68 The Poets and Nature. 



To the king's heart ; the snake no sooner hissed 

 But Virtue heard it, and away she hied." 



His Hell, by the way, is simply a wilderness of snakes. 



How grandly different are Milton's pictures of the Arch- 

 Fiend in his monster-shape ! The scene is the Tartarian 

 lake, "as one great furnace flaming," a "fiery deluge, fed 

 with ever-burning sulphur unconsumed." Satan recognises 

 Beelzebub " weltering by his side," and they converse. The 

 Arch- