John Milton Briefly's Paradise Lost. John Milton and his poem "Paradise Lost"

The poet reflects on the reason for the disobedience of the first four people, who violated the only prohibition of the Creator of all things and were expelled from Eden. Enlightened by the Holy Spirit, the poet names the culprit of the fall of Adam and Eve: this is Satan, who appeared to them in the guise of the Serpent.

Long before God created the earth and people, Satan, in his exorbitant pride, rebelled against the King of Kings, drew part of the Angels into rebellion, but was cast down with them from Heaven to the Underworld, into the region of total darkness and Chaos. Defeated but immortal, Satan does not accept defeat and does not repent. He prefers to be the ruler of Hell rather than the servant of Heaven. Calling on Beelzebub, his closest ally, he convinces him to continue the fight with the Eternal King and do only Evil contrary to His sovereign will. Satan tells his minions that the Almighty will soon create new world and will populate it with creatures whom he will love equally with the Angels. If you use cunning, you can take over this newly created world. In Pandemonium, the leaders of Satan's army gather for a general council.

The leaders' opinions are divided: some are in favor of the war, others are against it. Finally, they agree with Satan’s proposal to check the truth of the ancient legend, which speaks of God’s creation of a new world and the creation of Man. According to legend, the time for the creation of this new world has already come. Since the path to Heaven is closed to Satan and his angels, they should try to take over the newly created world, expel or win over its inhabitants and thus take revenge on the Creator. Satan sets out on a perilous journey. He overcomes the abyss between Hell and Heaven, and Chaos, its ancient ruler, shows him the way to the new world.

God, seated on His highest throne, from where He sees the past, present and future, sees Satan, who flies to the new created world. Addressing His Only Begotten Son, the Lord predetermines the fall of Man, endowed with free will and the right to choose between good and evil. The Almighty Creator is ready to have mercy on Man, but first he must be punished for the fact that, having violated His prohibition, he dared to compare with God. From now on, man and his descendants will be doomed to death, from which only those who sacrifice themselves for their redemption can save them. To save the world. The Son of God expresses his readiness to sacrifice himself, and God the Father accepts it. He commands the Son to be incarnated in mortal flesh. The heavenly angels bow their heads before the Son and praise Him and the Father.

Meanwhile, Satan reaches the surface of the outermost sphere of the Universe and wanders through the dark desert. He passes Limbo, the Heavenly Gates and descends to the Sun. Taking the form of a young Cherub, he finds out from the Ruler of the Sun, Archangel Uriel, the whereabouts of Man. Uriel points him to one of the countless balls that move in their orbits, and Satan descends to Earth, to Mount Nifat. Passing the paradise fence, Satan in the guise of a sea raven descends to the top of the Tree of Knowledge. He sees the first couple of people and ponders how to destroy them. Having overheard the conversation between Adam and Eve, he learns that they are forbidden, on pain of death, to eat from the fruits of the Tree of Knowledge. Satan has an insidious plan ripening: to kindle in people a thirst for knowledge, which will force them to break the Creator’s prohibition.

Uriel, descending on a ray of sunshine to Gabriel, guarding Paradise, warns him that at noon the evil Spirit from the Underworld was heading in the form of a good Angel to Paradise. Gabriel goes on night watch around Paradise. In the bush, tired of the day's labors and the pure joys of sacred marital love, Adam and Eve sleep. The angels Ithuriel and Zephon, sent by Gabriel, discover Satan, who, in the guise of a toad, lurks over Eve’s ear in order to influence her imagination in a dream and poison her soul with unbridled passions, vague thoughts and pride. Angels bring Satan to Gabriel. The Rebellious Spirit is ready to enter into a fight with them, but the Lord shows Satan a heavenly sign, and he, seeing that his retreat is inevitable, leaves, but does not give up his intentions.

In the morning, Eve tells Adam her dream: someone like the celestials seduced her to taste the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge and she ascended above the Earth and experienced incomparable bliss.

God sends Archangel Raphael to Adam to tell him about man’s free will, as well as about the proximity of the evil Enemy and his insidious plans. Raphael tells Adam about the First Rebellion in Heaven: Satan, inflamed with envy because God the Father exalted the Son and called Him the anointed Messiah and King, drew legions of Angels to the North and convinced them to rebel against the Almighty. Only Seraphim Abdiel left the rebel camp.

Raphael continues his story.

God sent the Archangels Michael and Gabriel to speak out against Satan. Satan convened a Council and, together with his accomplices, came up with devilish machines, with the help of which he pushed back the army of Angels devoted to God. Then the Almighty sent his Son, the Messiah, to the battlefield. The Son drove the Enemy to the fence of Heaven, and when their Crystal Wall opened up, the rebels fell into the abyss prepared for them.

Adam asks Raphael to tell him about the creation of this world. The Archangel tells Adam that God wanted to create a new world and creatures to populate it after He cast Satan and his minions into Hell. The Almighty sent His Son, the All-Creating Word, accompanied by Angels to accomplish the work of creation.

Answering Adam's question about movement celestial bodies, Raphael carefully advises him to deal only with subjects that are accessible to human understanding. Adam tells Raphael everything he remembers from the moment of his creation. He confesses to the Archangel that Eve has inexplicable power over him. Adam realizes that, surpassing him external beauty, she is inferior to him in spiritual perfection, however, despite this, all her words and actions seem beautiful to him and the voice of reason falls silent before her feminine charm. The Archangel, without condemning the love pleasures of the married couple, nevertheless warns Adam against blind passion and promises him the delights of heavenly love, which is immeasurably higher than earthly. But to Adam’s direct question - how love is expressed among the heavenly Spirits, Raphael answers vaguely and again warns him against thinking about what is inaccessible to the human mind.

Satan, under the guise of fog, again penetrates Paradise and inhabits the sleeping Serpent, the most cunning of all creatures. In the morning, the Serpent finds Eve and with flattering speeches persuades her to eat the fruits of the Tree of Knowledge. He convinces her that she will not die, and talks about how, thanks to these fruits, he himself gained speech and understanding.

Eve succumbs to the Enemy's persuasion, eats the forbidden fruit and comes to Adam. The shocked husband, out of love for Eve, decides to die with her and also violates the Creator’s prohibition. Having tasted the fruits, the Progenitors feel intoxicated: consciousness loses clarity, and unbridled voluptuousness, alien to nature, awakens in the soul, which is replaced by disappointment and shame. Adam and Eve understand that the Serpent, who promised them inescapable delights and unearthly bliss, deceived them, and they reproach each other.

God sends his Son to Earth to judge the disobedient. Sin and Death, who previously sat at the Gates of Hell, leave their refuge, trying to penetrate the Earth. Following the tracks laid by Satan, Sin and Death build a bridge across Chaos between Hell and the new world.

Meanwhile, Satan in Pandemonium declares his victory over man. However, God the Father predicts that the Son will defeat Sin and Death and revive His creation.

Eve, in despair that a curse should fall on their offspring, invites Adam to immediately find Death and become its first and last victims. But Adam reminds his wife of the promise that the Seed of the Woman will erase the head of the Serpent. Adam hopes to appease God through prayer and repentance.

The Son of God, seeing the sincere repentance of the Forefathers, intercedes for them before the Father, hoping that the Almighty will soften his harsh sentence. The Lord Almighty sends the Cherubim, led by Archangel Michael, to expel Adam and Eve from Paradise. Before fulfilling the order of God the Father, the Archangel takes Adam to a high mountain and shows him in a vision everything that will happen on Earth before the flood.

Archangel Michael tells Adam about the future destinies of the human race and explains the promise given to the Ancestors about the Seed of the Woman. He talks about the incarnation, death, resurrection and ascension of the Son of God and how the Church will live and fight until His second Coming. The consoled Adam awakens the sleeping Eve, and Archangel Michael leads the couple out of Paradise. From now on, the entrance to it will be guarded by the flaming and constantly turning sword of the Lord. Guided by the providence of the Creator, cherishing in their hearts the hope of the future deliverance of the human race, Adam and Eve leave Paradise.

Retold

John Milton. "Paradise Lost"

JOHN MILTON. PARADISE LOST

Of Man's first disobedience, and the fruit Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste Brought death into the World, and all our woe, With loss of Eden, till one greater Man Restore us, and regained the blissful seat, Sing, Heavenly Muse, that on the secret top Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire That shepherd who first taught the chosen seed In the beginning how the heavens and earth Rose out of Chaos: or, if Sion hill 10 Delight thee more, and Siloa" s brook that flowed Fast by the oracle of God, I then Invoke thy aid to my adventurous song, That with no middle flight intends to soar Above th" Aonian mount, while it pursues Things unattempted yet in prose or rime. And chiefly Thou, 0 Spirit, that dost prefer Before all temples th" upright heart and pure, Instruct me, for Thou know"st; Thou from the first Wast present, and, with mighty wings outspread, 20 Dove-like sat"st brooding on the vast Abyss, And mad"st it pregnant: what in me is dark Illumine, what is low raise and support; That, to the height of this great argument, I may assert Eternal Providence, And justify the ways of God to men. Say first — for Heaven hides nothing from thy view, Nor the deep tract of Hell — say first what cause Moved our grand Parents, in that happy state, Favored of Heaven so highly, to fall off 30 From their Creator, and transgress his will For one restraint, lords of the world besides? Who first seduced them to that foul revolt? Th" infernal Serpent; he it was whose guile, Stirred up with envy and revenge, deceived The mother of mankind, what time his pride Had cast him out from Heaven, with all his host Of rebel Angels, by whose aid, aspiring To set himself in glory above his peers, He trusted to have equaled the Most High, 40 If he opposed and, with ambitious aim Against the throne and monarchy of God, Raised impious war in Heaven and battle proud, With vain attempt. Almighty Power Hurled headlong flaming from the ethereal sky, With hideous ruin and combustion, down To botomless perdition, there to dwell In adamantine chains and penal fire, Who durst defy th' Omnipotent to arms. Nine times the space that measures day and night 50 To mortal men, he, with his horrid crew, Lay vanquished, rolling in the fiery gulf, Confounded, though immortal; but his doom Reserved him to more wrath; for now the thought Both of lost happiness and lasting pain Torments him: round he throws his baleful eyes, That witnessed huge affliction and dismay, Mixed with obdurate pride and steadfast hate: At once, as far as Angel"s ken, he views The dismal situation waste and wild; 60 A dungeon horrible, on all sides round, As one great furnace flamed; yet from those flames No light, but rather darkness visible Served only to discover sights of woe, Regions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace And rest can never dwell, hope never comes That comes to all, but torture without end Still urges, and a fiery deluge, fed With ever-burning sulfur unconsumed . Such place Eternal Justice had prepared 70 For those rebellious; here their prison ordained In utter darkness, and their portion set, As far removed from God and light of Heaven As from the center thrice to th" utmost pole. Oh, how unlike the place from whence they fell!

John Milton's poem "Paradise Lost" is included in university history courses. foreign literature XVII-XVIII centuries and the history of English literature. Available literary works on this work in Russian require clarification and commentary, mainly related to the interpretation of the image of Satan and the setting current problems studying. The proposed materials invite you to observe the originality of the issues and genre features of the poem.

