BOOK SECOND
��121
��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
�� �
