Chapter 16 15
Mean while the Adversary of God and Man,
Satan with thoughts inflamed of highest design, [ 630 ]
Puts on swift wings, and towards the Gates of Hell
Explores his solitary flight;
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. [ 635 ]
As when farr off at Sea a Fleet descrid
Hangs in the Clouds, by Æquinoctial Winds
Close sailing from Bengala, or the Iles
Of Ternate and Tidore, whence Merchants bring
Thir spicie Drugs: they on the Trading Flood [ 640 ]
Through the wide Ethiopian to the Cape
Ply stemming nightly toward the Pole. So seemd
Farr off the flying Fiend: at last appeer
Hell bounds high reaching to the horrid Roof,
And thrice threefold the Gates; threefolds were Brass, [ 645 ]
Three Iron, three of Adamantine Rock,
Impenetrable, impald with circular fire,
Yet unconsumed. Before the Gates there sat
On either side a formidable shape;
The one seemed Woman to the waste, and fair, [ 650 ]
But ended foul in many a scally foul
Voluminous and vast, a Serpent armd
With mortal sting: about her middle round
A cry of Hell Hounds never ceasing bark
With wide Cerberian mouths full loud, and rung [ 655 ]
A hideous Peal: yet, when they list, would creep,
If aught disturbed thir noyse, into her woomb,
And kennel there, yet there still barkd and howld
Within unseen. Farr less abhorrd than these
Vexd 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
Lurd with the smell of infant blood, to dance
With Lapland Witches, while the laboring Moon [ 665 ]
Eclipses at thir charms. The other shape,
If shape it might be called that shape had none
Distinguishable in member, joynt, or limb,
Or substance might be called that shadow seems to be,
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.