5:19Speaker 1: bent on his prey. Alone. For other creature in this place,
- 5:23Speaker 1: living or lifeless, to be found was none, none yet
- 5:27Speaker 1: but store hereafter from the earth up hither like aerial vapors,
- 5:31Speaker 1: flew of all things transitory and vain, when sin with
- 5:35Speaker 1: vanity had filled the works of men, both all things vain,
- 5:39Speaker 1: and all who in vain things built their fond hopes
- 5:43Speaker 1: of glory or lasting fame, or happiness in this or
- 5:46Speaker 1: the other life. All who have their reward on earth,
- 5:50Speaker 1: the fruits of painful superstition and blind zeal, not seeking
- 5:54Speaker 1: but the praise of men, here find fit retribution empty
- 5:58Speaker 1: as their deeds. All the unaccomplished works of nature's hand, abortive, monstrous,
- 6:05Speaker 1: or unkindly mixed, dissolved on earth fleet hither and in
- 6:10Speaker 1: vain till final dissolution, wander here not in the neighboring moon,
- 6:15Speaker 1: as some have dreamed, those argent fields, more likely inhabitants
- 6:19Speaker 1: translated saints or middle spirits, hold betwixt theangelical and human kind,
- 6:24Speaker 1: hither of ill joined sons and daughters born first from
- 6:28Speaker 1: the ancient world. Those giants came with many a vain exploit,
- 6:32Speaker 1: though then renowned the builders next of Babel on the
- 6:36Speaker 1: plain of senne Are, and still with vain design new
- 6:40Speaker 1: Babbels had they wherewithal would build. Others came single, he
- 6:45Speaker 1: who to be deemed a god leaped fondly into Atina
- 6:48Speaker 1: flames Empodocles, and he who to enjoy Plato's Elysium, leaped
- 6:53Speaker 1: into the sea Cleombrotus, and many more, two long embryos
- 6:58Speaker 1: and idiots, Aramites and friars, white, black and gray, with
- 7:02Speaker 1: all their trumpery. Here Pilgrim's roam that strayed so far
- 7:07Speaker 1: to seek Ingolgatha hymn dead who lives in heaven, And
- 7:11Speaker 1: they who to be sure of paradise dying, put on
- 7:14Speaker 1: the weeds of dominic or in Franciscan think, to pass disguised.
- 7:19Speaker 1: They passed the planets seven, and passed the fixed and
- 7:23Speaker 1: that crystalline sphere whose balance weighs the trepidation talked, and
- 7:28Speaker 1: that first moved, And now Saint Peter at Heaven's wicket
- 7:32Speaker 1: seems to weight them with his keys. And now at
- 7:35Speaker 1: foot of Heaven's ascent, they lift their feet when low,
- 7:39Speaker 1: a violent cross wind from either coast blows them transverse
- 7:43Speaker 1: ten thousand leagues awry into the devious air. Then might
- 7:47Speaker 1: ye see cowls, hoods, and habits, with their wearers tossed
- 7:50Speaker 1: and fluttered into rags. Then relics, beads, indulgences, dispenses, pardons, bulls,
- 7:57Speaker 1: the sport of winds, All these up whirled aloft, fly
- 8:01Speaker 1: o'er the back side of the world, far off into
- 8:04Speaker 1: a limbo large and broad, since called the Paradise of
- 8:08Speaker 1: fools to few unknown. Long after, now unpeopled and untrod,
- 8:14Speaker 1: all this dark globe the fiend found as he passed,
- 8:18Speaker 1: and long he wandered, till at last a gleam of
- 8:20Speaker 1: dawning light turned thitherward. In haste his traveled steps far distant,
- 8:25Speaker 1: he descries, ascending by degrees magnificent up to the wall
- 8:29Speaker 1: of Heaven, a structure high at top, whereof but far
- 8:33Speaker 1: more rich appeared the work as of a kingly palace
- 8:36Speaker 1: gate with frontispiece of diamond and gold, embellished thick with
- 8:41Speaker 1: sparkling orient gems. The portal shone inimitable on earth by
- 8:46Speaker 1: model or by shading pencil drawn. The stairs were such
- 8:50Speaker 1: as whereon Jacob saw angels ascending and descending bands of
- 8:55Speaker 1: guardians bright. When he from esau fled to padan Arum
- 8:59Speaker 1: in the field of Lewes, dreaming by night under the
- 9:02Speaker 1: open sky, and waking, cried, this is the gate of Heaven.
