Such is the grand perspective from the scene of this stupendous drama.
The play opens as softly as the opening strains of some grand oratorio. The first act is largely descriptive, a picture of the beautiful serenity of Heaven and of the joys of Paradise.
Belzebub, the second devil, first comes on the scene, and, as he stands upon those "heights flushed in creation's morn," by means of a few words, vibrant with suggestion and of far-reaching import, he at once gives us the key to the opening situation, indicating the relative positions of the two chief personages of the drama--the antithesis of Lucifer and Adam.
Apollion has been sent below to gain some tidings of the new race of earth. With speedy wings he soars back through the blue crystalline and past the wondering spheres, bearing a golden bough laden with choice fruit, that apple sweet whose juice is wine of destiny. He is brimming with enthusiasm over the wonders that he has just witnessed.
Belzebub, who has been anxiously awaiting his return, listens intently to his glowing description of the beauty of Eden and its primal innocence, occasionally interrupting with exclamations of wonder. Question after question suggests itself to his excited imagination. At first he is aflame with curiosity, then jealousy begins to tincture his ardor, and his admiration soon changes into mockery.
Apollion then describes the primeval pair and their unalloyed bliss, and confesses that in the delightful blaze of Eve's charms his snowy wings were singed. Indeed, to curb his increasing desire, he covered his eyes with both hands and wings. Even when godlike resolution had impelled him to return on high, he thrice turned back a lingering gaze towards the more than seraphic beauty of the first woman. Far sweeter than even the music of the spheres, those nightingales of space, is this most beautiful note in the song of creation!
Indescribably delicate is his account of the joys of that first marriage:
"And then he kissed His bride and she her bridegroom--thus on joy Their nuptials fed, on feasts of fiery love, Better imagined far than told--a bliss Divine beyond all angel ken;"
"How poor Our loneliness; for us no union sweet Of two-fold sex--of maiden and of man-- Alas! how much of good we miss; we know No mate or happy marriage in a Heaven Devoid of woman."