The fiery serpent fled, and noxious worm, The lion and fierce tiger glared aloof. But now an aged man1 in rural weeds,
Following, as seemed, the quest of some stray ewe, Or withered sticks to gather, which might serve Against a winter's day when winds blow keen, To warm him wet returned from field at eve, He saw approach, who first with curious eye Perused him, then with words thus uttered spake:
Sir, what ill chance hath brought thee to this place, So far from path or road of men, who pass
In troop or caravan? for single none
Durst ever, who returned, and dropped not here His carcass, pined with hunger and with drouth. I ask the rather, and the more admire,
For that to me thou seem st the man, whom late Our new baptizing prophet at the ford
Of Jordan honoured so, and called thee Son
Of God; I saw and heard, for we sometimes
Who dwell this wild, constrained by want, come forth To town or village nigh (nighest is far)
Where aught we hear, and curious are to hear, What happens new; fame also finds us out."
To whom the Son of God: “Who brought me hither,
Will bring me hence; no other guide I seek."
By miracle he may," replied the swain,
"What other way I see not, for we here
Live on tough roots and stubs,2 to thirst inured More than the camel,3 and to drink go far, Men to much misery and hardship born: But if thou be the Son of God, command
That out of these hard stones be made thee bread;
1 As the Scripture is entirely silent about what personage the tempter assumed, the poet was at liberty to indulge his own fancy; and nothing, I think, could be better conceived for his present pur pose, or more likely to prevent suspicion of fraud. The poet might, perhaps, take the hint from a design of David Kirkboon's, where the devil is represented addressing himself to our Saviour, under the appearance of an old man.-Thyer.
Although this word is used both by Chaucer and Spenser to signify a stock or clump, still the sense seems to require "shrubs," as is proposed by Thyer.
3 On the endurance of thirst by the camel, see Plin. H. N. viii, 26. Taverner says that it will ordinarily live without drink eight or nine days.
So shalt thou save thyself and us relieve
With food, whereof we wretched seldom taste." He ended, and the Son of God replied: "Think'st thou such force in bread? Is it not written (For I discern thee other than thou seem'st) Man lives not by bread only, but each word Proceeding from the mouth of God, who fed Our fathers here with manna? In the mount Moses was forty days, nor ate nor drank ; And forty days Elijah without food
Wandered this barren waste; the same I now: Why dost thou then suggest to me distrust, Knowing who I am, as I know who thou art?"
Whom thus answered the arch-fiend now undisguised:
""Tis true, I am that spirit unfortunate,
Who, leagued with millions more in rash revolt, Kept not my happy station, but was driven With them from bliss to the bottomless deep; Yet to that hideous place not so confined By rigour unconniving, but that oft Leaving my dolorous prison I enjoy
Large liberty to round this globe of earth,
Or range in the air, nor from the Heaven of Heavens Hath he excluded my resort sometimes.
I came among the sons of God, when he
Gave up into my hands Uzzéan Job
To prove him, and illustrate his high worth; And when to all his angels he proposed To draw the proud king Ahab into fraud That he might fall in Ramoth,' they demurring, I undertook that office, and the tongues Of all his flattering prophets glibbed with lies To his destruction, as I had in charge; For what he bids I do. Though I have lost Much lustre of my native brightness, lost To be beloved of God, I have not lost To love, at least contemplate and admire What I see excellent in good, or fair, Or virtuous, I should so have lost all sense. What can be then less in me than desire To see thee and approach thee, whom I know Declared the Son of God, to hear attent2 Thy wisdom, and behold thy Godlike deeds? 1 See 1 Kings, xxii. 19, sqq. 2 Attentively.
Men generally think me such a foe
To all mankind: why should I? they to me Never did wrong or violence; by them
I lost not what I lost, rather by them
I gained what I have gained, and with them dwell Copartner in these regions of the world, If not disposer; lend them oft my aid, Oft my advice by presages and signs, And answers, oracles, portents, and dreams, Whereby they may direct their future life. Envy they say excites me thus to gain Companions of my misery and woe. At first it may be; but long since with woe Nearer acquainted, now I feel by proof, That fellowship in pain divides not smart, Nor lightens aught each man's peculiar load. Small consolation then, were men adjoined: This wounds me most (what can it less?) that man, Man fallen shall be restored; I never more." To whom our Saviour sternly thus replied: Deservedly thou griev'st, composed of lies From the beginning, and in lies wilt end;
Who boast'st release from Hell, and leave to come Into the Heaven of Heavens. Thou com'st indeed, As a poor miserable captive thrall
Comes to the place where he before had sat Among the prime in splendour, now deposed, Ejected, emptied, gazed, unpitied, shunned, A spectacle of ruin or of scorn
To all the host of Heaven: the happy place Imparts to thee no happiness, no joy, Rather inflames thy torment, representing Lost bliss to thee no more communicable, So never more in Hell than when in Heaven. But thou art serviceable to Heaven's King. Wilt thou impute to obedience what thy fear Extorts, or pleasure to do ill excites? What but thy malice moved thee to misdeem Of righteous Job, then cruelly to afflict him With all inflictions? but his patience won. The other service was thy chosen task, To be a liar in four hundred mouths: For lying is thy sustenance, thy food. Yet thou pretend'st to truth; all oracles
By thee are given, and what confessed more true Among the nations? that hath been thy craft, By mixing somewhat true to vent more lies. But what have been thy answers, what but dark, Ambiguous, and with double sense deluding, Which they who asked have seldom understood, And not well understood as good not known? Whoever, by consulting at thy shrine, Returned the wiser, or the more instruct To fly or follow what concerned him most, And run not sooner to his fatal snare? For God hath justly given the nations up To thy delusions; justly, since they fell Idolatrous but when his purpose is Among them to declare his providence
To thee not known, whence hast thou then thy truth But from him or his angels president
In every province? who, themselves disdaining To approach thy temples, give thee in command What to the smallest tittle thou shalt say To thy adorers; thou with trembling fear, Or like a fawning parasite, obey'st; Then to thyself ascrib'st the truth foretold. But this thy glory shall be soon retrenched; No more shalt thou by oracling abuse The Gentiles: henceforth oracles are ceased, And thou no more with pomp and sacrifice Shalt be inquired at Delphos1 or elsewhere, At least in vain, for they shall find thee mute. God hath now sent his living oracle Into the world to teach his final will,
And sends his Spirit of truth henceforth to dwell In pious hearts, an inward oracle
To all truth requisite for men to know.”
So spake our Saviour; but the subtle fiend, Though inly stung with anger and disdain, Dissembled, and this answer smooth returned: Sharply thou hast insisted on rebuke,
And urged me hard with doings, which not will But misery hath wrested from me: where Easily canst thou find one miserable,
And not enforced oft-times to part from truth;
1 More rightly "Delphi," but the mistake is a common one.
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