What could it less when spirits immortal fing?
Suspended Hell, and took with ravishment

The thronging audience. In difcourse more sweet, 555
For eloquence the foul, fong charms the fenfe,

Others apart fat on a hill retir'd,

In thoughts more elevate, an reason'd high
Of providence, foreknowledge, will and fate,
Fix'd fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute, 566
And found no end, in wand'ring mazes loft.
Of good and evil much they argued then,
Of happiness and final misery,

- Passion and apathy, and glory and shame,
Vain wisdom all, and falfe philosophy:
Yet with a pleasing forcery could charm
Pain for a while, or anguish; and excite
Fallacious hope, or arm th' obdured breast
With stubborn patience, as with triple steel.
Another part, in iquadrons and gross bands,
On bold adventure to discover wide

565

570

That dismal world, if any clime perhaps
Might yield them easier habitation, bend

Four ways their flying march, along the banks.

Of four infernal rivers, that disgorge

575

Into the burning lake their baleful streams;
Abhorred Styx, the flood of deadly hate;
Sad Acheron, of forrow black and deep;

1

Cocytus, nam'd of lamentation loud

Heard on the rueful stream; fierce Phlegeton,
Whose waves of torrent fire inflame with rage.
For off from these a flow and filent stream,
Lethe the river of oblivion rolls

580

Her watry 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

585

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

590

:

Of ancient pile; or else deep snow 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,

A!

From beds of raging fire to starve in ice

600

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 Lethéan sound

605

:

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 lofe

In sweet forgetfulness all pain and woe,
All in one moment, and so near the brink:
But fate withstands, and to oppose th' attempt 610

Medusa with Gorgonian terror guards
The ford, aand 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 aghaft,
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,

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,

Perverse, all monstrous, all prodigious things,

Abominable, inutterable, and worse

625

Than fables yet have feign'd, or fear conceiv'd,면 좋은

Gorgons, and Hydra's, and Chimera's dire.

Mean

Mean while the Adversary of God and Man,
Satan, with thoughts inflam'd of highest design, 630
Puts on swift wings, and tow'rds the gates of Hell
Explores his folitary flight; fometimes
He scours the right-hand coaft, fometimes 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 defcry'd
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
Ply stemming nightly tow'rd the pole. So seem'd
Far off the flying Fiend. At last appear

635

640

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

On either fide a formidable shape;

646

The one seem'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 fting: about her middle round
A cry of hell hounds never ceasing bark'd

With wide Cerberian mouths full loud, and rung 655
A hideous peal: yet, when they lift, would creep,
If ought disturb'd their noise, into her womb, nad
And kennel there, yet there still bark'd, and howl'd
Within, unseen. Far less abhorr'd than thefer
Vex'd Scylla bathing in the fea that partsen66o
Calabria from the hoarfe Trinacrian shore:
Nor uglier follow the night bag, when callid.orses
In fecret, riding through the air the comes, 211
Lur'd with the smell of infant bloody to dance il
With Lapland witches, while the lab'ring Moon 665
Eclipses at their charms, The other shape, s

22888 88 98253848085 97

If

If shape it might be call'd that shape had none
Diftinguishable in member, joint, or limb,
Or fubstance might be call'd that shadow seem'd,
For each feem'd either; black it stood as Night, 670
Fierce as ten Furies, terrible as Hell,

And fhook a dreadful dart; what feem'd his head
The likeness of a Kingly crown had on.
Satan was now at hand, and from his feat
The monster moving onward came as faft
With horrid strides. Hell trembled as he strode.
Th' undaunted Fiend what this might be admir'd,
Admir'd, not fear'd; God and his Son except,
Created thing not valued he nor shunn'd;
And with difdainful look thus first began.

Whence and what art thou, execrable shape,
That dar'ft, though grim and terrible, advance
Thy miscreated front athwart my way
To yonder gates? through them I mean to pass,
That be affur'd, without leave afk'd of thee.
Rerire, or taste thy folly, and learn by proof,
Hell-born; not to contend with spirits of Heav'n.

675

;

i

680

685.

To whom the goblin full of wrath reply'd, Art thou that traitor-Angel, art thou He, Who first broke peace in Heav'n, and faith, till then

691

:

Unbroken, and in proud rebellious arms
Drew after him the third part of Heav'n's fons,
Conjur'd 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'ft thou thyself with spirits of Heav'n,
Hell-doom'd and breath'ft 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

695

3

700

Thy lingring; or with one ftroke of this dart

Strange horror feize thee, and pangs unfelt before.

So

705

10

So spake the griefly terror, and in shape,
So speaking and so threarning, grew renfold
More dreadful and deform. On the other fide
Incens'd with indignation Satan stood
Unterrify'd, and like a comet burn'd,
That fires the length of Ophiuchus huge
In th' arctic sky, and from his horrid hair
Shakes peftilence and war. Each at the head
Level'd his deadly aim; their fatal hands
No second stroke intend; and such a frown
Each cast at th' other, as when two black clouds,

710

1. With Heav'n's artill'ry fraught, come rattling on
Over the Cafpian; then stand front to front
Hov'ring a space, till winds the fignal blow
To join their dark encounter in mid air:
So frown'd the mighty combatants, that Hell
Grew darker at their frown: fo match'd they stood: 720
For never but once more was either like

715

To meet so great a foe. And now great deeds
Had been achiev'd, whereof all Hell had rung,
Had not the snaky forceres that fat
Fast by Hell-gate, and kept the fatal key,
Ris'n, and with hideous outcry rush'd between.
O father! what intends thy hand, she cry'd,

Against thy only fon? What fury, O fon,
Poffefses thee to bend that mortal dart

Against thy father's head? and know'st for whom; 730
For him who fits above, and laughs the while
At thee ordain'd his drudge, to execure
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 peft

735

Forbore; then these to her Satan return'd.

So ftrange thy outcry, and thy words so strange

Thou interpofest, that my fudden hand
Prevented spares to tell thee yet by deeds.

What it intends; tillofirst I know of thee,

749

What thing thou art, thus double-form'd; and why

4