Paradise Lost
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Paradise Lost (1667, 1674) is an epic poem by the 17th century English poet John Milton. The poem concerns the Christian story of the rise of Man: the temptation of Adam and Eve by Satan and their expulsion from the Garden of Eden.
Note that chapter and line references correspond with the 1674 version of the text, available online here.
Contents |
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Book I
- 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 regain the blissful Seat.- lines 1-5
- Sing Heav'nly 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 Heav'ns and Earth
Rose out of Chaos: Or if Sion Hill
Delight thee more, and Siloa's Brook that flow'd
Fast by the Oracle of God; I thence
Invoke thy aid to my adventrous Song,
That with no middle flight intends to soar Above th' Aonian Mount, while it pursues
Things unattempted yet in Prose or Rhime.- lines 5-16
- 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.- lines 22-26
- The infernal serpent; he it was, whose guile,
Stirred up with envy and revenge, deceived
The mother of mankind.- lines 3436
- Him the Almighty Power
Hurled headlong flaming from th' ethereal sky
With hideous ruin and combustion down
To bottomless perdition, there to dwell
In adamantine chains and penal fire,
Who durst defy th' Omnipotent to arms.- lines 44-49
- Regions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace
And rest can never dwell, hope never comes
That comes at all.- lines 65-67
- What though the field be lost?
All is not lost; th’ unconquerable will,
And study of revenge, immortal hate,
And courage never to submit or yield.
- lines 105-108
- To be weak is miserable,
Doing or suffering.- lines 157-158
- A mind not to be changed by place or time.
The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a heav'n of hell, a hell of heav'n.- lines 253-55
- […] Here at least
we shall be free; the Almighty hath not built
Here for his envy, will not drive us hence:
Here we may reign secure, and in my choice
to reign is worth ambition though in Hell:
Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven.- lines 258-63
- Awake, arise, or be forever fallen!
- line 330
- When night
Darkens the strets, then wander forth the sons
Of Belial, flown with insolence and wine.- lines 500-502
- Sonorous metal blowing martial sounds:
At which the universal host up sent
A shout that tore hell's concave, and beyond
Frighted the reign of Chaos and old Night.- lines 540-543
- For who can yet believe, though after loss,
That all these puissant legions, whose exile
Hath emptied Heaven, shall fail to re-ascend,
Self-raised, and repossess their native seat?- lines 631-34
- Who overcomes
By force, hath overcome but half his foe.- lines 648-49
- Mammon, the least erected spirit that fell
From heaven; for ev’n in heaven his looks and thoughts
Were always downward bent, admiring more
The riches of heaven’s pavement, trodden gold,
Than aught divine or holy else enjoy’d
In vision beatific.- lines 679-84
- Let none admire
That riches grow in hell; that soil may best
Deserve the precious bane.- lines 690-692
- From morn
To noon he fell, from noon to dewy eve,
A summer's day; and with the setting sun
Dropped from the zenith like a falling star.- lines 742-745
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Book II
- High on a throne of royal state, which far
Outshone the wealth of Ormus and of Ind,
Or where the gorgeous East with richest hand
Showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold,
Satan exalted sat, by merit raised
To that bad eminence; and from despair
Thus high uplifted beyond hope, aspires
Beyond thus high, insatiate to pursue
Vain war with heav'n.- lines 1-9
- Rather than be less
Cared not to be at all.- lines 47-48
- But all was false and hollow; through his tongue
Dropped manna, and could make the worse appear
The better reason.- lines 112-114
- Thus repulsed, our final hope
Is flat despair: we must exasperate
Th' Almighty Victor to spend all his rage;
And that must end us; that must be our cure--
To be no more. Sad cure! for who would lose,
Though full of pain, this intellectual being,
Those thoughts that wander through eternity,
To perish rather, swallowed up and lost
In the wide womb of uncreated Night,
Devoid of sense and motion?- lines 142-51
- For who would lose,
Though full of pain, this intellectual being,
Those thoughts that wander through Eternity,
To perish rather, swallowd up and lost
In the wide womb of uncreated night,
Devoid of sense and motion?- lines 146-151
- Thus Belial with words clothed in reason's garb
Counseled ignoble ease, and peaceful sloth,
Not peace.- lines 226-228
- With grave
Aspect he rose, and in his rising seemed
A pillar of state; deep on his front engraven
