The present misery, and render Hell
More tolerable; if there be cure or charm
To respite or deceive461, 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 prevented467 all reply,
Prudent, lest from his resolution raised468
Others among the chief might offer now
(Certain to be refused) what erst they feared;
And so refused might in opinion stand
His rivals, winning cheap the high repute
Which he through hazard huge must earn. But they
Dreaded not more th’ 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 prone478; and as a god
Extol him equal to the highest in Heav’n:
Nor failed they to express how much they praised,
That for the general safety he despised
His own: for neither do the spirits damned
Lose all their virtue; lest bad men should boast483
Their specious deeds on earth, which glory excites,
Or close ambition varnished 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 sleeps489, o’erspread
Heav’n’s cheerful face, the louring element490
Scowls o’er the darkened lantskip491 snow, or show’r;
If chance the radiant sun with farewell sweet
Extend his ev’ning beam, the fields revive,
The birds their notes renew, and bleating herds
Attest their joy, that hill and valley rings.
O shame to496 men! Devil with devil damned
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 enow504 besides,
That day and night for his destruction wait.
The Stygian Counsel thus dissolved; and forth
In order came the grand infernal Peers:
Midst came their mighty Paramount, and seemed
Alone th’ antagonist of Heav’n, nor less
Than Hell’s dread Emperor with pomp supreme,
And God-like511 imitated state; him round
A globe of fiery Seraphim enclosed
With bright emblazonry513, and horrent arms.
Then of their session ended they bid cry
With trumpets’ regal sound the great result:
Toward the four winds four speedy Cherubim
Put to their mouths the sounding alchemy517
By herald’s voice explained: the hollow abyss
Heard far and wide, and all the host of Hell
With deaf’ning shout, returned them loud acclaim.
Thence more at ease their minds and somewhat raised
By false presumptuous hope, the rangèd powers
Disband, and wand’ring, each his several way
Pursues, as inclination or sad choice
Leads him perplexed, where he may likeliest find
Truce to his restless thoughts, and entertain526
The irksome hours, till this great chief return.
Part on the528 plain, or in the air sublime
Upon the wing, or in swift race contend,
As at th’ Olympian Games or Pythian fields530;
Part curb their fiery steeds, or shun the goal531
With rapid wheels, or fronted532 brigades form.
As when to warn proud cities war appears
Waged in the troubled sky533, and armies rush
To battle in the clouds, before each van535
Prick forth536 the airy knights, and couch their spears
Till thickest legions close; with feats of arms
From either end of heav’n the welkin538 burns.
Others with vast Typhoean539 rage more fell
Rend up both rocks and hills, and ride the air
In whirlwind; Hell scarce holds the wild uproar.
As when542 Alcides from Oechalia crowned
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 enthrall to force or chance.
Their song was partial552, but the harmony
(What could it less when spirits immortal sing?)
Suspended554 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 retired,
In thoughts558 more elevate, and reasoned high
Of providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate,
Fixed 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 apathy564, 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’ obdurèd568 breast
With stubborn patience as with triple steel.
Another part in squadrons and gross570 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 four575 infernal rivers that disgorge
Into the burning lake their baleful streams;
Abhorrèd Styx the flood of deadly hate,
Sad Acheron of sorrow, black and deep;
Cocytus, named of lamentation loud
Heard on the rueful stream; fierce Phlegeton
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 pile591; all else deep snow and ice,
A gulf profound as that Serbonian Bog
Betwixt Damiata and Mount Casius old,
Where armies whole have sunk592: the parching air
Burns frore595, and cold performs th’ effect of fire.
Thither by harpy-footed596 Furies haled,
At certain revolutions all the damned
Are brought: and feel by turns the bitter change
Of fierce extremes, extremes by change more fierce,
From beds of raging fire to starve600 in ice
Their soft ethereal warmth, and there to pine
Immovable, infixed, and frozen round,
Periods of time, thence hurried back to fire.
They ferry over this Lethean sound604
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
Medusa611 with Gorgonian terror guards
The ford, and of itself the water flies
All taste of living wight613, as once it fled
The lip of Tantalus614. Thus roving on
In confused march forlorn, th’ advent’rous bands
With shudd’ring horror pale, and eyes aghast
Viewed first their lamentable lot, and found
No rest: through many a dark and dreary vale
They passed, and many a region dolorous,
O’er many a frozen, many a fiery alp,
Rocks, caves,621 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 feigned, or fear conceived,
Gorgons and Hydra628s, and Chimeras dire.
Meanwhile the Adversary629 of God and man,
Satan with thoughts inflamed of highest design,
Puts on swift wings, and towards the gates of Hell
Explores632 his solitary flight; sometimes
He scours the right hand coast, sometimes the left,
Now shaves633 with level wing the deep, then soars
Up to the fiery concave tow’ring high.