- 9:07Speaker 1: Each stair mysteriously was met, nor stood there always, but
- 9:12Speaker 1: drawn up to Heaven, sometimes viewless, and underneath a bright
- 9:16Speaker 1: sea flowed of jasper or of liquid pearl, whereon who
- 9:20Speaker 1: after came from Earth sailing arrived wafted by angels, or
- 9:25Speaker 1: flew o'er the lake, wrapped in a chariot drawn by
- 9:28Speaker 1: fiery steeds. The stairs were then let down, whether to
- 9:32Speaker 1: dare the fiend by easy ascent, or aggravate his sad
- 9:36Speaker 1: exclusion from the doors of bliss direct against which opened
- 9:41Speaker 1: from beneath just o'er the blissful seat of Paradise, A
- 9:44Speaker 1: passage down to the earth, a passage wide, wider by
- 9:48Speaker 1: far than that of after times over Mount Zion, and
- 9:52Speaker 1: though that were large over the promised land to God,
- 9:56Speaker 1: so dear by which to visit oft those happy tribes
- 10:00Speaker 1: on high behests his angels to and fro passed frequent,
- 10:04Speaker 1: and his eye with choice regard from Panaeus the fount
- 10:07Speaker 1: of Jordan's flood to beare Saba, where the Holy Land
- 10:11Speaker 1: borders on Egypt, and the Arabian shore, so wide the
- 10:15Speaker 1: opening seemed where bounds were set to darkness, such as
- 10:19Speaker 1: bound the ocean wave Satan from Hence, now on the
- 10:23Speaker 1: lower stair that scaled by steps of gold to heaven Gate,
- 10:27Speaker 1: looks down with wonder at the sudden view of all
- 10:30Speaker 1: this world at once, as when a scout through dark
- 10:33Speaker 1: and desert ways, with peril gone all night, at last,
- 10:38Speaker 1: by break of cheerful dawn, obtains the brow of some
- 10:41Speaker 1: high climbing hill, which to his eye discovers, unaware the
- 10:45Speaker 1: goodly prospect of some foreign land first seen, or some
- 10:50Speaker 1: renowned metropolis with glistering spires and pinnacles adorned, which now
- 10:55Speaker 1: the rising sun gilds with his beams. Such wonder seized,
- 11:00Speaker 1: though after heaven seen the spirit Maligne. But much more
- 11:04Speaker 1: envy seas at sight of all this world beheld so
- 11:07Speaker 1: fair round, he surveys, and well might where he stood
- 11:12Speaker 1: so high above the circling canopy of night's extended shade,
- 11:16Speaker 1: from eastern point of Libra to the fleecy star that
- 11:19Speaker 1: bears Andromeda, far off Atlantic seas beyond the horizon. Then
- 11:24Speaker 1: from pole to pole he views in breadth, and without
- 11:27Speaker 1: longer pause, down right into the world's first region, throws
- 11:31Speaker 1: his flight precipitate, and winds with ease through the pure
- 11:35Speaker 1: marble air, his oblique way amongst innumerable stars that shone,
- 11:40Speaker 1: stars distant but nihand seemed other worlds, or other worlds
- 11:45Speaker 1: they seemed, or happy isles like those Hesperian gardens, famed
- 11:49Speaker 1: of old fortunate fields and groves and flowery vales, thrice
- 11:54Speaker 1: happy isles. But who dwelt happy there? He stayed not
- 11:58Speaker 1: to inquire. Above of them all the golden sun, in
- 12:01Speaker 1: splendor likest heaven, allured his eye. Thither his course he
- 12:06Speaker 1: bends through the calm firmament, but up or down by
- 12:09Speaker 1: center or eccentric hard to tell or longitude, where the
- 12:13Speaker 1: great luminary aloof the vulgar constellations thick that from his
- 12:18Speaker 1: lordly eye keep distance due dispenses light from far. They
- 12:23Speaker 1: as they move their starry dance in numbers that compute days, months,
- 12:27Speaker 1: and years towards his all cheering lamp, turn swift their
- 12:31Speaker 1: various motions, or are turned by his magnetic beam that
- 12:35Speaker 1: gently warms the universe, and to each inward part with
- 12:39Speaker 1: gentle penetration, though unseen, shoots invisible virtue even to the deep.