Deliberation sat and public care;
And princely counsel in his face yet shone,
Majestic though in ruin.- lines 300-305
- To sit in darkness here
Hatching vain empires.- lines 377-378
- Long is the way
And hard, that out of Hell leads up to Light.- lines 432-33
- Their rising all at once was as the sound
Of thunder heard remote.- lines 476-477
- Others apart sat on a hill retired,
In thoughts more elevate, and readoned high
Of Providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate,
Fixed fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute,
And found no end, in wand'ring mazes lost.- lines 557-561
- At certain revolutions all the damned
Are brought: and feel by turns the bitter change
Of fierce extremes, extremes by change more fierce.- lines 597-599
- Before mine eyes in opposition sits
Grim Death, my son and foe.- lines 803-804
- Hot, cold, moist, and dry, four champions fierce,
Strive here for mast'ry.- lines 898-899
- Into this wilde Abyss,
The Womb of nature and perhaps her Grave,
Of neither Sea, nor Shore, nor Air, nor Fire,
But all these in thir pregnant causes mixt
Confus'dly, and which thus must ever fight,
Unless th' Almighty Maker them ordain
His dark materials to create more Worlds,
Into this wilde Abyss the warie fiend
Stood on the brink of Hell and look'd a while,
Pondering his Voyage.- lines 910-919
- With ruin upon ruin, rout on rout,
Confusion worse confounded.- lines 995-996
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Book III
- Hail, holy light! offspring of heav'n first born.
- line 1
- Thus with the year
Seasons return; but not to me returns
Day, or the sweet approach of ev'n or morn,
Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose,
Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine;
But cloud instead, and ever-during dark
Surrounds me, from the cheerful ways of men
Cut off, and for the book of knowledge fair
Presented with a universal blank
Of Nature's works to me expunged and razed,
And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out.- lines 40-50
- I made him just and right,
Sufficient to have stood, though free to fall.- lines 98-99
- Into a limbo large and broad, since called
The Paradise of Fools, to few unknown.- lines 495-496
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Book IV
- Me miserable! which way shall I fly
Infinite wrath and infinite despair?
Which way I fly is hell; myself am hell;
And in the lowest deep a lower deep,
Still threat’ning to devour me, opens wide,
To which the hell I suffer seems a heaven.- lines 73-78
- So farewell hope, and with hope farewell fear,
Farewell remorse; all good to me is lost.
Evil, be thou my good.- lines 108-110
- And on the Tree of Life,
The middle tree and highest there that grew,
Sat like a cormorant.- lines 194-196
- Two of far nobler shape erect and tall,
Godlike erect, with native honor clad
In naked majesty seemed lords of all.- lines 288-290
- For contemplation he and valor formed,
For softness she and sweet attractive grace;
He for God only, she for God in him.- lines 297-299
- Implied
Subjection, but required with gentle sway,
And by her yielded, by him best received,
Yielded with coy submission, modest pride,
And sweet reluctant amorous delay.- lines 307-311
- Adam the goodliest man of men since born
His sons, the fairest of her daughters Eve.- lines 323-324
- So spake the Fiend, and with necessity,
The tyrant's plea, excused his devilish deeds.- lines 393-394
- The wakeful nightingale,
She all night long her amorous descant sung;
Silence was pleased: now glowed the firmament
With living sapphires: Hesperus, that led
The starry host, rode brightest, till the moon,
Rising in clouded majesty, at length
Apparent queen unveiled her peerless light,
And o'er the dark her silver mantle threw.- lines 602-609
- With thee conversing I forget all time,
All seasons, and their change; all please alike.
Sweet is the breath of morn, her rising sweet,
With charm of earliest birds.- lines 639-642
- Sweet the comin on
Of grateful ev'ning mild, then silent night
With this her solemn bird, and this fair moon,
And these the gems of heaven, her starry train.- lines 646-649
- Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth
Unseen, both when we wake, and when we sleep.- lines 677-678
- Eased the putting off
These troublesome disguises which we wear.- lines 739-740
- Hail wedded love, mysterious law, true source
Of human offspring.- lines 750-751
- Abashed the Devil stood,
And felt how awful goodness is, and saw
Virtue in her shape how lovely.- lines 846-848
- All hell broke loose.
- line 918
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Book V
- Good, the more
Communicated, more abundant grows.- lines 71-72
- These are thy glorious works, Parent of good.
- line 153
- Him first, him last, him midst, and without end.
