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 inthral to force or chance.
Their song was partial; but the harmony,
(What could it less when spirits immortal sing?)
Suspended hell, and took with ravishment

550

The thronging audience. In discourse more sweet, (For eloquence the soul, song charms the sense,) 556 Others apart sat on a hill retir'd,

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

557 others apart] Compare Horat. Od. ii. 13. 23.
'Sedesque discretas piorum.'

558 elevate] Compare Ovidii Metam. xii. 157.

'Non illos Citharæ, non illos carmina vocum,
Longave multifori delectat tibia buxi:

Sed noctem sermone trahunt; virtusque loquendi
Materia est.'

560

565

566 pleasing sorcery] See Marino's Sl. of the Innocents, I. 4, 8.

(1675).

' And with a pleasing tyranny had there

Shed his Lethean water on their sight.'

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
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, nam'd 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 antient pile; all else deep snow and ice;
A gulf profound as that Serbonian bog
Betwixt Damiata and mount Casius old,

569 triple] Hor. Od. i. iii. 9.

Illi robur, et æs triplex

Circa pectus erat.'

Hume.

589 dire hail] Hor. Od. i. ii. 1. dire grandinis.' Newton.

570

575

580

585

590

Where armies whole have sunk: 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

600

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

605

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 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, 615
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,

620

595 Burns] Virg. Georg. i. 93. 'Boreæ penetrabile frigus adurat.' Newton.

620 Alp] In the singular number; so in Dionysius Perieg. See

Rocks, caves, lakes, fens, bogs, dens, and shades of

death,

A universe of death, which God by curse

Created evil, for evil only good,

625

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 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 towards the gates of hell
Explores his solitary flight; sometimes

635

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

Schnieder's note to Orphei Argon. p. 198. "Алios άox, 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 tost at Tennis, p. 26.

623 evil] Esch. Eumen. ver. 71.

κακῶν δ ̓ ἕκατι κἀγένοντ.

625 all monstrous] See Heywood's Hierarchie, p. 437, lib. 7.

'So that all births which out of order come

Are monstrous and prodigious.'

Of Ternate and Tidore, whence merchants bring Their spicy drugs: they on the trading flood Through the wide Æthiopian to the Cape

640

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, impal'd with circling fire,
Yet unconsum'd. Before the gates there sat
On either side a formidable shape;

645

650

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 655

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.

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).