Where all life dies, death lives, and nature breeds, Perverse, all monstrous, all prodigious things, Abominable, inutterable, and worse
Than fables yet have feign'd, or fear conceived, Gorgons, and hydras, and chimæras dire.
Meanwhile, the adversary of God and man, Satan, with thoughts inflamed of highest design, Puts on swift wings, and toward the gates of hell Explores his solitary flight: sometimes
He scours the right-hand coast, sometimes the left;
Now shaves with level wing the deep, then soars Up to the fiery concave towering high.
As when far off at sea a fleet descried Hangs in the clouds, by equinoctial winds Close sailing from Bengala, or the isles
Of Ternate and Tidore, whence merchants bring Their spicy drugs, they on the trading flood Through the wide Ethiopian to the Cape
Ply, stemming nightly toward the pole: so seem'd Far off the flying fiend. At last appear
Hell bounds, high reaching to the horrid roof,
And thrice threefold the gates; three folds were brass, 645 Three iron, three of adamantine rock,
Impenetrable, impaled with circling fire,
Yet unconsumed. Before the gates there sat On either side a formidable shape;
The one seem'd woman to the waist, and fair, But ended foul in many a scaly fold Voluminous and vast, a serpent arm'd With mortal sting: about her middle round A cry of hell hounds never ceasing bark'd With wide Cerberean mouths full loud, and rung A hideous peal: yet, when they list, would creep, If aught disturb'd their noise, into her womb, And kennel there; yet there still bark'd and howl'd Within unseen. Far less abhorr'd than these Vex'd Scylla, bathing in the sea that parts Calabria from the hoarse Trinacrian shore: Nor uglier follow the night-hag, when, call'd 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 call'd, that shape had none
648. Here begins that renowned allegory, the most terrifically sublime, it seems to me, of any thing written by that "greatest of all great men." The idea is taken from James i. 15: "Then, when Lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth Sin; and Sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth Death."
664. Lured with the smell, &c. Here is
a mixture of classical and demonological learning: hags were fabled as slaughtering infants, drinking their blood, and applying their mangled limbs to purposes of incantation.
666. The other shape, &c. "One of those masterly touches of horrible magnificence which the hand of Milton only could delincate."-TODD.
Distinguishable in member, joint, or limb,
Or substance might be call'd that shadow seem'd, For each seem'd either: black it stood as night, Fierce as ten furies, terrible as hell,
And shook a dreadful dart; what seem'd 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 fear'd: God and his Son except, Created thing naught valued he, nor shunn'd; And with disdainful look thus first began:-
Whence and what art thou, execrable shape, That darest, though grim and terrible, advance Thy miscreated front athwart my way
To yonder gates? through them I mean to pass, That be assured, without leave ask'd 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 wrath replied:- Art thou that traitor angel, art thou he, Who first broke peace in heaven, and faith, till then 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 condemn'd To waste eternal days in woe and pain? And reckon'st thou thyself with spirits of heaven, Hell-doomed, and breathest defiance here and scorn, Where I reign king, and, to enrage thee more, Thy king and lord? Back to thy punishment, False fugitive, and to thy speed add wings;
Lest with a whip of scorpions I pursue
Thy lingering, or with one stroke of this dart Strange horrour seize thee, and pangs unfelt before. So spake the grisly terrour; and in shape, So speaking, and so threatening, grew tenfold More dreadful and deform: on the other side, Incensed with indignation, Satan stood Unterrified, and like a comet burn'd, That fires the length of Ophiuchus huge In the arctic sky, and from his horrid hair Shakes pestilence and war. Each at the head Levell'd his deadly aim; their fatal hands No second stroke intend; and such a frown Each cast at the other, as when two black clouds
678. God and his Son except, &c. Todd fustifies this ungrammatical expression by this paraphrase: "Include not God and his Son among the objects whom he
did not fear: them he did fear; but created thing he valued not."
709. Ophiuchus, or Septentarius, was a northern constellation of about forty degrees in length.
With heaven's artillery fraught, come rattling on 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'd 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 achieved, 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 cried, Against thy only son? What fury, O son, Possesses thee to bend that mortal dart 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 Forbore; then these to her Satan return'd:-
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.
To whom thus the portress of hell gate replied:
Hast thou forgot me then, and do I seem Now in thine eye so foul, once deem'd so fair
In heaven? when at the assembly, and in sight
Of all the seraphim with thee combined In bold conspiracy against heaven's King, All on a sudden miserable pain
Surprised thee; dim thine eyes, and dizzy swum In darkness, while thy head flames thick and fast Threw forth: till on the left side opening wide, Likest to thee in shape and countenance bright, Then shining heavenly fair, a goddess arm'd, Out of thy head I sprung; amazement seized All the host of heaven; back they recoil'd afraid At first, and call'd me Sin, and for a sign
716. The Caspian sea here mentioned, is remarkably tempestuous.
721. Never but once more. That is, in Jesus Christ, who is alluded to in the 734th line, and who will one day destroy both Death, and "Him that has the
power of death, that is, the Devil."-Heb. ii. 14.
758. Out of thy head I sprung. Sin is rightly made to spring out of the head of Satan, as Wisdom, or Minerva, did out of Jupiter's.
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 Becamest enamour'd: 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 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
Driven headlong from the pitch of heaven, down Into this deep, and in the general fall
I also; at which time this powerful key
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 issued, brandishing his fatal dart Made to destroy: I fled, and cried out, Death; Hell trembled at the hideous name, and sigh'd 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 dismay'd; And, in embraces forcible and foul Ingendering 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 terrours 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 temper'd heavenly; for that mortal dint, Save he who reigns above, none can resist.
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 820 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 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
The unfounded deep, and through the void immense
To search with wandering quest a place foretold 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 design'd, 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 air, imbalm'd
With odours; there ye shall be fed and fill'd
Immeasurably; all things shall be your prey.
He ceased, for both seem'd highly pleased, and Death
Grinn'd horrible a ghastly smile, to hear
His famine should be fill'd, and bless'd 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'ermatch'd 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,
846. Grinn'd horrible a ghastly smile. "Several poets have endeavoured to express much the same image, but I believe it will be readily allowed that Milton has greatly exceeded them all."--NEWTON.
855. Living might. It has been sug gested that living wight, that is, creature, would be a better reading, as it is found in some early editions; as living might would include the ever-living God himself.
« AnteriorContinuar » |