With stubborn patience as with triple steel. That dismal world, if any clime perhaps Of four infernal rivers, that disgorge Into the burning lake their baleful streams; Sad Acheron of sorrow, black and deep; 575 579 Heard on the rueful stream; fierce Phlegethon, Whose waves of torrent fire inflame with rage. Far off from these a slow and silent stream, Lethe, the river of oblivion, rolls Her wat'ry labyrinth; whereof who drinks, Where armies whole have sunk: the parching air Thither, by harpy-footed furies hal'd, 596 Are brought; and feel by turns the bitter change Of fierce extremes, extremes by change more fierce, 600 From beds of raging fire to starve in ice Periods of time, thence hurry'd back to fire. They ferry over this Lethean sound Both to and fro, their sorrow to augment, 605 And wish and struggle, as they pass, to reach The tempting stream, with one small drop to lose In sweet forgetfulness all pain and woe, Medusa with Gorgonian terror guards 611 The ford, and of itself the water flies All taste of living wight, as once it fled The lip of Tantalus. Thus roving on 614 In confus'd march forlorn, th' advent'rous bands With shudd'ring horror pale, and eyes aghast, View'd first their lamentable lot, and found No rest. Through many a dark and dreary vale They pass'd, and many a region dolorous, O'er many frozen, many a fiery Alp, 620 Rocks, caves, lakes, fens, bogs, dens, and shades of death, A universe of death, which God by curse Created ev'l, for evil only good, Where all life dies, death lives, and nature breeds, P all monstrous, all prodigious things, 625 Abominable, inutterable, and worse Than fables yet have feign'd, or fear conceiv'd, Gorgons and Hydras, and Chimæras dire. Meanwhile th' Adversary of God and Man, Satan, with thoughts inflam'd of high'st design, Puts on swift wings, and tow'rds the gates of Hell Explores his solitary flight. Sometimes 631 He scours the right hand coast, sometimes the left, Now shaves with level wing the deep, then soars 635 Up to the fiery concave tow'ring high. Through the wide Ethiopian to the Cape brass, Three iron, three of adamantine rock, Yet unconsum'd. Before the gates there sat 645 The one seem'd woman to the waist, and fair, But ended foul in many a scaly fold Voluminous and vast, a serpent arm'd 651 With mortal sting: about her middle round A cry of Hell-hounds never ceasing, bark'd 654 With wide Cerberean mouths full loud, and rung A hideous peal: yet, when they list, would creep, If aught disturb'd their noise, into her womb, And kennel there, yet there still bark'dand howl'd, Within unseen. Far less abhorr'd than these Vex'd Scylla, bathing in the sea that parts 660 Calabria from the hoarse Trinacrian shore: Nor uglier follow the night-hag, when call'd In secret, riding through the air she comes, Lur'd with the smell of infant blood, to dance With Lapland witches, while the lab'ring moon Eclipses at their charms. The other shape, 666 If shape it might be call'd that shape had none Distinguishable in member, joint, or limb, Or substance might be call'd that shadow seem'd, For each seem'd either; black it stood as Night, Fierce as ten Furies, terrible as Hell, 671 And shook a dreadful dart. What seem'd his head Whence and what art thou, execrable shape, That dar'st, though grim and terrible, advance Thy miscreated front athwart my way |