Me from attempting. Wherefore do I assume These royalties, and not refuse to reign, Refusing to accept as great a share
Of hazard as of honor, due alike
To him who reigns, and so much to him due Of hazard more, as he above the rest
High honor'd sits? Go, therefore, mighty Powers, Terror of Heaven, though fallen; intend at home, While here shall be our home, what best may ease The present misery, and render Hell More tolerable; if there be cure or charm To respite, or deceive, or slack the pain, Of this ill mansion: intermit no watch Against a wakeful foe, while I abroad,
Through all the coasts of dark destruction, seek Deliverance for us all. This enterprise
None shall partake with me." Thus saying, rose The monarch, and prevented all reply; Prudent, lest, from his resolution raised, Others among the chief might offer now (Certain to be refused) what erst they fear'd; And, so refused, might in opinion stand His rivals, winning cheap the high repute Which he through hazard huge must earn. Dreaded not more the adventure than his voice Forbidding; and at once with him they rose. Their rising all at once was as the sound
Of thunder heard remote. Towards him they bend, With awful reverence prone; and as a god Extol him equal to the highest in Heaven.
Nor fail'd they to express how much they praised That for the general safety he despised
His own for neither do the spirits damn'd
Lose all their virtue; lest bad men should boast
Their specious deeds on earth, which glory excites, Or close ambition varnish'd 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 north wind sleeps, o'erspread Heaven's cheerful face, the low'ring element Scowls o'er the darken'd landskip snow or shower; 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 damn'd Firm concord holds; men only disagree Of creatures rational, though under hope Of heavenly grace; and, God proclaiming peace, Yet live in hatred, enmity, and strife Among themselves, and levy 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 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 inclosed With bright emblazonry, and horrent arms. Then, of their session ended, they hid cry, With trumpets' regal sound, the great result. Towards the four winds four speedy cherubim Put to their mouths the sounding alchemy, By heralds' voice explain'd; the hollow abyss, Heard far and wide, and all the host of Hell With deaf'ning shout return'd them loud acclaim.
Thence more at ease their minds, and somewhat raised By false presumptuous hope, the rangéd powers 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 Typhoan 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 inthrall 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,) Öthers 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 obdurate 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; Abhorréd 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,
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, 599
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 cónfused 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,
Rocks, caves, lakes, fens, bogs, dens. and shades of death,
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 Chimæras 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 631 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 toward the pole. So seem'd 642 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 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 Cerberian 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
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