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O foul descent! that I who erst contended With Gods to sit the highest, am now constrained Into a beast, and mixed with bestial slime, This essence to incarnate and imbrute, That to the heighth of Deity aspired… Revenge, at first though sweet, Bitter ere long back on itself recoils; Let it; I reck not, so I light well aimed, Since higher I fall short, on him who next Provokes my envy, this new favourite Of Heav’n, this man of clay, son of despite, Whom us the more to spite his Maker raised From dust: spite then with spite is best repaid. Meaning- In this passage, Satan transforms into a snake. He's come into the Garden of Eden to tempt Eve into disobeying God's authority and eating from the Tree of Knowledge. Satan feels great shame and self-hatred as he transforms into a snake, which he sees as a lowly, ugly beast--he remembers the time when he lived in Heaven and his body was beautiful, and when he even aspired to be equal to God himself. He's fallen a long, long way since that time: now, every second of his life is full of misery. Indeed, he's so miserable that his only pleasure is to cause misery to other. Milton uses clever language to foreshadow Satan's own punishment. In the final line, Satan mentions dust--after tempting Eve, God punished snakes by condemning them to eat "dust." Furthermore, the word "spite" (echoing several times in the last few lines) recalls the hissing sound of the snake, reflecting Satan's transformation.