Page:Paradise lost by Milton, John.djvu/66

60 As when far off at sea a fleet descried 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, Through the wide Ethiopian to the Cape, 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; threefolds 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;