The main headings guide the student starting to study the text of the poem in its content and issues. Problems are proposed for discussion, each of which can be considered in more or less detail at the discretion of the teacher and in connection with the tasks posed at the seminar, as well as in connection with the inclinations and individual interests of students. Some of the proposed problems (1,3,6,7) make it possible to summarize the knowledge gained in courses on the history of foreign literature, to consider the work of J. Milton in a broader context, to see it in connection with problems relevant to contemporaries, to show how J. Milton is included in the development of Renaissance issues. All the problems posed are focused on working with the text of the poem, searching for answers in Milton’s formulations and ways of expressing the author’s thoughts.

Certain issues require an in-depth consideration of philosophical and linguistic problems reflected in the text of the poem. One of the most complex and interesting among them is the question of the nature of the Word - creative, Divine and given to rational creatures, which can be used at its discretion for good or evil. It is this aspect of the discussion that seems most attractive to us among students of linguists and philologists. And it is precisely this that we decipher, citing the possible course of the conversation.

PLOT DEVICES. KEY POINTS

Book I. The beginning of the first book serves as a Preface to the poem, which defines its problematics and time boundaries: it says that the work will consider events from the Fall of Man to the atonement of his guilt by Christ, who accepted death in the name of the salvation of Mankind. In fact, the time frame of the poem turns out to be shifted compared to the stated plan.

The narrative in it begins with the overthrow of Satan, who rebelled against God, from heaven, and then this boundary shifts to the moment of the creation of the world (Book VII) - this is the earliest of the events described. The action in the poem ends with the expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise (XII), and the latest information about life on Earth is contained in the story of the Archangel and barely reaches the Great Flood. Thus, it would be more reasonable to assume that, firstly, the author perceived “Paradise Lost” and “Paradise Regained” as a duology, which was preceded by a general Prologue; secondly, that it was more important for him to determine in the first lines the essence of what was happening - from the fall to salvation, and not its chronology.

In an effort to determine where the Fall began, the author turns to the moment of the overthrow of Satan and how, having recovered from many days of unconsciousness from the blow, the fallen angels hold a council on how to proceed.

Book II. During the council conducted by Satan, a new tactic of confrontation with Heaven is developed: to wage a hidden war, to try to destroy the harmony of the Divine plan, inclining the new creation of God - Man - to doubt and disobedience. To this end, Satan begins his journey to a new world. Having made his way to the gates of hell, which are guarded by Death (in English“death” is masculine) and Sin (in English “sin” is feminine), he promises to rescue both by giving them a new world, which he promises to find. Satan's flight begins with a fall into the abyss, from which he is pushed out by a passing comet; Only having received this strongest impulse does it cope with the immeasurable, insurmountable space and, with the greatest tension of its huge wings, levels its flight. Approaching the Divine world, he finds himself from the world of Chaos to the world of Nature, the idea of ​​which in Milton is associated with harmony and order.

Book III. The approach of Satan to the new world does not go unnoticed by God, who informs the Son that he knows about the plan of the Enemy and that He will allow this plan to be carried out: Satan will be allowed to penetrate the world of Man, whose perfection must be put to the test. It is immediately known that Man will not resist. But no matter how sorry the new creation may be, to interfere with events would mean to question the strict law of free will. Man has to survive the Fall and become mortal. He will be able to find Heaven again only on the condition that someone voluntarily gives their life for him. God the Son does not hesitate to offer his life in exchange for the salvation of Man and amazes the Father with his greatness.

Approaching the new world, Satan is amazed by its harmony. He reflects on how the world works, what role the Sun plays in it, and which of the shining balls is assigned to Man.

Book IV. Satan is amazed by the sight of Heaven on Earth. Beauty gives rise to repentance in him. But he persists in his arrogance and unwillingness to give in. The second strongest impression on him is the sight of the first people. He admits to himself that he is ready to love them for their perfection, but believes that it is his duty as the leader of the fallen angels to complete his plans. Satan hears the conversation of people at the Tree of Life, growing next to the Tree of Knowledge, ponders the prohibition associated with it and stops in his plans to kindle the thirst for Knowledge in people. His first attempt to influence Eve through a dream, instilling in her vague thoughts and annoyance, is not completed. His invasion is discovered by the Guardian Angels. Satan's attempt to win them over to his side, accusing them of servility before God, meets with a decisive rebuff: in response, he is accused of servility combined with hypocrisy:

And thou, sly hypocrite, who now wouldst seem Patron of liberty, who more than thou Once fawned, and cringed, and servilely adored Heaven's awful Monarch? Wherefore, but in hope To dispossess him, and thyself to reign? — 957— 961.

Book V. Eve tells Adam a dream in which Satan promised her that she would become a goddess by eating the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge. Adam discusses the role of Imagination in alliance with Reason and in opposition to it:

In thee can harbor none, Created pure. But know that in the soul There are many lesser faculties, that serve Reason as chief. Among these Fancy next Her office holds; of all external things, Which the five watchful senses represent, She forms imaginations, aery shapes, Which Reason, joining or disjoining, frames All what we affirm or what deny, and call Our knowledge or opinion; then retires Into her private cell when Nature rests. Oft, in her absence, mimic Fancy wakes To imitate her; but, misjoining shapes, Wild work produces oft, and most in dreams, III matching words and deeds long past or late. - 99-113.

Archangel Raphael comes to the first couple to answer Adam’s questions about the structure of the world and the nature of Man. He talks about the angelic essence, that angels have smell, touch, hearing and sight. They burn food, eliminating everything unnecessary, “transforming / the Corporeal into the incorporeal.” Raphael pronounces key words about the nature of Man:

God made thee perfect, not immutable And good he made thee; but to persevere He left it in thy power, ordained thy will By nature free, not over-ruled by fate Inextricable, or strict necessity. - 524-528.

In response to Adam’s questions about the Enemy, the Archangel talks about Satan’s dispute with Seraphim Abdiel about the nature of Power and exalting, worthy and humiliating submission:

Nature and the Lord One law says: He who has exceeded his subjects in Dignity is worthy to command. But true slavery is to serve a madman or a rebel, who rebels against the Master, who surpasses Him in everything. Per. Arc. Steinberg

Satanic doubt in the wisdom of the Divine law is based on the fact that no one remembers his birth, and comes down to disbelief that Angels were created by God, and were not spontaneously generated and are not equal to him in their primordial nature (853-871). Book VI. The only book written according to the laws of the classical heroic poem describes the battle of the heavenly armies with the army of Satan. Archangel Raphael tells Adam about the satanic plan to create super-powerful weapons from particles of matter extracted from the fiery bowels of the Earth, and its implementation (472-494). About how God the Son came to the aid of the Archangels, whose forces were in disarray under the pressure of new weapons, how victory was won and Satan was cast out of Heaven. This is how we return to the beginning of the poem.

Book VII. Archangel Raphael tells Adam about the emergence of the plan to create a new world and its implementation after the overthrow of Satan. Before God begins to create the world with the Word, God the Son will fulfill the general engineering plan:

So, stopping the flaming wheels Rotation, he took a golden compass, - A product of the Lord's workshops, - To outline the boundaries of the Universe And other created things; And, having established the tip in the center, the other end outlined a circle in the pitch darkness of the Boundless Abyss and commanded: - From now on, stretch to this line, world! Your circumference and border are here!— 224-231.

God creates the world with the Word, separating Light from Darkness (242-248), the Firmament from the Waters, and populates the world with plants, fish and animals. On the seventh day of creation, instead of the Word, music sounds (592-599).

The book ends with a praise to the Almighty, in which one of his greatest qualities is called the ability to turn evil into good. Book VIII. Adam tells the Archangel about his first impressions of the world, about how knowledge about the world and the nature of things entered into him. He wonders about the essence of Knowledge. The Archangel tells him about the wisdom of the structure of the world, about the incomprehensibility of the Divine plan and the futility of trying to know what God has not given to Man to know, about the wisdom of ignorance, the ability “not to poison / With anxious superstition - the delights / of a blissful life.” God only allows people to guess about the structure of the world and reveals his secrets, laughing at people’s attempts to understand them:

He left the entire universe to lovers of conjectures, perhaps wanting to laugh at them, at the pitiful superstition of learned men, at the fruitless futility of their future opinions, when they number the stars, begin to create models of speculative heavens and invent many systems, replacing one another, striving for verisimilitude give an imaginary one. - 72-82.

In a conversation with God, Adam, observing the pairing of all creatures, asks about his loneliness and receives the answer that he was created in the likeness of God, and he is one. Adam doubts the justice of what he heard (but his doubt is within the limits of faith) and claims that the Divine nature is perfect and self-sufficient, and the human nature seeks something similar to itself. God creates Eve for him. Adam reflects on the nature of earthly Love, its humanity.

Satan's reasoning about gaining Power is fundamentally different from what Seraphim Abdiel said about the nature of Power:

Anyone who wants to reach the pinnacle of power must be ready to grovel on his belly and reach the lowest point. Who aspires must down as low As high he soared, obnoxious, first or last, To basest things. - 169-171.

Getting used to the Serpent, Satan meets Eve and falsely tells her that he ate the fruits of the Tree of Knowledge and not only did not die, but also acquired the gift of the Word. Eve gives in to temptation. Most of all, she wants to become wise. She is going to hide her act from Adam, be blissful alone and be knowledgeable. But her existence is poisoned by the thought that she probably, as promised, became mortal, could die, and another wife would be created for Adam. She comes up with a decision: Adam must share her fate. Adam is overwhelmed by Eve's confession, but is ready to die with her. The earth groans at the Fall (782-784).

Before the Fall, Adam defines the essence of human nature and speaks of the impossibility of the penetration of Evil without his own will:

The danger lies, yet lies within his power; Against his will he can receive no harm. But God left free the Will; for what obeys Reason is free; and Reason he made right, But bid her well beware, and still erect, Lest, by some fair appearing good surprised, She dictate false, and misinform the Will To do what God expressly hated forbid. - 349-356.

Book X. In Heaven they grieve over the Fall of Man, but sorrow dissolves in deep compassion and does not disturb bliss. Changes occur in human nature:

Love was not in their looks, either to God Or to each other, but apparent guilt, And shame, and perturbation, and despair, Anger, and obstinacy, and hate, and guile. - 111-114.

God declares eternal enmity between people and snakes. He appoints Adam to earn bread by the sweat of his brow, and Eve to give birth in pain. God the Son dresses people in the skins of killed animals.

Separated by vast distances from Satan, Sin and Death feel that it is time for them to leave Hell and move to Earth, and they build the strongest bridge connecting Hell and Earth. Sin believes that by rejecting the world, the Creator handed it over to the power of Satan and now he will have to share his power. Satan returns to Hell, gives a speech in the throne room and expects applause, but instead hears the hiss of his comrades who have turned into snakes.

God says that he must let Death into the world in order to “lick all the abomination and devour the dirt” (629-632). With the advent of Death in the world, “the beast rose up / Against the beast, the birds rushed at the birds, / And the fish took up arms against the fish.” At the command of God, the angels shift the Earth's axis by 20 degrees, causing the climate to change and droughts and colds to reign.

