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Midst came their mighty paramount, and seem'd
Alone the antagonist of Heaven; nor less
Than Hell's dread emperor, with pomp supreme,
And god-like 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.
Toward the four winds, four speedy Cherubim
Put to their mouths the sounding alchemy,
By herald's voice explain'd: the hollow abyss
Heard far and wide, and all the host of Hell,
With deafening shout, return'd them loud acclaim.
Thence, more at ease their minds, and somewhat
By false presumptuous hope, the ranged Powers [rais'd
Disband; and wandering each his several way,
Pursues, as inclination or sad choice

Leads him, perplex'd, 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
Prick forth the airy knights, and couch their spears
Till thickest legions close: with feats of arms,
From either end of Heaven, the welkin burns.
Others, with vast Typhoean 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 Echalia crown'd
With conquest, felt the envenom'd robe, and tore,
Through pain, up by the roots, Thessalian pines;
And Lichas, from the top of Eta, threw
Into the Euboic sea. Others more mild,
Retreated in a silent valley; sing,
With notes angelical, to many a harp,
Their own heroic deeds, and hapless fall
By doom of battle; and complain, that fate
Free virtue should enthral 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,
For eloquence the soul, song charms the sense,
Others apart sat, on a hill retired,

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 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 or else deep snow and ice,
A gulf profound, as that Serbonian bog
Betwixt Damiata and Mount Casius old,
Where armies whole have sunk: the parching air
Burns frore, and cold performs the effect of fire.
Thither, by harpy-footed furies haled,

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

Immovable, infix'd, 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 woe,
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 adventurous bands,
With shuddering horror pale, and eyes aghast,
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, [of death;
Rocks, caves, lakes, fens, bogs, dens, and shades
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 feign'd, 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 descry'd
Hangs on 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 toward the pole : so seem'd
Far off the flying Fiend. At last appear
Hell bounds, high reaching to the horrid roof,
And thrice three-fold the gates; three folds were brass,
Three iron, three of adamantine, rock,
Impenetrable, empaled with circling fire,
Yet unconsumed. Before the gates there sat,

On either side, a formidable shape;
The one seem'd woman to the waist, and fair,
But ended foul, in many a scaly fold,
Voluminous and vast, a serpent 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
A hideous peal; yet, when they list, would creep,
If aught disturb'd their noise, into her womb,
And kennel there; yet there still bark'd and howl'd
Within, unseen. Far less abhorr'd than these
Vex'd Scylla, bathing in the sea, that parts
Calabria from the hoarse Trinacrian shore:
Nor uglier follow the night-hag, when, call'd
In secret, riding through the air she comes,
Lured with the smell of infant blood, to dance
With Lapland witches; while the labouring moon
Eclipses at their charms. The other shape,
If shape it might be call'd that shape had none
Distinguishable, in member, joint, or limb;
Or substance might be call'd, that shadow seem'd,
For each seem'd either: black it stood as Night,
Fierce as ten furies, terrible as Hell,

And shook a dreadful dart: what seem'd his heao,
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.
The undaunted fiend, what this might be, admired,
Admired, not fear'd: God and his Son except,
Created thing nought valued he, nor shunn'd;
And with disdainful look, thus first began:

"Whence, and what art thou, execrable shape,
That darest, 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 condemn'd
To waste eternal days in woe and pain?

And reckon'st thou thyself with Spirits of Heaven,
Hell-doom'd, and breathest defiance here and scorr
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 ten-fold
More dreadful and deform. 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
Levell❜d 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 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 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 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
Forbore; 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,
What thing thou art, thus double-form'd; and why,
In this infernal vale first met, thou call'st

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