Page:The Complete Poetical Works of John Milton.djvu/164

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��PARADISE LOST

��On either side a formidable Shape.

The one seemed woman to the waist, and

fair, 650

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 660

Calabria from the hoarse Trinacrian shore; Nor uglier follow the night-hag, when,

called

In secret, riding through the air she comes, Lured with the smell of infant blood, to

dance With Lapland witches, while the labouring

moon Eclipses at their charms. The other

Shape If shape it might be called that shape had

none

Distinguishable in member, joint, or limb; Or substance might be called that shadow

seemed, For each seemed either black it stood as

Night, 670

Fierce as ten Furies, terrible as Hell, And shook a dreadful dart: what seemed

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 With horrid strides; Hell trembled as he

strode. The undaunted Fiend what this might be

admired

Admired, not feared (God and his Son ex- cept, Created thing naught valued he nor

shunned),

And with disdainful look thus first be- gan : 680 " Whence and what art thou, execrable

Shape,

��That dar'st, though grim and terrible, ad- vance

Thy miscreated front athwart my way

To yonder gates ? Through them I mean to pass,

That be assured, without leave asked of thee.

Retire; or taste thy folly, and learn by proof,

Hell-born, not to contend with Spirits of

Heaven."

To whom the Goblin, full of wrauth, replied:

" Art thou that Traitor-Angel, art thou he,

Who first broke peace in Heaven and faith, till then 690

Unbroken, and in proud rebellious arms

Drew after him the third part of Heaven's sons,

Conjured against the Highest for which both thou

And they, outcast from God, are here con- demned

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 punish- ment,

False fugitive; and to thy speed add wings,

Lest with a whip of scorpions I pursue 701

Thy lingering, or with one stroke of this dart

Strange horror seize thee, and pangs unfelt

before."

So spake the griesly Terror, and in shape,

So speaking and so threatening, grew ten- fold

More dreadful and deform. On the other side,

Incensed with indignation, Satan stood

Unterrified, and like a comet burned,

That fires the length of Ophiuchus huge

In the artick sky, and from his horrid hair 710

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 the other as when two black clouds,

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