Page:Paradise lost by Milton, John.djvu/346

Alike to serpents, all as accessories520
To his bold riot. Dreadful was the din
Of hissing through the hall, thick swarming now
With complicated monsters, head and tail,
Scorpion, and Asp, and Amphisbæna dire,
Cerastes horned, Hydrus and Ellops drear
And Dipsas—not so thick swarmed once the soil
Bedropt with blood of Gorgon, or the isle
Ophiusa—but still greatest he the midst,
Now Dragon grown, larger than whom the Sun
Ingendered in the Pythian vale on slime,530
Huge Python; and his power no less he seemed
Above the rest still to retain. They all
Him followed, issuing forth to the open field,
Where all yet left of that revolted rout,
Heaven-fallen, in station stood or just array,
Sublime with expectation when to see
In triumph issuing forth their glorious Chief;
They saw, but other sight instead! a crowd
Of ugly serpents. Horror on them fell,
And horrid sympathy; for what they saw540
They felt themselves now changing. Down their arms,
Down fell both spear and shield, down they as fast,
And the dire hiss renewed, and the dire form
Catched by contagion, like in punishment,
As in their crime. Thus was the applause they meant