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 fife 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 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 Explores his solitary flight: sometimes [Hell 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 nighly toward 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,

I

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;
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 Cerberean mouths full loud, and rung
A hideous peal; yet, when they list, would

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.
The undaunted fiend what this might be ad-
mir'd,

Admir'd, not fear'd; God and his Son except, Created thing naught 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 Heaven." To whom the goblin full of wrath replied. "Art thou that traitor-angel, art thou he, Who first broke peace in Heaven, and faith, till then

Unbroken; and in proud rebellious arms
Drew after him the third part of Heaven's sons
Conjúr'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?
And reckon'st thou thyself with spirits of Heaven,
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 pursue
Thy lingering, or with one stroke of this dart
Strange horrour seize thee, and pangs unfelt
before."

So spake the grisly terrour, and in shape, So speaking and so threatening, grew ten-fold More dreadful and deform. On the other side, Incens'd with indignation, Satan stood Unterrified, and like a comet burn'd, That fires the length of Ophiuchus buge In the 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 such a frown Each cast at the other,as when two black clouds, With Heaven's artillery fraught, come rattling on Over the Caspian, then stand front to front, Hovering a space, till winds the signal 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 sorceress, that sat
Fast by Hell-gate, and kept the fatal key,
Ris'n, and with hideous outcry rush'd between.

"O father, what intends thy hand," she cried,
Against thy only son? What fury, O son,
Possesses thee to bend that mortal dart.
Against thy father's head? and know'st for

whom ;

For him who sits above and laughs the while
At thee ordain'd his drudge, to execute
Whate'er his wrath, which he calls justice,
bids;

In this infernal vale first met, thou call'st
Me father, and that phantasm call'st my son:
I know thee not, nor ever saw till now
Sight more detestable than him and thee."

To whom thus the portress of Hell-gate replied.

"Hast thou forgot me then, and do I seem Now in thine eye so foul? once deem'd so fair In Heaven, when at the assembly, and in sight Of all the seraphim with thee combin'd

In bold conspiracy against Heaven's King,
All on a sudden miserable 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 side opening wide,
Likest to thee in shape and countenance bright,
Then shining heavenly fair, a goddess arm'd,
Out of thy head I sprung: amazement seiz'd
All the host of Heaven; back they recoil'd afraid
At first, and call'd me Sin, and for a sign
Portentous held me; but, familiar grown,
I pleas'd, and with attractive graces won
The most averse, thee chiefly, who full oft
Thyself in me thy perfect image viewing
Becam'st enamour'd, and such joy thou took'st
With me in secret, that my womb conceiv'd
A growing burden. Meanwhile war arose,
And fields were fought in Heaven; wherein re-
main'd

(For what could else?) to our Almighty Foe
Clear victory; to our part loss and rout,
Through all the empyrean; down they fell
Driven headlong from the pitch of Heaven, down
Into this deep! and in the general fall
I also; at which time, this powerful key
Into my hand was given, with charge to keep
These gates for ever shut, which none can pass
Without my opening. Pensive here I sat
Alone; but long I sat not, till my womb,
Pregnant by thee, and now excessive grown,
Prodigious motion felt, and rueful throes.
At last this odious offspring whom thou seest,
Thine own begotten, breaking violent way
Tore through my entrails, that, with fear and
pain

Distorted, all my nether shape thus grew
Transform'd: but he my inbred enemy
Forth issued, brandishing his fatal dart
Made to destroy! I fled and cried out Death!
Hell trembled at the hideous name, and sigh'd
From all her caves, and back resounded Death!
I fled, but he pursued, (though more, it seems,
Inflam'd with lust than rage) and, swifter far,
Me overtook his mother all dismay'd,
And in embraces forcible and foul
Ingendering with me, of that rape begot
These yelling monsters, that with ceaseless cry
Surround me, as thou saw'st, hourly conceiv'd
And hourly born, with sorrow infinite
To me; for, when they list, into the womb
That bred them they return, and howl and
gnaw

My bowels, their repast; then bursting forth Afresh with conscious terrours vex me round, That rest or intermission none I find.

For want of other prey, but that he knows
His end with mine involv'd; and knows that I
Should prove a bitter morsel, and his bane,
Whenever that shall be; so Fate pronounc'd.
But thou, O father, I forewarn thee, shun
His deadly arrow; neither vainly hope
To be invulnerable in those bright arms,
Though temper'd heavenly; for that mortal

dint,

Save he who reigns above, none can resist."

She finish'd; and the subtle fiend his lore Soon learn'd, now milder, and thus answer'd smooth.

"Dear daughter,since thou claim'st me for thy sire,

And my fair son here show'st me, the dear pledge. Of dalliance had with thee in Heaven, and joys Then sweet, now sad to mention, through dire change

turn,

And bring ye to the place where thou and Death
Shall dwell at ease, and up and down unseen
Wing silently the buxom air, imbalm'd
With odours; there ye shall be fed and fill'd
Immeasurably; all things shall be your prey."

