122
��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,
�� �
