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Than hell's dread Emperor, with pomp fupreme,

And God-like imitated state. Him round

A globe of fiery Seraphim inclos'd,

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With bright imblazonry, and horrent arms.
Then, of their feffion ended they bid cry
With trumpets regal found the great result :
Tow'rds the four winds four speedy Cherubim
Put to their mouths the founding alchymy,
By herald's voice explain'd: the hollow Abyss
Heard far and wide, and all the hoft of hell
With deaf'ning fhout return'd them loud acclaim.
Thence more at ease their minds, and fomewhat rais'd
By falfe prefumptuous hope, the ranged Pow'rs
Difband, and wand'ring, each his feveral way
Purfues, as inclination or fad choice

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Leads him perplex'd, where he may likelieft find 525
Truce to his restless thoughts, and entertain
The irksome hours, till his great Chief return.`
Part on the plain, or in the air fublime
Upon the wing, or in fwift race contend,
As at th' Olympian games, or Pythian fields :
Part curb their fiery steeds, or fhun the goal
With rapid wheels, or fronted brigads form.
As when, to warn proud cities, war appears
Wag'd in the troubled sky, and armies rush
To battel in the clouds; before each van
Prick forth the aery Knights, and couch their spears
Till thickeft legions clofe; with feats of arms
From either end of heav'n the welkin burns.

Others, with vaft Typhaan rage, more fell!

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Rend up both rocks and hills, and ride the air 540
In whirlwind: hell fcarce holds the wild uproar.
As when Alcides from Oechalia crown'd

With conqueft, felt th' invenom'd robe, and tore
Through pain up by the roots Thessalian pines;
And Lichas from the top of Oeta threw

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Into th' Euboic Sea. Others more mild,
Retreated in a filent valley, fing
With notes Angelical to many a harp
Their own heroic deeds, and hapless fall

By doom of battel: and complain that fate

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Free virtue fhould inthrall to force, or chance.
Their fong was partial; but the harmony
(What could it less when spirits immortal fing? )
Sufpended hell, and took with ravishment
The thronging audience. In difcourfe more sweet,
(For eloquence the foul, fong charms the fenfe) 556
Öthers apart fat on a hill retir'd,

In thoughts more elevate, and reafon'd high,
Of providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate;
Fix'd fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute; 560
And found no end, in wandring mazes loft.
Of good, and evil, much they argu'd then,
Of happiness, and final misery,
Paffion, and apathy, and glory, and shame:
Vain wisdom all, and falfe philofophy!
Yet, with a pleasing forcery, could charm.
Pain for a while, or anguish; and excite
Fallacious hope, or arm th' obdurate breast
With stubborn patience, as with triple steel.

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Into the burning lake their baleful streams:
Abhorred Styx, the flood of deadly hate;
Sad Acheron, of forrow; black and deep!
Cocytus, nam'd of lamentation loud

Heard on the rueful ftream: fierce Phlegeton,
Whose waves of torrent fire inflame with rage.
Far off from these, a flow and filent stream,
Letbe, the river of oblivion, rolls

Her wat❜ry 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

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Lies dark, and wild; beat with perpetual storms
Of whirlwind, and dire hail; which on firm land
Thaws not, but gathers heap, and ruin seems
Of ancient pile: all elfe, deep fnow and ice:
A gulf profound! as that Serbonian bog
Betwixt Damiata, and mount Cafius old,

Where armies whole have funk: the parching air
Burns frore, and cold performs th' effect of fire. 595
Thither by harpy-footed furies hal'd,

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
Their soft ethereal warmth, and there to pine
Immoveable, infix'd, and frozen round,
Periods of time; thence hurried back to fire.
They ferry over this Lethaan Sound

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Both to and fro, their forrow to augment,
And wish, and struggle as they pass, to reach
The tempting stream, with one small drop to lose
In fweet forgetfulness all pain and woe,

All in one moment, and so near the brink:
But Fate withstands, and to oppose th' attempt 610
Medufa 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 th' advent'rous bands, 615
With shudd'ring horror pale, and eyes agast,
View'd firft their lamentable lot, and found
No reft: through many a dark and dreary vale
They pafs'd, and many a region dolorous,
O'er many a frozen, many a fiery Alp,
Rocks, caves, lakes, fens, bogs, dens, and fhades of
A univerfe of death! which God by curfe [death;
Created evil; for evil only good,

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Where all life dies, death lives, and nature breeds Perverse, all monstrous, all prodigious things, 625 Abominable, inutterable; and worse

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

Mean while the adversary of God and man

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Satan, with thoughts inflam'd of highest design, Puts on fwift wings, and tow'rds the gates of hell Explores his folitary flight: fometimes

He fcours the right-hand coaft, fometimes the left: Now thaves with level wing the Deep; then foars Up to the fiery concave tow'ring high.

As when far off at fea a fleet defcry'd,

Hangs in the clouds, by Equinoctial winds
Clofe failing from Bengala, or the isles

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Of Ternate, and Tidore, whence merchants bring
Their fpicy drugs: they on the trading flood 640
Through the wide Ethiopian, to the Cape
Ply, ftemming nightly tow'rd the Pole: fo feem'd
Far off the flying Fiend. At laft appear

Hell bounds, high-reaching to the horrid roof; 644
And thrice threefold the gates: three folds were brafs,
Three iron, three of adamantine rock;
Impenetrable, impal'd with circling fire,

Yet unconfum'd. Before the gates there fat
On either fide a formidable shape;

The one feem'd woman to the waift, and fair; 650
But ended foul in many a fcaly fold,

Voluminous and vaft! a ferpent arm'd

With mortal fting: about her middle round
A cry of hell-hounds never ceafing bark'd

With wide Cerberian mouths full loud, and rung

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A hideous peal: yet, when they lift, would creep,
If ought difturb'd their noife, into her womb,
And kennel there; yet there ftill bark'd, and howl'd
Within, unfeen. Far lefs abhor'd than thefe

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