Paradise Lost (Modern Library Classics) (22 page)

His wrath which one day will destroy ye both.”

   She spake, and at her words the Hellish pest

Forbore, then these to her Satan returned:

   “So strange thy outcry, and thy words so strange

Thou interposest, that my sudden hand

Prevented spares to tell thee yet by deeds

What it intends; till first I know of thee,

What thing thou art, thus double-formed, and why

In this infernal vale first met thou call’st

Me father, and that phantasm call’st my son?

I know thee not, nor ever saw till now

Sight more detestable than him and thee.”

   T’ whom thus the portress
⁷⁴⁶
of Hell gate replied:

“Hast thou forgot me then, and do I seem

Now in
⁷⁴⁸
thine eye so foul, once deemed so fair

In Heav’n, when at th’ assembly, and in sight

Of all the Seraphim with thee combined

In bold conspiracy against Heav’n’s King,

All
⁷⁵²
on a sudden miserable pain

Surprised thee, dim thine eyes, and dizzy swum

In darkness, while
⁷⁵⁴
thy head flames thick and fast

Threw forth, till on the left side op’ning wide,

Likest to thee in shape and count’nance bright,

Then shining Heav’nly fair, a goddess armed

Out of thy head I sprung: amazement seized

All th’ host of Heav’n; back they recoiled afraid

At first,
⁷⁶⁰
and called me Sin, and for a sign

Portentous held me; but familiar grown,

I pleased, and with attractive graces won

The most averse, thee chiefly, who full oft

Thyself in me thy perfect image viewing

Becam’st enamored, and such joy thou took’st

With me in secret, that my womb conceived

A growing burden. Meanwhile war arose,

And fields
⁷⁶⁸
were fought in Heav’n; wherein remained

(For what could else) to our almighty foe

Clear victory, to our part loss and rout

Through all the empyrean
⁷⁷¹
: down they fell

Driv’n headlong from the pitch
⁷⁷²
of Heaven, down

Into this deep, and in the general fall

I also; at which time
⁷⁷⁴
this powerful key

Into my hand was giv’n, with charge to keep

These gates for ever shut, which none can pass

Without my op’ning. Pensive here I sat

Alone, but long I sat not, till
⁷⁷⁸
my womb

Pregnant by thee, and now excessive grown

Prodigious motion felt and rueful throes.

At last this odious offspring whom thou seest

Thine own begotten, breaking violent way

Tore through my entrails, that with fear and pain

Distorted, all my nether shape thus grew

Transformed: but he my inbred enemy

Forth issued, brandishing his fatal dart

Made to destroy: I fled, and cried out ‘Death’;

Hell trembled at the hideous name, and sighed

From all
⁷⁸⁹
her caves, and back resounded ‘Death.’

I fled, but he pursued (though more, it seems,

Inflamed with lust than rage) and swifter far,

Me overtook his mother all dismayed,

And in embraces forcible and foul

Engend’ring with me, of that rape begot

These yelling
⁷⁹⁵
monsters that with ceaseless cry

Surround me, as thou saw’st, hourly conceived

And hourly born, with sorrow infinite

To me, for when they list into the womb

That bred them they return, and howl and gnaw

My bowels, their repast; then bursting forth

Afresh with conscious terrors vex me round,

That rest or intermission none I find.

Before mine eyes in opposition sits

Grim Death my son and foe, who sets them on,

And me his parent would full soon devour

For want of other prey, but that he knows

His end with mine involved; and knows that I

Should prove a bitter morsel, and his bane,

Whenever that shall be; so fate pronounced
⁸⁰⁹
.

But thou O father, I forewarn thee, shun

His deadly arrow; neither vainly hope

To be invulnerable in those bright arms,

Though tempered Heav’nly, for that mortal dint
⁸¹³
,

Save he who reigns above, none can resist.”

   She finished, and the subtle Fiend his lore

Soon learned, now milder, and thus answered smooth.