Adam is executed by his fate and reproaches God for not asking him for his creation, and is ready to pray to be turned into dust. But he understands that he will have to accept his current living conditions, which he considers immeasurably difficult. He realizes that he would not have accepted such reproaches from his own son, since he would have brought him into the world not by desire, but by nature: “Yet him not thy election, / But natural necessity, begot” - 764-765. Adam is trying to understand what non-existence is and what the relationship between God and Death is: if God is the creator of all things, could he give birth to Death: “lest all I cannot die (...)/ who knows / But I shall die a living death? / Can he make deathless death?" - 783, 787-798. The realization comes that becoming mortal does not mean ceasing to exist at the moment of the Fall, but living with a terrifying sense of the finitude of one’s own existence: “death be not one stroke, as I supposed, / Bereaving sense, but endless misery." — 809-810.

Eve is ready to beg Heaven that only she be punished. She suggests that Adam should not have offspring, “outwitting the voracious Death,” or commit suicide without cowardly waiting for Death. But Adam remembers: God has ordained that Eve’s descendants will crush the head of the Serpent, which means that in order to take revenge on Satan, one cannot abandon the heirs.

Book XI. The couple's hearts brighten. God the Son says that the fruits suffered and born of the human heart are more valuable than the fruits of any of the trees of paradise. — 22-30. God makes it clear that He deprives Man of bliss not out of cruelty, but in order to heal the defect that arose during the Fall. - 57-71. And Death is delayed for the same thing: “Many days / Granted to you, so that you could, / Having repented, through good deeds / Correct evil.” - 254-255. At the same time, the Man is given advice “Too much / Do not cling with all your soul to things / Which you have no right to possess.” - 288-289.

In order to teach Adam to be wise in earthly existence, Archangel Michael shows him pictures of the future, life on Earth before the Great Flood, the vices that humanity will indulge in, and the many deaths that will have to be experienced. And talks about the art of living. The most cruel thing that awaits Man is the need to relive his youth, beauty and strength. Life will leave him drop by drop. Learning to live means being able not to fall in love with life, but also not to hate it: “Nor love thy life, nor hate, but what thou liv"st / Live well.” - 553-554. The main thing is to remember that it was “created / For the highest goal, pure and holy" (to nobler end, / Holy and pure, conformity divine." - 607-608). The Archangel shows Adam the life of the camp of “masters and admirers of the arts,” who meanwhile “disdain / Their Creator” and reject his gifts. The Archangel sees their “source of troubles / In the effeminacy of feminine men, / Who need (...) / To preserve their innate dignity.” - 634, 636. Then Adam has to see a tribe of warriors who perform “deeds of great heroism, but rejecting true virtues,” and he perceives the Great Flood poured out by God as a just act.

Book XII. Archangel Michael continues his story about the earthly existence of people, about the essence of the Fall and new sins before God. He talks about how people will plan to storm Heaven, wanting to become equal to God, they will begin to build the Tower of Babel, for which God will punish them by mixing languages, sending multilingualism and dissonance of incomprehensible words. - 370-379.

The Archangel explains to Adam that healing the flaws caused by the Fall will be painful. In response to the fact that Man rejected the highest true Freedom granted to him to voluntarily serve the forces of Heaven, “God / In retribution, will subject him from without / to the Tyranny of self-appointed leaders.” People “will be deprived of external freedom, after / When they lose, having sinned, / Internal freedom.”

The laws established by God only highlight the sinfulness of Man, but do not eradicate sins and do not atone for them. Redemption can only be brought by righteous blood shed for sinners. - 284-290. Laws exist only for earthly life and prepare for the perception of the eternal Truth during the transition from flesh to spirit - 297-299 - when the whole Earth will again become a Paradise that will surpass Eden. - 463-465.

Archangel Michael and Adam affirm and praise the ability of God, named at the end of Book VII, to transform Evil into Good. - 487-489, 565-573. Adam recognizes as the highest good “Obedience, love and fear / Give only to God (...) only on him / Depend.” - 561-564. Archangel Michael declares this understanding to be the highest Knowledge:

Having comprehended this, you have completely mastered the knowledge and do not have hopes for more, at least you learned the names of all the stars and all the ethereal forces, all the secrets of the abyss, everything that Nature has created, everything that is in the Sky, on the Earth, in the seas and air was created by the Almighty . - 575-581.

And he calls on Adam to reinforce this Knowledge with deeds and Love for others - “she is the soul / of Everything.” — 583. The Archangel names the qualities with the help of which a Man who has lost Paradise will be able to find “another / Within himself, a hundredfold blessed Paradise”:

Only add Deeds to your knowledge answerable; add faith; Add virtue, patience, temperance; add love, By name to come called Charity, the soul Of all the rest: then wilt thou not be loth To leave this Paradise, but shalt possess A Paradise within thee, happier far. - 581-587.

Eve talks about a dream God gave her that gave her peace. - 611-614. She considers it good to leave Paradise with Adam: “To remain alone is equal to / Losing Paradise.” Adam and Eve “Like wanderers, (...) hand in hand” leave Paradise: “They, hand in hand, with wandering steps and slow, / Through Eden took their solitary way.” - 648-649.

THEMATIC INDEX

Concept of God in the poem:

Fair. IV, 997-1000.

Omnipotent. II, 362-366, III, 372-374, 377.

All-seeing.

Capable of turning Evil into Good. VII, XII, 561-573.

Human Concept. IV, 287, 321, 360, V, 497, 524-534. IX, 344-356.

Human dignity. IV, 489-491, 618-619, XII, 69-71.

Free will. XII, 79-95, 561-573. Laws given by God. XII, 284-290, 297-299.

The purpose of a woman. IV, 635-648.

Human beauty. IX, 452-465.

The meaning of sleep. IV, 801-817, V, 107-123, XII, 595-596, 611-614.

The meaning of prayer. V, 471-490.

Attitude to Power. VI, 176-186, IX, 168-171, XII, 575-582.

Attitude to Knowledge. VII, 103-106, 121-130, VIII, 66-69-80. 100-110, 120-140, 182-187.

A person is aware of himself. VIII, 251-280.

A person gains speech. VIII, 271.

Attitude towards Love. I, 567-620, IX, 483-487, X, 111-114, 145, XII, 581-589.

Change in human nature during the Fall. IX, 1053-1058.

Changes in gender relations. X, 898-908.

Nature of Death.

The arrival of Death into the world. X, 710-715.

Adam about Death. X, 783-820.

ISSUES FOR DISCUSSION

1. The desire for universalism as a characteristic tendency of the English poetic worldview of the 17th century.

Description of the Universe in the poem. III, 418, 541, V, 620-627..

The idea of ​​a space capable of creating new worlds. I, 650.

Description of the Earth as a cosmic object (IV, 591, IX, 99-118), reacting to changes in human nature. IX, 782-784. Changes after the Fall. X, 668-675, 710-712.

3. Poem as a synthetic genre that combines the features of drama, lyricism and epic.

The main conflict of the work:

DRAMATIC

Traditions of morality: external, external conflict of Good and Evil in relation to Man;

The transition from morality to tragedy: transferring the conflict inside Man during the Fall. Evil penetrates into Man. Conflict of Faith and Doubt; discord between Feelings and Thoughts;

. the “middle” position of Knowledge in relation to Good and Evil;

Shakespearean traditions in the use of rhetorical devices in monologues:

Fallen angels on the council of Satan. I, 244—249—264. IX, 680-779;

Monologue of the Serpent tempting Eve;

Characteristics of characters through actions.

EPIC

Epic belonging to the clan, the desire and duty to protect it;

Hyperbolism as an indicator of epicness:

Spatio-temporal scale of the narrative;

Titanism of images. VI, 220.

Attention to the inner state of the characters, the world of feelings and emotions;

Correlation between the states of Man and Nature;

Traditions of English poetry in lyrical digressions poems;

The Fall as a transition from pastoral to tragedy (the possibility of a comic outlet: anti-pastoral as a parody genre of the 17th century).

A combination of images of Christian and pagan mythology as an indicator of recognition of the unity and historicity of humanity’s search for Truth.

4. System of comparisons and contrasts in the poem. Parallelism of images.

Nature and Chaos. II, 1051.

Physical blindness and inner insight. IV, 50-60.

Development of Shakespearean paradoxes: the inner insight of the blinded Gloucester and the gaining of understanding by the maddened Lear.

Doubt and Faith. Doubt as a path to betrayal. IX, 1140—1142.

The Creative Word of the Divine - VII, 171-242 - and the hand-made creations of man and Satan.

Construction of Satan's Palace. I, 670-675.

Creation of Satan's weapons. I, 725, VI, 472-491.

Shield of Satan. II, 282-290.

Satanic fear of non-existence - I, 253-263 - and the willingness of the Son-God to sacrifice himself for the salvation of Man.

The dream of Eve, inspired by Satan - V, - and the dream inspired by God - XII, 611-614.

Word and Music. Seventh day of creation.

5. Word, Name, Number and Time in the poem.

Creative Word. VII, 171-242.

Unspeakable. V, 564-566, 571-576, VII, 113-118.

Who names things?

Names erased for Eternity. VI, 373-385.

Human. VIII, 349-356.

The unnamability of the Deity. VIII, 351.

The myth of the Tower of Babel in the poem. XII, 13-62.

Number. VIII, 36-38.

About pairing, singularity and loneliness. VIII, 364-366, 369-375, 380-391, 419-421-430.

The intransmissibility of divine speed through Number and Time. X, 90-91.

The connection between Time and Death. X, 606.

6. Development of Renaissance issues in the poem:

The problem of differentiation and recognition of Good and Evil II 624-629;

Discussion of ways to fight Evil. IX, 756-759 IV 846-847;

The danger of doubt. The problem of a sharp mind.

7. The concept of sinfulness. Faces of Evil. Satan's advice.

CONCEPT OF THE WORD IN THE POEM. WHO GIVES NAMES TO THINGS

The word in the poem becomes an independent character. Belonging to God, it, like Light, is his attribute. In book VII, Archangel Raphael tells Adam about how God created the world with the Word, at the same time giving names to the most important things and phenomena:

"Let there be light!" said God; and forthwith light Ethereal, first of things, quintessence pure, Sprung from the deep, and from her native East To journey through the aery gloom began, Sphered in a radiant cloud — for yet the Sun Was not; she in a cloudy tabernacle Sojourned the while. God saw the light was good; And light from darkness by the hemisphere Divided: light the Day, and darkness Night, He named. - VII, 243-252.

Thus, it turns out that the Divine creative Word is qualitatively different from the name given to a thing - that word that is given by God to rational beings, including Man. The Archangel explains to Adam in words how the world was created, but his words, unlike the Divine Word, do not create, but only describe creation. At the same time, the Archangel recognizes that it is impossible to describe with a word given to Man and understandable to Man the power that the Divine Word possesses, the connection that exists between the Word of the Creator and the object or phenomenon it calls. Neither a number nor a word can describe the speed with which the Word turns into an object or phenomenon:

The swiftness of those circles attribute, Though numberless, to his omnipotence, That to corporeal substances could add Speed ​​almost spiritual. - VIII, 107-110.

Adam speaks about this same suddenness (sudden apprehension - VIII, 354), talking about how he became aware of things when he became acquainted with the world. And just like the Archangel, Adam claims that not everything Divine can be expressed in words: Adam is given the ability to feel the happiness of being, but is not given the ability to express his state in words (I... feel that I am happier than I know. - VIII, 282). The same difficulty arises when the Archangel needs to tell, at the request of Adam, about the battle of Heaven with the hordes of Satan:

How shall I relate To human sense th" invisible exploits Of warring Spirits? - V, 564-566.

Milton forces the Archangel to find a way out in comparisons - a poetic device actively developed by the poetry of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. And use a familiar and proven rationale:

What surmounts the reach Of human sense I shall delineate so, By likening spiritual to corporal forms, As may express them best — though what if Earth Be but the shadow of Heaven, and things therein Each to other like, more than on Earth is thought ? - V, 571-576.

The division of the Word into the Divine and the Human, apparently, served to embody the general plan of the Creator, who deliberately separated the Heavenly from the Earthly in order, according to Raphael, not to tempt Man and to stop his arrogance in the desire to understand what he cannot consciously understand:

God, to remove his ways from human sense, Placed Heaven from Earth so far, that earthly sight, If it presumes, might err in things too high, And no advantage gain.— VIII, 119-122.

The Archangel tells Adam that wisdom consists in “not poisoning / With anxious vanity the delights / of a blissful life, from which God / Has removed worries and worries, / Commanding them not to approach us, / Until we ourselves attract them / With empty dreams and the vanity / of superfluous knowledge.” “Vanity thought, / Untamed imagination” (VIII) is what prevents a Man from being happy. Raphael is trying to teach Man how to use words correctly. And the basis of his teaching is the advice not to ask yourself unnecessary questions. Having come with an order to answer Adam’s questions, the Archangel conveys some information about the structure of the world in a questioning form, as a guess that is worth comprehending and thinking through:

What if the Sun Be center to the World, and other stars, By his attractive virtue and their own Incited, dance about him various rounds? - VIII, 122-125.

The Archangel uses a human word that does not create, but describes. And he does it masterfully: objects created by the Creator acquire movement, dynamics, color, and smell in his story. His ability to talk about what he saw, the richness of the Archangel’s story with details, on the one hand, make it obvious that he was present at the Creation of the World, everything happened before his eyes, on the other hand, bringing together the positions of Adam the listener and the readers of the poem, allows them to imagine the creation process in detail Earth. The picturesqueness of the Archangel's story is Divine - he does not play with the Word, but strives to be precise.

The Creator not only gives Man a word, but also entrusts him with the right to give names to things. Adam talks about his first feelings and impressions about the world, about the need to speak and its acquisition:

Then speak I tride, and forthwith spake; My tongue obeyed, and readily could name Whater"er I saw. - VIII, 271-273.

Along with naming, Adam’s story states, came an understanding of the essence of things, given by God:

I named them as they passed, and understood Their nature; with such knowledge God endued My sudden apprehension. - VIII, 352-354.

Adam fails to name only the Creator, since none of the names that come to him embrace his entire essence, does not contain him completely. And Adam turns to the Creator with the question of how he should be called:

"Oh, by what name - for thou above all these, Above mankind, or aught than mankind higher, Surpasses! far my naming - how may I Adore thee. Author of this Universe..." - VIII, 357-360.

Knowing the names of things does not always guarantee knowledge of the essence, comprehension of the truth. Let us remember that Archangel Michael considered it more important for Man to understand the need for voluntary submission to the Divine principle than the ability to name stars and worlds:

This having learned, thou hast achieved the sum Of wisdom; hope no higher, though all the stars Thou knew"st by name, and all th" ethereal powers, All secrets of the deep, all Nature's works, Or works of God in heaven... - XII, 575-579.

But sometimes a name reveals the essence of a phenomenon and gives an understanding of the truth. So, talking about how Adam must strive for redemption and build Paradise in his soul, Archangel Michael announces that this can be done with the help of Love, but the one called mercy, Love for one’s neighbor: “add love, / By name to come called Charity." - XII, 583-584. This is not love for oneself, not love for a woman and not love for life, but rather love for one’s responsibilities - the ability to help, make the lives of loved ones easier and delight them. To the ear, Charity is consonant with the word Cherubim (cherub - Heb. Kerubim - guardian angel). To become a guardian of life, a guardian angel of your loved ones - a fate worthy of a Man - this is what the essence of the word says, which is not equal to the word Love, which has its own circle of use. The word is also consonant with the Greek. Charites, the meaning of the root word is the same - “mercy”, “kindness”. This was the name of the beneficent goddesses, the daughters of Zeus.

IS IT POSSIBLE TO PLAY WITH WORDS

The fate of the Word in the poem is dramatic. The word with which intelligent beings are gifted by the Creator belongs to the angels, including the fallen.

The talking Satan is a particularly dramatic figure, fundamentally different from Dante's Lucifer, terrible but dumb. Dante's Lucifer is deprived of the Divine attribute - the word, although in the hell he depicts there is possible Light and fires that are absent in Milton's kingdom of Darkness. When the fallen angels manage to illuminate the palace of Satan, they kindle artificial fires - smoking and fetid, not related to the Divine Light. But all fallen angels are endowed with the gift of speech, and the entire depth of their fall is expressed in the word, in the determination to play with it, turning it into evil. It is the play with words that constitutes the essence of the tragedy of the fall, and it is by playing with the word that the fallen angels are confirmed in sin, justifying themselves in their own eyes.

The skill of the author of the poem in recreating the false greatness of the fallen angels excommunicated from the Supreme Harmony was so high, the play on the words of those speaking at the council of Satan was so skillful, that it deceived the English romantics, who believed that Milton acted as a supporter of Satan, praising rather than condemning him.

Speeches of Archangel Raphael, depicting the Creation of the World, and fallen angels seeking justice in their crime. become an illustration of the Renaissance debate about the nature of eloquence: is the art of speech intended to clarify a thought, make it bright and demonstrative, or does it only lead away from the essence, obscuring the truth. The dispute ended with the assertion that eloquence can be neither bad nor good in itself, but serves bad or good purposes and people.

Milton also solved a more complex problem. He manages to identify and demonstrate the special properties of the Word:

1. Remaining Divine in nature, the Word cannot lie. The Word used for Lies is spoken with Truth. It is impossible to deceive a rational being with a word without his own will, his own desire to be deceived. Pushkin’s light “I myself am glad to be deceived” in Milton’s poem turns into Satan’s gloomy insistence on his Lie, Moloch’s tragically desperate attempt not to lie to himself and directly answer the question of what non-existence means, which can become a real threat to the immortals storming Heaven again; the inventive flexibility of Mammon’s rhetoric, striving to “turn harm / into benefit.” - I, 249-264; Eve's flirtatious recklessness, which was expressed in her desire to taste Lies.

Let us turn to Mammon's monologue at the council of Satan. - I, 229-283. He finds and uses argument after argument to justify his cowardly position: there is no point in fighting an invincible enemy. He finds a beautiful move that allows him to maintain his dignity: there is no need to storm Heaven, you need to build a new peaceful life and draw goodness from yourself:

Let us not then pursue, By force impossible, by leave obtained Unacceptable, though in Heaven, our state Of splendid vassalage; but rather seek Our own good from ourselves... - II, 249-253.

A high, worthy position? But the Word begins to lead him, and Mammon blurts out: “and from our own / Live to ourselves.” - II, 253-254. And in this “life for oneself” the whole tragedy of abandonment by God, separation from the highest harmony breaks through, the proof of which will be the monumental, magnificent, but devoid of beauty (as the beginning of the Divine), built by the fallen angels of Satan’s palace. The position that Mammon will formulate - “live for oneself” - contradicts the epic poem’s emphasis on belonging to a clan and the desire to protect it; it is dangerous even in the camp of Satan, which becomes an independent clan demanding unity. This attitude will also be opposed to the one that Archangel Michael will advise Adam to cultivate in his soul, that very Charity - mercy, the ability to live for another, at the same time feeling and remembering that your existence is filled with a higher meaning: dedicated to finding lost harmony.

2. The word can be used for evil. They can push you towards Doubt, which will lead you astray from the path of Faith. A word used for a Lie will certainly give rise to more and more Lies. Once having served the Lie, the Word begins to change the concept of the world and create a new one, false world, in which all foundations and concepts change.

Milton creates and develops the myth of the Divine Word and feels himself to belong to this myth. In the poem, the image of the author appears - a servant of the Divine Word. Evidence of this is the use of the odic myth about poetic delight in the Prologue of the poem. The author seeks divine inspiration not in prayer or meditation. He turns to the Heavenly Muse and enlists the help of the poetic tradition, realizes his involvement in it and thereby extends to any poetic word such qualities as truth and veracity.

Something paradoxical arises in the text of the poem when, having told with high poetic skill in Book VI about the battle of the Heavenly Armies with the hordes of Satan, at the beginning of Book IX Milton declares: “I have no inclination to describe the war” (Not sedulous by nature to indite / Wars. - IX, 27-28). And this does not express the inability to look at one’s work as a complete whole and to bring together the individual written parts. Thus, the strict need to clearly identify the most important topic poem: the main thing in it is not the battle, not open confrontation. By defining his poem as heroic (IX, 20-37), Milton separates himself and his creation from traditional heroic poems, for which military exploits were “the only subject” of chanting. The main thing for the author is to be able to talk about inner greatness, which lies in the ability not to lie to oneself. This is what the Son of the Creator possesses, who without hesitation offers his life in exchange for the salvation of Man. Behind his faith that the Father will not leave him, will resurrect him, will return him, is not cunning cowardice, not cunning, but strength.

To introduce the poem by J. Milton into the broader literary and artistic context and identify its originality in the development of the problems chosen by the author, the conversation can be continued, the range of problems expanded and deepened. Any of the questions formulated as additional may be proposed for consideration.

Comparative questions are intended to highlight both the genre originality of the poem and the features of the specific historical moment of its creation. The differences between the concepts of sinfulness of Dante and Milton make it possible to judge what changes have occurred in public consciousness in relation to universal human problems and values, and what distinguishes the view of man in the 17th century from the view of the medieval one.

Comparison makes it possible to feel that the two points of view require different artistic means for its implementation. Comparative analysis can be continued along the path of identifying genre originality each of the works, comparing the uniqueness of their problematics and means of artistic expression.

Current page: 1 (book has 16 pages in total)

John Milton
Lost Paradise

BOOK ONE

Book One first briefly outlines the theme of the work: the listening of Man, as a result of which he lost Paradise - his abode; then the reason for the fall is indicated: the Serpent, or rather Satan in the guise of the Serpent, who rebelled against God, drew countless legions of Angels into rebellion, but was, by God’s command, cast down from Heaven along with all the hordes of rebels into the Underworld.

Having mentioned these events, the poem immediately moves on to the main action, introducing Satan and his Angels in Hell. What follows is a description of Hell, which is not located in the center of the Earth (heaven and Earth, presumably, have not yet been created, and therefore, the curse does not yet weigh on them), but in the region of pitch darkness, or rather, Chaos. Satan with his Angels lies in a boiling lake, humiliated, defeated, but soon, waking up from the shock, he calls on a comrade-in-arms, the first after himself in rank and dignity. They talk about their unfortunate situation. Satan awakens all the legions, which until now were also in stupor and unconsciousness. Countless, they rise and form into battle formations; their main leaders bear the names of idols later known in Canaan and neighboring countries. Satan turns to his comrades, consoles them with the hope of reconquering Heaven and informs them of a new world and a new kind of creatures, which, as the ancient prophecies and traditions of the Kingdom of Heaven say, must be created; Angels, according to the opinion of many ancient Fathers, were created long before the appearance of visible beings.

In order to ponder this prophecy and determine further actions, Satan orders a general council to be assembled.

