Their specious deeds on earth, which glory excites, | Rend up both rocks and hills, and ride the air Or close ambition, varnished o'er with zeal. Thus they their doubtful consultations dark Ended, rejoicing in their matchless chief: As when from mountain tops the dusky clouds Ascending, while the northwind sleeps, o'erspread Heaven's cheerful face, the lowering element Scowls o'er the darkened landscape snow, or Retreated in a silent valley, sing
In whirlwind, hell scarce holds the wild uproar. As when Alcides, from Echalia crowned With conquest, felt th' envenomed robe, and tore Through pain up by the roots Thessalian pines, And Lichas from the top of Eta threw Into th' Euobic sea. Others, more mild,
With notes angelical to many a harp Their own heroic deed and hapless fall By doom of battle; and complain that fate Free virtue should inthral to force or chance. Their song was partial, but the harmony (What could it less when spirits immortal sing!) Suspended hell, and took with ravishment The thronging audience. In discourse more sweet peace,(For eloquence the soul, song charms the sense) Others apart sat on a hill retired,
If chance the radiant sun with farewell sweet Extend his evening beam, the fields revive, The birds their notes renew, and bleating herds Attest their joy, that hill and valley rings. O shame to men! devil with devil damned Firm concord holds; men only disagree Of creatures rational, though under hope Of heavenly grace: and, God proclaiming Yet live in hatred, enmity, and strife Among themselves, and level cruel wars, Wasting the earth, each other to destroy: As if (which might induce us to accord) Man had not hellish foes enow besides, That day and night for his destruction wait. The Stygian council thus dissolved; and forth In order came the grand infernal peers: Midst came their mighty Paramount, and seemed Alone the antagonist of heaven, nor less Than hell's dread emperor, with pomp supreme, And godlike imitated state: him round, A globe of fiery seraphim enclosed With bright emblazonry, and horrent arms. Then of their session ended they bid cry With trumpets regal sound the great result: Towards the four winds four speedy cherubim Put to their mouths the sounding alchemy, By herald's voice explained; the hollow abyss Heard far and wide, and all the host of hell With deafening shout returned them loud acclaim. 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 perplexed, where he may likeliest find Truce to his restless thoughts, and entertain The irksome hours, till his great chief return. Part on the plain, or in the air sublime, 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 brigades form, As when, to warn proud cities, war appears Waged in the troubled sky, and armies rush To battle in the clouds, before each van
In thoughts more elevate, and reasoned high Of providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate; Fixed fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute; And found no end, in wandering mazes lost. Of good and evil much they argued then, Of happiness and final misery, Passion and apathy, and glory and shame; Vain wisdom all, and false philosophy! Yet with a pleasing sorcery could charm Pain for a while or anguish, and excite Fallacious hope, or arm the obdured breast With stubborn patience as with triple steel. Another part in squadrons and gross bands, On bold adventure to discover wide 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 Into the burning lake their baleful streams: Abhorred Styx, the flood of deadly hate; Sad Acheron, of sorrow, black and deep; Cocytus, named of lamentation loud
Heard on the rueful stream; fierce Phlegethon, 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, Forthwith his former state and being forgets, 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 ancient pile; all else deep snow and ice, | A gulf profound, as that Serbonian bog Betwixt Damiata and mount Casius old,
Prick forth the airy knights, and couch their Where armies whole have sunk: the parching air
Till thickest legions close; with feats of arms From either end of heaven the welkin burns. Others, with vast Typhœan rage more fell,
Burns frore, and cold performs the effect of fire. Thither, by harpy-footed furies haled,
At certain revolutions, all the damned
Are brought; and feel by turns the bitter change
of fierce extremes, extremes by change more fierce, | A hideous peal; yet, when they list, would creep,
From beds of raging fire, to starve in ice Their soft ethereal warmth, and there to pine Immoveable, infixed, and frozen round, Periods of time, thence hurried back to fire. They ferry over this Lethean sound Both to and fro, their sorrow to augment, And wish and struggle, as they pass, to reach The tempting stream, with one small drop to lose In sweet forgetfulness all pain and wo, All in one moment, and so near the brink; But Fate withstands, and to oppose the attempt 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 confused march forlorn, the advent'rous bands, With shuddering horror pale, and eyes aghast, Viewed first their lamentable lot, and found No rest: through many a dark and dreary vale They passed, and many a region dolorous, O'er many a frozen, many a fiery Alp,
If aught disturbed their noise, into her womb, And kennel there; yet there still barked and
Within unseen. Far less abhorred than these Vexed Scylla, bathing in the sea that parts Calabria from the hoarse Trinacrian shore: Nor uglier follow the nighthag, when, called In secret, riding through the air she comes, Lured with the smell of infant blood, to dance With Lapland witches, while the lab'ring moon | Eclipses at their charms. The other shape, If shape it might be called that shape had none Distinguishable in member, joint, or limb; Or substance might be called that shadow seemed; For each seemed either; black it stood as night, Fierce as ten furies, terrible as Hell,
And shook a dreadful dart; what seemed his head The likeness of a kingly crown had on. Satan was now at hand; and from his seat The monster, moving onward, came as fast With horrid strides; hell trembled as he strode.