   “Dear daughter, since thou claim’st me for thy sire,

And my fair son here show’st me, the dear pledge

Of dalliance had with thee in Heav’n, and joys

Then sweet, now sad to mention, through dire change

Befall’n us unforeseen, unthought of, know

I come no enemy, but to set free

From out this dark and dismal house of pain,

Both him and thee, and all the Heav’nly host

Of spirits that in our just pretenses
⁸²⁵
armed

Fell with us from on high: from them I go

This uncouth errand sole
⁸²⁷
, and one for all

Myself expose, with lonely steps to tread

Th’ unfounded
⁸²⁹
deep, and through the void immense

To search with wand’ring quest a place foretold

Should be, and, by concurring signs, ere now

Created vast and round, a place of bliss

In the purlieus
⁸³³
of Heav’n, and therein placed

A race of upstart creatures, to supply

Perhaps our vacant room, though more removed,

Lest Heav’n surcharged
⁸³⁶
with potent multitude

Might hap to move new broils
⁸³⁷
: be this or aught

Than this more secret now designed, I haste

To know, and this once known, shall soon return,

And bring ye to the place where thou and Death

Shall dwell at ease, and up and down unseen

Wing silently the buxom
⁸⁴²
air, embalmed

With odors; there ye shall be fed and filled

Immeasurably, all things shall be your prey.”

   
He ceased, for both seemed highly pleased, and Deat

Grinned horrible a ghastly smile, to hear

His famine should be filled, and blessed his maw

Destined to that good hour: no less rejoiced

His mother bad, and thus bespake her sire.

   “The key of this infernal pit by due,

And by command of Heav’n’s all-powerful King

I keep, by him forbidden to unlock

These adamantine gates; against all force

Death ready stands to interpose his dart,

Fearless to be o’ermatched by living might.

But what owe I to his commands above

Who hates me, and hath hither thrust me down

Into this gloom of Tartarus profound,

To sit in hateful office here confined,

Inhabitant of Heav’n, and Heav’nly-born,

Here in perpetual agony and pain,
⁸⁶¹

With terrors and with clamors compassed round

Of mine own brood, that on my bowels feed:

Thou art my father, thou my author, thou

My being gav’st me; whom should I obey

But thee, whom follow? Thou wilt bring me soon

To that new world of light and bliss, among

The gods who live at ease
⁸⁶⁸
, where I shall reign

At thy
⁸⁶⁹
right hand voluptuous, as beseems

Thy daughter and thy darling, without end.”

   Thus saying, from her side the fatal key,

Sad instrument of all our woe
⁸⁷²
, she took;

And towards the gate rolling her bestial train,

Forthwith the huge portcullis high up drew,

Which but herself not all the Stygian powers

Could once have moved; then
⁸⁷⁶
in the key-hole turns

Th’ intricate wards
⁸⁷⁷
, and every bolt and bar

Of massy iron or solid rock with ease

Unfastens: on a sudden open fly

With
⁸⁸⁰
impetuous recoil and jarring sound

Th’ infernal doors, and on their hinges grate

Harsh thunder, that the lowest bottom shook

Of Erebus
⁸⁸³
. She opened, but to shut

Excelled her power; the gates wide open stood,

That with extended wings a bannered host

Under spread ensigns marching might pass through

With horse and chariots ranked in loose array;

So wide they stood, and like a furnace mouth

Cast forth redounding
⁸⁸⁹
smoke and ruddy flame.

Before their eyes in sudden view appear

The secrets
⁸⁹¹
of the hoary deep, a dark

Illimitable ocean without bound,

Without dimension, where length, breadth, and highth,

And time and place are lost; where
⁸⁹⁴
eldest Night

And Chaos, ancestors of Nature, hold

Eternal anarchy, amidst the noise

Of endless wars, and by confusion stand.