His comrades agree with him. From the abyss of darkness arises Pandemonium - the palace of Satan. The nobles of hell sit there and confer.

About the first disobedience, about the fruit

Forbidden, destructive, which brought death

And all our misfortunes in this world,

People were deprived of Eden, for the time being,

When the Greatest Man

Restored, blessed Paradise returned to us, -

Sing, Mountain Muse! Come down from the heights

Mysterious Sinai and Horeb,

Where was the shepherd inspired by you,

Initially teaching his people

The emergence of Heaven and Earth

From Chaos; when you feel better

Zion Hill and the Key of Siloam,

The realm of God's words, I call

Help from there; my song

Dared to fly over Helikon,

Aspiring to sublime objects,

Untouched either in prose or in poetry.

But first you, O Holy Spirit! - you to the temples

Do you prefer pure hearts, -

Instruct me with your omniscience!

You, like a dove, have soared from time immemorial

Above the abyss, making it fruitful;

Fill my darkness with light, elevate

Everything perishable is in me, so that I can

Find decisive reasons

And prove the goodness of Providence,

Having justified the ways of the Creator before creation.

Open first, for Hell and Heaven

Equally accessible to Your gaze, -

What prompted the first couple

In the happy canopy, among the blissful bushes,

So sought by the mercy of Heaven,

Who betrayed the Universe into her power,

Deny the Creator, His prohibition

The only one to break? - Hellish Serpent!

Yes, it’s him, envying and taking revenge,

He seduced our foremother with flattery;

The insidious Enemy, brought down from the heights

With my own pride, together with the army

The rebel angels whom he

Headed, with whose help the Throne

I wanted to shake the Almighty

And to become equal with the Lord, having outraged

Heavenly squads; but the struggle

It was in vain. Almighty God

The angry headlong overthrew the obstinate ones,

Engulfed in flames, into bottomless darkness,

To suffer in adamantine chains

And eternal, punishing fire,

For their armed, daring rebellion.

Nine times the time is up

Which serves as the measure of day and night for mortals,

While in cramps, with my horde,

The Enemy rushed about on fiery waves,

Broken, even immortal. Rock doomed

Him for the bitterest execution: for sorrow

About irrevocable happiness and thoughts

About eternal torment. He has now circled

Gloomy eyes around;

They harbored both hatred and fear,

And pride, and immense melancholy...

Instantly, which is given only to Angels,

He looked around the deserted country,

A prison where a fire burned like in an oven,

But it did not shine and the visible darkness

Or rather it was, flickering only then,

To reveal pitch darkness to your eyes,

Valley of sorrow, kingdom of grief, land,

Where there is no peace and quiet, where

Hope, close to everyone, is barred from the path,

Where there is endless torment and fierce heat

Bubbling, inexhaustible streams

Flowing sulfur. This is the shutter

Here the Eternal Judge has prepared

To the rebels, in the midst of complete darkness

And Lord, than the farthest pole

It is far from the center of the Universe.

How incomparable with the previous height,

Where did their fall come from!

He sees his accomplices

In the sultry surf, in a burning whirlwind of sparks,

And next to him is a peer who was second

By rank and villainy, and later

He was revered in Palestine as Beelzebub.

The arrogant Archenemy called to him,

Henceforth called Satan,

And the terrible soundlessness was dissolved

With such bold words:

"Are you in front of me? Oh, how low you have fallen

The one who eclipsed with his radiance

The radiance of radiant myriads

In the celestial spheres! If it's you

By a common union, by one plan,

Hope, trials in battles

And connected with me by defeat, -

Look at the abyss from above

We've collapsed! Its mighty thunder

Until now it was unknown to anyone.

Brutal weapon! But let

The Almighty Conqueror is upon me

Anything is up! - I won’t bend

And I won’t repent, even if my shine fades...

My determination has not yet run out

In the consciousness of my trampled

Dignity, and proud anger boils,

He commanded me to rise to battle with Him

Rebellious Spirits are riotous regiments,

Those who despised His arbitrariness,

Choosing me as leader. We are unsuccessful

They tried to shake His Throne

And they lost the fight. So what?

Not everything died: the fuse was preserved

Indomitable will, along

With immense hatred, thirst for revenge

And courage - not to give in forever.

Isn't this a victory? After all, we have

What remains is what He cannot

Neither rage nor force to take away -

Unfading glory! If I

An enemy whose kingdom was shaken

From fear of this hand,

I would beg on my knees for mercy, -

I would be embarrassed, I would be ashamed

I would have covered myself and the shame would have been worse,

Than overthrow. By the will of fate

Imperishable is our empyrean composition

And strength equal to God; having passed

The crucible of battles, we have not weakened,

But we have hardened ourselves and are now more faithful

We have the right to hope for victory:

In the coming battle, using cunning,

Having exerted strength, overthrow the Tyrant,

Which today, celebrating triumph,

Rejoices in Heaven autocratically!"

So the fallen Angel, overcoming grief,

He boasted out loud, his despair melting.

His brother answered him bravely:

"- O Prince! Head of the porphyry-bearing forces,

Leader of the Seraphim fighting armies,

Those who threatened the throne of the Eternal King

Acts that inspire fear

To experience His greatness

Supreme: is it stored?

Whether by chance, force or Fate.

I see everything and am bitterly crushed

A terrible defeat for our troops.

We are driven from the heights, defeated,

Overthrown, as far as

It is possible to defeat the godlike

Sons of Heaven; but the spirit, but our mind

Not broken, but the power will return again,

Though our glory and former delight

Suffering consumed forever.

Why is the Winner (I admit

His omnipotent; because he couldn't

The weakest force can overcome ours!)

Has he left us with spirit and strength? To make it stronger

We were tortured, satisfying revenge

His ferocious one? Or like slaves

They worked hard, according to the laws of war,

Helpers in Hell, in the scorching fire,

Messengers in the bottomless, dark darkness?

What's the use of our eternal existence?

And our strength, eternally unchanging,

Are we destined to be tormented forever?"

The Apostate immediately objected to him:

"Whether in suffering or in struggle, woe to the weak,

O fallen Cherub! But know, for Good

We will not strive from now on.

We will be happy doing only Evil,

Contrary to his sovereign will.

And if by your Providence

He will grow the grain of Good in our Evil,

We must pervert the good outcome,

Having found the source of Evil in His Good.

Our success will be more than once

He is sad; I believe that more than once

We are His hidden will

We'll lead you astray, away from your goal...

But look! Ferocious Avenger recalled

To the gates of Heaven for their punishers.

Scorching hurricane and sulfur hail,

Those who scourged us when from the heights

We fell into a bubbling fire,

Run out. Inspired by lightning

And furious anger, thunder strikes

Apparently he emptied his quiver,

Quiet gradually, and already

It doesn't rage like that. You can't miss it

Happy opportunity that I left

Satisfied in mockery or anger,

Our enemy. Here is the bare, ruined land,

The abode of sorrow, where there is a slight draft,

Flashing a dead light in the dark

A flickering flame. We'll find it here

Shelter from the heaving shafts

And rest, if it exists here,

Let's reassemble the broken troops,

Let's discuss how to annoy us more

To the enemy and cope with trouble,

In hope - strength or, finally,

In despair - the determination to draw!"

Thus spoke Satan. He raised

Head over the abyss; his eyes

Sparks were thrown; floated behind

Monstrous body, lengthwise

Equal to the Titans or the Earthborn -

To the enemies of Jupiter! Like Briareus,

Son of Poseidon, or as Typhon,

He lived in a cave near Tarsus,

Like the giant of the seas - Leviathan,

When near the Norwegian coast

He is sleeping, and the belated helmsman,

Mistaking it for an island, between the scales

Drops anchor, protecting the boat

From the wind, and stands until dawn

The sea will not smile in the morning, -

So the Archenemy lay down on the waves,

Chained to the abyss. Never

He couldn't move his head

Without permission from above. Providence

Gave him room for dark deeds

And new crimes, so that

He brought a curse upon himself again,

I was tormented, seeing that any Evil

For infinite good, for Good

The human race is being transformed,

He who is seduced by him will be spared

By great mercy, but threefold

Retribution will fall on the Enemy.

Huge, he rose from the fire,

Having driven back two sulfur shafts;

Their swirling crests, roll out,

They formed an abyss, but the swimmer

Soared on wings into the twilight air,

Having taken on an unusually heavy load,

And flew to land, when to call

Perhaps by land - hardened heat,

While the liquid heat smoldered in the abyss.

The soil takes on the same color

When an underground storm tears down the hill

From the peaks of Pelor, or the edge of the rocks

Thundering Etna, whose insides are full

Flammable, explosive substances,

And through mineral forces,

Outwardly erupted from the depths

Inflamed, and behind,

Smoking and smoldering, the bottom remains

Stinking. That's what the fifth damn

The Enemy has groped! His comrade-in-arms follows him.

The proud rejoiced in vain.

Believing that they had escaped from the Stygian waters

They are like gods - their own

With newfound strength, flatly

Denying the arbitrariness of Heaven.

“Is this the vale we have changed to,”

The fallen Archangel said, - Heaven

And the light of Heaven on the darkness? So be it!

He is omnipotent, and might is always right.

Not by reason, but by strength; otherwise

We are equal. Farewell, blessed land!

Hello, sinister world! Hello,

Gehenna is beyond! Accept

A master whose spirit will not be frightened

Neither time nor space. He's in himself

Found my space and create

In yourself from Heaven - Hell and Heaven from Hell

He can. Wherever I am, it's all the same

I will remain myself - no weaker in this

The one who won the championship by thunder.

Here we are free. He did not create here

An enviable region; He won't cast us out

From these places. Here our power is strong,

And it seems to me that even in the abyss power -

A worthy reward. It's better to be

Lord of Hell than servant of Heaven!

But why loyal friends

Brothers in trouble, prostrated here,

In the forgotten lake, we do not call

To divide our mournful shelter and, again,

Unite and scout: what else?

We are able to win back from Heaven

And what is left for us to lose in Hell?"

Thus spoke Satan, and Beelzebub

He answered: “O Leader of the brave troops,

Truly, only the Almighty could

Will ring out like an unshakable pledge

Hope that often encouraged us

Among dangers and fear! Let

It will sound like a battle signal

And he will return courage to his comrades,

Thrown into the burning swamp,

Mindlessly motionless, stunned

By falling from an inordinate height!"

He fell silent, and immediately the Archenemy wandered off

To the cliff, throwing a shield behind my back, -

There is a hardened round disk in the ether,

Huge and moon-shaped

When it is in optical glass,

From Valdarno or Fiesole Heights,

The Tuscan sage contemplated at night,

Trying to distinguish on a colorful ball

Continents, streams and ridges.

The renegade, leaning on a spear,

In front of which is the tallest trunk

Norwegian pine, cut down for a mast,

For the greatest of ships,

It would seem like a reed - he wandered forward

Over hot blocks; how long ago has it been

Did you slide in the azure with a light foot?