- 12:45Speaker 1: So wondrously was set his station bright there lands the fiend,
- 12:50Speaker 1: a spot like which perhaps astronomer in the Sun's lucent
- 12:54Speaker 1: orb through his glazed optic tube, yet never saw the
- 12:58Speaker 1: place he found beyond expression bright compared with aught on earth,
- 13:02Speaker 1: metal or stone, not all parts like, but all alike,
- 13:07Speaker 1: informed with radiant light, as glowing iron with fire. If
- 13:11Speaker 1: metal parts seemed gold, parts silver clear, if stone carbuncle
- 13:16Speaker 1: most or chrysolite, ruby or topaz to the twelve that
- 13:21Speaker 1: shone in Erin's breastplate, and a stone besides imagined rather
- 13:25Speaker 1: oft than elsewhere seen that stone or like to that
- 13:29Speaker 1: which here below. Philosophers in vein so long of sought
- 13:33Speaker 1: in vain, though by their powerful art they bind volatile
- 13:37Speaker 1: hermes and call up unbound in various shapes, old proteus
- 13:41Speaker 1: from the sea, drained through a limbeck to his native form.
- 13:45Speaker 1: What wonder, then, if fields and regions here breathe forth
- 13:48Speaker 1: elixir pure, and rivers run potable gold. When with one
- 13:53Speaker 1: virtuous touch the archchemic sun so far from us remote
- 13:57Speaker 1: produces with terrestrial humor mixed here in the dark, so
- 14:01Speaker 1: many precious things of color, glorious and effects so rare
- 14:06Speaker 1: here matter new to gaze. The devil met undazzled far
- 14:10Speaker 1: and wide. His eye commands for sight. No obstacle found here,
- 14:14Speaker 1: nor shade, but all sunshine, as when his beams at
- 14:18Speaker 1: noon culminate from the equator, as they now shot upward,
- 14:22Speaker 1: still direct, whence no way round shadow from body opaque
- 14:27Speaker 1: can fall, And the air nowhere so clear, sharpened his
- 14:31Speaker 1: visual ray to objects distant far whereby he soon saw
- 14:36Speaker 1: within can a glorious angel stand, the same whom John
- 14:40Speaker 1: saw also in the sun. His back was turned, but
- 14:43Speaker 1: not his brightness hid of beaming sunny rays. A golden
- 14:47Speaker 1: tire circled his head, nor less his locks behind, illustrious
- 14:52Speaker 1: on his shoulders, fledged with wings lay waving round on
- 14:55Speaker 1: some great charge employed he seem'd or fixed in cogitation,
- 14:59Speaker 1: dis glad was the spirit impure as now in hope
- 15:03Speaker 1: to find who might direct his wandering flight to paradise,
- 15:07Speaker 1: the happy seed of man, his journeys and and our
- 15:10Speaker 1: beginning woe. But first he casts to change his proper shape,
- 15:15Speaker 1: which else might work him danger or delay. And now
- 15:19Speaker 1: a stripling cherub, he appears not of the prime yet,
- 15:22Speaker 1: such as in his face youth smiled celestial, and to
- 15:26Speaker 1: every limb suitable grace diffused so well he feigned under
- 15:31Speaker 1: a coronet, his flowing hair in curls on either cheek,
- 15:34Speaker 1: played wings. He wore of many a colored plume sprinkled
- 15:38Speaker 1: with gold. His habit fit for speed, succinct, and held
- 15:42Speaker 1: before his decent steps a silver wand he drew not nigh,
- 15:46Speaker 1: unheard the angel bright ere he drew nigh, his radiant
- 15:50Speaker 1: visage turned admonished by his ear, and straight was known
- 15:54Speaker 1: there archangel Uriel, one of the seven, who, in God's presence,
- 15:59Speaker 1: nearest to his own, stand ready at command. And are
- 16:02Speaker 1: his eyes that run through all the heavens, or down
- 16:05Speaker 1: to the earth, bear his swift errands over moist and
- 16:08Speaker 1: dry or sea and land him Satan, thus accosts Uriel.
- 16:13Speaker 1: For thou, of those seven spirits that stand in sight
- 16:17Speaker 1: of God's high throne gloriously bright the first art, won't
- 16:20Speaker 1: his great authentic will interpreter through highest Heaven to bring
- 16:25Speaker 1: where all his sons thy embassy attend, and here art
- 16:29Speaker 1: likeliest by supreme decree, like honor to obtain, and as
- 16:33Speaker 1: his eye to visit oft this new creation round unspeakable
- 16:38Speaker 1: desire to see and know all these his wondrous works.