For Hot, Cold, Moist, and Dry
⁸⁹⁸
, four champions fierce

Strive here for mast’ry, and to battle bring

Their embryon atoms
⁹⁰⁰
; they around the flag

Of each his faction, in their several clans,

Light-armed or heavy, sharp, smooth, swift or slow,

Swarm populous, unnumbered as the sands

Of Barca or Cyrene’s
⁹⁰⁴
torrid soil,

Levied to side with warring winds, and poise

Their lighter wings. To whom these
⁹⁰⁶
most adhere,

He rules a moment; Chaos
⁹⁰⁷
umpire sits,

And by decision more embroils the fray

By which he reigns: next him high arbiter

Chance governs all. Into this wild abyss,

The womb of Nature and perhaps
⁹¹¹
her grave,

Of neither sea, nor shore, nor air, nor fire,

But all these in their pregnant causes mixed

Confus’dly, and which thus must ever fight,

Unless th’
⁹¹⁵
Almighty Maker them ordain

His dark materials to create more worlds,

Into this wild abyss the wary Fiend

Stood on the brink of Hell and looked a while,

Pondering his Voyage; for no narrow frith
⁹¹⁹

He had to cross. Nor was his ear less pealed
⁹²⁰

With noises loud and ruinous (to compare

Great things with small) than when Bellona
⁹²²
storms,

With all her battering engines bent to raze

Some capital city; or less than if this frame
⁹²⁴

Of heav’n were falling, and these elements

In mutiny had from her axle torn

The steadfast Earth. At last his sail-broad vans
⁹²⁷

He spreads for flight, and in the surging smoke

Uplifted spurns the ground, thence many a league

As in a cloudy chair
⁹³⁰
ascending rides

Audacious, but that seat soon failing, meets

A vast vacuity: all unawares

Flutt’ring his pennons
⁹³³
vain plumb down he drops

Ten thousand fathom deep, and to this hour

Down
⁹³⁵
had been falling, had not by ill chance

The strong rebuff of some tumultuous cloud

Instinct with fire and niter hurried him

As many miles aloft: that fury stayed,

Quenched in a boggy Syrtis
⁹³⁹
, neither sea,

Nor good dry land: nigh foundered on he fares,

Treading the crude consistence, half on foot,

Half flying; behooves him now both oar and sail
⁹⁴²
.

As when a gryphon
⁹⁴³
through the wilderness

With wingèd course o’er hill or moory dale,

Pursues the Arimaspian, who by stealth

Had from his wakeful custody purloined

The guarded gold: so eagerly the Fiend

O’er bog
⁹⁴⁸
or steep, through strait, rough, dense, or rare,

With head, hands, wings or feet pursues his way,

And swims or sinks, or wades, or creeps, or flies:

At length a universal hubbub
⁹⁵¹
wild

Of stunning sounds and voices all confused

Born through the hollow dark assaults his ear

With loudest vehemence
⁹⁵⁴
: thither he plies,

Undaunted to meet there whatever power

Or spirit of the nethermost abyss

Might in that noise reside, of whom to ask

Which way the nearest coast of darkness lies

Bordering on light; when straight behold the throne

Of Chaos
⁹⁶⁰
, and his dark pavilion spread

Wide on the wasteful
⁹⁶¹
deep; with him enthroned

Sat sable-vested Night
⁹⁶²
, eldest of things,

The consort of his reign; and by them stood

Orcus and Ades
⁹⁶⁴
, and the dreaded name

Of Demogorgon
⁹⁶⁵
; Rumor next and Chance,

And Tumult and Confusion all embroiled,

And Discord
⁹⁶⁷
with a thousand various mouths.

   T’ whom Satan turning boldly, thus. “Ye Powers

And Spirits of this nethermost abyss,

Chaos and ancient Night, I come no spy,

With purpose to explore or to disturb

The secrets of your realm, but by constraint

Wand’ring this darksome desert, as my way

Lies through your spacious empire up to light,

Alone, and without guide, half lost, I seek

What readiest path leads where your gloomy bounds

Confine with
⁹⁷⁷
Heav’n; or if some other place