He was tormented by stuffiness and stench,

But, overcoming the pain, he reached

The depths of brimstone, crying out from the edge

To the fighters lying around like leaves

Autumn, covered with layers

Forest Valambrosa streams,

Flowing under the shadow of dark crowns

Etrurian oak forests; so he lay down

Reed near the Red Sea, when

The winds of Orion shook

The depths of the waters and drowned in the waves

Busiris and his horsemen

Memphis, who pursued at a gallop

The sons of the Land of Goshen, and the fugitives

We looked at the dead from the shore,

Floating among the wreckage of chariots;

So, shocked, rebels

They lay in heaps, but the Leader cried out,

And Hell responded with a booming thunder:

"- Princes! Warriors! Recent color

Heaven, now lost forever!

Is it possible for ethereal beings

To be so depressed? Really, tired

Through military labor, you decided

To die in the burning abyss?

Are you in heavenly valleys, or what, a sweet dream

Do you eat it? No way, you swore

Give praise to the winner

Humiliated? Meanwhile He looks

On Cherubim and Seraphim,

Overthrown with weapons at the same time

Broken, with fragments of banners!

Or are you waiting for His messengers to

Having seen our powerlessness from Heaven,

They attacked with lightning darts

Have we been nailed to the bottom of Gehenna?

Rise up, or it’s the end of everything!”

Burning with shame, they took off instantly

Fighters. So the dozed off sentry

He shudders when he hears

A stern shout from the authorities. Aware

Your torment and your misfortune,

Shaking off the numbness, to Satan

Countless troops submit.

So, on the black day of Egypt, a powerful rod

The son of Amram exalted himself, and the locusts

Which was driven by the east wind,

A cloud hung over, dark as night,

Over the sinful land of Pharaoh

And darkened the Nile country;

The army soared in no less a cloud

Under the vaults of hell, through the flames,

They licked her from all sides.

But the Lord gave a sign with his spear,

And the shelves smoothly lower

I hardened it with sulfur, covering

Complete plain. From the loins of ice

The thousand-people North did not erupt

Similar crowds when his sons

Danube and Rhine passing like a flood

Unstoppable, flooded the South,

Beyond Gibraltar and to the Libyan sands!

Bosses leave the ranks

Your squads; they rush to the Leader,

Shining with godlike beauty,

Incomparable with humans. I had a chance

They should sit on heavenly thrones,

And now - not a trace on the heavenly lists

Names of troublemakers who despised duty,

Having blotted myself out of the Book of Life.

More offspring of Eve to the rebels

He didn’t give me any other nicknames,

When God allowed them to earth,

To test human weakness.

By cunning and lies they succeeded

Corrupt almost the entire Adamic race

And tilt the Creator to oblivion

And the embodiment of his appearance

The invisible - in the images of beasts,

Decorated and honored on days of celebration

Unbridled and magnificent; To the Spirits of Evil

They taught to worship like gods.

Under the names of idols they

Pagans have been known since those times.

Tell me, Muse, these names:

Who is the first, who is the last, waking up,

Rise from the swamp to the call of conscription?

How, according to their ranks, they went to the Leader,

While the troops stayed away?

The most important gods were those

Who, having escaped from Hell in those days,

Looking for prey on Earth,

They dared to erect their own altars

And temples near God's altars

And temples; encouraged the tribes

Pray to the demons and, insolent,

Jehovah's authority was challenged

Among the Cherubim, from the heights of Zion,

Ruler by thunder! Their idols are

Oh, abomination! - penetrated into the Temple itself,

Blasphemously wanting to scold

Sacred rites, hellish darkness

Opposing the light of the World Ruler!

Moloch went first - terrible, covered in blood

Innocent victims. Parents in vain

Wept; the roar of tambourines, the roar of trumpets

The dying cry of the children was muffled,

Drawn to his altar, into the fire.

Moloch was honored by the people of Ammon,

In the valley of wet Rabba and in Argob,

In Bashan and on distant shores

Arnona; slipping to the holy places,

He was able to corrupt Solomon's heart,

And the king was seduced by his temple

He erected it opposite the Temple of God.

Since then, that mountain has become shameful;

The valley of Hinnom was defiled

Oak grove, dedicated to Moloch,

Tophet - since then called and also -

Black Gehenna, an example of Hell.

The second was Chemos - horror and shame

Sons of Moab. He reigned in the earth

Novo and Aroera, among the steppes

Burnt Avornma; Ezevon,

Oronaim, Sigon's country,

And Sivma is a flowering grape valley,

And Eleal, the whole vast land

To the shore of the Dead Sea, before it

Bowed down. He, under the name of Fegor,

At Shittim he seduced the Israelites,

Left Egypt to fall into depravity,

Which brought them countless troubles.

He has his orgies up to that mountain

Stretched out the shameful and groves where the idol

Moloch reigned - the man-killers,

Until the pious stopped

Josiah sins and straight to Hell

He overthrew the abominable gods from the temples.

Behind them came the spirits, who were two

Nicknames were given in general;

From the banks of the Euphrates to the river

Between Syria and the Pyramid Kingdom -

They were called Baals and Astartes

Some have assigned themselves the masculine gender,

Others are female. Perfume for every gender

Both are capable of accepting -

So their substance is pure and light,

Not burdened by any shell,

Neither flesh nor bulky bones.

But, manifesting itself in any form,

Transparent, dense, light or dark,

Ideas can be realized

Airy - then plunging into lust,

Then he fell into a rage. sons of israel

More than once, having despised the Giver of Life,

Consigning His lawful one to oblivion

Altar, in front of statues of cattle

They bowed humbly, and for that

Their heads were doomed

Bow down just as low before the spear

Despised enemies. Next is Ashtareth,

Crowned with a moon horn, she walked,

Astarte and the Lady of Heaven

In the Phoenicians. On monthly nights

Before the statue of the goddess, he sang

Prayer books of the choir of Sidonian virgins.

And the same hymns in honor of her Zion

Stained. Temple on Mount Resentment

The woman-loving king gave it to her.

He had a big heart, but for the sake of affection

He honored the seductive pagans

Idols are vile. following the goddess

Chagall Tammuz, mutilated in Lebanon

The Syrians who called the young ones,

That every year, in the summer, all day

They mourned him and, watching,

How a scarlet stream is drawn into the sea

Adonis, they believed that there was blood again

From the god's wounds a stream colored.

Captivated by this lustful parable

Zion's daughter. Ezekiel

Their lust beheld when at the gate

Saints appeared to him in a vision

The apostate Judah is a vile sin

Serving idols. The Spirit followed

Really cried when Kivotom

The covenant was broken

His bestial image.

Armless, headless, he lay

In the middle of the temple, disgracing our own

Fans; He was called Dagon -

Sea miracle, half-man

And half fish. His magnificent temple

Shined in Azoth. All of Palestine

Gath, Ashkelon and Ekron and Gaza,

They trembled before him. Rimma followed him;

Damascus charming served

He has housing, as well as the shores

Avana and Farfara are fat rivers.

He also insulted the House of the Lord:

Having lost a leper servant,

He found a ruler: a king

Ahaz, stupefied by drunkenness,

Forced God to destroy the altar

And build it in the Syrian way

Sanctuary for burning victims

The gods whom he defeated.

The demons walked in a thick crowd:

Osiris, Horus, Isis - at the head

Extensive retinue; once they

Egypt superstitious with magic

They seduced us with monstrous spells,

And misguided priests,

Having deprived of their human image

Wandering gods, in the guise of animals

They were embodied. This evil plague

Israel escaped at Horiven,

Outflow of borrowed gold

Taurus; the seditious king accomplished doubly

This wickedness is in Dano and Bethel,

Where he was likened to a fat bull

Creator, who passed through one night

Egypt, and with one blow all

He destroyed the first-born babies

And he cast down all the bleating gods.

Belial appeared last,

The most dissolute of Spirits; he himself

He gave in to vice, having loved vice.

No idols were erected in his honor

And the altars were not smoked, but who

He penetrated into temples more often, creating

Wickedness, and corrupted ourselves

Priests given over to sin

Godlessness, like the sons of Eli,

Those who committed impudence and revelry

In the Lord's House? He reigns everywhere, -

In courts, palaces and magnificent cities, -

Where is the deafening, shameless noise

Violence, lies and debauchery

Rising above the highest towers,

Where in the twilight they scurry through the streets

The sons of Belial are in a crowd,

Intoxicated, impudent; I've seen these

Sodom, and later Gibeah, where that night

Hospitable shelter was forced

To betray their wife to reproach them,

To ward off the most vile fornication.

Here are the leaders in terms of power and rank.

It would take a long time to name others

Illustrious; deities between them

Ionia, known since ancient times;

Javan's family worshiped them,

Although they are much later

Your parents - Earth and Sky -

Came into the world. Was the firstborn of Titan

With children, without counting; his brother is Saturn

He deprived Titan of his rights, but, in turn,

Lost power; Saturn's powerful son

From Rhea - Zeus - stole his father's throne

And he founded the kingdom illegally.

On Crete and Ida this host

Gods became known at first; then

They ascended to the snows of Olympus

And they reigned in the middle air,

Where the highest was the limit of heaven for them.

They dominated the rocks of Delphi,

In Dodona and penetrated abroad

Doris, like those in those days,

Accompanying Saturn the old man,

Fled to the Hesperian fields

And, having crossed the Adriatic,

We reached the distant Celtic Islands.

They walked and walked in countless herds

All these Spirits; were their eyes

Downcast sadly, but lit up

With gloomy triumph, as soon as they

They saw that the Leader had not yet fallen

In despair that it’s not quite yet

They died in death itself.

There seemed to be a shadow of doubt on my face

The apostate lay down, but he, calling

He said the usual pride

Filled with imaginary greatness

Haughty words to resurrect

Weakened courage and fear

Dispel. Under the thunderous roar of horns

And he commanded war trumpets

Raise your mighty banner.

Azaziel - giant Cherub -

Defends the right to expand

Her; and now, splashing in full swing,

Magnificent princely standard

On a fiery shining spear

Ascended, shining like a meteor,

Storm-borne; gold embroidery

And pearls are dazzling on it

Seraphic coats of arms sparkled

And magnificent trophies. Fanfare sound

Solemnly announced the entire abyss,

And the hordes issued a common cry,

Not only Hell was shocked by horror,

But the kingdom of Chaos and ancient Night.

Instantly ten thousand banners rose,

Having blossomed with eastern variegation

Ominous gloom; grew like a forest

Spear bristles; helmets and shields

They closed in an impregnable wall.

The demonic army marches in step

A strict phalanx, accompanied by a consonant whistle

Sounding pipes and Dorian flutes,

Those who previously inspired the battle

Heroes of the ancients, - the nobility of feelings

Sublime; not blind with rabies,

But with courage, which is nothing

Unable to shake; death in battle

Those who preferred to flee from the enemy

And a timid retreat. Then

Dorian, harmonious harmony created,

To pacify the confusion of thoughts,

Doubt, fear and grief from the hearts

Expel both mortals and immortals. So,

Breathing with united strength,

The rioters march silently

To the sound of flutes that make the path easier

On hot ground. Finally

The troops stopped. Terrible front

Unfolded to its full length

Immeasurable, shining with armor,

Like the ancient warriors leveled

Shields and spears; the soldiers wait silently

Decrees of the Commander. Archenemy

Looks around the experienced ranks

Armed Spirits; quick glance

Assessing the formation of legions

And the bearing of the fighters, their beauty

God-like and keeps score

Cohorts. The leader is proud of them,

Rejoices, becoming more fierce,

In the awareness of your own power.