Rocks, caves, lakes, fens, bogs, dens, and shades The undaunted fiend what this might be admired,
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 Than fables yet have feigned, or fear conceived, Gorgons, and Hydras, and Chimeras dire.
Meanwhile the adversary of God and man, Satan, with thoughts inflamed of highest design, 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. As when far off at sea a fleet descried 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 towards the pole: so seemed 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 adamantine rock Impenetrable, impaled with circling fire, Yet unconsumed. Before the gates there sat On either side a formidable shape; The one seemed woman to the waist, and fair, But ended foul in many a scaly fold Voluminous and vast, a serpent armed With mortal sting; about her middle round A cry of hell-hounds, never ceasing, barked With wide Cerberean mouths full loud, and rung
Admired, not feared: God and his Son except, Created thing naught valued he, nor shunned; And with disdainful look thus first began.
"Whence and what art thou, execrable shape! That dares, 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 asked 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 condemned To waste eternal days, in wo and pain? And reckonest thou thyself with spirits of heaven, Hell-doomed! and breathest defiance here and
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 More dreadful and deformed: on the other side, Incensed with indignation, Satan stood Unterrified, and like a comet burned, That fires the length of Ophiuchus huge In the arctic sky, and from his horrid hair Shakes pestilence and war. Each at the head Levelled his deadly aim; their fatal hands
No second stroke intend; and such a frown Each cast at the other, as when two black clouds, With heaven's artillery fraught, come rattling on Over the Caspian, then stand front to front Hovering a space, till winds the signal blow To join their dark encounter in mid air: So frowned the mighty combatants, that hell Grew darker at their frown; so matched they stood; For never but once more was either like To meet so great a foe: and now great deeds Had been achieved, 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 rushed 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 knowest for whom? For him who sits above and laughs the while At thee ordained his drudge, to execute Whate'er his wrath, which he calls justice, bids; His wrath which will one day destroy ye both." She spake, and at her words the hellish pest Forebore; then these to her Satan returned. "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,
|Clear victory, to our part loss and rout Through all the empyrean: down they fell, Driven headlong from the pitch of Heaven, down Into this deep, and in the general fall I also; at which time this powerful key 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 Transformed; but he my inbred enemy Forth issued, brandishing his fatal dart, Made to destroy: I fled, and cried out Death! Hell trembled at the hideous name, and sighed From all her caves, and back resounded Death! I fled; but he pursued, (though more it seems, Inflamed with lust than rage,) and swifter far, Me overtook, his mother, all dismayed, And, in embraces forcible and foul Engendering with me, of that rape begot These yelling monsters, that with ceaseless cry Surrounded me, as thou sawest, hourly conceived And hourly born, with sorrow infinite
Το me; for when they list, into the womb
What thing thou art, thus double-formed, and why, That bred them they return, and howl and gnaw
In this infernal vale first met, thou call'st Me father, and that phantasm call'st my son; I know thee not, nor ever saw till now Sight more detestable than him and thee.'
To whom thus the portress of hell-gate replied: "Hast thou forgotten me then, and do I seem Now in thine eyes so foul? once deemed so fair In Heaven, when at the assembly, and in sight Of all the seraphim with thee combined In bold conspiracy against Heaven's King, All on a sudden miserable pain
Surprised thee, dim thine eyes, and dizzy swam In darkness, while thy head flames thick and fast Threw forth, till on the left side opening wide, Likest to thee in shape and countenance bright, Then shining heavenly fair, a goddess armed, Out of thy head I sprung: amazement seized All the host of Heaven; back they recoiled, afraid At first, and called me Sin, and for a sign Portentous held me; but, familiar grown, I pleased, and with attractive graces won The most averse, thee chiefly, who full oft, Thyself in me thy perfect image viewing, Becam❜st enamoured, and such joy thou took'st With me in secret, that my womb conceived A growing burden. Meanwhile war arose,
My bowels, their repast; then, bursting forth Afresh, with conscious terrors vex me round, That rest or intermission none I find.
Before mine eyes in opposition sits Grim Death, my son and foe, who sets them on, And me his parent would full soon devour For want of other prey, but that he knows His end with mine involved; and knows that I Should prove a bitter morsel, and his bane, Whenever that shall be; so fate pronounced. But thou, O father! I forewarn thee, shun His deadly arrow; neither vainly hope To be invulnerable in those bright arms, Though tempered heavenly; for that mortal dint, Save he who reigns above, none can resist." She finished, and the subtle fiend his lore Soon learn'd, now milder, and thus answered smooth.
