WORKS
Book VI of Paradise Lost
BOOK VI OF PARADISE LOST
“Raphael continues to relate how Michael and Gabriel were sent forth to Battle against Satan and his Angels. To first Fight describ’d: Satan and his Powers retire under Night: He calls a Council, invents devilish Engines, which in the second day’s Fight put Michael and his Angels to some disorder; but they at length pulling up Mountains overwhelm’d both the force and Machines of Satan: Yet the Tumult not so ending, God on the third day sends Messiah his Son, for whom he had reserv’d the glory of that Victory: Hee in the Power of his Father coming to the place, and causing all his Legions to stand still on either side, with his Chariot and Thunder driving into the midst of his Enemies, pursues them unable to resist towards the wall of Heaven; which opening, they leap down with horror and confusion into the place of punishment prepar’d for them in the Deep: Messiah returns with triumph to his Father.”
— John Milton, “The Argument,” Book VI of Paradise Lost (1674 edition)
The Fall of the Rebel Angels
Date
1798
Medium
Watercolor, gouache, ink and gold paint on paper
Dimensions
Height: 91 cm
Width: 65 cm
Location
Tate Britain, London
PL Lines
“Hell heard th’ unsufferable noise, Hell saw
Heav’n ruining from Heav’n, and would have fled
Affrighted; but strict Fate had cast too deep
Her dark foundations, and too fast had bound.
Nine days they fell; confounded Chaos roar’d,
And felt tenfold confusion in thir fall
Through his wild Anarchy, so huge a rout
Incumber’d him with ruin: Hell at last
Yawning receiv’d them whole, and on them clos’d,
Hell thir fit habitation fraught with fire
Unquenchable, the house of woe and pain.”
(Paradise Lost, Book VI, 867–77)