John Milton - Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained

Ply stemming nightly toward the pole: 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, impaled with circling fire,

Yet unconsumed. Before the gates there sat

On either side a formidable Shape.

The one seemed woman to the waist, and fair,

But ended foul in many a scaly fold,

Voluminous and vast—a serpent armed

With mortal sting. About her middle round

A cry of Hell-hounds never ceasing barked

With wide Cerberean mouths full loud, and rung

A hideous peal; yet, when they list, would creep,

If aught disturbed their noise, into her womb,

And kennel there; yet there still barked and howled

Within unseen. Far less abhorred than these

Vexed Scylla, bathing in the sea that parts

Calabria from the hoarse Trinacrian shore;

Nor uglier follow the night-hag, when, called

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 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 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 admired—

Admired, not feared (God and his Son except,

Created thing naught valued he nor shunned),

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 asked 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,

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,

Conjured 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 Heaven

Hell-doomed, 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 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 threatening, grew tenfold,

More dreadful and deform. On th’ other side,

Incensed with indignation, Satan stood

Unterrified, and like a comet burned,

That fires the length of Ophiuchus huge

In th’ arctic sky, and from his horrid hair

Shakes pestilence and war. Each at the head

Levelled his deadly aim; their fatal hands

No second stroke intend; and such a frown

Each cast at th’ other as when two black clouds,

With heaven’s artillery fraught, came rattling on

Over the Caspian,—then stand front to front

Hovering 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 wither like

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,

Risen, 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 Portress of Hell-gate replied:—

“Hast thou forgot me, then; and do I seem

Now in thine eye so foul?—once deemed so fair

In Heaven, when at th’ assembly, and in sight

Of all the Seraphim with thee combined

In bold conspiracy against Heaven’s King,

All on a sudden miserable pain

Surprised thee, dim thine eyes and dizzy swum

In darkness, while thy head flames thick and fast

Threw forth, till on the left side opening wide,

Likest to thee in shape and countenance bright,

Then shining heavenly fair, a goddess armed,

Out of thy head I sprung. Amazement seized

All th’ host of Heaven; back they recoiled afraid

At first, 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 enamoured; and such joy thou took’st

With me in secret that my womb conceived

A growing burden. Meanwhile war arose,

And fields were fought in Heaven: wherein remained

(For what could else?) to our Almighty Foe

Clear victory; to our part loss and rout

Through all the Empyrean. Down they fell,

Driven headlong from the pitch of Heaven, down

Into this Deep; and in the general fall

I also: at which time this powerful key

Into my hands was given, with charge to keep

These gates for ever shut, which none can pass

Without my opening. Pensive here I sat

Alone; but long I sat not, till 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 all 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,

And, in embraces forcible and foul

Engendering with me, of that rape begot

These yelling monsters, that with ceaseless cry

Surround me, as thou saw’st—hourly conceived

And hourly born, with sorrow infinite

To me; for, when they list, into the womb

That bred them they return, and howl, and gnaw