"Dear daughter! since thou claim'st me for thy sire,
And my fair son here show'st me, the dear pledge Of dalliance, had with thee in Heaven, and joys Then sweet, now sad to mention, through dire change
Befallen us, unforeseen, unthought of; know, I come no enemy, but to set free
And fields were fought in Heaven; wherein re- From out this dark and dismal house of pain
(For what could else?) to our Almighty Foe
Both him and thee, and all the heavenly host Of spirits, that, in our just pretences armed
Fell with us from on high: from them I go This uncouth errand sole, and one for all Myself expose, with lonely steps to tread
Harsh thunder; that the lowest bottom shook Of Erebus. She opened, but to shut Excelled her power; the gates wide open stood,
Th' unfounded deep, and through the void im- That with extended wings a bannered host,
To search with wandering quest a place foretold Should be, and, by concurring signs, ere now Created vast and round, a place of bliss In the purlieus of Heaven, and therein placed A race of upstart creatures, to supply Perhaps our vacant room, though more removed, Lest Heaven, surcharged with potent multitude, Might hap to move new broils: be this or aught Than this more secret now designed, I haste To know, and this once known, shall soon return, And bring ye to the place where thou and Death Shall dwell at ease, and up and down unseen Wing silently the buxom air, embalmed With odours; there ye shall be fed and filled Immeasurably, all things shall be your prey." He ceased, for both seemed highly pleased, and Death
Grinned horribly a ghastly smile, to hear
His famine should be filled, and blest his maw Destined to that good hour: no less rejoiced His mother bad, and thus bespake her sire.
"The key of this infernal pit by due,
Under spread ensigns marching, might pass through
With horse and chariots ranked in loose array; So wide they stood, and like a furnace mouth Cast forth redounding smoke and ruddy flame. Before their eyes in sudden view appear The secrets of the hoary deep, a dark Illimitable ocean, without bound, Without dimension; where length, breadth, and heighth,
And time, and place are lost; where eldest Night And Chaos, ancestors of Nature, hold Eternal anarchy, amidst the noise
Of endless wars, and by confusion stand. For hot, cold, moist, and dry, four champions fierce,
Strive here for mastery, and to battle bring Their embryon atoms; they around the flag Of each his faction, in their several clans, Light armed or heavy, sharp, smooth, swift, or slow,
Swarm populous, unnumbered as the sands Of Barca or Cyrene's torrid soil,
And by command of Heaven's all powerful King, Levied to side with warring winds, and poise
I keep, by him forbidden to unlock
These adamantine gates; against all force
Death ready stands to interpose his dart, Fearless to be o'ermatched by living might. But what owe I to his commands above
Who hates me, and hath hither thrust me down Into the gloom of Tartarus profound, To sit in hateful office here confined, Inhabitant of heaven, and heavenly born, Here in perpetual agony and pain,
With terrors and with clamours compassed round Of mine own brood, that on my bowels feed? Thou art my father, thou my author, thou My being gavest me; whom should I obey But thee, whom follow? thou wilt bring me soon To that new world of light and bliss, among The gods who live at ease, where I shall reign At thy right hand voluptuous, as beseems Thy daughter and thy darling, without end." Thus saying, from her side the fatal key, Sad instrument of all our wo, she took; And, towards the gate rolling her bestial train, Forthwith the huge portcullis high up drew, Which, but herself, not all the Stygian powers Could once have moved: then in the keyhole
Th' intricate wards, and every bolt and bar Of massy iron or solid rock with ease Unfastens on a sudden open fly, With impetuous recoil and jarring sound, Th' infernal doors, and on their hinges grate
Their lighter wings. To whom these most adhere, He rules a moment: Chaos umpire sits, And by decision more embroils the fray, By which he reigns; Chance governs all. The womb of nature,
next him high arbiter Into this wild abyss, and perhaps her grave,
Of neither sea, nor shore, nor air, nor fire, But all these in their pregnant causes mixed Confusedly, and which thus must ever fight, Unless the almighty Maker them ordain His dark materials to create more worlds; Into this wild abyss the wary fiend
Stood on the brink of hell, and looked a while, Pondering his voyage; for no narrow frith He had to cross. Nor was his ear less pealed With noises loud and ruinous (to compare Great things with small) than when Bellona storms,
With all her battering engines bent to raze Some capital city; or less than if this frame Of Heaven were falling, and these elements In mutiny had from her axle torn
The steadfast earth. At last his sail-broad vans He spreads for flight, and in the surging smoke Uplifted spurns the ground; thence many a league, As in a cloudy chair, ascending rides Audacious; but, that seat soon falling, meets A vast vacuity: all unawares,