- 16:42Speaker 1: But chiefly Man his chief, delight and favor him, for
- 16:46Speaker 1: whom all these his works so wondrous he ordained, hath
- 16:50Speaker 1: brought me from the choirs of Cherubim alone. Thus wandering,
- 16:54Speaker 1: brightest Seraph, tell in which of all these shining orbs
- 16:58Speaker 1: hath man his fixed seat? Or fixed seat hath none
- 17:01Speaker 1: but all these shining orbs his choice to dwell, that
- 17:05Speaker 1: I may find him, And with secret gaze or open
- 17:08Speaker 1: admiration him behold on whom the Great Creator hath bestowed worlds,
- 17:13Speaker 1: and on whom hath all these graces poured that both
- 17:16Speaker 1: in him and all things, as is meet the universal Maker,
- 17:20Speaker 1: we may praise, who justly hath driven out his rebel
- 17:23Speaker 1: foes to deepest hell, and to repair that loss, created
- 17:27Speaker 1: this new happy race of men to serve him better.
- 17:30Speaker 1: Wise are all his ways, so spake the false dissembler, unperceived,
- 17:36Speaker 1: for neither man nor angel can discern hypocrisy, the only
- 17:40Speaker 1: evil that walks invisible, except God alone, by his permissive will,
- 17:45Speaker 1: through heaven and earth and oft. Though wisdom wake, suspicion
- 17:49Speaker 1: sleeps at Wisdom's gate, and to simplicity resigns her charge.
- 17:55Speaker 1: While goodness thinks no ill where no ill seems, which
- 17:58Speaker 1: now for once beguiled youth. Buriel, though regent of the
- 18:02Speaker 1: Sun and held the sharpest sighted spirit of all in heaven,
- 18:06Speaker 1: who to the fraudulent impostor fowl, in his uprightness answer
- 18:09Speaker 1: Thus returned fair Angel. Thy desire, which tends to know
- 18:14Speaker 1: the works of God, thereby to glorify the great work Master,
- 18:18Speaker 1: leads to no excess that reaches blame, but rather merit's praise.
- 18:22Speaker 1: The more it seems excess that led thee hither from
- 18:25Speaker 1: thy emperial mansion. Thus alone to witness with thine eyes
- 18:30Speaker 1: what some perhaps contented with report here only in heaven.
- 18:34Speaker 1: For wonderful indeed are all his works pleasant to know
- 18:37Speaker 1: and worthiest to be. All had in remembrance, always with delight.
- 18:42Speaker 1: But what created mind can comprehend their number, or the
- 18:46Speaker 1: wisdom infinite that brought them forth, but hid their causes.
- 18:50Speaker 1: Deep I saw when at his word the formless mass,
- 18:54Speaker 1: this world's material mold, came to a heap confusion heard
- 18:58Speaker 1: his voice, and wild uproar stood, ruled, stood, vast infinitude
- 19:04Speaker 1: confined till at his second bidding, darkness fled. Light shone,
- 19:09Speaker 1: an order from disorder, sprung swift to their several quarters hasted.
- 19:14Speaker 1: Then the cumbrous elements earth flood, air fire, and this
- 19:18Speaker 1: ethereal quintessence of heaven flew upward, spirited with various forms
- 19:23Speaker 1: that rolled orbicular and turned to stars, numberless as thou seest,
- 19:28Speaker 1: and how they move. Each had his place appointed, each
- 19:32Speaker 1: his course, the rest in circuit walls this universe. Look
- 19:37Speaker 1: downward on that globe whose hither side, with light from hence,
- 19:41Speaker 1: though but reflected, shines. That place is Earth, the seat
- 19:45Speaker 1: of man, that light his day, which else, as the
- 19:48Speaker 1: other hemisphere, night would invade. But there the neighboring moon,
- 19:52Speaker 1: so called that opposite fair star her aid timely interposes
- 19:57Speaker 1: and her monthly round, still ending, still newing through mid heaven.
- 20:02Speaker 1: With borrowed light, her countenance try form, hence fills and
- 20:05Speaker 1: empties to enlighten the earth, and in her pale dominion
- 20:09Speaker 1: checks the night. That spot to which I point is Paradise,
- 20:13Speaker 1: Adam's abode, those lofty shades, his bower thy way, thou
- 20:18Speaker 1: canst not miss me mine requires Thus said he turn'd
- 20:22Speaker 1: and Satan, bowing low as to superior spirits is wont
- 20:26Speaker 1: in heaven, where honor due and reverence none neglects. Took leave,
- 20:31Speaker 1: and toward the coast of Earth, beneath down from the ecliptic,
- 20:34Speaker 1: sped with hoped success, throws his steep flight in many
- 20:38Speaker 1: an airy wheel, nor stay'd till on nine eighty's top
- 20:41Speaker 1: he lights. End of Book three, Part two,