Then shining heavenly fair, a goddess armed, Out of thy head I sprung. Amazement seized All the host of Heaven; back they, recoiled afraid At first, 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 enamoured; and such joy thou took'st With me in secret that my womb conceived A growing burden. Meanwhile war arose,
And fields were fought in Heaven: wherein remained (For what could else?) to our Almighty Foe Clear victory; to our part loss and rout
Through all the Empyrean. Down they fell, Driven headlong from the pitch of Heaven, down Into this Deep; and in the general fall
I also at which time this powerful key
Into my hands was given, with charge to keep These gates for ever shut, which none can pass Without my opening. Pensive here I sat Alone ; but long I sat not, till 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 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 Engendering with me, of that rape begot These yelling 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. But thou, O father, I forewarn thee, shun His deadly arrow; neither vainly hope To be invulnerable in those bright arms, Though tempered heavenly; for that mortal dint, 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 Heaven, and joys Then sweet, now sad to mention, through dire change Befallen 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 Heavenly host Of Spirits that, in our just pretences armed, Fell with us from on high. From them I go This uncouth errand sole, and one for all Myself expose, with lonely steps to tread
The unfounded Deep, and through the void immense To search, with wandering quest, a place foretold 830 Should be—and, by concurring signs, ere now Created vast and round-a place of bliss
In the purlieus of Heaven; and therein placed A race of upstart creatures, to supply
Perhaps our vacant room, though more removed, Lest Heaven, surcharged with potent multitude, Might hap to move new broils. 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 840 Shall dwell at ease, and up and down unseen Wing silently the buxom air, embalmed
With odours. There ye shall be fed and filled Immeasurably; all things shall be your prey."
Heceased; for both seemed highly pleased, and Death 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 Heaven'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 Heaven and heavenly-born
Here in perpetual agony and pain,
With terrors and with clamours 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, where I shall reign At thy 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, 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 in the key-hole turns The intricate wards, and every bolt and bar Of massy iron or solid rock with ease Unfastens. On a sudden open fly,
With impetuous recoil and jarring sound, The infernal doors, and on their hinges grate Harsh thunder, that the lowest bottom shook Of Erebus. 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 smoke and ruddy flame. Before their eyes in sudden view appear The secrets of the hoary Deep—a dark Illimitable ocean, without bound,
Without dimension; where length, breadth, and highth, And time, and place, are lost; where 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, four champions fierce, Strive here for mastery, and to battle bring
Their embryon atoms: 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 torrid soil,
Levied to side with warring winds, and poise Their lighter wings. To whom these most adhere He rules a moment: Chaos 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 her grave, Of neither Sea, nor Shore, nor Air, nor Fire,
But all these in their pregnant causes mixed Confusedly, and which thus must ever fight, Unless the 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 He had to cross. Nor was his ear less pealed With noises loud and ruinous (to compare
Great things with small) than when Bellona storms With all her battering engines, bent to rase Some capital city; or less than if this frame Of heaven were falling, and these elements In mutiny had from her axle torn
The steadfast Earth. At last his sail-broad vans! He spreads for flight, and, in the surging smoke Uplifted, spurns the ground; thence many a league, As in a cloudy chair, ascending rides
Audacious; but, that seat soon failing, meets A vast vacuity. All unawares,
Fluttering his pennons vain, plumb-down he drops Ten thousand fathom deep, and to this hour Down had been falling, had not, by ill chance, The strong rebuff of some tumultuous cloud, Instinct with fire and nitre, hurried him As many miles aloft. That fury stayed- Quenched in a boggy Syrtis, neither sea,
Nor good dry land-nigh foundered, on he fares, 940 Treading the crude consistence, half on foot, Half flying; behoves him now both oar and sail. As when a gryphon through the wilderness With winged 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 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. 950 At length a universal hubbub wild
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