As when far off at sea a fleet descried
Hangs in the clouds636, by equinoctial637 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 pole642. So seemed
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, impaled647 with circling fire,
Yet unconsumed. Before the gates there sat
On either side a formidable shape;
The one650 seemed woman to the waist, and fair,
But ended foul in many a scaly fold
Voluminous652 and vast, a serpent armed
With mortal sting653: about her middle round
A cry654 of Hell-hounds never ceasing barked
With wide Cerberean655 mouths full loud, and rung
A hideous peal: yet, when they list, would creep,
If aught disturbed their noise, into her womb,
And kennel658 there, yet there still barked and howled,
Within unseen.659 Far less abhorred than these
Vexed Scylla bathing in the sea that parts
Calabria from the hoarse Trinacrian shore:
Nor uglier follow the night-hag662, when called
In secret, riding through the air she comes
Lured664 with the smell of infant blood, to dance
With Lapland665 witches, while the laboring moon
Eclipses at their charms. The other shape,
If shape it might be called that shape had none
Distinguishable in member, joint, or limb,
Or substance might be called that shadow seemed,
For each seemed either; black it stood as night,
Fierce as ten Furies, terrible as Hell,
And shook a dreadful dart; what seemed his head
The likeness of a kingly crown673 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 admired677,
Admired, not678 feared; God and his Son except,
Created thing naught valued he nor shunned;
And with disdainful look thus first began.
“Whence and681 what art thou, execrable shape,
That dar’st, though grim and terrible, advance
Thy miscreated front683 athwart my way
To yonder gates? Through them I mean to pass,
That be assured, without leave asked of thee:
Retire, or taste686 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 him692 the third part of Heav’n’s sons
Conjured693 against the highest, for which both thou
And they outcast from God, are here condemned
To waste eternal days in woe and pain?
And reckon’st thou thyself with spirits of Heav’n,
Hell-doomed697, 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 a701 whip of scorpions I pursue
Thy ling’ring, or with one stroke of this dart
Strange horror seize thee, and pangs unfelt before.”
So spake the grisly terror, and in shape,
So speaking705 and so threat’ning, grew tenfold
More dreadful and deform: on th’ other side
Incensed with indignation Satan stood
Unterrified708, and like a comet burned,
That fires the length of Ophiucus709 huge
In th’ Arctic sky, and from his horrid hair710
Shakes pestilence and war. Each at the head
Leveled his deadly aim; their fatal hands
No second stroke intend, and such a frown
Each cast714 at th’ other, as when two black clouds
With Heav’n’s artillery fraught, come rattling on
Over the Caspian716, then stand front to front
Hov’ring a space, till winds the signal blow
To join their dark encounter in mid air:
So frowned the mighty combatants, that Hell
Grew darker at their frown, so matched they stood;
For never but once more was either like
To meet so great a foe722: 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 rushed 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 ordained his drudge, to execute
Whate’er his wrath, which he calls justice, bids,
His wrath which one day will destroy ye both.”
She spake, and at her words the Hellish pest
Forbore, then these to her Satan returned:
“So strange thy outcry, and thy words so strange
Thou interposest, that my sudden hand
Prevented spares to tell thee yet by deeds
What it intends; till first I know
of thee,
What thing thou art, thus double-formed, and why
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.”
T’ whom thus the portress746 of Hell gate replied:
“Hast thou forgot me then, and do I seem
Now in748 thine eye so foul, once deemed so fair
In Heav’n, when at th’ assembly, and in sight
Of all the Seraphim with thee combined
In bold conspiracy against Heav’n’s King,
All752 on a sudden miserable pain
Surprised thee, dim thine eyes, and dizzy swum
In darkness, while754 thy head flames thick and fast
Threw forth, till on the left side op’ning wide,
Likest to thee in shape and count’nance bright,
Then shining Heav’nly fair, a goddess armed
Out of thy head I sprung: amazement seized
All th’ host of Heav’n; back they recoiled afraid
At first,760 and called me Sin, and for a sign
Portentous held me; but familiar grown,
I pleased, and with attractive graces won
The most averse, thee chiefly, who full oft
Thyself in me thy perfect image viewing
Becam’st enamored, and such joy thou took’st
With me in secret, that my womb conceived
A growing burden. Meanwhile war arose,
And fields768 were fought in Heav’n; wherein remained
(For what could else) to our almighty foe
Clear victory, to our part loss and rout
Through all the empyrean771: down they fell
Driv’n headlong from the pitch772 of Heaven, down
Into this deep, and in the general fall
I also; at which time774 this powerful key
Into my hand was giv’n, with charge to keep
These gates for ever shut, which none can pass
Without my op’ning. Pensive here I sat
Alone, but long I sat not, till778 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
Transformed: 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 sighed
From all789 her caves, and back resounded ‘Death.’
I fled, but he pursued (though more, it seems,
Inflamed with lust than rage) and swifter far,
Me overtook his mother all dismayed,