THE ARGUMENT
This first Book proposes, first in brief, the whole Subject, Mans disobedience, and the loss thereupon of Paradise wherein he lact: Then touches the prime cause of his fall, the Serpent, or rather Satan in the Serpent; who revolting from God, and drawing to his side many Legions of Angels, was by the and of God driven out of Heaven with all his Crew into the great Deep. Which a past over, the Poem hasts into the midst of things, presenting Satan with his Angels now fallen into Hell, describd here, not in the ter (for Heaven ah may be supposd as yet not made, certainly not yet accurst) but in a place of utter darkness, fitliest calld Chaos: Here Satan with his Angels lying on the burning Lake, thurud astonisht, after a certain space recovers, as from fusion, calls up him who in Order and Dignity lay by him; they fer of thir miserable fall. Satan awakens all his Legions, who lay till then in the same manner fouhey rise, thir Numbers, array of Battel, thir chief Leaders namd, acc to the Idols known afterwards in aan and the tries adjoyning. To these Satan directs his Speech, forts them with hope yet aining Heaven, but tells them lastly of a new World and new kind of Creature to be created, acc to an a Prophesie or report in Heaven; for that Angels were long before this visible Creation, was the opinion of many a Fathers. To find out the truth of this Prophesie, and what to determin thereon he refers to a full cel. What his Associates theempt. Pandemonium the Palace of Satan rises, suddenly built out of the Deep: The infernal Peers there sit in cel.