Yet live in hatred, enmity, and strife
Among themselves, and levy cruel wars,
Wasting the earth, each other to destroy:
As if (which might induce us to accord)
Man had not hellish foes enow besides,
That day and night for his destruction wait.

The Stygian council thus dissolved; and forth
In order came the grand infernal peers :
Midst came their mighty paramount, and seemed
Alone the antagonist of Heaven, nor less
Than Hell's dread emperor, with pomp supreme
And godlike imitated state. Him round
A globe of fiery Seraphim enclosed

With bright emblazonry and horrent arms.
Then of their session ended they bid cry
With trumpet's regal sound the great result.
Toward the four winds four speedy Cherubim
Put to their mouths the sounding alchemy,
By herald's voice explained; the hollow abyss
Heard far and wide, and all the host of Hell
With deafening shout returned them loud acclai

Thence more at ease their minds, and some raised

By false presumptuous hope, the ranged powers
Disband, and wandering each his several way
Pursues, as inclination or sad choice

Leads him perplexed, where he may likeliest find
Truce to his restless thoughts, and entertain
The irksome hours till his great chief return.

504. enow, enough.

506. Stygian, infernal. See I. 239.

508. paramount, chief; lordparamount.

512. globe, a crowd close ranged in a circle.

513. emblazonry, embla or pictured shields.he bristling.

517. alchemy, metal mix compounded by chemical a 526. entertain, employ or agreeably; while away.

the plain or in the air sublime he wing or in swift race contend, he Olympian games or Pythian fields; arb their fiery steeds, or shun the goal apid wheels, or fronted brigades form. en, to warn proud cities, war appears 1 in the troubled sky and armies rush tle in the clouds, before each van

530

535

540

forth the aery knights, and couch their spears ickest legions close; with feats of arms either end of heaven the welkin burns. = with vast Typhoean rage more fell up both rocks and hills, and ride the air irlwind; Hell scarce holds the wild uproar, en Alcides from Echalia crowned conquest felt the envenomed robe, and tore gh pain up by the roots Thessalian pines, Lichas from the top of Eta threw

he Euboic Sea.

Others more mild,

Sublime, high.
32. The Olympian games
elebrated once in four
t Olympia, in Greece, in
of Zeus, or Jupiter. The
n games were celebrated,
ery fourth year, in honor
lo, on a plain in the neigh-
d of Delphi. The contests
ed of various trials of
h and skill, among which
orse and chariot races.-
keep clear of; drive round
at touching.-fronted brig-
brigades formed with a
or fronting on a line.

to warn proud cities. Ap-
aces in the heavens, such
here described, are consid-
s warnings by the super-

545

scribed as a destructive hurricane and the father of winds. - more fell, fiercer.

542-546. Alcides, Hercules. He was called Alcides from his grandfather Alcæus, and was celebrated for his great strength. On his return from the conquest of Echalia, a city in Thessaly, he prepared to offer sacrifice to Zeus, and sent his attendant Lichas to bring him a white garment. His wife, moved by jealousy of a beautiful captive whom he had taken, sent him a poisoned robe instead, which threw him into such agony that he seized the messenger by the feet, and hurled him into the sea between Thessaly and the island of Euboea, hence called the Euboic Sea.Eta was a mountain in the south of Thessaly, on which Hercules raised a funeral pile and caused himself to be burned to death.

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 enthrall 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
The thronging audience. In discourse more sw
(For eloquence the soul, song charms the sense)
Others apart sat on a hill retired,

In thoughts more elevate, and reasoned high
Of providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate,
Fixed fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute;
And found no end, in wandering 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 the obdurèd 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;

552. partial, describing only their own part or share.

554. Suspended, held mute. 568. obdured, hardened. 570. gross, dense, or large. 575. four infernal rivers. In Greek mythology these, with

Lethe, were the rivers o lower world. The word implied hate, Acheron so Cocytus lamentation, and ethon flaming. The word meant oblivion.

Acheron, of sorrow black and deep; tus, named of lamentation loud

d on the rueful stream; fierce Phlegethon se waves of torrent fire inflame with rage. off from these a slow and silent stream,

, the river of oblivion, rolls
watery labyrinth, whereof who drinks
with his former state and being forgets,
ets both joy and grief, pleasure and pain.
nd this flood a frozen continent

dark and wild, beat with perpetual storms
hirlwind and dire hail, which on firm land
vs not, but gathers heap, and ruin seems
ncient pile: all else, deep snow and ice,
ilf profound, as that Serbonian bog
ixt Damiata and Mount Casius old,

re armies whole have sunk: the parching air
as frore, and cold performs the effect of fire.
her, by harpy-footed Furies haled,

certain revolutions all the damned

580

585

590

595

brought; and feel by turns the bitter change ierce extremes, extremes by change more fierce, n beds of raging fire to starve in ice

600

ir soft ethereal warmth, and there to pine ovable, infixed, and frozen round,

ods of time; thence hurried back to fire.
y ferry over this Lethéan sound

h to and fro, their sorrow to augment,
wish and struggle, as they pass, to reach

2. that Serbonian bog. This
was near Mount Casius, east
amiata or Damietta, on the
from Egypt to Syria. Whole
es are said to have been here
Towed up.
5. frore, with frost.

6. harpy-footed Furies. The
es, according to ancient my-
gy, were avenging deities,

605

dreaded by gods and men as the punishers of crime. - harpy-footed, having the feet of Harpies. These were disgusting monsters, with the bodies of birds, the heads of maidens, and long claws. -haled, dragged or pulled violently along. "Haling men and women, he committed them to prison." Acts viii. 3.

The tempting stream, with one small drop to los
In sweet forgetfulness all pain and woe,

All in one moment, and so near the brink;
But fate withstands, and to oppose the attempt
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 cónfused march forlorn, the adventurous band
With shuddering horror pale and eyes aghast,
Viewed first their lamentable lot, and found
No rest through many a dark and dreary vale
They passed, and many a region dolorous,
O'er many a frozen, many a fiery Alp,

Rocks, caves, lakes, fens, bogs, dens, and shade death;

A universe of death, which God by curse
Created evil, for evil only good,

Where all life dies, death lives, and nature breed
Perverse all monstrous, all prodigious things,
Abominable, inutterable, and worse

Than fables yet have feigned or fear conceived, Gorgons, and Hydras, and Chimæras dire.

611. Medusa was one of the three Gorgons. These were represented as frightful beings, whose heads were covered with hissing serpents instead of hair. The head of Medusa, though her face is sometimes described as very beautiful, was so terrible that whoever looked upon it was changed to stone.

613. wight, person; being. 614. Tantalus, as a punishment for some crime committed against Zeus, was condemned in the lower world to the torments of a raging thirst, while he was placed in the midst of a lake the waters of which always receded when he attempted to drink them. Branches of refreshing fruit hung

over his head, which moved when he stretched out his to reach them. From Tan comes our English word " talize."

617. Viewed first, had first view of.

625. prodigious things, F gies.

628. Gorgons. See line and note. Hydras. The H was a monster with nine h When one of these was cut two new ones grew in its p It was finally conquered by cules. Chimeras. The mæra was a fire-breathing E ster, with the head of a the body of a goat, and the of a dragon. The word chiz