In sweet forgetfulness all pain and woe,
All in one moment, and so near the brink :
But fate withstands, and to oppose th' attempt 610
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 confus'd march forlorn, th' advent'rous bands,
With shudd'ring horror pale, and eyes agast,
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, [death,
Rocks, caves, lakes, fens, bogs, dens, and shades of
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, 625
Abominable, inutterable, and worse

619

620 Alp] in the singular number; so in Dionysius Perieg. See Schnieder's note to Orphei Argon. p. 193. "ATOS åpxò, singulari numero, est in Dion. Perieg. ut in Metrodori Epigr. (Anal. ii. 481.) Alpem Juvenalis nominat. (Sat. x. 152.)

621 Rocks] Rocks, shelves, gulfs, quicksands, hundred, hundred horrors.'

See Middleton's World tosl at Tennis, p. 26. 623 evil] Æsch. Eumen. ver. 71.

κακών δ' έκατι κάγένοντ.. 625 all monstrous) See Heywood's Hierarchie, p. 437, lib. 7.

So that all births which out of order come

Are monstrous and prodigious.'
VOL. I.

15

6

635

Than fables yet have feign'd, or fear conceiv'd, Gorgons, and Hydras, and Chimæras dire.

Meanwhile the adversary of God and man, Satan, with thoughts inflam'd of highest design, 630 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 Æthiopian 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 Three iron, three of adamantine rock, [brass, Impenetrable, impal'd with circling fire, Yet unconsum’d. Before the gates there sat

640

647

639 Of Ternate] See Fanshawe’s Lusiad, p. 219, c. X. 84, 132. (1655). Tidore see! Ternate! whence are rolled

(Holding black night a torch) thick plumes of flame.' 640 trading] treading. Bentl. MS. 642 nightly] rightly. Bentl. MS. 645 thrice threefold) Samson Agon. ver. 1122.

"And seven times folded shield.'

Clypei septemplicis.' Bentl. MS.

a

655

On either side a formidable shape;
The one seem'd woman to the waist, and fair, 650
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 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 callid
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 665
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,

GGO

653 mortal sting] Spens. F. Q. ver. i. i. 15.

pointed with mortal sting.' Bentl. MS. 654 A cry] ‘And that some troop of cruel hellish curs Encircle them about.'

v. Phillis of Scyros. p. 104. (1655). 660 Vex' d] 'Dulichios vexasse rates.' Bentl. MS.

665 labouring moon] See Ovid. Metam. iv. 333. and Stat. Theb. ver. 687. Siderum labores.' y. Plin. N. Hist. lib. ii. C. X. p. 162, ed. Brotier. Casimir Sarb. Lyr. ii. v. 'Soli et lunæ labores.'

6

675

For each seem'd either; black it stood as night, 670
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 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 assurd 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,

680

683

672 And shook]
His dart anon out of the corpse he took,

And in his hand, a dreadful sight to see,

With great triumph eftsones the same he shook.' See Sackville's Int. to Mirror for Mag. p. 266, ed. 1610. 676 hell] 'And made hell gates to shiver with the might.'

Sackville's Introd. p. 265. 679 Created] See Wakefield's Lucretius, lib. i. 117, and Sylva Critica, v. p. 74, where this phrase is illustrated.

683 miscreated] Spens. F. Q. i. ii. 3. 'miscreated fair.' ii. vii. 42. 'miscreated mould.' Bentl.

691

695

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
Conjur'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 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 speaking and so threat'ning, grew tenfold
More dreadful and deform : on th' other side
Incens'd with indignation Satan stood
Unterrify'd, and like a comet burn'd,
That fires the length of Ophiucus huge
In th' arctic sky, and from his horrid hair

700

705

710

692 Drew] 'He boldly drew millions of souls.'

See Beaumont's Psyche, c. XV. st. 296. 698 Conjur'd] Virg. Geo. i. 280.

* Et conjuratos cælum rescindere fratres.' Hume. 708 comet ] See Virg. Æn. x. 272. Tasso G. L. i. vii. 52.

Newton. 700 Ophiucus) See Sir F. Bacon's Astronomy. 'And such comets have more than once appeared in our time; first in Cassiopeia, and again in Ophiuchus.'