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Into th' Euboic sea. Others, more mild,
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 inthrall to force or chance,
Their song was partial, but the harmony
(What could it less when Spi'rits immortal sing!)
Suspended Hell, and took with ravishment

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

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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
Fallacious hope, or arm th' obdurate 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 baneful 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 Phlegethon,
Whose waves of torrent fire inflame with rage.
Far off from these a slow and silent stream,

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Lethe, the river of oblivion, rolls

Her wat'ry 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

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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 cock 590
Of ancient pile; all else deep snow and ice,
A gulf profound as that Serbonian bog
Betwixt Damiata and mount Casius old,
Where armies whole have sunk: the parching air
Burns frore, and cold performs th' effect of fire.
Thither, by harped-footed furies hal'd,

At certain revolutions, all the damn'd

harp Are brought; and feel by turns the bitter change

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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
Immoveable, 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,

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And wish and struggle, as they pass, to reach

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
Medusa with Gorgonian terror guards

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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 hands,
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,

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O'er many a frozen, many a fiery Alp,

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

A universe of death, which God by curse,

Created ev'il, for evil only 'good,

Where all life dies, death lives, and nature breeds,

Perverse, all monstrous, all prodigious things,

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Abominable, inutterable, and worse

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

Meanwhile the Adversary' of God and Man,

Satan, with thoughts inflam'd of highest design,

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Puts on swift wings, and tow'ards the gates of Hell
Explores his solitary flight; sometimes

He scours the right-hand coast, sometimes the left, nettoyer - Senter

Now shaves with level wing the deep, then soars
Up to the fiery concave, tow'ring high.

As when far off at sea a fleet descry'd

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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

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Through the wide Ethiopian to the Cape

Ply, stemming nightly tow'ard 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,

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Three iron, three of adamantine rock ;

Impenetrable, impaled with circling fire, pe ved

Yet unconsum'd.

Before the gates there sat

On either side a formidable shape;

The one seem'd woman to the waist, and fair,
But ended foul in many a scaly fold callerx

Voluminous and vast, a serpent arm'd

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With mortal sting; about her middle round aiguillon
A cry of Hell hounds, never ceasing, bark'd, deyait

With wide Cerberian mouths, full loud, and rung

A hideous peal: yet, when they list, would creep,
A hideous peal: yet, we dous

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If ought 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, call'd
In secret, riding through the air, she comes,
Lur'd with the smell of infaut blood, to dance
With Lapland witches, while the lab'ring moon
Eclipses at their charms. The other shape,
If shape it might be call'd that shape had none
Distinguishable in member, joint, or limb;

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Or substance might be call'd that shadow seem'd;

For each seem'd either; black it stood as Night,

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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

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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 nought valu'd 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 assured, without leave ask'd of thee:
Retire, or taste thy folly'; and learn by proof,
Hell-born, not to contend with Spi'rits of Heav'n."

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To whom the goblin, full of wrath, reply'd;

"Art thou the traitor Angel, art thou He,

Who first broke peace in Heav'n and faith, till then
Unbroken, and in proud rebellious arms

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Drew after him the third part of Heav'n's sons,

Conjured against the High'est, 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 Spi'rits of Heav'n,
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

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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

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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 Ophiuchus huge
In th' arctic sky, and from his horrid hair
Shakes pestilence and war. Each at the head
Level d 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, come rattling on
Over the Caspian, then stand front to front
Hov'ring a space, till winds the signal blow

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To join their dark encounter in mid-air:

So frown'd the mighty combatants, that Hell

Grew darker at their frown, so match'd they stood;

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For never but once more was either like

To meet so great a foe: and now great deeds

Had been achiev'd, whereof all Hell had rung,
Had not the snaky sorceress that sat

Fast by Hell gate, and kept the fatal key,

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Ris'n, and with hideous outcry rush'd between.

"O Father, what intends thy hand," she cry'd,

"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;

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