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 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;
From beds of raging fire to starve in ice
Their foft 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 found
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 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, 6.10
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 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
Noreft: through many a dark and dreary vale
They pafs'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 worfe
Than fables yet have feign'd, or fear conceiv'd,
Gorgons, and hydras, and chimæras dire.
Mean while the adverfary' of God and man,
Satan, with thoughts inflam'd of high'est design, 6;0
Puts on swift wings, and towards the gates of hell
Explores his folitary flight: sometimes
He scours the right hand coast, sometimes the left;
Now shaves with level wing the deep, then foars
Up to the fiery concave tow'ring high.
As when far off at sea a fleet defcry'd
Hangs in the clouds, by equinoctial winds
Close failing from Bengala, or the ifles
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'ard the pole: so seem'd
Hell-bounds, high reaching to the horrid roof,
And thrice threefold the gates; three folds were brafs,
Three iron, three of adamantine rock;
Impenetrable, impal'd with circling fire,
Yet unconfum'd. Before the gates there fat
On either fide a formidable shape;
The one feem'd woman to the waste, and fair; 650
But ended foul in many a fcaly fold
Voluminous and vast, a ferpent arm'd
With mortal fting: about her middle round
A cry of hell-hounds never ceafing bark'd
With wide Cerberean mouths full loud, and rung 655
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 fea that parts
Calabria from the hoarse Trinacrian shore:
Nor uglier follow the night-hag, when call'd
In fecret, riding through the air she comes,
Lur'd with the smell of infant-blood, to dance
With Lapland witches, while the lab'ring moon 665
Eclipses at their charms. The other shape,
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 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 feat
The monlter moving onward came as fast
With horrid ftrides; 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 valu'd he nor shunn'd;
And with difdainful 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 affur'd, without leave afk'd 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, 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 fons
Conjur'd against the High'st, 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 heav'n,
Hell-doom'd, and breath'st 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 purfue
Thy ling'ring, or with one stroke of this dart
Strange horror seize thee', and pangs unfelt before.
So spake the grifly terror, and in shape,
So fpeaking and so threat'ning, grew tenfold
More dreadful and deform. On the other fide,
Incens'd with indignation, Satan flood
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 pestilence and war. Each at the head
Levell'd his deadly aim; their fatal hands
No second stroke intend; and fuch a frown
Each caft at th' other, as when two black clouds,
With heav'n's artillery fraught, come rattling on 715
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; 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 achiev'd, whereof all hell had rung,
Had not the snaky forceress 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, the 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? For him who fits above, and laughs the while
At thee, ordaind 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 735 Forbore; then these to her Satan return'd...
So strange thy outcry, and thy words so strange Thou interposest, that my fudden 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'ft Me father, and that phantasm call'st my fon :
I know thee not, nor ever faw till now
Sight more detestable than him and thee.
T' whom thus the portress of hell-gate reply'd.
Haft thou forgot me then, and do I feem
Now in thine eye fo foul? once deem'd so fair
In heav'n, when at th' affembly, and in fight
Of all the Seraphim with thee combin'd
In bold confpiracy against heav'n's King,
All on a sudden miferable pain
Surpris'd thee, dim thine eyes, and dizzy swum
In darkness, while thy head flames thick and fast
Threw forth, till on the left-fide op'ning wide, 755
Likest to thee in shape and-count'nance bright,
Then shining heav'nly fair, a goddess arm'd,
Out of thy head I sprung: amazement seiz'd
All th' host of heav'n; back they recoil'd, afraid
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