The fallen angels on the lake of fire

The poem opens with the invocation: "Of Man's First Disobedience, and the Fruit / Of that Forbidden Tree, whose mortal taste / Brought Death into the World, and all our woe." Milton calls on the same Heavenly Muse who inspired Moses and announces his intention in the most ambitious terms a poet has ever dared: "I may assert Eternal Providence, / And justify the ways of God to men."

The action begins in Hell. Satan and the rebel angels lie burning on a lake of fire after their nine-day fall from heaven. Satan stirs first. He sees Beelzebub beside him, and the recognition of what they have become produces the first of the poem's great speeches. "What though the field be lost? All is not lost: th' unconquerable will, / And study of revenge, immortal hate, / And courage never to submit or yield." Open war is closed to them, but God has rumored a new creation. Corrupt it, and they will at least have done some damage to the order they have lost.

Satan rises from the lake — his shield like the moon seen through Galileo's optic glass, his spear like a Norwegian pine — and calls his army off the burning surface. "Awake, arise, or be for ever fallen!" They rally, and Milton names them in turn: the lost legions of heaven becoming the false gods of the Old Testament. Moloch, who will eat children. Chemos and Baal and Astarte. Mulciber, who built palaces in heaven and will design Pandemonium here in a single hour of mining. The book closes with the great hall filled and the council about to begin.