Thou art my father, thou my author, thou
My being gav'st 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 woe, she took;
And tow'rds the gate rolling her bestial train,
Forthwith the huge portcullis high up-drew,
Which but herself, not all the Stygian pow'rs
Could once have moved; then in the key-hole turns
Th' intricate wards, and ev'ry 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
Harsh thunder, that the lowest bottom shook
Of Erebus. She open'd; but to shut
Excell'd her pow'r: the gates wide open stood,
That with extended wings a banner'd host
Under spread ensigns marching might pass through
With horse and chariots rank'd 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 highth,
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 mast'ry, and to battle bring
Their embryon atoms; they around the flag
Of each his faction, in their sev'ral clans,
Light-arm'd or heavy, sharp, smooth, swift, or slow,
Swarm populous, unnumber'd as the sands
Of Barca or Cyrene's torrid soil,
Levy'd to side with warring winds, and poise
904. Barca and Cyrene were a city and province of Lybia. F
Their lighter wings.
He rules a moment
To whom these most adhere.
Chaos umpire sits,
And by decision move embroils the fray
By which he reigns: next him high árbiter
Chance governs all. Into this wild abyss,
The womb of Nature, and perhaps her grave,
Of neither sea, nor shore, nor air, nor fire,
But all these in their pregnant causes mix'd
Confus'dly, and which thus must ever fight,
Unless th' 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 look'd a while,
Pond'ring his voyage; for no narrow frith
He had to cross. Nor was his ear less peal'd
With noises loud and ruinous (to compare
Great things with small) than when Bellona storms
With all her batt'ring engines bent, to raze
Some capital city; or less than it this frame
Of Heav'n were falling, and these elements
In mutiny had from her axle torn
The stedfast 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 failing, meets
A vast vacuity: all unawares
Flutt'ring his pennons vain, plumb 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 stay'd,
Quench'd in a boggy Syrtis, neither sea,
Nor good dry land: nigh founder'd on he fares, 940
Treading the crude consistence, half on foot,
Half flying; behoves him now both oar and sail.
As when a gryphon through the wilderness
933. Pennons, commonly spelt pinions.
941. There is much in this description similar to that in Spenser of the dragon.
943. A gryphon is a fabulous creature said to guard gold mines, in its upper part it was like an eagle, in its lower like a lion. The Arimaspians were a one-eyed people of Scythia.
With winged course, o'er hill or moory dale,
Pursues the Arimaspian, who by stealth
Had from his wakeful custody purloin'd
The guarded gold: so eagerly the Fiend
O'er bog, or steep, through strait, rough, dense, or
With head, bands, 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 Pow'r
Or Spirit of the nethermost abyss
Might in that noise reside, of whom to ask
Which way the nearest coast of darkness lies
Bord'ring on light; when strait 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 embroil'd,
And Discord, with a thousand various mouths.
T'whom Satan turning boldly, thus: Ye Pow'rs 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
Wand'ring 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 Heav'n; 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 expell'd, reduce
964. Orcus or Pluto, so called by the ancients. Ades may be taken for any dark place.
965. A deity among the ancients whose name they supposed capable of producing the most terrible effects.
To her original darkness and your sway
(Which is my present journey), and once moie 983
Erect the standard there of ancient Night;
Yours be th' advantage all, mine the revenge.
Thus Satan; and him thus the Anarch old,
With fault'ring speech and visage incomposed,
Answer'd: I know thee, stranger, who thou art; 998
That mighty leading Angel, who of late
Made head against Heav'n's King, though over
I saw and heard; for such a num'rous host
Fled not in silence through the frighted deep
With ruin upon ruin, rout on rout,
Confusion worse confounded; and Heav'n gates
Pour'd 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,
Encroach'd on still through your intestine broils,
Weak'ning the sceptre of old Night: first Hell
Your dungeon stretching far and wide beneath;
Now lately Heav'n and Earth, another world,
Hung o'er my realm, link'd in a golden chain 1005
To that side Heav'n from whence your legions fell:
If that way be your walk, you have not far;
So much the nearer danger; go and speed;
Havock, and spoil, and ruin, are my gain.
He ceased, and Satan stay'd not to reply;
But glad that now his sea should find a shore,
With fresh alacrity and force renew'd,
Springs upward like a pyramid of fire
Into the wild expanse, and through the shock
Of fighting elements, on all sides round
Environ'd, wins his way; harder beset
And more endanger'd than when Argo pass'd
Through Bosphorus, betwixt the justling rocks;
Or when Ulysses on the larboard shunn'd
1005. Homer mentions a golden chain by which Jupiter could draw up the earth, &c.-See Iliad, book 8.
1011. A metaphor to express his satisfaction at concluding his journey.
1017. Argo was the ship in which Jason and his companions sailed to Colchis, in seach of the golden fleece. Bosphorus is the name of the Straits of Constantinople, or the channel of the
Charybdis, and by th' other whirlpool steer'd. 1020 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 Heav'n,
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 th' 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 Heav'n 1035
Shoots far into the bosom of dim Night
A glimm'ring 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 weather beaten 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 th' empyreal Heav'n, extended wide
In circuit, undetermined square or round,
With opal tow'rs and battlements adorn'd
Of living sapphire, once his native seat;
And fast by hanging in a golden chain
This pendent world, in bigness as a star
Of smallest magnitude close by the moon.
Thither full fraught with mischievous revenge,
Accursed, and in a cursed hour he hies.
1020. Charybdis, a dangerous part of the sea between Messina and Italy.
1023. Dr. Bentley supposes eleven lines to be inserted here by the Editor of Milton; but if the passage be examined, it will be scen they cannot be an interpolation. His strongest objection is, that the bridge is described again in Book X.
1052. By the pendent world is meant the whole new creation of heaven and earth. See verse 1004.
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