Until now since the creation of Man

This has never happened anywhere else

A large horde; in comparison with him

It would seem insignificant, like a handful

Pygmies who fought with cranes,

Any; even adding

To the Phlegrian giants there is a heroic race.

Entered into battle, along with the gods,

That the fight was helped from both sides,

To them the knights of novels and legends

About the son of Uther, heroes

Britain, mighty daredevils

Armorica; frantic grunts

Both faithful and unfaithful, forever

Those who glorified Damascus with their battles,

Morocco, Trebizond, and Montalban,

And Aspramont; to those whom

From the African shores of Bizerte

She sent me to fight with Charlemagne,

Broken in the middle of the fields

Fontarabiskikh. Army of Satan

Immensely greater than all the troops

Human - obeys the Leader

Harsh; rebellious Lord,

Surpassing everyone with his stately posture,

How tall the tower is. No, not really

He has lost his former greatness!

Although its heavenly shine is darkened,

But the Archangel is visible in him. So, barely

Rising at dawn,

The sun peeks through the fog

Or, during an eclipse hidden by the Moon,

On half the Earth there is an ominous half-light

Throws, making you tremble

Monarchs with the specter of coups, -

And likewise, having faded, it radiated

Archangel is part of the former light. Sorrow

The pale face was gloomy,

Torn by lightning; look,

Sparkling from under thick eyebrows,

Hidden boundless courage,

Unbroken pride, the will to wait

Desired revenge. Eyes

His are fierce, but flashed in them

And pity and consciousness of guilt

At the sight of criminal accomplices,

Or rather, followers, forever

Dead; those whom he previously

Knew them blessed. Because of him

Millions of Spirits thrown from Heaven,

Excommunicated from the heavenly light

His sedition, but even now,

Although their glory has faded,

The leader is loyal. So, pines and oaks,

Burnt by heavenly fire,

Raising the majestic trunks

With the tops of their heads burning, they stand,

Without flinching, on the charred ground.

The leader gave a sign: he wants to make a speech.

The commanders are crowded in double ranks

Semicircle, wing to wing,

In silence, near the Leader. Having started

Three times, he is three times, in spite of

Angry pride, shed tears,

Unable to speak. Angels alone

So the tears flow. But here he is, suppressing

Sobs and sighs, said:

"- O hosts of eternal Spirits! Hosts of Powers,

Only the Almighty has no equal! Swearing

With the Tyrant I was not inglorious, even if

Its outcome is disastrous, why

Our deplorable appearance is evidence

And this place. But what kind of mind

Tall, having fully grasped the meaning

Having known the past, the present,

In order to foresee clearly

The future, I could imagine,

What are the combined powers of the gods?

Will they be defeated? Who dares

Believe that, having lost the battle,

Mighty cohorts whose exile

The sky has been devastated, they will not go

Again to storm and will not rise again,

To conquer the bright land of our native land?

The entire angelic army is my guarantee:

Is it my hesitation and fear?

Have our hopes been dashed? No!

Autocratic Despot his Throne

Hitherto preserved unshakable

Only because of the loud glory of centuries,

Habits inert and thanks

Custom. Outwardly surrounded

With the greatness of the crown bearer, he hid

Striking, real power,

And this prompted a rebellion

And it crushed us. From now on we

They have known His power,

But they also knew theirs. Shouldn't

We call for a new war

The enemy, but we also fear

It shouldn’t if He starts it.

The wisest thing to do is to act in secret,

By deceptive cunning to achieve

What didn't happen in the battle. Let

He will know: victory over the enemy,

Possessed by the power of the sword, -

Only part of the victory. New worlds

It can create space. In Heaven

It has long been a common rumor

What He intends to do soon

Such a world and populate it

The breed of creatures that He

He will love with the Angels.

For the first time, let's invade there

Out of curiosity or somewhere else:

The hellish abyss cannot hold

Heavenly Spirits until the end of time

In chains, no Chaos - in impenetrable darkness.

In general council we need this idea

Think maturely. The world will not exist!

Who is inclined to submit here? So,

Hidden or secret war!

He fell silent, and with millions of blades

Burning, torn from the thighs

And Hell lit up the ascended ones

In response to the Leader. The rioters blaspheme

Almighty; fiercely clenching his swords,

They hit the shields, thundering warlikely,

And they send an arrogant challenge to Heaven.

Nearby the mountain was smoking - a wild peak

With a fire-firing top, with bark,

Sparkling on the slopes: a sure sign

Works of sulfur, ore deposits

In the depths of the bowels. Flying Legion

He's in a hurry to get there. So they rush at a gallop,

Ahead of the main troops,

Sappers, with a load of picks and shovels,

To strengthen the royal camp in advance

Trenches and embankments. Squad

Mammon leads; he is one of the fallen Spirits

The least exalted of all. Greedy gaze

His - and was in the Kingdom of God before

Turned to the lowlands there too

Not by the blissful contemplation of shrines

Captivated, but by the riches of Heaven,

Where gold was trampled underfoot.

He set an example for people, taught

Search for treasures in the womb of the mountains

And it is holy to steal treasures,

Which would be better forever

Stay in the bosom of mother earth.

A cut instantly appeared on the slope,

And rip out the golden ribs

The craftsmen got to work. No wonder

That gold appeared in Hell. Where

More favorable soil would have been found,

In order to cultivate this brilliant poison?

You, mortal art of people

Fans! You, sparing no praise,

Marvel at the wonders of Babylon

And the fabulous luxury of the tombs

Memphis - but judge how small

Huge monuments in honor

Art, Power, Glory - the work of

Human ones - in comparison with what they create

Forsaken Spirits, so easy

Constructing in a short hour

A structure that with difficulty

Only generations of mortals, for centuries

Can do it! Under the mountain

Smelters have been installed; leads to them

Network of gutters with streams of fire

From the lake. Other masters

Hundreds of heavy blocks are thrown into the furnace,

The breed is divided into varieties

And the charge is melted, removing the slag;

And still others dig in different ways

Molds in the ground, where the stream

The bubbling gold runs

Filling the cavities of casting molds.

So a breath of air passing

Along all the convolutions of organ pipes,

Gives birth to a melodic chorale.

Like steam, soon from the earth

And sweet symphonies rose

A vast building that looks like a temple;

Huge pilasters around it

And a slender forest of Doric columns,

Crowned with a golden architrave;

Cornices, friezes and a huge vault

Entirely in gold chasing and carving.

Neither Babylon nor magnificent Alkair,

With their greatness and extravagance, when

Assyria and Egypt, competing,

Wealth was wasted; nor palaces

Rulers, nor the temples of their gods -

Serapis and Bela - could not

And approach such luxury.

Here is a slender bulk, ascending,

The target has reached its height

And she froze. wide gates,

Opening two bronze doors,

Opened up the inner space.

Constellations of lampions, clusters of chandeliers,

Where the mountains burn tar and oil,

Through enchantment they soar under the dome,

Shining like celestial bodies.

The delightedly admiring crowd

It invades there; some praise

Proclaim to the building, others -

To the art of the architect who erected

Wonderful mansions in Heaven;

Archangels - sovereign princes

There they sat, for the King of Kings

He raised them up and told everyone

Within its hierarchy

To manage brilliant ranks.

He is not deprived of fans and fame.

There was an architect in Ancient Greece; people

Avzonsky called him Mulziber;

And the myth says that Jupiter threw

In anger for the crystal teeth

The fence surrounding Olympus

Him to the ground. All summer day

It was as if he was flying, from morning until noon

And from noon until sunset, like a star

Falling, and among the Aegean waters

The island of Lemnos collapsed. But the story

Not true; much earlier Mulciber

He fell with the rebellious army. Didn't help

Nor the towers he erected in the sky,

Neither knowledge, nor art. The architect himself

Together with our craftsmen

thrown heads down by the Creator

Rebuild Gehenna.

That time

Winged heralds, watching

Leader's Order and Ceremony

Solemn, to the loud thunder of fanfare

They say that immediate advice

Must gather in Pandemonium, -

The brilliant capital of Satan

And his Angels. To a loud call

The detachments send the most worthy fighters

By rank and merit; they're in a hurry

Accompanied by countless crowds,

Milton John

Lost Paradise

John Milton

Lost Paradise

BOOK ONE

Book One first briefly outlines the theme of the work: the listening of Man, as a result of which he lost Paradise - his abode; then the reason for the fall is indicated: the Serpent, or rather Satan in the guise of the Serpent, who rebelled against God, drew countless legions of Angels into rebellion, but was, by God’s command, cast down from Heaven along with all the hordes of rebels into the Underworld. Having mentioned these events, the poem immediately moves on to the main action, introducing Satan and his Angels in Hell. There follows a description of Hell, which is not located in the center of the Earth (heaven and Earth, presumably, have not yet been created, and therefore, the curse does not yet weigh on them), but in the region of total darkness, more precisely, Chaos. Satan with his Angels lies in a boiling lake, humiliated, defeated, but soon, waking up from the shock, he calls on a comrade-in-arms, the first after himself in rank and dignity. They talk about their unfortunate situation. Satan awakens all the legions, which until now were also in stupor and unconsciousness. Countless, they rise and form into battle formations; their main leaders bear the names of idols later known in Canaan and neighboring countries. Satan turns to his comrades, consoles them with the hope of reconquering Heaven and informs them of a new world and a new kind of creatures, which, as the ancient prophecies and traditions of the Kingdom of Heaven say, must be created; Angels, according to the opinion of many ancient Fathers, were created long before the appearance of visible beings. In order to ponder this prophecy and determine further actions, Satan orders a general council to be assembled. His comrades agree with him. From the abyss of darkness arises Pandemonium - the palace of Satan. The nobles of hell sit there and confer.

About the first disobedience, about the fruit of the Forbidden, destructive, that death brought And all our misfortunes into this world, People were deprived of Eden, for the time being, When the Greatest Man Restored us, Blessed Paradise returned to us, Sing, Mountain Muse! Come down from the Mysterious heights of Sinai and Horeb, Where the shepherd was inspired by you, Who initially taught his people about the Emergence of Heaven and Earth from Chaos; when the Hill of Zion and the Key of Siloam, the region of the Words of God, are dear to you, I call you from there for help; my song dared to fly over Helikon, rushing towards sublime objects, untouched neither in prose nor in verse.

