Whose waves of torrent fire inflame with rage.
Far off from these, a slow and silent stream,
Lethe, the river of oblivion, rolls

Her watery labyrinth; whereof who drinks,
Forthwith his former state and being forgets,—
Forgets both joy and grief, pleasure and pain.
Beyond this flood a frozen continent

Lies dark and wild, beat with perpetual storms
Of whirlwind and dire hail,1 which on firm land
Thaws not, but gathers heap, and ruin seems
Of ancient pile, or else deep snow and ice;
A gulf profound as that Serbonian bog
Betwixt Damiata and mount Casius old,2

3

Where armies whole have sunk: the parching air
Burns frore, and cold performs the effects of fire.
Thither, by harpy-footed Furies hal'd,

4

At certain revolutions, all the damn'd

Are brought; and feel by turns the bitter change
Of fierce extremes—extremes by change more fierce :
From beds of raging fire, to starve in ice 6
Their soft ethereal warmth, and there to pine
Immovable, inflx'd, and frozen round—

603 Periods of time; thence hurried back to fire.

1" Dire hail." Hor. i. Od. ii. 1 :

See Note, v. 285.

"Jam satis terrls nivis atque dira
Grandinis misit paler.

2 Serbonis was a lake of two hundred furlongs long, and one thousand in compass, between the ancient mount Cassius, and Damiata, a city of Egypt, on one of the more eastern mouths of the Nile. It was surrounded on all sides by hills of loose sand, which, carried into the waters by high winds, so thickened the lake as not to be distinguished from part of the continent. Here whole armies have been swallowed up. See Herod, iii.; Lucan, Pharsal. viii. 539.—(H.) In the scansion the final a in Damiata is to be suppressed. See Diod. Sicul. b. i. c. II.

3 Frore, an old word for frosty. The parching air burns with frost. So Virg. Georg. i. 93: Boreæ penelrabile ftigus adurat :" and Ecclus. xlii. 20, 21: "The cold north wind burneth the wilderness and consumelh the grass as fire."—(N.) Here I may observe, that penelrabile, in this passage of Virgil, is to be taken actively for penetrans. Threre are instances in the ancient classics of this transposed meaning of participles from passive to active, and from active to passive there is a remarkable one in that phrase of Horace. Od. iii. 3, b. I. " oceano disiociabili." Milton occasionally lakes this liberty.

There is no impropriety in applying "harpy-tooted" to "Furtes." Celano, the harpy, (Æn. iii. 252) calls herself" the greatest of the Furies." The harpies are described in that passage—" Turba sonans pradam pedibus circumvolat uncts."

a Newton thinks Milton derived this idea of punishment by periodical transition from heat to cold from the Latin vulgar translation of Job xxiv. 19, which he often used: "Ad nimium calorem transeal ab aquis nivium." So Jerome and others understand it. But the same mode of punishment is mentioned by Shakspeare, Meas. for Meas.

iii. i :—

--" And the delighted spirit

To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside
In thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice.n

So also Pnnle, Inferno iii. 86. The notion was current in Milton's time.—IT.)

They ferry over this Lethean sound

Both to and fro, their sorrow to augment,
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—
All in one moment, and so near the brink!
But fate withstands, and, to oppose the attempt,
Medusa with Gorgonian terror guards
The ford; and of itself the water flies
All taste of living wight, as once it fled
The lip of Tantalus. Thus roving on

In confus'd march forlorn, the adventurous bands,
With shuddering 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 a frozen, many a fiery Alp—

Rocks—caves- lakes—fens---bogs—dens—and shades of

A universe of death! which God by curse
Created evil—for evil only good;

Where all life dies—death lives, and nature breeds
Perverse, all monstrous, all prodigious things—

Abominable—inutterable; and worse

Than fables yet have feign'd, or fear conceiv'd,
Gorgons, and Hydras, and Chimeras dire.4

Meanwhile, the adversary of God and man,
Satan, with thoughts inflam'd of highest design,
«3i Puts on swift wings,5 and towards the gates of hell

i This is a line allegory to show lhal there is no forgetfulness in hell; memory being a part of the punishment of the damned. "Fale withstands:""fata obstant." (£n.iv. 440.) Medusa was one of the Gorgons, whose locks, entwined with snakes, were so terrible to look on, that they turned the beholder into stone. Ulysses (Odys. xi. 633) was desirous, when he visited the infernal regions, of seeing more uf the departed heroes; but I was afraid, says he, Proserpine might send her Gorgon.

Μη μοι Γοργειην κεφαλην δείνοιο πέλωρου

Εξ Αίδος πέμψειεν αγαύη Περσεφονεια. – (Ν.)

2" Tantalus a labris sitiens fugienlia flumina capiat." Hor. b. I. sat. i.

3 The commentators say, (hat the time and labour in pronouncing this rough verse, which consists of monosyllabic terms, each conveying a distinct idea, are expressive of the tediousness and difficulty of the journey. Burke, (On the Sublime and Beautiful) says that the high idea caused by the word "death," annexed to the others, which is raised higher by what follows, "A universe of death," raises a great degree of the sublime.

Addison seems to disapprove of the Introduction of these fictitious beings in hell. But, as Newton has well observed, Milton had such high authority as Virgil, £n. vi. 273—281; Seneca, Hercul. Fur. 686; Statius Thebais vii. 47; Claudian in Rufln. i. 30; and Spenser, Fairy Queen, ii. 7, 21.

5 It appears, from i. 225, that he already had wings on, and that they were always on : when had he put them off? "Put on" is here used, as induo in Latin sometimes is, to

Explores his solitary flight: sometimes

He scours the right hand coast, sometimes the left:
Now shaves with level wing the deep; 1 then soars
Up to the fiery concave, towering high :

As when far off at sea a fleet descried
Hangs in the clouds, by equinoctial winds
Close sailing from Bengala, or the isles

Of Ternate, and Tidore, whence merchants bring
Their spicy drugs; they on the trading flood,
Through the wide Ethiopian to the Cape,

2

Ply stemming nightly toward the pole: so secm'd
Far off the flying fiend. At last appear

Hell-bounds, high reaching to the horrid roof;
And thrice threefold the gates: three folds were brass
Three iron, three of adamantine rock,

Impenetrable, impal'd with circling fire,

Yet unconsum'd. Before the gates there sat
On either side a formidable shape:

The one seem'd woman to the waist, and fair;
But ended foul in many a scaly fold,3
Voluminous and vast; a serpent arm'd

653 With mortal sting: about her middle round

signify to prepare, to get ready for use. This, I think, is the simplest mode of solution. See note, b. v. 285.

1 So En. v. 217 :

See Note, v. 285.

"Radit iter liquidum, celeres neque commovet alas."

2 This simile has justly been considered eminently grand and picturesque. Satan, "towering high" with expanded wings, is compared, not to a single ship, however large, under spread sails; but, as giving a nobler image, to a whole fleet of the largest ships at that time known, the Indiamcn, or vessels trading with India, seen just as a fleet, when sailing closely, notoriously appears in the distance, "hanging in the clouds." The length of the Indiamcn's voyage will convey the idea of Satan's distant expedition; and the foreign names give a more dignified cast to the similitude.—" Bengala," in Milton's time a powerful kingdom, is now one of the provinces of British India, Bengal." Ternate, and Tidore," two of the Molucca Islands.—" Equinoctial winds," the trade winds that blow about the equinox.—" Ethiopian," the part of the Indian ocean bordering on Ethiopia.—" The Cape," the Cape of Good Hope.—" The pole," the north pole, northward.—"Stemming nightly," i.e. working on against the current at night, express Satan's laborious flight in the dark against all opposition.-(N.) > Virgil, Æn. vi. 574 :—

"Cernis custodia qualis

Vcslibolo sedeat? tack's quæ lfmina servet?
Qulnquaglnta atris immanis hiatibus Hydra
SaTior lotus habet sedem."

The Italian and old English poets have dealt in allegories of this sort; but Milton has not only concentrated, but improved what was excellent in all of them, in this famous allegory, of which the learned Atterbury, in a letter to Pope, says, I challenge you to show me any thing equal to the allegory of Sin and Death, either as to the greatness and justice of the invention, or the height and beauty of the colouring." See Spenser's description of Error in the mixed shape of a woman and serpent, F. Q. I. i. 11, and of Echidna, VI. vi. 10: Dante, Inferno 17.-N., T., Wart.) James i. 15:" When Lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth Sin, and Sin, when it is linisbed. bringcth forth Death."—(R.)

A cry of hell-hounds never-ceasing bark'd,
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'd, and howl'd
Within, unseen. Far less abhorr'd than these
Vcx'd Scylla, bathing in the sea that parts
Calabria from the hoarse Trinacrian shore: 1
Nor uglier follow the night-hag, when, call'd
In secret, riding through the air 2, she comes
Lur'd with the smell of infant blood, to dance
With Lapland witches, while the labouring moon
Eclipses at their charms. The other shape,—
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,

And shook a dreadful dart: what seem'd his head,
The likeness of a kingly crown had on.

Satan was now at hand: and from his seat

The monster moving onward came as fast
With horrid strides; hell trembled as he strode :

l

677 Th' undaunted fiend what this might be admir'd ;—

1 See Ovid. Met. xiv. beginning; Virgil, Æn. iii. 424.

Thus the witches in Macbeth are represented as riding through the air.

9 A superstitious belief in this circumstance was not exploded in Milton's time. The ancients believed that the moon was greatly affected by magical practices; and the Latin poest called the eclipses of the moon, labures lunw.—(Rich.)

Fairy Queen, Vll. vii. 46 :—

"But after all came Life, and lastly Death;

Death with most grim and grisly visage seen—
Yet Is he nought but parting of the breath,
Ne aught to see, but like a shade to ween,
Unbodied, nnsoul'd, unheard, unseen."—(Th.)

Euripides, in his tragedy of Alcestit, personifies Oxvxro;, or Death; a passage that Warlon thinks Milton had in his eye. Andreini, too, in is Adamo, makes Death a person; and perhaps, says Todd, he had him in view; but whether Death here was an imitation or an original creation of the fancy, it is acknowledged on all hands that his description has many masterly touches of horrible magnificence, which are unequalled.

705

Admir'd,—not fear'd; God and his Son except,'
Created thing nought valued he, nor shunn'd;'
And, with disdainful look, thus first began :

2

Whence, and what art thou, execrable shape!
"That dar'st, though grim and terrible, advance
"Thy miscreated front athwart my way
"To yonder gates? through them I mean to pass;
"That be assur'd, without leave ask'd of thee:
"Retire, or taste thy folly, and learn by proof,
"Hell-born! not to contend with spirits of heaven."
To whom the goblin full of wrath replied:
"Art thou that traitor-angel, art thou he,3
Who first broke peace in heaven, and faith, till then
"Unbroken; and in proud, rebellious arms,
"Drew after him the third part of heaven's sons

3

"Conjur'd against the Highest; for which both thou

66

And they, outcast from God, are here condemn'd
"To waste etcrnat days in woe and pain?

"And reckon'st thou thyseir with spirits or heaven,
"Hell-doom'd! 5 and breath'st defiance here and scorn,
"Where I reign king? and, to enrage thee more,-

66

Thy king and lord. Back to thy punishment,

"False7 fugitive! and to thy speed add wings,
"Lest with a whip of scorpions I pursue

"Thy lingering; or with one stroke of this dart

66

Strange horror seize thee, and pangs unfelt before."

So spake the grisly terror, and in shape,

So speaking and so threat'ning, grew tenfold

i The subtlety and hypercrilicism lhat would find absurdity in this passage, as if it could appear from it lhat God and his Son were created beings, would rcnder some ofthe finest passages in ancient and modern poetry less acceplablc to our taste and judgment. Richardson thinks except here is used with the same liberty as but, 333, 336. So in his prose works, (1698, vol. i. p. 277,)" N? Place in hea»en or earth, except hcll, where charity may not enter." Todd says, except here is a verb in the imperative mood; « include not God and hit Son; them he did fear* but created thing he valued not." So Shakspeare (Rich. Ill, act v. sc. 8):

"Richard except, those whom we light against
Had rather have us win lhan him they follow."

Peck, on the recommendation of "a learned friend," proposes the following punctuation and correction:— "The undaunted Fiend what this might he admired; Admired; nought feared, Uod and his Son except; Created thing not valued be, nor shunned."

• II. XII. 150:

Τις, ποθεν εις ανδρων, ο μεν έτλης αντίος ελθείν;

3 Much in the manner of the spirited speech in Spenser (Fairy Queen, VI. vi. 25) • — "Art thou he, traytor," etc.—(T.)

In the sense of the Latin conjuratus, sworn together in conspiracy. 5"Hell-doomed" is a retort for hell-born," line 687.

« The emphasis is to be laid on thy, which is here a long syllable. The first foot in the next line is also a spondee.

'"False," because he called himself a tpiril of heaven, line 687.