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but the harmony

      (What could it less when Spirits immortal sing?)

      Suspended Hell, and took with ravishment

      The thronging audience. In discourse more sweet

      (For Eloquence the Soul, Song charms the Sense,)

      Others apart sat on a Hill retir’d,

      In thoughts more elevate, and reason’d high

      Of Providence, Foreknowledge, Will, and Fate,

      Fixt Fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute,

      And found no end, in wandring mazes lost.

      Of good and evil much they argu’d then,

      Of happiness and final misery,

      Passion and Apathie, and glory and shame,

      Vain wisdom all, and false Philosophie:

      Yet with a pleasing sorcerie could charm

      Pain for a while or anguish, and excite

      Fallacious hope, or arm th’ obdured brest

      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 yeild them easier habitation, bend

      Four ways thir flying March, along the Banks

      Of four infernal Rivers that disgorge

      Into the burning Lake thir baleful streams;

      Abhorred Styx the flood of deadly hate,

      Sad Acheron of Sorrow, black and deep;

      Cocytus, nam’d of lamentation loud

      Heard on the ruful stream; fierce Phlegeton

      Whose waves of torrent fire inflame with rage.

      Farr off from these a slow and silent stream,

      Lethe the River of Oblivion roules

      Her watrie Labyrinth, whereof who drinks,

      Forthwith his former state and being forgets,

      Forgets both joy and grief, pleasure and pain.

      Beyond this flood a frozen Continent

      Lies dark and wilde, beat with perpetual storms

      Of Whirlwind and dire Hail, which on firm land

      Thaws not, but gathers heap, and ruin seems

      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 harpy-footed Furies hail’d,

      At certain revolutions all the damn’d

      Are brought: and feel by turns the bitter change

      Of fierce extreams, extreams by change more fierce,

      From Beds of raging Fire to starve in Ice

      Thir soft Ethereal warmth, and there to pine

      Immovable, infixt, and frozen round,

      Periods of time, thence hurried back to fire.

      They ferry over this Lethean Sound

      Both to and fro, thir sorrow to augment,

      And wish and struggle, as they pass, to reach

      The tempting stream, with one small drop to loose

      In sweet forgetfulness all pain and woe,

      All in one moment, and so neer the brink;

      But fate withstands, and to oppose th’ attempt

      Medusa with Gorgonian terror guards

      The Ford, and of it self 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’ adventrous Bands

      With shuddring horror pale, and eyes agast

      View’d first thir lamentable lot, and found

      No rest: through many a dark and drearie Vaile

      They pass’d, and many a Region dolorous,

      O’re many a Frozen, many a Fierie Alpe,

      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 nature breeds,

      Perverse, all monstrous, all prodigious things,

      Abominable, inutterable, and worse

      Then Fables yet have feign’d, or fear conceiv’d,

      Gorgons and Hydra’s, and Chimera’s dire.

       Gorgons and Hydra’s, and Chimera’s dire.

       Before the Gates there sat On either side a formidable shape;

      Mean while the Adversary of God and Man,

      Satan with thoughts inflam’d of highest design,

      Puts on swift wings, and toward the Gates of Hell

      Explores his solitary flight; som times

      He scours the right hand coast, som times the left,

      Now shaves with level wing the Deep, then soares

      Up to the fiery concave touring high.

      As when farr off at Sea a Fleet descri’d

      Hangs in the Clouds, by AEquinoctial Winds

      Close sailing from Bengala, or the Iles

      Of Ternate and Tidore, whence Merchants bring

      Thir spicie Drugs: they on the trading Flood

      Through the wide Ethiopian to the Cape

      Ply stemming nightly toward the Pole. So seem’d

      Farr off the flying Fiend: at last appeer

      Hell bounds high reaching to the horrid Roof,

      And thrice threefold the Gates; three folds were Brass,

      Three Iron, three of Adamantine Rock,

      Impenitrable, impal’d with circling fire,

      Yet unconsum’d. Before the Gates there sat

      On either side a formidable shape;

      The one seem’d Woman to the waste, and fair,

      But ended foul in many a scaly fould

      Voluminous and vast, a Serpent arm’d

      With mortal sting: about her middle round

      A cry of Hell Hounds never ceasing bark’d

      With wide Cerberean mouths full loud, and rung

      A hideous Peal: yet, when they list, would creep,

      If aught disturb’d

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