abysses, thus gradually working his way to the place where Chaos and
Night sit enthroned, contemplating the world "which hangs from heaven
by a golden chain." Addressing these deities, Satan commiserates them
for having lost Tartarus, now the abode of the fallen angels, as well
as the region of light occupied by the new world. When he proposes to
restore to them that part of their realm by frustrating God's plans,
they gladly speed him toward earth, whither "full fraught with
mischievous revenge accursed in an accursed hour he hies."

_Book III._ After a pathetic invocation to light, the offspring of
heaven, whose rays will never shine through his darkness, Milton
expresses a hope that like other blind poets and seers he may describe
all the more clearly what is ever before his intellectual sight. Then
he relates how the Eternal Father, gazing downward, contemplates hell,
the newly-created world, and the wide cleft between, where he descries
Satan "hovering in the dun air sublime." Summoning his hosts, the
Almighty addresses his Only Begotten Son,--whose arrival in heaven has
caused Satan's rebellion,--and, pointing out the Adversary, declares
he is bent on revenge which will redound on his own head. Then God
adds that, although the angels fell by their own suggestion, and are
hence excluded from all hope of redemption, man will fall deceived by
Satan, so that, although he will thus incur death, he will not forever
be unforgiven if some one will pay the penalty of his sin. Because
none of the angels feel holy enough to make so great a sacrifice,
there is "silence in heaven," until the Son of God, "in whom all
fulness dwells of love divine," seeing man will be lost unless he
interferes, declares his willingness to surrender to death all of
himself that can die. He entreats, however, that the Father will not
leave him in the loathsome grave, but will permit his soul to rise
victorious, leading to heaven those ransomed from sin, death, and hell