UnPoetia:Paradise Abridged/Book III
The Argument
God, sitting on his Throne, sees Satan flying towards this world. God shows him to the Son and foretells Satan’s success in perverting Man; explains His desire to extend grace to Man (for Man did not fall as a result of his own malice, as did Satan, but was by Satan tempted); explains how Man must still pay for his transgression because he has free will and therefore freely chose to fall; declares that all Man’s progeny are to die for something their forebears did; accepts the notion that the Son puts forth that the Son will be the one to die to appease divine justice in lieu of Man; commands all the angels to adore the Son; and gets shit done like a boss. Meanwhile, Satan approaches the orb of Earth, and fools the Archangel Uriel to let him past because Uriel’s a fucking retard.
The Verse
Hail Holy Light, offspring of Heav’n’s first-born, [1]
Since God is light, or first created light,
Or is kinda like light I guess, maybe;
Or perhaps I should address God’s voice? Muse,
Holy Muse, not to be confused with light, [5]
Which itself is glorious—eh, fuck it.[1]
Now had the Almighty Father from above,
From the pure Empyrean where he sits
High thron’d above all highth, bent down his eye,
His own works and their works at once to view; [10]
On his right sat his only Son begot,
The spirit and image of his Father.
“Only begotten Son, see you what rage,”
Began God the Father to God the Son,
“Transports our adversary to the Earth? [15]
I’d be willing to bet that he intends
To pervert mankind with all his badness
And make my job that much more difficult.
And whose fault is it? Whose but his own? Man’s!
Ingrate, he had of me all he could have [20]
And then some more! I made him just and right,
Sufficient to have stood (though free to fall)
And this is the thanks I get? Me-dammit!”[2]
Thus while God spake, ambrosial fragrance fill’d
All Heav’n, and in the bless’d spirits elect [25]
Sense of new joy ineffable diffus’d:
Beyond compare the Son of God was seen
Most glorious, in him all his Father shone
Substantially express’d, and in his face
Divine compassion visibly appeared, [30]
Love without end, and without measure grace,
Which uttering thus he to his Father spake:
“Dad, perhaps you should just chill out a bit.
What’re you going to do? Unmake mankind?”
To which the Lord God angrily replied: [35]
“O Son, in whom my soul hath chief delight
Son of my bosom, Son who art alone
My word, my wisdom, and effectual might,
Learn yourself some Me-damn respect!
Jesus! I thought I taught you better, Son; [40]
I haven’t been this mad since you started
Talking like those yet-uncreated blacks
And spoke to me the urban speak most foul.[3]
Man shall not quite be lost, but sav’d by Me
Not through his own will, rather through my grace. [45]
Some I have chosen of particular
Grace to receive, so is my will; and the
Rest shall burn in Hell, forever condemned
By the long-dead sins of their parentage.
Even among the most righteous elect [50]
Death shall rear its ugly head; Man must die;
He with his whole posterity must die,
Unless someone else is willing, able
To pay the rigid satisfaction, death.
Say Heav’nly Powers, where shall we find such love? [55]
Which one of you will make such sacrifice?”
He ask’d, but all the heav’nly choir stood mute,
And silence was in Heav'n, when at long last:
“Well…I guess I’ll do it,” spake the Son.
All Heaven, as to what this might mean, stood [60]
Wond’ring, but soon th’ Almighty thus replied:
“Excellent! Angels, I command thee praise
My only begotten Son, my right hand;
But before that happens, Jesus: you will
Be born to a virgin mother, and live [65]
Amongst mankind as one of them, and you
Shall teach my word once more to man, until
You are betrayed by your own pupil, and
Are crucified to die on Calvary,
Which will, my only Son, most surely suck.”[4] [70]
Having thus condemned his only Son to
Mortal pain and fear and betrayal to serve
As ransom for Man’s forever-damning
Sin, there was much rejoicing in Heaven.
Meanwhile, Satan the general Fiend, with all [75]
His malice, was making towards this
Opacious globe, which seem’d to him far off,
A pendant world hung by a golden chain
Off a corner of unassailable
Heaven; he walk’d and flew and made his way [80]
To Earth by way of Chaos up from Hell
And came at last to the orb of the Sun,
Which either makes its way around the Earth
Or stays fixèd, with the Earth revolving,
Which one it is I’m not exactly sure.[5] [85]
Upon arriving at that orb, Satan
Saw within his sight the great Archangel
Uriel, one of the seven angels
Who is most close to God, and at His call;
Satan thus himself disguisèd as a [90]
Zealot diminutive angel seeking
To admire the Lord God’s new creation.
“Say,” spake Uriel, now looking on the
Fiend disguis’d, “You aren’t that rebel angel,
Whom’s name we speaketh not, come here to Earth [95]
To beguile and pervert mankind to foil
God? For I was charg’d by Him Almighty
To guide the Sun and look after the Earth—
Or perhaps it is the other way round,
Of manners astronomical no one [100]
Seems to be too sure of—but in any
Event I’m to stop that nameless angel
From making done his wretched deed most foul.
You be not he? That envious fallen
Cherub?” To which the lying Fiend answer’d: [105]
“No.” “Well then,” spake th’ angel, “Be on your way.”
Clicketh Here for Book IV
The Annotations
- ↑ This Book, like the first, opens with an evocation of a Muse. This evocation is cut short, like everything else in the poem, because it is totally superfluous and unnecessary.
- ↑ The author opts to portray God as an angry, wrathful, Old Testament type, a decided departure from Milton’s treatment of the deity in his own epic poem. It is believed the author made the change in characterization to better rationalize and characterize the deity’s decisions, almost all of which are bad.
- ↑ This refers back to a scene that happens in Book VI, which actually occurs before this exchange chronologically, but is obviously placed after it, owing to Milton’s confusing structuring of the original poem.
- ↑ Ironically, God the Father doesn’t seem to be a very good one.
- ↑ A relic from the original work, in which Milton is decidedly noncommittal in regards to his views on astronomy, either for fear of being called a heretic by contemporaries or for fear of being thought a moron by more astronomically inclined readers in the distant future.