Others 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 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' obdured breast
With stubborn patience as with triple steel.
Another part in squadrons and gross bands,
On bold adventure to discover wide

1

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;
Abhorred 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 wat'ry 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 Serbonian2 bog

The names and qualities of these rivers are all taken from the Greek mythology.

1

12 Serbonis was a huge bog in Egypt, sometimes so covered with sand as to

be indistinguishable from the land. It was 200 furlongs long, and 1,000 round. Damietta was a city on one of the eastern mouths of the Nile.

Betwixt Damiata and mount Casius old,

Where armies whole have sunk: the parching air

1

Burns frore, and cold performs th' 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,
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 th' attempt ·

2

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 confused 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 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 3 dire.

I Frostily. See Ecclus. xlii. 20, 21.

2 Medusa was a Gorgon of horrid beauty, who had the power of turning those who gazed on her into stone.

Forgetfulness could never be permitted to the lost spirits.

3 Monsters of the heathen mythology.

Meanwhile the adversary of GOD and man,
Satan, with thoughts inflamed of highest design,
Puts on swift wings, and toward 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 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
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; 2

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 Cerberean3 mouths full loud, and rung
A hideous peel: 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

1 Two of the Molucca islands.

2 Here begins the famous allegory of Milton, which is a sort of paraphrase of St. James i. 15: "Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin; and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death."

3 Like those of Cerberus, the dog with three heads, supposed to keep the gate of hell.

4 Trinacria was the ancient name for Sicily. Scylla and Charybdis were the whirlpools between it and Italy.

In secret riding through the air she comes,
Lured with the smell of infant blood, to dance
With Lapland witches, while the labouring 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.
The undaunted fiend what this might be admired;
Admired, 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 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 replied,
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 sons
Conjured' 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 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,

1 Conspired.

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 horror seize thee, and pangs unfelt before.
So spake the grisly terror, and in shape,
So speaking and so threat'ning, grew tenfold
More dreadful and deform: on the other side
Incensed with indignation Satan stood
Unterrified, and like a comet burn'd,

That fires the length of Ophiucus! 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 such a frown
Each cast at the other, as when two black clouds,
With heav'n's artillery fraught, come rattling on
Over the Caspian; then stand front to front
Hov'ring 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 more3 was either like

T

To meet so great a foe: and now great deeds
Had been achieved, 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
His wrath, which one day will destroy ye both.

1 Serpentarius, a northern constellation. Its length would be about forty degrees. Comets were supposed to threaten "pestilence and war."

2 The Caspian is a remarkably tempestuous sea.

3 Jesus Christ is here intimated, who was to destroy death, and him that has the power of death (Heb. ii. 14).