Hovering a space, till winds the signal blow
To join their dark encounter in mid air:

So frown'd the mighty combatants, that Hell
Grew darker at their frown; so match'd they stood;
For never but once more was either like

To meet so great a Foe. And now great deeds
Had been achiev'd, whereof all Hell had rung,
Had not the snaky Sorceress that sat
Fast by Hell-gate, and kept the fatal key,
Risen, and with hideous outcry rush'd between.
O Father! what intends thy hand, she cried,
Against thy only Son? What fury, O Son!
Possesses thee to bend that mortal dart

Against thy Father's head! and know'st for whom;
For him who sits above and laughs the while
At thee ordain'd his drudge, to execute
Whate'er his wrath, which he calls justice, bids;
His wrath, which one day will destroy ye both.
She spake, and at her words the hellish Pest
Forebore: then these to her Satan return'd.

So strange thy outcry, and thy words so strange
Thou interposest, that my sudden hand,
Prevented, spares to tell thee yet by deeds
What it intends; till first I know of thee,
What thing thou art, thus double-form'd; and why,
In this infernal vale first met, thou call'st
Me Father, and that phantasm call'st my
I know thee not, nor ever saw till now
Signt more detestable than him and thee.

Son :

Into my hand was given, with charge to keep
These gates for ever shut, which none can pass
Without my opening. Pensive here I sat
Alone; but long I sat not, till my womb,
Pregnant by thee, and now excessive grown,
Prodigious motion felt, and rueful throes.
At last this odious offspring whom thou seest,
Thine own begotten, breaking violent way
Tore through my entrails, that, with fear and pain
Distorted, all my nether shape thus grew
Transform'd: but he my inbred enemy
Forth issued, brandishing his fatal dart,

Made to destroy! I fled, and cry'd out, DEATH!
Hell trembled at the hideous name, and sigh'd
From all her caves, and back resounded, DEATH !
I fled; but he pursued, (though more, it seems,
Inflam'd with lust than rage) and, swifter far,
Me overtook his mother all dismay'd;

And, in embraces forcible and foul
Ingendering with me, of that rape begot

These yelling monsters, that with ceaseless cry
Surround me, as thou saw'st; hourly conceiv'd
And hourly born, with sorrow infinite

To me; for, when they list, into the womb.
That bred them they return, and howl and knaw
My bowels, their repast; then bursting forth
Afresh with conscious terrours vex me round,
That rest or intermission none I find.
Before mine eyes in opposition sits