The Argument
Lucifer, the Archangel, chief and most illustrious of all the Angels, proud and ambitious, out of blind self-love envied God His boundless greatness; he also became jealous of man, made in God's image, to whom, in his delightful Paradise, was entrusted the sovereignty of earth.
He envied God and man the more when Gabriel, God's Herald, proclaiming all Angels to be but ministering Spirits, revealed the mysteries of God's future incarnation, whereby, the Angels being passed by, the real nature of man, united with the Godhead, might expect a power and majesty equal to God's own. Wherefore, the proud and envious Spirit, attempting to place himself on an equality with God, and to keep man out of Heaven, through his accomplices, incited to arms innumerable Angels, and led them, notwithstanding Rafael's warning, against Michael. Heaven's Field-marshal, and his legions; and ceasing the fight, after his defeat, he caused, out of revenge, the first man, and in him all his descendants, to fall, while he himself, with all his co-rebels, was plunged into hell and eternal damnation.
The scene is in the Heavens.
Dramatis Personæ.
BELZEBUB, }
BELIAL, } Rebellious Chiefs.
APOLLION, }
GABRIEL, God's Herald of Mysteries.
CHORUS OF ANGELS.
LUCIFER, Stadtholder.
LUCIFERIANS, Seditious Spirits.
MICHAEL, Field-marshal.
RAFAEL, Guardian Angel.
URIEL, Michael's Armor-bearer.
ACT I.
Belzebub:
My Belial hence hath sped on aery wings
To see where lingers our Apollion,
Whom for such flight most fit Chief Lucifer
Hath sent to Earth that he might gain for him
A better sense of Adam's bliss, the state,
Where placed by Powers Omnipotent he dwells.
And lo! the time draws nigh that he return
Unto these courts. He cannot now be far.
A watchful servant heeds his master's glance
And, faithful, stays his throne with neck and shoulder. 10
Belial:
Lord Belzebub, thou Privy Councillor
Of Heaven's Stadtholder, he riseth steep
And wheels from sphere to sphere into our view;
The wind he passes by and leaves a track
Of light and splendor in his wake, where cleave,
His speedy wings the clouds; and now our air
He scents in other day and brighter sun,
Whose glow is mirrored in the crystal blue.
The heavenly globes beneath behold his flight,
As up he mounts, and each with wonder sees 20
His speed and godlike grace. He seems to them
No more an Angel but a flying fire.
No star so swiftly shoots. Behold him now,
Here upwards soaring, and within his hands
He bears a golden bough. The steep incline
He hath accomplished happily.
Belzebub:
What brings
Apollion?
Apollion:
I have, Lord Belzebub,
The low terrene observed with keenest eye.
And now I offer thee the fruits grown there
So far below these heights, 'neath other skies 30
And other sun: now judge thou from the fruit
The land and garden which even God Himself
Hath blessed and planted for mankind's delight.
Belzebub:
I see the golden leaves, all laden with
Ethereal pearls, the sparkling silvery dew.
What sweet perfume exhale those radiant leaves
Of tint unfading! How alluring glows
That pleasant fruit with crimson and with gold!
'Twere pity to pollute it with the hands.
The eye doth tempt the mouth. Who would not lust 40
For earthly luxury! He loathes our day
And food celestial, who the fruit may pluck
Of Earth. One would for Adam's garden curse
Our Paradise. The bliss of Angels fades
In that of man.
Apollion:
Too true. Lord Belzebub,
Though high our Heaven may seem, 'tis far too low,
For what I saw with mine own eyes deceives
Me not. The world's delights, yea, Eden's fields
Alone, our Paradise excel.
Belzebub:
Proceed.
We'll hear what thou shalt say. We'll hear together. 50
Apollion:
I'll pass my journey thither by nor tell
How downward sweeping through nine spheres I sped.
That swift as arrows round their centre whirl.
The wheel of sense revolves within our thoughts
Not with such speed, as I beneath the moon
And clouds dropped down. Where then aloft I hung,
On floating pinions, to survey that shore,
That Eastern landscape far that marks the face
Of that great sphere the flowing ocean rounds,
Wherein so many kinds of monsters swarm. 60
Afar I saw a lofty mount emerge,
From which a waterfall, fount of four streams,
Dashed with a roar into the vale below.
Headlong I steered my course oblique, with steep
Descent, until I gained the mountain's brow,
Whence, resting, all the nether world I viewed,
Its happy fields and glowing opulence.