Admired, not feared (God and his Son except,

Created thing naught valued he nor shunned),

And with disdainful look thus first began:—

“Whence and what art thou, execrable Shape,

That dar’st, 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 asked 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 condemned

To waste eternal days in woe and pain?

And reckon’st thou thyself with Spirits of Heaven

Hell-doomed, and breath’st 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 horror seize thee, and pangs unfelt before.”

So spake the grisly Terror, and in shape,

So speaking and so threatening, grew tenfold,

More dreadful and deform. On th’ other side,

Incensed with indignation, Satan stood

Unterrified, and like a comet burned,

That fires the length of Ophiuchus huge

In th’ arctic sky, and from his horrid hair

Shakes pestilence and war. Each at the head

Levelled 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, came 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 frowned the mighty combatants that Hell

Grew darker at their frown; so matched they stood;

For never but once more was wither 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 rushed 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, ordained 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 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,