"Beelzebub. Fierce is the torturing flame,
And deep the flood of venom in my soul.
Madness rules all within,
And my forced sighs like peals of thunder roll,
Each glance is scorching lightning, and my tears
Red drops of fire! From my seared front I would
Shake back the serpent locks that shroud my face,
To look upon this boasted work of heaven—
On these new demigods!...
Spirits! the lustre of eternal day
For ever quenched for you, and every sun
That fires the empyrean! A lost, sorrowing race
Heaven deems you now. Ye who were wont to tread
The radiant pathways of the skies, now press
The fields of endless night. For golden locks
And mien celestial, slimy serpents twine
Around your brows, hiding the vengeful glance;
Your haggard lips are parted to receive
A hideous air—while on them blasphemies
Hang thick, and ever with the damning words
Escape foul fumes of hell."
The remainder of the picture, in its minuteness of horror, partakes too much of the prevailing want of taste which disfigured the best productions of the Italians of the seventeenth century. We select, of course, some of the striking passages of the poem, though we by no means include all its beauties in our extracts.
Then Satan says:
"In deep abodes
Of gloom, and horror, and profound despair,
Still are we angels! Still do we excel
All else, even as the haughty lord excels
The humble, grovelling slave. If we unfold
Our wings so far from heaven, yet, yet remember
That we are lords, while others wear the yoke;
That, losing in yon heaven a lowly seat,
We raise instead, stupendous and sublime,
A regal throne, whereon our chosen chief,
Exalted by high deeds, mocks at his fate!
As some vast mountain, bounded by the skies,
Murmurs its kindling wrath against high heaven,
Threatens the stars, and wields a mighty sceptre
Of lurid flame, consuming while it shines,
More deadly than the sun's intensest ray,
Even when his beams are brightest!"
Can we not discover in the above passage the same spirit that animates Milton's lines?
"What matter where, if I be still the same,
And what I should be, all but less than He
Whom thunder hath made greater? Here, at least,
We shall be free; the Almighty hath not built
Here for his envy; will not drive us hence;
Here we may reign secure; and, in my choice,
To reign is worth ambition, though in hell;
Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven!"
The same thought is expressed in Andreini's tragedy:
"Since greater happiness
It is to live, though damned, in liberty,
Than subject to be blest."
Act iv. sc. 2.
Lucifer, the chief, then discovers himself to his companions in iniquity, and addresses them: