Toward the four winds four speedy Cherubim With deafening shout return'd them loud acclaim. 520 Thence more at ease their minds, and somewhat raised By false presumptuous hope, the ranged Powers Disband; and, wandering, each his several way Pursues, as inclination or sad choice Leads him perplex'd, where he may likeliest find 525 The irksome hours till his great Chief return. 530 535 Prick forth the aery knights, and couch their spears Till thickest legions close; with feats of arms Rend up both rocks and hills, and ride the air 540 With conquest, felt the envenom'd robe, and tore Through pain up by the roots Thessalian pines; 545 (What could it less when spirits inmortal sing?) Suspended Hell, and took with ravishment The thronging audience. In discourse more sweet In thoughts more elevate, and reason'd high 560 565 570 Four ways their flying march, along the banks 575 Into the burning lake their baleful streams; Abhorred Styx, the flood of deadly hate; Cocytus, named of lamentation loud Heard on the rueful stream; fierce Phlegethon, 580 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 585 590 A gulf profound, as that Serbonian bog Where armies whole have sunk: The parching air At certain revolutions, all the damn'd Are brought; and feel by turns the bitter change 595 Of fierce extremes, extremes by change more fierce, From beds of raging fire, to starve in ice 600 Their soft ethereal warmth, and there to pine Periods of time, thence hurried back to fire. Both to and fro, their sorrow to augment, 605 The tempting stream, with one small drop to lose Al in one moment, and so near the brink, But fate withstands, and to oppose the attempt 610 Medusa with Gorgonian terror guards The ford, and of itself the water flies All taste of living wight, as once it fled In confused march forlorn, the adventurous bands, 615 No rest through many a dark and dreary vale O'er many a 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 evil, for evil only good; Where all life dies, death lives, and nature breeds, Abominable, inutterable, and worse han fables yet have feign'd, or fear conceived, Gorgons, and Hydras, and Chimeras dire. Meanwhile the adversary of God and Man 625 Satan, with thoughts inflamed of highest design, 630 Puts on swift wings, and towards the gates of Hell Explores his solitary flight: sometimes He scours the right hand coast, sometimes the left; Now shaves with level wing the deep, then soars Up to the fiery concave towering high. 635 As when far off at sea a fleet descried Hangs on the clouds, by equinoctial winds Of Ternate and Tidore, whence merchants bring Their spicy drugs; they, on the trading flood, 640 Ply stemming nightly toward the pole: so seem'd Hell bounds, high reaching to the horrid roof, And thrice threefold the gates; three folds were brass, Three iron, three of adamantine rock 646 Impenetrable, impaled with circling fire, Yet unconsumed. Before the gates there sat, On either side a formidable shape : The one seem'd woman to the waist, and fair; 650 But ended foul in many a scaly fold Voluminous and vast; a serpent arm'd With mortal sting: About her middle round A cry of Hellhounds never ceasing bark'd 660 With wide Cerberian mouths full loud, and rung 655 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, And shook a dreadful dart; what seem'd his head Satan was now at hand, and from his seat 675 680 685 691 Whence and what art thou, execrable shape! That darest, though grim and terrible, advance Thy miscreated front athwart my way. To yonder gates? through them I mean to pass, That be assured, 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 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 Conjured against the Highest; for which both thou And they, outcast from God, are here condemn'd To waste eternal days in woe and pain? And reckon'st thou thyself with Spirits of Heaven, Hell-doom'd! and breathest defiance here and scorn, Where I reign king; and, to enrage thee more, Thy king and lord? Back to thy punishment, False fugitive! and to thy speed add wings; Lest with a whip of scorpions I pursue Thy lingering; or with one stroke of this dart Strange horror seize thee, and pangs unfelt before. So spake the grisly Terror, and in shape, So speaking and so threatening, grew tenfold 695 700 705 |