- line 165
- So saying, with dispatchful looks in haste
She turns, on hospitable thoughts intent.- lines 331-332
- Nor jealousy
Was understood, the injured lover's hell.- lines 449-450
- Freely we serve,
Because we freely love, as in our will
To love or not; in this we stand or fall.- lines 538-540
- What if earth
Be but the shadow of heaven, and things therein
Each to other like, more than on earth is thought?- lines 574-576
- All seemed well pleased, all seemed but were not all.
- line 617
- Among the faithless, faithful only he.
- line 897
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Book VI
- Morn,
Waked by the circling hours, with rosy hand
Unbarred the gates of light.- lines 2-4
- Servant of God, well done, well hast thou fought
The better fight, who single hast maintained
Against revolted multitudes the cause
Of truth, in word mightier than they in arms.- lines 29-32
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Book VII
- More safe I sing with mortal voice, unchanged
To hoarse or mute, though fall'n, and evil tongues;
In darkness, and with dangers compassed round,
And solitude.- lines 24-28
- Out of one man a race
Of men innumerable.- lines 155-156
- There Leviathan
Hugest of living creatures, on the deep
Stretched like a promontory sleeps or swims,
And seems a moving land, and at his gills
Draws in, and at his trunk spouts out a sea.- lines 412-416
- The planets in their stations list'ning stood,
While the bright pomp ascended jubilant.
Open, ye everlasting gates, they sung,
Open ye heavens, your living doors; let in
The great Creator from his work returned
Magnificent, his six days' work, a world.- line 563-568
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Book VIII
- The angel ended, and in Adam's ear
So charming left his voice that he awhile
Thought him still speaking, still stood fixed to hear.- lines 1-3
- To know
That which before us lies in daily life
Is the prime wisdom.- lines 192-194
- Grace was in all her steps, heaven in her eye,
In every gesture dignity and love.- lines 488-89
- Her virtue and the conscience of her worth,
That would be wooed, and not unsought be won.- lines 502-503
- So absolute she seems
And in herself complete, so well to know
Her own, that what she wills to do or say,
Seems wisest, virtuousest, discreetest, best.- lines 547-550
- Accuse not Nature: she hath done her part;
Do thou but thine.- lines 561-62
- Ofttimes nothing profits more
Than self-esteem, grounded on just and right
Well managed.- lines 571-573
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Book IX
- The serpent subtlest beast of all the field.
- line 86
- Revenge, at first though sweet,
Bitter ere long back on itself recoils.- lines 171-72
- For solitude sometimes is best society,
And short retirement urges sweet return.- lines 249-250
- God so comanded, and left that command
Sole daughter of his voice; the rest, we live
Law to ourselves, our reason is our law.- lines 652-654
- Her rash hand in evil hour
Forth reaching to the fruit, she plucked, she eat:
Earth felt the wound, and Nature from her seat,
Sighing through all her works, gave signs of woe
That all was lost.- lines 780-784
- So dear I love him, that with him all deaths
I could endure, without him live no life.- lines 832-833
- In her face excuse
Came prologue, and apology too prompt.- line 853-854
- O fairest of creation! last and best
Of all God's works! creature in whom excelled
Whatever can to sight or thought be formed,
Holy, divine, good, amiable, or sweet!
How art thou lost, how on a sudden lost,
Defaced, deflowered, and now to Death devote?- lines 896-901
- I feel
The link of nature draw me: flesh of flesh,
Bone of mu bone thou art, and from thy state
Mine never shall be parted, bliss or woe.- lines 913-916
- Our state cannot be severed; we are one,
One flesh; to lose thee were to lose myself.- lines 958-959
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Book X
- I shall temper so
Justice with mercy.- lines 77-78
- Pandemonium, city and proud seat
Of Lucifer.- lines 424-425
- A dismal universal hiss, the sound
Of public scorn.- lines 508-509
- Death...on his pale horse.
- line 588
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Book XI
- Nor love thy life, nor hate; but what thou liv'st
Live well; how long or short permit to Heaven.- lines 553-554
- The evening star,
Love's harbinger.- lines 588-589
- For now I see
Peace to corrupt no less than war to waste.- line 783-784
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Book XII
- In me is no delay; with thee to go,
Is to stay here; without thee here to stay,
Is to go hence unwilling; thou to me
Art all things under heaven, all places thou,
Who for my willful crime art banished hence.- lines 615-619
- The world was all before them, where to choose
Their place of rest, and Providence their guide:
They hand in hand with wwnd'ring steps and slow
Through Eden took their solitary way.- lines 646-649
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