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 beside,
That day and night for his destruction wait.
The Stygian council thus dissolv'd, and forth
In order came the grand infernal peers;
Midst came the mighty Paramount, and seem'd
Alone th' Antagonist of Heav'n, nor less
Than Hell's dread emperor, with pomp supreme,
And God-like imitated state; him round
A globe of fiery Seraphim enclos'd
With bright emblazonry, and horrent arms.
Then, of their session ended, they bid ery,
With trumpets' regal sound, the great result.
Tow'rds 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 rais'd
By false presumptuous hope, the ranged Powers
Disband, and, wand'ring, 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 irkesome 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 th' 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
Wag'd 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 Heav'n 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 Oechalia crown'd
With conquest, felt th' envenom'd robe, and tore
Through pain up by the roots Thessalian pines,
And Lichas from the top of Oeta threw
Into th' 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 Spi'rits 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 retir'd,
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 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' 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 mareh, 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,
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,
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 th' effect of fire.
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 soft etherial 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
Medusa with Gorgonian terror gaurds
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 cónfus'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,
Created ev'il, 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 conceiv'd,
Gorgons and Hydras, and Chimæras dire.
Meanwhile the Adversary' of God and Man
Satan, with thoughts inflam'd of highest design,
Puts on swift wings, and tow'ards 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 equinoxial 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, bigh 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 unconsum'd. 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 mouth, 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,
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 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
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 valu'd 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 assured, 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,
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