Page:The Complete Poetical Works of John Milton.djvu/163

 BOOK SECOND

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��Of four infernal rivers, that disgorge Into the burning lake their baleful

streams

Abhorred Styx, the flood of deadly hate; Sad Acheron of sorrow, black and deep; Cocytus, named of lamentation loud Heard on the rueful stream ; fierce Phlege-

tou, 580

Whose waves of torrent fire inflame with

rage.

Far off from these, a slow and silent stream, Lethe, the river of oblivion, rowls Her watery labyrinth, whereof who drinks Forthwith his former state and being for- gets Forgets both joy and grief, pleasure and

pain.

Beyond this flood a frozen continent 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 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 parch- ing air Burns frore, and cold performs the effect

of fire.

Thither, by harpy-footed Furies haled, At certain revolutions all the damned Are brought; and feel by turns the bitter

change 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 601

Immovable, infixed, 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, 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 the

attempt, 610

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 confused march forlorn, the adventrous

bands, 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, 620 Rocks, caves, lakes, fens, bogs, dens, and

shades of death

A universe of death, which God by curse Created evil, for evil only good; Where all life dies, death lives, and Na- ture breeds, Perverse, all monstrous, all prodigious

things,

Abominable, inutterable, and worse Than fables yet have feigned or fear con- ceived,

Gorgons, and Hydras, and ChimaRras dire. Meanwhile the Adversary of God and

Man, Satan, with thoughts inflamed of highest

design, 630

Puts on swift wings, and toward the gates

of Hell

Explores his solitary flight: sometimes He scours the right hand coast, sometimes

the left; Now shaves with level wing the Deep, then

soars

Up to the fiery concave towering high. As when far off at sea a fleet descried Hangs in the clouds, by sequinoctial winds Close sailing from Bengala, or the isles Of Ternate and Tidore, whence merchants

bring Their spicy drugs; they on the trading

flood, 640

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; three folds

were brass,

Three iron, three of adamantine rock, Impenetrable, impaled with circling fire, Yet unconsurned. Before the gates there

sat

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