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"Death On His Pale Horse"
(Magill's Quotations in Context)
Context: Following the seduction of Adam and Eve from obedience, Satan returns to Hell in triumph, to boast of his deed to his followers, the fallen angels. His triumph is short-lived, for he and his followers are suddenly, in the midst of boasting, turned into writhing, hissing snakes. From Hell's gate Sin, Satan's paramour, and Death, their child, fly up to Paradise to take possession, given power by man's transgression. Death is not yet mounted, as the Biblical tradition (Revelation 6:8) has it. Sin is not only Death's mother by Satan; she is Satan's offspring herself, as Milton tells earlier in Paradise Lost. Describing the arrival of Sin and Death in Paradise, Milton writes:
. . . in Paradise the hellish pairToo soon arrived, Sin there in power before,Once actual, now in body, and to dwellHabitual habitant; behind her deathClose following, pace for pace, not mounted yetOn his pale horse. . . .