第 6 页

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;

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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

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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,

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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

My bowels, their repast; then, bursting forth

Afresh, with conscious terrors vex me round,

That rest or intermission none I find.

Before mine eyes in opposition sits

Grim Death, my son and foe, who set them on,

And me, his parent, would full soon devour

For want of other prey, but that he knows

His end with mine involved, and knows that I

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Should prove a bitter morsel, and his bane,

Whenever that shall be: so Fate pronounced.

But thou, O father, I forewarn thee, shun

His deadly arrow; neither vainly hope

To be invulnerable in those bright arms,

Through tempered heavenly; for that mortal dint,

Save he who reigns above, none can resist.’

She finished; and the subtle Fiend his lore

Soon learned, now milder, and thus answered smooth:—

‘Dear daughter—since thou claim’st me for thy sire,

And my fair son here show’st me, the dear pledge

Of dalliance had with thee in Heaven, and joys

Then sweet, now sad to mention, through dire change

Befallen us unforeseen, unthought-of—know,

I come no enemy, but to set free

From out this dark and dismal house of pain

Both him and thee, and all the heavenly host

Of Spirits that, in our just pretences armed,

Fell with us from on high. From them I go

This uncouth errand sole, and one for all

Myself expose, with lonely steps to tread

Th’ unfounded Deep, and through the void immense

To search, with wandering quest, a place foretold

Should be—and, by concurring signs, ere now

Created vast and round—a place of bliss

In the purlieus of Heaven; and therein placed

A race of upstart creatures, to supply

Perhaps our vacant room, though more removed,

Lest Heaven, surcharged with potent multitude,

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Might hap to move new broils. Be this, or aught

Than this more secret, now designed, I haste

To know; and, this once known, shall soon return,

And bring ye to the place where thou and Death

Shall dwell at ease, and up and down unseen

Wing silently the buxom air, embalmed

With odours. There ye shall be fed and filled

Immeasurably; all things shall be your prey.’

He ceased; for both seemed highly pleased, and Death

Grinned horrible a ghastly smile, to hear

His famine should be filled, and blessed his maw

Destined to that good hour. No less rejoiced

His mother bad, and thus bespake her sire:—

‘The key of this infernal Pit, by due

And by command of Heaven’s all-powerful King,

I keep, by him forbidden to unlock

These adamantine gates; against all force

Death ready stands to interpose his dart,

Fearless to be o’ermatched by living might.

But what owe I to his commands above,

Who hates me, and hath hither thrust me down

Into this gloom of Tartarus profound,

To sit in hateful office here confined,

Inhabitant of Heaven and heavenly born—

Here in perpetual agony and pain,

With terrors and with clamours compassed round

Of mine own brood, that on my bowels feed?

Thou art my father, thou my author, thou

My being gav’st me; whom should I obey

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But thee? whom follow? Thou wilt bring me soon

To that new world of light and bliss, among

The gods who live at ease, where I shall reign

At thy right hand voluptuous, as beseems

Thy daughter and thy darling, without end.’

Thus saying, from her side the fatal key,

Sad instrument of all our woe, she took;

And, towards the gate rolling her bestial train,

Forthwith the huge portcullis high up-drew,

Which, but herself, not all the Stygian Powers

Could once have moved; then in the key-hole turns

Th’ intricate wards, and every bolt and bar

Of massy iron or solid rock with ease

Unfastens. On a sudden open fly,

With impetuous recoil and jarring sound,

Th’ infernal doors, and on their hinges grate

Harsh thunder, that the lowest bottom shook

Of Erebus. She opened; but to shut

Excelled her power: the gates wide open stood,

That with extended wings a bannered host,

Under spread ensigns marching, mibht pass through

With horse and chariots ranked in loose array;

So wide they stood, and like a furnace-mouth

Cast forth redounding smoke and ruddy flame.

Before their eyes in sudden view appear

The secrets of the hoary Deep—a dark

Illimitable ocean, without bound,

Without dimension; where length, breadth, and height,

And time, and place, are lost; where eldest Night

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And Chaos, ancestors of Nature, hold

Eternal anarchy, amidst the noise

Of endless wars, and by confusion stand.

