Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained. Джон Мильтон

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СКАЧАТЬ wide Ethiopian to the Cape,

      Ply stemming nightly toward the pole: so seemed

      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,

      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 seemed woman to the waist, and fair,

      But ended foul in many a scaly fold,

      Voluminous and vast—a serpent armed

      With mortal sting. About her middle round

      A cry of Hell-hounds never ceasing barked

      With wide Cerberean mouths full loud, and rung

      A hideous peal; yet, when they list, would creep,

      If aught disturbed their noise, into her womb,

      And kennel there; yet there still barked and howled

      Within unseen. Far less abhorred than these

      Vexed Scylla, bathing in the sea that parts

      Calabria from the hoarse Trinacrian shore;

      Nor uglier follow the night-hag, when, called

      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 called that shape had none

      Distinguishable in member, joint, or limb;

      Or substance might be called that shadow seemed,

      For each seemed either—black it stood as Night,

      Fierce as ten Furies, terrible as Hell,

      And shook a dreadful dart: what seemed 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.

      Th’ undaunted Fiend what this might be admired—

      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 СКАЧАТЬ