But first you, O Holy Spirit! - You prefer pure hearts to temples, Instruct me in your omniscience! You, like a dove, have soared over the abyss from time immemorial, making it fruitful; Fill my darkness with light, elevate everything that is mortal in me, so that I can find decisive arguments and prove the goodness of Providence, justifying the Creator’s paths before creation. Open first, - for Hell and Paradise are Equally accessible to Your gaze, What prompted the first couple, In a happy canopy, among the blissful bushes, So sought by the mercy of Heaven, Who handed over the Universe to her power, To renounce the Creator, His only prohibition to violate? - Hellish Serpent! Yes, it was he, envying and taking revenge, who seduced our Forefather with flattery; The insidious Enemy, cast down from the heights by his own Pride, together with the army of the Rebellious Angels, whom he headed, with whose help he wanted to shake the Throne of the Most High and become equal to the Lord, disturbing the Heavenly squads; but the struggle was in vain. Almighty God, the Angry One, rushed headlong overthrown the obstinate people, engulfed in flames, into bottomless darkness, to torment in adamantine chains and eternal, punishing fire, for their armed, daring rebellion. Time has expired nine times, Which serves as the measure of day and night for mortals, While in writhing, with his horde, the Enemy rushed about on fiery waves, defeated, even immortal. Fate condemned Him to the bitterest execution: to sorrow about irrevocable happiness and to the thought of eternal torment. He now circled his gloomy eyes around; They concealed both hatred and fear, and pride, and immeasurable melancholy... Instantly, which is only given to Angels, He looked around the deserted country, the Prison, where, as in an oven, the fire was burning, But it did not shine and was visible darkness. Or rather, it was, flickering only then, In order to reveal to the eyes the pitch darkness, The vale of sadness, the kingdom of grief, the land, Where there is no peace and quiet, where Hope, close to everyone, is denied the way, Where there is endless torment and the fierce heat of Bubbling, inexhaustible streams of Flowing sulfur. This is the kind of shutter Here the Eternal Judge has prepared for the Rebels, in the midst of complete darkness And three times further from the rays of Heaven and the Lord than the farthest pole is from the center of the Universe. How incomparable with the previous height, From where their fall carried them away! He sees his accomplices in the sultry surf, in a burning whirlwind of sparks, and next to him is a peer who was second in rank and villainy, and later was honored in Palestine like Beelzebub. The arrogant Archenemy, henceforth called Satan, called to him, and dissolved the terrible silence with such daring words:

"- Are you before me? Oh, how low has fallen the one who with his radiance eclipsed the radiance of the radiant myriads in the heavenly spheres! If it is you, bound to me by a common union, by one plan, by hope, by trials in battles and by defeat, look at what the abyss from the heights We fell! Its mighty thunder was unknown to anyone before. But let the Almighty Victor raise anything against me - I will not bend And I will not repent, let my shine fade... The determination in me has not yet dried up In the consciousness of my trampled. Dignity, and proud anger boils, He ordered me to raise riotous regiments to fight with Him, Those who despised His arbitrariness, Having chosen me as Leader, We unsuccessfully tried to shake His Throne And lost the battle. So what of that? Not everything was lost: the fuse was preserved? Indomitable will, along with immeasurable hatred, thirst for revenge And courage - not to give in forever. Isn’t this a victory? After all, we still have something that He cannot take away, Neither with rage nor with force, If I were the enemy, whose kingdom was shaken! From fear of this hand, I would beg on my knees for mercy, I would be disgraced, I would be ashamed

He would have been covered and the shame would have been worse than overthrow. By the will of fate, our empyrean composition and strength equal to God are imperishable; having gone through the Crucible of battles, we have not weakened, But we have become steeled and now we have the right to more accurately hope for victory: In the coming battle, using cunning, Using our strength, we will overthrow the Tyrant, Who now, celebrating his triumph, Rejoices in the Heavens autocratically!

So the fallen Angel, overcoming grief, boasted loudly, melting despair. His brother answered him bravely:

"- O Prince! Head of the porphyry-bearing forces, Leader of the Seraphim fighting armies, Threatening the throne of the Eternal King with acts that inspire fear, In order to test His Supreme greatness: whether it is preserved by chance, force or Fate. I see everything and am bitterly crushed by the terrible defeat of our troops. We are expelled from the heights, defeated, Overthrown, as far as it is possible to defeat the godlike Sons of Heaven; but our spirit, but our mind is not broken, and our power will return again, Although our glory and former delight of Suffering have been swallowed up forever. Could He not overcome ours with His weakest strength!) So that we could be tortured more strongly, satisfying His fierce vengeance? Or, like slaves, We worked hard, according to the laws of war, Helpers in Hell, in the scorching fire, Messengers in the bottomless, dark. "What is the use of our eternal existence and our eternally unchanging strength, if we are destined to be tormented forever?"

In the first song, the entire content is first briefly outlined: Man’s disobedience and, as a result, the loss of Paradise, which was his home; further it tells about the initial reason for his fall, about the Serpent or Satan in the form of a serpent, who rebelled against God and, having outraged many legions of Angels, was, by the command of God, with all his army cast out of heaven into the abyss. Further, having briefly mentioned this, the poem tells of Satan with his Angels, now cast out into Hell. Description of Hell, but not in the center of the world (since it is assumed that Heaven and Earth had not yet been created, therefore there was no curse on them), but in an area of ​​complete darkness or, more accurately, Chaos. Here Satan lies with his Angels on the lake of fire, destroyed, defeated; after a while he comes to his senses, as if from a vague dream, calls for the one who lies first in rank next to him; they talk about their shameful fall. Satan awakens all his legions, which also lay hitherto as if struck by thunder: they rise; their number is countless; they are arrayed in battle order; their main leaders are called by the names of idols later known in Canaan and neighboring lands. Satan addresses them with a speech, consoles them with the hope of returning Heaven, and tells them in the end about a new world, about new creatures that must be created, according to ancient prophecy or tradition in Heaven; Angels, according to many ancient Fathers, were created much earlier than the visible world. To discuss the truth of this prophecy, and accordingly decide his course of action, Satan convenes the entire council. His comrades stop at this decision. Pandemonium, the palace of Satan, suddenly rises from the underworld; the infernal authorities sit there and hold council.

Sing, heavenly Muse, the first disobedience of man and the fruit of that forbidden tree, the deadly taste of which, depriving us of Paradise, brought death and all our sorrows into the world, until the Greatest of men came to save us and return us to our blessed home. Was it not you, O Muse, on the mysterious peak of Horeb or on Sinai who inspired the Shepherd, who for the first time told the chosen people how heaven and earth rose from Chaos. Or perhaps you prefer the heights of Zion and the brook of Siloam, which flowed right next to the oracle of the Lord, then from there I call on your help in my brave song. Her flight will not be timid: she will soar above Mount Aoni to tell things that neither poetry nor prose have yet dared to touch upon.

I pray to You most of all for the Holy Spirit, You, for Whose straight and pure heart is above all temples, give me understanding; You know everything: You were present at the beginning of creation and, like a dove, spreading your mighty wings over the vast abyss, you gave it fruitful power. Enlighten everything that is dark in me, elevate everything that is low, strengthen my spirit, so that I, being worthy of it, will make people understand the eternal Providence and justify the ways of the Most High.

First of all, tell me, because neither in Heaven nor in the deepest abysses of Hell is anything hidden from Your sight - tell me first of all: what prompted our first parents, in their blissful state, so generously showered with heavenly mercies, to fall away from their the Creator and transgress His will, when it, imposing only one prohibition on them, left them the rulers of the rest of the world? Who was the first to seduce them into this treason? The damned Serpent: he, in his cunning, seething with envy and revenge, seduced the mother of mankind, when for pride he was cast out of Heaven with the entire host of rebellious Angels. He dreamed, arrogantly, by raising an uprising, with their help to rise above all the heavenly authorities; he even hoped to become equal to the Almighty. With such daring plans against the throne and kingdom of the Lord God, he raised an unholy war in Heaven. A futile attempt! The Almighty threw him from the heavenly spaces into the utter abyss of destruction; in his ugly fall, engulfed in flames, he flew headlong into the bottomless abyss. A terrible punishment awaited the daring one who dared to raise his hand against the Almighty: shackled in adamantine chains, he must languish there in the torment of an unquenchable fire. As much time had already passed as for mortals nine times day gives way to night, and he, defeated, still lay with his terrible army in the sea of ​​fire, dead and yet immortal. But he is destined for an even worse punishment: to be forever tormented by the loss of happiness and the thought of boundless torment. He looks around with sinister eyes; immeasurable melancholy and fear are expressed in them, but at the same time, unshakable pride, irreconcilable anger. With one glance, as far as only the gaze of immortals can penetrate, he surveys vast, wild spaces, full of horror; this terrible prison is enclosed in a circle, as if in a huge flaming crucible, but this flame does not give light: in the visible darkness it only more clearly highlighted pictures of sorrow, places of sadness, dull shadows where peace and quiet can never be known; even hope, which leaves no one, will never penetrate here; this is a vale of endless torment, an all-consuming sea of ​​fire, fed by the ever-burning but incombustible sulfur. Such is the dwelling prepared by eternal justice for these rebels; they are condemned to be imprisoned here in complete darkness; They are separated from God and His heavenly light by a space three times greater than the distance from the middle of the earth to the extreme pole. Oh, how different this dwelling is from the one from which they fell! Satan will soon recognize the comrades of his fall, crushed by mountains of fiery waves and tormented by stormy whirlwinds. The spirit that rushed closest to him, the first after him in power, as well as in crimes, was recognized many centuries later in Palestine and named Beelzebub? To him, the Archenemy of Heaven, for that reason called there Satan, breaking the ominous silence with daring words, speaks like this: “Oh, are you really that spirit... but how low have you fallen! How unlike you are to the one who, in the blissful kingdom of light, eclipsed with his radiant robe the myriads of shining cherubs! Are you really the same spirit, thoughts, plans, whose proud hopes were once an ally in a bold and glorious enterprise? Now misfortune has brought us together again. Do you see into what abyss we have been cast down from the heights by Him Who defeated us with His thunder? Who suspected such power? But, despite this power, despite everything, no matter what the Sovereign Victor may punish us with in His wrath, I do not repent. My external shine has been lost, but nothing will change my firmness of spirit and the high indignation that the feeling of insulted dignity inspires in me, the indignation that prompted me to fight the Almighty. In this fierce war, countless forces of armed Spirits came over to my side, who dared to reject His power and prefer mine. Both forces met, the heavenly plains resounded with the thunder of battle, and the throne of the Most High shook. So what if the battlefield is lost, not everything is lost yet! We still have our unshakable will, thirst for revenge, our irreconcilable hatred, courage. We will never give in, we will never submit; In this we are invincible! No, neither anger nor His omnipotence will ever force us to bow before Him, to beg on our knees for mercy, to idolize Him Who so recently trembled before this hand for His kingdom? Oh, what baseness! Such dishonor, such shame is more shameful than our fall. But, according to the determination of fate, our divine origin and heavenly nature are eternal; taught by the experience of this great event, we have not become worse in the use of weapons, and have gained experience: we can now, with greater hope of success, by force or cunning, begin an eternal irreconcilable war with our great enemy, that which is now triumphant, and, rejoicing, alone , the all-powerful despot, reigns in Heaven." - So spoke the apostate angel, trying to drown out the despair that deeply tormented him with boastful speeches. His brave accomplice, without hesitation, answers him: “O King, O Lord of countless thrones, you who led countless hosts of seraphim into battle, you who were undaunted in battle, who made the eternal King of Heaven tremble, you who dared to test what holds His supreme power : by force, chance or destiny! I see too clearly the consequences of the terrible event: our shame, our terrible fall! Heaven is lost to us; our mighty armies are thrown into the deepest abyss and perish in it, as only gods and heavenly beings can perish. True, our splendor is gloomy, and the former days of bliss are swallowed up in the abyss of endless evils, but our spirit is invincible; the former power will soon return to us. But what if our Victor (I involuntarily recognize Him as Almighty now, for only an omnipotent power could overcome such strength as ours) - what if He left us all the strength of spirit only to give us the strength to endure our torment and fulfill this is His wrathful vengeance, or in order to impose on us, as prisoners of war, the most difficult labors in the depths of Hell, where we will have to work in fire or serve as His messengers in the depths of the underworld?.. What will the consciousness of unlost power serve us then? and immortality, is it really just to endure eternal torment?