For Hot, Cold, Moist, and Dry, four champions fierce,

Strive here for mastery, and to battle bring

Their embryon atoms: they around the flag

Of each his faction, in their several clans,

Light-armed or heavy, sharp, smooth, swift, or slow,

Swarm populous, unnumbered as the sands

Of Barca or Cyrene’s torrid soil,

Levied to side with warring winds, and poise

Their lighter wings. To whom these most adhere

He rules a moment: Chaos umpire sits,

And by decision more embroils the fray

By which he reigns: next him, high arbiter,

Chance governs all. Into this wild Abyss,

The womb of Nature, and perhaps her grave,

Of neither sea, nor shore, nor air, nor fire,

But all these in their pregnant causes mixed

Confusedly, and which thus must ever fight,

Unless th’ Almighty Maker them ordain

His dark materials to create more worlds—

Into this wild Abyss the wary Fiend

Stood on the brink of Hell and looked a while,

Pondering his voyage; for no narrow frith

He had to cross. Nor was his ear less pealed

With noises loud and ruinous (to compare

Great things with small) than when Bellona storms

With all her battering engines, bent to rase

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Some capital city; or less than if this frame

Of Heaven were falling, and these elements

In mutiny had from her axle torn

The steadfast Earth. At last his sail-broad vans

He spread for flight, and, in the surging smoke

Uplifted, spurns the ground; thence many a league,

As in a cloudy chair, ascending rides

Audacious; but, that seat soon failing, meets

A vast vacuity. All unawares,

Fluttering his pennons vain, plumb-down he drops

Ten thousand fathom deep, and to this hour

Down had been falling, had not, by ill chance,

The strong rebuff of some tumultuous cloud,

Instinct with fire and nitre, hurried him

As many miles aloft. That fury stayed—

Quenched in a boggy Syrtis, neither sea,

Nor good dry land—nigh foundered, on he fares,

Treading the crude consistence, half on foot,

Half flying; behoves him now both oar and sail.

As when a gryphon through the wilderness

With winged course, o’er hill or moory dale,

Pursues the Arimaspian, who by stealth

Had from his wakeful custody purloined

The guarded gold; so eagerly the Fiend

O’er bog or steep, through strait, rough, dense, or rare,

With head, hands, wings, or feet, pursues his way,

And swims, or sinks, or wades, or creeps, or flies.

At length a universal hubbub wild

Of stunning sounds, and voices all confused,

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Borne through the hollow dark, assaults his ear

With loudest vehemence. Thither he plies

Undaunted, to meet there whatever Power

Or Spirit of the nethermost Abyss

Might in that noise reside, of whom to ask

Which way the nearest coast of darkness lies

Bordering on light; when straight behold the throne

Of Chaos, and his dark pavilion spread

Wide on the wasteful Deep! With him enthroned

Sat sable-vested Night, eldest of things,

The consort of his reign; and by them stood

Orcus and Ades, and the dreaded name

Of Demogorgon; Rumour next, and Chance,

And Tumult, and Confusion, all embroiled,

And Discord with a thousand various mouths.

T’ whom Satan, turning boldly, thus:—‘Ye Powers

And Spirtis of this nethermost Abyss,

Chaos and ancient Night, I come no spy

With purpose to explore or to disturb

The secrets of your realm; but, by constraint

Wandering this darksome desert, as my way

Lies through your spacious empire up to light,

Alone and without guide, half lost, I seek,

What readiest path leads where your gloomy bounds

Confine with Heaven; or, if some other place,

From your dominion won, th’ Ethereal King

Possesses lately, thither to arrive

I travel this profound. Direct my course:

Directed, no mean recompense it brings

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To your behoof, if I that region lost,

All usurpation thence expelled, reduce

To her original darkness and your sway

(Which is my present journey), and once more

Erect the standard there of ancient Night.

Yours be th’ advantage all, mine the revenge!’

Thus Satan; and him thus the Anarch old,

With faltering speech and visage incomposed,

Answered: ‘I know thee, stranger, who thou art— ***