io8
��PARADISE LOST
��To do him wanton rites, which cost them
woe.
Yet thence his lustful orgies he enlarged Even to that hill of scandal, by the grove Of Moloch homicide, lust hard by hate, Till good Josiah drove them thence to Hell. With these came they who, from the bor- dering flood
Of old Euphrates to the brook that parts 420 Egypt from Syrian ground, had general
names
Of Baalim and AsTitaroth those male, These feminine. For Spirits, when they
please,
Can either sex assume, or both; so soft And uncompounded is their essence pure, Not tied or manacled with joint or limb, Nor founded on the brittle strength of
bones, Like cumbrous flesh; but, in what shape
they choose,
Dilated or condensed, bright or obscure, Can execute their aery purposes, 430
And works of love or enmity fulfil. For those the race of Israel oft forsook Their Living Strength, and unfrequented
left
His righteous altar, bowing lowly down To bestial gods; for which their heads, as
low Bowed down in battle, sunk before the
spear
Of despicable foes. With these in troop Came Astoreth, whom the Phosnicians called Astarte, queen of heaven, with crescent
horns; To whose bright image nightly by the
moon 440
Sidonian virgins paid their vows and songs ; In Si on also not unsung, where stood Her temple on the offensive mountain, built By that uxorious king whose heart, though
large,
Beguiled by fair idolatresses, fell To idols foul. Thammuz came next be- hind,
Whose annual wound in Lebanon allured The Syrian damsels to lament his fate In amorous ditties all a summer's day, While smooth Adonis from his native
rock 450
Ran purple to the sea, supposed with blood Of Thammuz yearly wounded : the love-tale Infected Sion's daughters with like heat, Whose wanton passions in the sacred porch
��Ezekiel saw, when, by the vision led, His eye surveyed the dark idolatries Of alienated Judah. Next came one Who mourned in earnest, when the captive
Ark Maimed his brute image, head and hands
lopt off,
In his own temple, on the grunsel-edge, 460 Where he fell flat and shamed his worship- ers:
Dagon his name, sea-monster, upward man And downward fish; yet had his temple
high Reared in Azotus, dreaded through the
coast
Of Palestine, in Gath and Ascalon, And Accaron and Gaza's frontier bounds. Him followed Rimmon, whose delightful
seat
Was fair Damascus, on the fertile banks Of Abbana and Pharphar, lucid streams. He also against the house of God was
bold : 470
A leper once he lost, and gained a king Ahaz, his sottish conqueror, whom he drew God's altar to disparage and displace For one of Syrian mode, whereon to burn His odious offerings, and adore the gods Whom he had vanquished. After these
appeared
A crew who, under names of old renown Osiris, Isis, Orus, and their train With monstrous shapes and sorceries
abused
Fanatic Egypt and her priests to seek 4 8o Their wandering gods disguised in brutish
forms
Rather than human. Nor did Israel scape The infection, when their borrowed gold
composed
The calf in Oreb; and the rebel king Doubled that sin in Bethel and in Dan, Likening his Maker to the grazed ox Jehovah, who, in one night, when he passed From Egypt marching, equalled with one
stroke Both her first-born and all her bleating
gods. Belial came last; than whom a Spirit more
lewd 490
Fell not from Heaven, or more gross to
love
Vice for itself. To him no temple stood Or altar smoked; yet who more oft than he In temples and at altars, when the priest
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