Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

False fugitive, and to thy speed add wings,
Lest with a whip of scorpions I pursue

700

705

Thy ling'ring, or with one stroke of this dart
Strange horror seize thee, and pangs unfelt before.
So spake the grisly Terror, and in shape,
So speaking and so threat'ning, grew tenfold
More dreadful and deform: on th' other side
Incens'd with indignation Satan stood
Unterrify'd, and like a comet burn'd,
That fires the length of Ophiucus huge
In th' arctic sky, and from his horrid hair
Shakes pestilence and war. Each at the head
Level'd his deadly aim; their fatal hands
No second stroke intend, and such a frown
Each cast at th' other, as when two black clouds,
With heaven's artillery fraught, come rattling on 715

710

708 comet] See Virg. Æn. x. 272. Tasso G. L. i. vii. 52. Newton. 709 Ophiucus] See Sir F. Bacon's Astronomy. And such comets have more than once appeared in our time; first in Cassiopeia, and again in Ophiuchus.'

710 horrid hair] See Plin. N. Hist. lib. ii. c. 22.

Cometas horrentes

crine sanguineo.' See Nonni Dionys. xvii. 6. Sylvester's Du Bartas,

p. 14.

'Then with long bloody hair, a blazing star

Threatens the world with famine, plague, and war,

To princes death, to kingdoms many crosses.'

711 Shakes] Mr. Dyce refers to Lucan. Phars. vi. 468. 'Humentes late nebulas, nimbosque solutis

Excussere comis.'

714 two black clouds] Boiardo's Orlando Innamorato, b. i. c. 16.

st. 10. Thyer.

715 artillery] See Gayton's Chartæ Scriptæ, p. 20; (1645).

'The magazine of heaven here. Artillerie

Which oft in dreadful thunderings rend the skie.'

[blocks in formation]

"

Over the Caspian; then stand front to front
Hovering a space, till winds the signal blow
To join their dark encounter in mid air :
So frown the mighty combatants, that hell
Grew darker at their frown, so match'd they stood;
For never but once more was either like

To meet so great a foe: and now great deeds
Had been achiev'd, whereof all hell had rung,
Had not the snaky sorceress that sat
Fast by hell-gate, and kept the fatal key
Risen, and with hideous outcry rush'd between.
O father, what intends thy hand, she cry'd,
Against thy only son? What fury, O son,
Possesses thee to bend that mortal dart

725

Against thy father's head? and know'st for whom?
For him who sits above, and laughs the while
At thee ordain'd his drudge, to execute
Whate'er his wrath, which he calls justice, bids
His wrath, which one day will destroy ye both.
She spake, and at her words the hellish pest 735
Forbore; then these to her Satan return'd :

[ocr errors]

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-form'd, and why,
In this infernal vale first met, thou call'st
Me father, and that fantasm call'st my son:
I know thee not, nor ever saw till now
Sight more detestable than him and thee.

740

745

T'whom thus the portress of hell-gate reply'd. Hast thou forgot me then, and do I seem Now in thine eye so foul, once deem'd so fair In heaven? when at th' assembly, and in sight Of all the seraphim with thee combin'd In bold conspiracy against heaven's King, All on a sudden miserable pain

750

755

760

Surpriz'd thee, dim thine eyes, and dizzy swum
In darkness, while 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 arm'd,
Out of thy head I sprung: amazement seiz'd
All th' host of heaven; back they recoil'd afraid
At first, and call'd me Sin, and for a sign
Portentous held me: but familiar grown,
I pleas'd, and with attractive graces won
The most averse, thee chiefly, who full oft
Thyself in me thy perfect image viewing
Becam❜st enamour'd, and such joy thou took'st
With me in secret, that my womb conceiv'd
A growing burthen. Mean while war arose,
And fields were fought in heaven; wherein remain'd,
(For what could else?) to our almighty foe
Clear victory, to our part loss and rout
Through all the empyrean: down they fell
Driv'n headlong from the pitch of heaven, down
Into this deep, and in the general fall

746 the portress] P. Fletcher's Locusts, ed. 1627, p. 34.
"The Porter to th' infernall gate is Sin.' Todd.

765

770

I also; at which time this powerful key

Into my hand 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
Transform'd: but he my inbred enemy
Forth issu❜d, brandishing his fatal dart
Made to destroy: I fled, and cry'd out DEATH;
Hell trembled at the hideous name, and sigh'd
From all her caves, and back resounded DEATH!
I fled, but he pursu'd, though more, it seems,
Inflam'd with lust than rage, and swifter far
Me overtook his mother all dismay'd,
And, in embraces forcible and foul
Ingend'ring with me, of that rape begot

775

780

785

700

These yelling monsters that with ceaseless cry 795 Surround me, as thou saw'st, hourly conceiv'd

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

787 Made to destroy] See James i. 13. Bentl. MS.

794

800

rape begot] See Amadis de Gaul, vol. iii. lib. iii. c. 10. p. 183, ed. Southey.

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 involv'd; and knows that I
Should prove a bitter morsel, and his bane,
Whenever that shall be; so Fate pronounc'd.
But thou, O father, I forewarn thee, shun
His deadly arrow; neither vainly hope
To be invulnerable in those bright arms,
Though temper'd heavenly; for that mortal dint,
Save he who reigns above, none can resist.

805

810

815

She finish'd, and the subtle fiend his lore
Soon learn'd, now milder, and thus answer'd 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

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 heavenly host
Of spirits that, in our just pretences arm'd,
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

820

825

Th' unfounded deep, and through the void immense

« AnteriorContinuar »