Sin, the female figure, here explains that she is the daughter of Satan, and that Death is both her son and his, the fruit of an incestuous connexion between the father and daughter. This ends the strife. The parties enter into a compact of mutual assistance, and Sin and Death then open the gates.

THE OPENING OF HELL-GATES, AND SATAN'S PASSAGE OVER CHAOS.

Thus saying, from her side the fatal key,
Sad instrument of all our woe, she took;

And, towards the gate rolling her bestial train,
Forthwith the huge portcullis high up-drew,
Which but herself, not all the Stygian powers
Could once have moved; then in the key-hole turns
The intricate wards, and every bolt and bar

Of massy iron or solid rock with ease
Unfastens. On a sudden open fly

With impetuous recoil and jarring sound
The infernal doors, and on their hinges grate
Harsh thunder, that the lowest bottom shook

Of Erebus. She opened, but to shut

Excelled her power: the gates wide open stood,

That with extended wings a bannered host,

Under spread ensigns marching, might pass through
With horse and chariots ranked in loose array;
So wide they stood, and like a furnace-mouth
Cast forth redounding smoke and ruddy flame.
Before their eyes in sudden view appear
The secrets of the hoary deep: a dark

Illimitable ocean, without bound,

Without dimension, where length, breadth, and highth,

And time, and place, are lost; where eldest Night

And Chaos, ancestors of Nature, hold

Eternal anarchy, amidst the noise

Of endless wars, and by confusion stand,

For Hot, Cold, Moist, and Dry, four champions fierce, Strive here for mastery, and to battle bring

'Their embryon atoms; they around the flag

(Of each his faction, in their several clans,
Light-armed or heavy, sharp, smooth, swift, or slow,
Swarm populous, unnumbered as the sands
Of Barca or Cyrene's torrid soil,

Tevied to side with warring winds and poise
Their lighter wings. To whom these most adhere,
Herrules a moment: Chaos umpire sits,

And by decision more embroils the fray,

By which he reigns:

Chance governs all.

next him high arbiter

Into this wild abyss,

The womb of Nature, and perhaps her grave,
Of either sea, nor shore, nor air, nor fire,
Butall these in their pregnant causes mixed
Confusedly, and which thus must ever fight,
Unless the Almighty Maker them ordain
His dark materials to create more worlds;
Into this wild abyss the wary fiend
Stood

the brink of hell, and looked a while,
Pondering his voyage; for no narrow frith
He had to cross. Nor was his ear less pealed.

With noises loud and ruinous (to compare

Great things with small), than when Bellona storms,
With all her battering engines bent to rase
Some capital city; or less than if this frame

Of heaven were falling, and these elements

In mutiny had from her axle torn

The steadfast earth. At last his sail-broad vans
He spreads for flight, and in the surging smoke
Uplifted spurns the ground; thence many a league,
As in a cloudy chair, ascending rides

Audacious; but, that seat soon failing, meets
A vast vacuity: all unawares

Fluttering his pennons vain, plumb down he drops
Ten thousand fathom deep; and to this hour
Down had been falling, had not by ill chance
The strong rebuff of some tumultuous cloud,
Instinct with fire and nitre, hurried him
As many miles aloft: that fury staid,
Quenched in a boggy syrtis, neither sea,
Nor good dry land: nigh foundered on he fares,
Treading the crude consistence, half on foot,
Half flying; behoves him now both oar and sail.
As when a gryphon through the wilderness
With wingéd course, o'er hill or moory dale,
Pursues the Arimaspian, who by stealth
Had from his wakeful custody purloined

The guarded gold: so eagerly the fiend

O'er bog, or steep, through straight, rough, dense, or rare,
With head, hands, wings, or feet, pursues his way,
And swims, or sinks, or wades, or creeps, or flies;

At length, a universal hubbub wild

Of stunning sounds, and voices all confused,
Borne through the hollow dark, assaults his ear
With loudest vehemence: thither he plies,
Undaunted, to meet there whatever power
Or spirit of the nethermost abyss,

Might in that noise reside, of whom to ask

Which way the nearest coast of darkness lies

Bordering on light; when straight behold the throne

Of Chaos, and his dark pavilion spread

Wide on the wasteful deep; with him enthroned

Sat sable-vested Night, eldest of things,

The consort of his reign; and by them stood
Orcus and Ades, and the dreaded name

Of Demogorgon! Rumour next and Chance,
And Tumult and Confusion all embroiled,
And Discord with a thousand various mouths.

Satan finds himself at the court of Chaos, "Anarch old," as Milton calls him. Learning that he is on the confines of Creation, he immediately proceeds on his journey, and without much further adventure at length reaches the new world.

The Third Book opens by an easy transition, with an address to Light. It seems to be naturally suggested by the dark and terrible images of the previous books, when contrasted with the resplendent scenes about to be presented, and is connected with his own blindness, in a manner most exquisitely tender and beautiful. The whole passage has been greatly admired.

ADDRESS TO LIGHT.

Hail, holy light! offspring of heaven first born,
Or of the Eternal coeternal beam

May I express thee unblamed? since God is light,
And never but in unapproachéd light

Dwelt from eternity, dwelt then in thee,
Bright effluence of bright essence increate.
Or hearest thou rather, pure ethereal stream,

Whose fountain who shall tell? Before the sun,
Before the heavens thou wert, and at the voice
Of God, as with a mantle, didst invest

The rising world of waters dark and deep,
Won from the void and formless infinite.
Thee I revisit now with bolder wing,

Escaped the Stygian pool, though long detained
In that obscure sojourn, while in my flight
Through utter and through middle darkness borne,
With other notes than to the Orphéan lyre,
I sung of Chaos and eternal Night;
Taught by the heavenly muse to venture down
The dark descent, and up to re-ascend,
Though hard and rare: thee I revisit safe,
And feel thy sovran vital lamp; but thou
Revisitest not these eyes, that roll in vain
To find thy piercing ray, and find no dawn;
So thick a drop serene hath quenched their orbs,
Or dim suffusion veiled. Yet not the more
Cease I to wander where the muses haunt
Clear spring, or shady grove, or sunny hill,
Smit with the love of sacred song; but chief
Thee, Sion, and the flowery brooks beneath,
That wash thy hallowed feet and warbling flow,
Nightly I visit: nor sometimes forget
Those other two equalled with me in fate,
So were I equalled with them in renown,
Blind Thamyris, and blind Mæonides,
And Tiresias, and Phineas, prophets old:
Then feed on thoughts, that voluntary move
Harmonious numbers; as the wakeful bird
Sings darkling, and in shadiest covert hid