Page:The Complete Poetical Works of John Milton.djvu/150

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��PARADISE LOST

��To do him wanton rites, which cost them

woe.

Yet thence his lustful orgies he enlarged Even to that hill of scandal, by the grove Of Moloch homicide, lust hard by hate, Till good Josiah drove them thence to Hell. With these came they who, from the bor- dering flood

Of old Euphrates to the brook that parts 420 Egypt from Syrian ground, had general

names

Of Baalim and AsTitaroth those male, These feminine. For Spirits, when they

please,

Can either sex assume, or both; so soft And uncompounded is their essence pure, Not tied or manacled with joint or limb, Nor founded on the brittle strength of

bones, Like cumbrous flesh; but, in what shape

they choose,

Dilated or condensed, bright or obscure, Can execute their aery purposes, 430

And works of love or enmity fulfil. For those the race of Israel oft forsook Their Living Strength, and unfrequented

left

His righteous altar, bowing lowly down To bestial gods; for which their heads, as

low Bowed down in battle, sunk before the

spear

Of despicable foes. With these in troop Came Astoreth, whom the Phosnicians called Astarte, queen of heaven, with crescent

horns; To whose bright image nightly by the

moon 440

Sidonian virgins paid their vows and songs ; In Si on also not unsung, where stood Her temple on the offensive mountain, built By that uxorious king whose heart, though

large,

Beguiled by fair idolatresses, fell To idols foul. Thammuz came next be- hind,

Whose annual wound in Lebanon allured The Syrian damsels to lament his fate In amorous ditties all a summer's day, While smooth Adonis from his native

rock 450

Ran purple to the sea, supposed with blood Of Thammuz yearly wounded : the love-tale Infected Sion's daughters with like heat, Whose wanton passions in the sacred porch

��Ezekiel saw, when, by the vision led, His eye surveyed the dark idolatries Of alienated Judah. Next came one Who mourned in earnest, when the captive

Ark Maimed his brute image, head and hands

lopt off,

In his own temple, on the grunsel-edge, 460 Where he fell flat and shamed his worship- ers:

Dagon his name, sea-monster, upward man And downward fish; yet had his temple

high Reared in Azotus, dreaded through the

coast

Of Palestine, in Gath and Ascalon, And Accaron and Gaza's frontier bounds. Him followed Rimmon, whose delightful

seat

Was fair Damascus, on the fertile banks Of Abbana and Pharphar, lucid streams. He also against the house of God was

bold : 470

A leper once he lost, and gained a king Ahaz, his sottish conqueror, whom he drew God's altar to disparage and displace For one of Syrian mode, whereon to burn His odious offerings, and adore the gods Whom he had vanquished. After these

appeared

A crew who, under names of old renown Osiris, Isis, Orus, and their train With monstrous shapes and sorceries

abused

Fanatic Egypt and her priests to seek 4 8o Their wandering gods disguised in brutish

forms

Rather than human. Nor did Israel scape The infection, when their borrowed gold

composed

The calf in Oreb; and the rebel king Doubled that sin in Bethel and in Dan, Likening his Maker to the grazed ox Jehovah, who, in one night, when he passed From Egypt marching, equalled with one

stroke Both her first-born and all her bleating

gods. Belial came last; than whom a Spirit more

lewd 490

Fell not from Heaven, or more gross to

love

Vice for itself. To him no temple stood Or altar smoked; yet who more oft than he In temples and at altars, when the priest

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