with indignation, Satan stood Unterrified, and like a comet burned, That fires the length of Ophiuchus huge In the 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 the other, as when two black clouds, 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 frowned the mighty combatants, that Hell Grew darker at their frown; so matched 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 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, 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.”
T’ whom thus the Portress of Hell-gate replied: “Hast thou forgot me then, and do I seem Now in thine eye so foul? once deemed so fair In