Fluttering his pennons vain, plump down he drops Ten thousand fathom deep; and to this hour Down had been falling, had not by ill chance
The strong rebuff of some tumultuous cloud, Instinct with fire and nitre, hurried him As many miles aloft: that fury stayed, Quenched in a boggy Syrtis, neither sea Nor good dry land: nigh foundered, on he fares, Treading the crude consistence, half on foot, Half flying; behooves him now both oar and sail. As when a gryphon, through the wilderness With winged course, o'er hill or moory dale, Pursues the Arimaspian, who by stealth Had from his wakeful custody purloined The guarded gold: so eagerly the fiend
Made head against Heaven's King, though over
I saw and heard; for such a numerous host Fled not in silence through the frighted deep, With ruin upon ruin, rout on rout, Confusion worse confounded; and Heaven gates Poured out by millions her victorious bands Pursuing. I upon my frontiers here Keep residence; if all I can will serve That little which is left so to defend,
Encroached on still through your intestine broils, Weakening the sceptre of old Night: first hell,
O'er bog, or steep, through strait, rough, dense, or Your dungeon, stretching far and wide beneath; rare,
With head, hands, wings, or feet pursues his way, And swims, or sinks, or wades, or creeps, or flies: At length a universal hubbub wild
Of stunning sounds, and voices all confused, Borne through the hollow dark, assaults his ear With loudest vehemence: thither he plies, Undaunted to meet there whatever power Or spirit of the nethermost abyss
Might in that noise reside, of whom to ask Which way the nearest coast of darkness lies Bordering on light; when straight behold the throne
Of Chaos, and his dark pavilion spread Wide on the wasteful deep; with him enthroned Sat sable vested Night, eldest of things, The consort of his reign; and by them stood Orcus and Ades, and the dreaded name Of Demogorgon; Rumour next, and Chance, And Tumult, and Confusion, all embroiled, And Discord with a thousand various mouths. T'whom Satan, turning boldly, thus, "Ye powers And spirits of this nethermost abyss, Chaos and ancient night! I come no spy, With purpose to explore or to disturb The secrets of your realm; but, by constraint Wandering this darksome desert, as my way Lies through your spacious empire up to light, Alone, and without guide, half lost, I seek What readiest path leads where your gloomy bounds
Confine with Heaven; or if some other place, From your dominion won, th' ethereal King Possesses lately, thither to arrive
I travel this profound: direct my course; Directed, no mean recompense it brings To your behoof, if I that region lost, All usurpation thence expelled reduce, To her original darkness, and your sway, (Which is my present journey,) and once more Erect the standard there of ancient night: Yours be th' advantage all, mine the revenge." Thus Satan; and him thus the Anarch old, With faltering speech and visage incomposed Answered, "I know thee, stranger! who thou art, That mighty leading angel, who of late
Now lately Heaven and Earth, another world, Hung o'er my realm, linked in a golden chain To that side Heaven from whence your legions fell: If that way be your walk, you have not far; So much the nearer danger; go, and speed! Havoc, and spoil, and ruin are my gain."
He ceased; and Satan stayed not to reply, But, glad that now his sea should find a shore, With fresh alacrity and force renewed, Springs upward, like a pyramid of fire, Into the wild expanse, and through the shock Of fighting elements, on all sides round Environed, wins his way; harder beset, And more endangered, than when Argo passed Through Bosphorus, betwixt the justling rocks; Or when Ulysses on the larboard shunned Charybdis, and by the other whirlpool steered. So he with difficulty and labour hard Moved on, with difficulty and labour he: But, he once past, soon after, when man fell, Strange alteration! Sin and Death amain Following his track, such was the will of Heaven, Paved after him a broad and beaten way Over the dark abyss, whose boiling gulf Tamely endured a bridge of wondrous length, From hell continued, reaching the utmost orb Of this frail world; by which the spirits perverse With easy intercourse pass to and fro To tempt or punish mortals, except whom God and good angels guard by special grace. But now at last the sacred influence Of light appears, and from the walls of Heaven Shoots far into the bosom of dim night A glimmering dawn: here Nature first begins Her farthest verge, and Chaos to retire, As from her outmost works a broken foe, With tumult less, and with less hostile din : That Satan with less toil, and now with ease, Wafts on the calmer wave by dubious light, And, like a weatherbeaten vessel, holds Gladly the port; though shrouds and tackle torn; Or in the emptier waste, resembling air, Weighs his spread wings, at leisure to behold Far off the empyreal Heaven, extended wide In circuit, undetermined square or round, With opal towers and battlements adorned
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