fate withstands, and to oppose th’ attempt
Medusa with Gorgonian terror guards
The Ford, and of it self 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’ adventrous Bands
With shuddring horror pale, and eyes agast
View’d first thir lamentable lot, and found
No rest: through many a dark and drearie Vaile
They pass’d, and many a Region dolorous,
O’re many a Frozen, many a Fierie Alpe,
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
Then Fables yet have feign’d, or fear conceiv’d,
Gorgons and Hydra’s, and Chimera’s dire.
Mean while the Adversary of God and Man,
Satan with thoughts inflam’d of highest design,
Puts on swift wings, and toward the Gates of Hell
Explores his solitary flight; som times
He scours the right hand coast, som times the left,
Now shaves with level wing the Deep, then soares
Up to the fiery concave touring high.
As when farr off at Sea a Fleet descri’d
Hangs in the Clouds, by AEquinoctial Winds
Close sailing from Bengala, or the Iles
Of Ternate and Tidore, whence Merchants bring
Thir spicie Drugs: they on the trading Flood
Through the wide Ethiopian to the Cape
Ply stemming nightly toward the Pole. So seem’d
Farr off the flying Fiend: at last appeer
Hell bounds high reaching to the horrid Roof,
And thrice threefold the Gates; three folds were Brass,
Three Iron, three of Adamantine Rock,
Impenitrable, 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 waste, and fair,
But ended foul in many a scaly fould
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 Cerberean mouths full loud, and rung
A hideous Peal: yet, when they list, would creep,
If aught disturb’d thir noyse, into her woomb,
And kennel there, yet there still bark’d and howl’d
Within unseen. Farr less abhorrd then these
Vex’d Scylla bathing in the Sea that
Calabria from the hoarce 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 labouring Moon
Eclipses at thir charms. The other shape,
If shape it might be call’d that shape had none
Distinguishable in member, joynt, 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 naught vallu’d he nor shun’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 askt of thee:
Retire, or taste thy folly, and learn by proof,
Hell-born, not to contend with of Heav’n.
To whom the Goblin full of wrauth reply’d,
Art thou that Traitor Angel, art thou hee,
Who first broke peace in Heav’n and Faith, till then
Unbrok’n,
