Nor fail'd they to express how much they prais'd, 480
That for the general fafety he despis'd
His own: for neither dorthe spirits damn'd
Lose all their virtue; left bad men should boast
Their specious deeds on earth, which glory' excites,
Or close ambition varnish'd o'er with zeal.
Thus they their doubtful confultations dark
Ended rejoicing in the matchless chief:
As when from mountain tops the dusky clouds
Afcending, while the north wind sleeps, o'erspread
Heav'n's chearful face, the louring element
Scowls o'er the darken'd landskip snow, or shower;
If chance the radiant fun with farewel sweet
Extend his evening beam, the fields revive,
The birds their notes renew, and bleating herds
Atteft their joy, that hill and valley rings.
O shame to men! Devil with Devil damn'd
Firm concord holds, men only disagree
Of creatures rational, though under hope
Of heav'nly grace: and God proclaiming peace,
Yet live in hatred, enmity, and strife
- Among themselves, and levy cruel wars,
Wafting the earth, each other to destroy:
As if (which might induce us to accord)
Man had not hellish foes enow befides,
That day and night for his destruction wait.
The Stygian council thus dissolv'd; and
In order came the grand infernal peers:
Midst came their mighty paramount, and feem'd
Alone th' antagonist of Heav'n, nor less
Than Hell's dread emperor with pomp supreme, 510
-And Godlike imitated state; him round
A globe of fiery Seraphim inclos'd
With bright imblazonry, and horrent arms.
Then of their session ended they bid cry
With trumpets regal found the great refult:
Tow'ards the four winds four speedy Cherubim
Put to their mouths the founding alchemy
By herald's voice explain'd; the hollow' abyss
Heard far and wide, and all the host of Hell
With deafning shout return'd them loud acclame. 520
Thence more at ease their minds, and fomewhat rais'd
By false prefumptuous hope, the ranged Powers
Disband, and wand'ring each his feveral way
Purfues, as inclination or fad choice
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 swift race contend,
As at the Olympian games, or Pythian fields;
Part curb their fiery steeds, or shun 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 close; with feats of arms
From either end of Heav'n the welkin burns.
(thers with vast Typhonean rage more fell
Rend up both rocks, and hills, and ride the air
In whirlwind: Hell scarce holds the wild uproar.
As when Alcides, from Oechalia crown'd
With conqueft, felt the envenom'd robe, and tore
Through pain up by the roots Theffalian pines,
And Lichas from the top of Oeta threw
Into th' Euboic fea. 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
Free virtue should inthrall by force or chance.
The fong was partial, but the harmony (What could it less when Spirits immortal fing?) Suspended Hell, and took with ravishment The thronging audience. In discourse more sweet 555 (For eloquence the foul, fong charms the fenfe,)
Others apart fat on a hill retir'd,
In thoughts more elevate, and reason'd high
Of providence, foreknowledge, will and fate,
Fix'd fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute,
And found no end, in wand'ring mazes loft.
Of good and evil much they argued then,
Of happiness and final misery,
Paffion and apathy, and glory' and shame,
Vain wifdom all, and false philosophy:
Yet with a pleasing forcery could charm
Pain for a while or anguish, and excite
Fallacious hope, or arm the obdured breaft
With stubborn patience as with triple steel.
Another part in squadrons and grofs bands,
On bold adventure to discover wide
That difinal world, if any clime perhaps
Might yield them easier habitation, bend
Four ways their flying march, along the banks
Of our infernal rivers, that disgorge
Into the burning lake their baleful streams;
Abhorred Styx, the flood of deadly hate;
Sad Acheron of forrow, black and deep;
Cochytus nam'd of lamentation loud
Heard on the rueful stream; fierce Phlegethon, 580
Whose waves of torrent fire inflame with rage.
Far off from these a flow and filent stream,
Lethe the river of oblivion rolls
Her watry labyrinth, whereof who drinks,
Forthwith his former state and being forgets, 585
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, which on firm land
Thaws not, but gathers heap, and ruin seems
Of antient pile; all elfe deep snow and ice,
A gulph 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 ftarve in ice
Their foft ethereal warmth, and there to pine
Immoveable, infix'd, and frozen round,
Periods of time, thence hurried back to fire.
They ferry over this Lethean found
Both to and fro, their forrow to augment,
And wish and struggle, as they pafs, to reach
The tempting ftream, 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 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
The lip of Tantalus. Thus roving on
In confus'd march forlorn, th' adventrous bands 615
With shuddring horror pale, and eyes aghaft
View'd first their lamentable lot, and found
No reft: 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 death,
A universe of death, which God by curfe
Created ev'il, for evil only good,
Where all life dies, death lives, and nature breeds, Perverse, all monftrous, all prodigious things, 625 • Abominable, inutterable, and worfe Than fables yet have feign'd, or fear conceiv'd, Gorgons, and Hydrals, and Chimæra's dire.
Mean while the Adversary of God and Man,
Satan with thoughts inflam'd of highest design 630
Puts on fwift wings, and towards the gates of Hell
Explores his folitary flight: fometimes
He fcours the right hand coaft, sometimes the left,
Now shaves with level wing the deep, then foars
Up to the fiery concave towring high.
As when far off at fea a fleet descry'd
Hangs in the clouds, by equinoctial winds
Close failing from Bengala, or the ifles
Of Ternate and Tidore, whence merchants bring
Their spicy drugs: they on the trading flood
Through the wide Ethiopian to the Cape
Ply stemming nightly towards the pole. So feem'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 adamantin rock,
Impenetrable, impal'd with circling fire,
Yet unconfum'd. Before the gates there fat που οι On either fide a formidable shape:
The one feem'd woman to the waste, and fair, 650
But ended foul in many a scaly fold
Voluminous and vast, a ferpent arm'd
With mortal sting: about her middle round
A cry of Hell hounds never ceasing bark'd
With wide Cerberean mouths full loud, and rung 655
A hideous peal; yet, when they lift, would creep,
If ought disturb their noise, into her womb,
And kennel there, yet there still bark'd and howl'd,
Within unfeen. Far less abhorr'd than these
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