Man had not hellish foes enow besides,
That day and night for his destruction wait.
The Stygian council thus diffolv'd; and forth
In order came the grand infernal peers:
Midft came their mighty paramount, and feem'd
Alone th' antagonist of Heav'n, nor less
Than Hell's dread emperor with pomp fupreme,
And God-like imitated state; him round
A globe of fiery Seraphim inclos'd
With bright imblazonry, and horrent arms.
Then of their feffion ended they bid cry
With trumpets regal found the great refult:
Tow'ards the four winds four speedy Cherubim
Put to their mouths the founding alchemy
By heralds voice explain'd; the hollow' abyss
Heard far and wide, and all the hoft of Hell
With deafning fhout return'd them loud acclame. 520
Thence more at ease their minds, and fomewhat rais'd
By false presumptuous hope, the ranged Powers
Difband, and, wand'ring, each his several way
Purfues, as inclination or fad choice
Leads him perplex'd, where he may likelieft find 525
Truce to his restless thoughts, and entertain
The irk fome hours, till his great chief return.
Part on the plain, or in the air fublime,
Upon the wing, or in swift race contend,
As at th' Olympian games or Pythian fields;
Part curb their fiery steeds, or fhun the goal
With rapid wheels, or fronted brigads form.
As when to warn proud cities war appears
Wag'd in the troubled sky, and armies rush
To battel in the clouds, before each van
Prick forth the aery knights, and couch their spears
Till thickeft 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 fcarce holds the wild uproar.
As when Alcides, from Oechalia crown'd
With conqueft, felt th' envenom'd robe, and tore
Through pain up by the roots Theffalian pines,
And Lichas from the top of Oeta threw
Into th' Euboic fea. Others more mild,
Retreated in a filent valley, fing
With notes angelical to many a harp
Their own heroic deeds and hapless fall
By doom of battel; and complain that fate
Free virtue fhould inthrall to force or chance.
Their fong was partial, but the harmony
(What could it less when Spi'rits immortal fing?) Sufpended Hell, and took with ravishment
The thronging audience. In difcourfe more sweet 555. (For eloquence the foul, fong charms the fenfe,) Others apart fat on a hill retir'd,
In thoughts more elevate, and reafon'd high
Of providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate,
Fix'd fate, free will, foreknowledge abfolute,
And found no end, in wand'ring mazes lost.
Of good and evil much they argued then,
Of happiness and final misery,
Paffion and apathy, and glory' and shame,
Vain wisdom all, and falfe philosophy :
Yet with a pleafing forcery 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 grofs bands,
On bold adventure to discover wide
That difmal world, if any clime perhaps
Might yield them easier habitation, bend
Four ways their flying march, along the banks
Of four infernal rivers, that difgorge
Into the burning lake their baleful streams;
Abhorred Styx, the flood of deadly hate;
Sad Acheron of forrow, black and deep;
Cocytus, nam'd of lamentation loud
Heard on the rueful ftream; fierce Phlegethon
Whose waves of torrent fire inflame with rage.
Far off from these a flow and filent stream,
Lethe the river of oblivion rolls
Her watry 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; or elfe deep fnow and ice,
A guif profound as that Serbonian bog
Betwixt Damiata and Mount Cafius old,
Where armies whole have funk: the parching air Burns frore, and cold performs th' effect of fire. 595 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 foft ethereal warmth, and there to pine.
Immoveable, infix'd, and frozen round,
Periods of time, thence hurried back to fire.
They ferry over this Lethéan found
Both to and fro, their forrow to augment,
And wish and struggle, as they pafs, to reach
The tempting stream, with one small drop to lose
In sweet forgetfulness all pain and woe,
All in one moment, and fo near the brink;
But fate withstands, and to oppose th' attempt
Medufa 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 cónfus'd march forlorn, th' adventrous bands 615 With fhudd'ring horror pale, and eyes aghast,
View'd first their lamentable lot, and found
No reft through many a dark and dreary vale
They pass'd, and many â region dolorous,
O'cr many a frozen, many a fiery Alp,
Rocks, caves,lakes, fens, bogs, dens, and fhades of death, A univerfe of death, which God by curfe
Created ev'il, for evil only good,
Where all life dies, death lives, and nature breeds,
Perverse, all monftrous, all prodigious things,
Abominable, inutterable, and worse
Than 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 hig’hest design,
Puts on swift wings, and tow'ards the gates of Hell
Explores his folitary flight; fometimes
He fcours the right hand coast, sometimes the left,
Now fhaves with level wing the deep, then foars
Up to the fiery concave towring high.
Through the wide Ethiopian to the Cape
Ply stemming nightly tow'ard the pole. So feem'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, Three iron, three of adamantin rock,
Impenetrable, impal'd with circling fire,
Yet unconfum'd. Before the gates there fat
On either fide a formidable shape;
The one feem'd woman to the wafte, and fair,
But ended foul in many a fcaly fold
Voluminous and vaft, a serpent arm'd
With mortal fting: about her middle round
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