He ceas'd, for both seem'd highly pleas'd, and

Death

Grinn'd horrible a ghastly smile, to hear
His famine should be fill'd; and blest his maw
Destin'd to that good hour: no less rejoic'd
His mother bad, and thus bespake her sire.
"The key of this infernal pit by due,
And by command of Heaven's all-powerful King,
I keep, by him forbidden to unlock
These adamantine gates; against all force
Death ready stands to interpose his dart,
Fearless to be o'ermatch'd by living might.
But what owe 1 to his commands above
Who bates me, and hath bither thrust me down
Into this gloom of Tartarus profound,
To sit in hateful office here confin'd,
Inhabitant of Heaven, and heavenly-born,
Here in perpetual agony and pain,
With terrours and with clamours compass'd
round

here,

He rules a moment: Chaos umpire sits,
And by decision more embroils the fray,
By which he reigns: next him high arbiter
Chance governs all. Into this wild abyss,
The womb of Nature, and perhaps her grave,
Of neither sea, nor shore, nor air, nor fire,
But all these in their pregnant causes mix'd
Confus'dly, and which thus must ever fight,
Unless the Almighty Maker them ordain
His dark materials to create more worlds;
Into this wild abyss the wary fiend
Stood on the brink of Hell, and look'd a while,
Pondering his voyage; for no narrow frith
He had to cross. Nor was his ear less peal'd
With noises loud and ruinous, (to compare
Great things with small) than when Bellona

The stedfast Earth. At last his sail-broad vans
He spreads for flight, and in the surging smoke
Uplifted spurns the ground; thence many a
league,

As in a cloudy chair, ascending rides
Audacious; but, that seat soon failing, meets
A vast vacuity: all unawares
[drops
Fluttering his pennons vain, płumb down he
Ten thousand fathom deep; and to this hour
Down had been falling, had not by ill chance
The strong rebuff of some tumultuous cloud,
Instinct with fire and nitre, hurried him
As many miles aloft: that fury staid,
Quench'd in a boggy Syrtis, neither sea,
Nor good dry land: nigh founder'd on he fares,
Treading the crude consistence, half on foot,
Half flying; behoves him now both oar and sail.
As when a gryphon, through the wilderness
With winged course, o'er hill or moory dale,
Pursues the Arimaspian, who by stealth
Had from his wakeful custody purloin'd
The guarded gold: so eagerly the fiend
O'er bog, or steep, through strait, rough, dense,
or rare,
[way,
With head, hands, wings, or feet, pursues his
And swims, or sinks, or wades, or creeps, or
flies;

storms,

With all her battering engines bent to rase Some capital city; or less than if this frame Of Heaven were falling, and these elements In mutiny had from her axle torn

At length a universal hubbub wild

Of stunning sounds, and voices all confus'd,
Borne through the hollow dark, assaults his ear
With loudest vehemence: thither he plies,
Undaunted to meet there whatever power
Or spirit of the nethermost abyss
Might in that noise reside, of whom to ask
Which way the nearest coast of darkness lies
Bordering on light; when straight behold the
throne

Of Chaos, and his dark pavilion spread
Wide on the wasteful deep: with him enthron'd
Sat sable-vested Night, eldest of things,
The consort of his reign; and by them stood
Orcus and Ades, and the dreaded name
Of Demogorgon! Rumour next and Chance,
And Tumult and Confusion all embroil'd,
And Discord with a thousand various mouths.
To whom Satan turning boldly, thus:

"Ye

powers

And spirits of this nethermost abyss,
Chaos and ancient Night, I come no spy,
With purpose to explore or to disturb
The secrets of your realm; but, by constraint
Wandering this darksome desert, as my way
Lies through your spacious empire up to light,
Alone, and without guide, half lost, I seek
What readiest path leads where your gloomy
bounds

Confine with Heaven; or if some other place,
From your dominion won, the etherial King
Possesses lately, thither to arrive

I travel this profound; direct my course;
Directed, no mean recompense it brings
To your behoof, if I that region lost,
All usurpation thence expell'd, reduce
To her original darkness, and your sway,
(Which is my present journey) and once more
Erect the standard there of ancient Night:
Yours be the advantage all, mine the revenge."

Thus Satan; and him thus the Anarch old, With faltering speech and visage incompos'd

Answer'd. "I know thee, stranger, who thou art,
That mighty leading angel, who of late
Made head against Heaven's King, though over-
thrown.

