With notes angelical to many a harp Their own heroic deeds and hapless fall By doom of battel; and complain that Fate Free virtue should inthral to force or chance. Their song was partial, but the harmony (What could it less when spi'rits immortal sing?) Suspended Hell, and took with ravishment 554 The thronging audience. In discourse more sweet (For eloquence the soul, song charms the sense,) Others apart sat on a hill retir'd,
In thoughts more elevate, and reason'd high Of providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate, Fix'd fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute, 560 And found no end, in wand'ring 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 th' 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, nam'd of lamentation loud
Heard on the rueful stream; fierce Phlegethon, 580 Whose waves of torrent fire inflame with rage. Far off from these a slow and silent stream,
Lethe the river of oblivion rolls
Her wat'ry labyrinth, whereof who drinks, Forthwith his former state and be'ing forgets, 585 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 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, From beds of raging fire to starve in içe
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 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 th' attempt 610 Medusa with Gorgonian terror guards
The ford, and of itself the water flies
All taste of living wight, as once it fled Thus roving on
In confus'd march forlorn, th' advent'rous bands With shudd'ring 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, Rocks, caves, lakes, fens, bogs, dens, and shades of A universe of death, which God by curse [death, Created ev'il, for evil only good
Where all life dies, death lives, and nature breeds, Perverse, all monstrous, all prodigious things, 625 Abominable, inutterable, and worse
Than fables yet have feign'd, or fear conceiv'd, Gorgons, and hydras, and chimeras dire.
Mean while the adversary' of God and man, Satan with thoughts inflam'd 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 tow'ring high. As when far off at sea a fleet descry'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 640 Through the wide Ethiopian to the Cape Ply stemming nightly tow'ard 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, impal'd with circling fire,
Yet unconsum'd. Before the gates there sat On either side a formidable shape;
The one seem'd woman to the waist, and fair, 650 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 With wide Cerberean mouths full loud, and rung A hideous peal; yet, when they list, would creep, If ought 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, Lur'd with the smell of infant blood, to dance With Lapland witches, while the lab'ring moon Eclipses at their charms. The other shape, 666
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,
671 And shook a dreadful dart; what seem'd 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 675 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 nought valued he nor shunn'd; And with disdainful look thus first began.
Whence and what art thou, execrable shape! That dar'st, though grim and terrible, advance Thy miscreated front athwart my way To yonder gates? through them I mean to pass, That be assur'd, without leave ask'd of thee: Retire, or taste thy folly', and learn by proof, Hell-born, not to contend with spirits of Heav'n. 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 Unbroken, and in proud rebellious arms
Drew after him the third part of Heav'n's sons 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? 695 And reckon'st thou thyself with spirits of Heav'n,
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