Others more milde, Retreated in a silent valley, sing With notes Angelical to many a Harp Thir own Heroic deeds and hapless fall By doom of Battel; and complain that Fate 550 Free Vertue should enthrall to Force or Chance.
Thir song was partial, but the harmony (What could it less when Spirits immortal sing ?) Suspended Hell, and took with ravishment The thronging audience.

In discourse more sweet (For Eloquence the Soul, Song charms the Sense,) Others apart sat on a Hill retir'd, In thoughts more elevate, and reason'd high Of Providence, Foreknowledge, Will, and Fate, Fixt Fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute, 560 And found no end, in wandring mazes lost.
Of good and evil much they argu'd then, Of happiness and final misery, Passion and Apathie, and glory and shame, Vain wisdom all, and false Philosophie: Yet with a pleasing sorcerie could charm Pain for a while or anguish, and excite Fallacious hope, or arm th' obdured brest With stubborn patience as with triple steel.
Another part in Squadrons and gross Bands, 570 On bold adventure to discover wide That dismal world, if any Clime perhaps Might yeild them easier habitation, bend Four ways thir flying March, along the Banks Of four infernal Rivers that disgorge Into the burning Lake thir baleful streams; Abhorred Styx the flood of deadly hate, Sad Acheron of sorrow, black and deep; Cocytus, nam'd of lamentation loud Heard on the ruful stream; fierce Phlegeton 580 Whose waves of torrent fire inflame with rage.
Farr off from these a slow and silent stream, Lethe the River of Oblivion roules Her watrie Labyrinth, whereof who drinks, Forthwith his former state and being forgets, Forgets both joy and grief, pleasure and pain.
Beyond this flood a frozen Continent Lies dark and wilde, beat with perpetual storms Of Whirlwind and dire Hail, which on firm land Thaws not, but gathers heap, and ruin seems 590 Of ancient pile; all else deep snow and ice, A gulf profound as that Serbonian Bog Betwixt Damiata and mount Casius old, Where Armies whole have sunk: the parching Air Burns frore, and cold performs th' effect of Fire.
Thither by harpy-footed Furies hail'd, At certain revolutions all the damn'd Are brought: and feel by turns the bitter change Of fierce extreams, extreams by change more fierce, From Beds of raging Fire to starve in Ice 600 Thir soft Ethereal warmth, and there to pine Immovable, infixt, and frozen round, Periods of time, thence hurried back to fire.
They ferry over this Lethean Sound Both to and fro, thir sorrow to augment, And wish and struggle, as they pass, to reach The tempting stream, with one small drop to loose In sweet forgetfulness all pain and woe, All in one moment, and so neer the brink; But fate withstands, and to oppose th' attempt 610 Medusa with Gorgonian terror guards The Ford, and of it self the water flies All taste of living wight, as once it fled The lip of Tantalus.

Thus roving on In confus'd march forlorn, th' adventrous Bands With shuddring horror pale, and eyes agast View'd first thir lamentable lot, and found No rest: through many a dark and drearie Vaile They pass'd, and many a Region dolorous, O're many a Frozen, many a Fierie Alpe, 620 Rocks, Caves, Lakes, Fens, Bogs, Dens, and shades of death, A Universe of death, which God by curse Created evil, for evil only good, Where all life dies, death lives, and nature breeds, Perverse, all monstrous, all prodigious things, Abominable, inutterable, and worse Then Fables yet have feign'd, or fear conceiv'd, Gorgons and Hydra's, and Chimera's dire.
Mean while the Adversary of God and Man, Satan with thoughts inflam'd of highest design, 630 Puts on swift wings, and toward the Gates of Hell Explores his solitary flight; som times 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.
As when farr off at Sea a Fleet descri'd Hangs in the Clouds, by Aequinoctial 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 seem'd Farr off the flying Fiend: at last appeer Hell bounds high reaching to the horrid Roof, And thrice threefold the Gates; three folds were Brass Three Iron, three of Adamantine Rock, Impenitrable, impal'd with circling fire, Yet unconsum'd.

Before the Gates there sat On either side a formidable shape; The one seem'd Woman to the waste, and fair, 650 But ended foul in many a scaly fould 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 thir noyse, into her woomb, And kennel there, yet there still bark'd and howl'd Within unseen.