I saw and heard; for such a numerous host
Fled not in silence through the frighted deep,
With ruin upon ruin, rout on rout,
Confusion worse confounded; and Heaven-gates
Pour'd out by millions her victorious bands
Pursuing. I upon my frontiers here
Keep residence; if all I can will serve
That little which is left so to defend,
Encroach'd on still through your intestine broils
Weakening the sceptre of old Night: first Hell,
Your dungeon, stretching far and wide beneath;
Now lately Heaven and Earth, another world,
Hung o'er my realm, link'd in a golden chain
To that side Heaven from whence your legions
fell:

If that way be your walk, you have not far;
So much the nearer danger; go, and speed;
Havoc, and spoil, and ruin, are my gain."

He ceas'd; and Satan staid not to reply,
But, glad that now his sea should find a shore,
With fresh alacrity, and force renew'd,
Springs upward, like a pyramid of fire,
Into the wild expanse, and, through the shock
Of fighting elements, on all sides round
Environ'd, wins his way; harder beset
And more endanger'd, than when Argo pass'd
Through Bosporus, betwixt the justling rocks :
Or when Ulysses on the larboard shunn'd
Charybdis, and by the other whirlpool steer'd.
So he with difficulty and labour hard
Mov'd on, with difficulty and labour he;
But, he once past, soon after, when man fell,
Strange alteration! Sin and Death amain
Following his track, such was the will of Heaven,
Pav'd after him a broad and beaten way
Over the dark abyss, whose boiling gulf
Tamely endur'd a bridge of wondrous length,
From Hell continued reaching the utmost orb
Of this frail world; by which the spirits perverse
With easy intercourse pass to and fro
To tempt or punish mortals, except whom
God, and good angels, guard by special grace.
But now at last the sacred influence
Of light appears, and from the walls of Heaven
Shoots far into the bosom of dim Night
A glimmering dawn: here Nature first begins
Her farthest verge, and Chaos to retire
As from her outmost works a broken fee
With tumult less, and with less hostile din,
That Satan with less toil, and now with ease
Wafts on the calmer wave by dubious light,
And, like a weather-beaten vessel, holds
Gladly the port through shrouds and tackle
torn;

Or in the emptier waste, resembling air,
Weighs his spread wings, at leisure to behold
Far off the empyreal Heaven, extended wide
In circuit, undetermin'd square or round,
With opal towers and battlements adorn'd
Of living sapphire, once his native seat;
And fast by, hanging in a golden chain,
This pendant world, in bigness as a star
Of smallest magnitude close by the Moon.
Thither, full fraught with mischievous revenge,
Accurs'd, and in a cursed hour he hies.

PARADISE LOST.

BOOK III.
THE ARGUMENT.

God, sitting on his throne, sees Satan flying towards this world, then newly created; shows him to the Son, who sat at his right hand; foretels the success of Satan in perverting mankind, clears his own justice and wisdom from all imputation, having created Man free, and able enough to have withstood his tempter; yet declares his purpose of grace towards him, in regard he fell not of his own malice, as did Satan, but by him seduced. The Son of God renders praises to his Father for the manifestation of his gracious purpose towards Man: but God again declares, that grace cannot be extended towards Man without the satisfaction of divine justice: Man hath offended the majesty of God by aspiring to godhead, and therefore, with all his progeny, devoted to death, must die unless some can be found sufficient to answer for his offence, and under go his punishment. The Son of God freely offers himself a ransom for Man: the Father accepts him, ordains his incarnation, pro nounces his exaltation above al names in Heaven and Earth; commands all the angels to adore him: They obey, and hymning to their harps in full quire, celebrate the Father and the Sor, Mean while Satan alights upon the bare convex of this world's outermost orb; where wandering he first finds a place, since called the Limbo of Vanity: what persons and things fly up thither: thence comes to the gate of Heaven, described ascending by stairs, and the waters above the firmament that flow about it: his passage thence to the orb of the Sun; he finds there Uriel, the regent of that orb, but first changes himself into the shape of a meaner angel; and, pretending a zealous desire to behold the new creation, and Man whom God had placed here, inquires of him the place of his habitation, and is directed alights first on m Niphates. HAIL, holy Light, offspring of Heaven, firstOr of the Eternal coeternal beam [born, May I express thee unblam'd? since God is light,

And never but in unapproached light
Dwelt from eternity, dwelt then in thee,
Bright effluence of bright essence increate.
Or hear'st thou rather, pure ethereal stream,
Whose fountain who shall tell? Before the Sun,
Before the Heavens thou wert, and at the voice
Of God, as with a mantle, didst invest
The rising world of waters dark and deep,
Won from the void and formless infinite.
Thee I re-visit now with bolder wing,
Escap'd the Stygian pool, though long detain'd
In that obscure sojourn, while in my flight
Through utter and through middle darkness
borne,

With other notes than to the Orphéan lyre,
I sung of Chaos and eternal Night;
Taught by the heavenly Muse to venture down
The dark descent, and up to re-ascend,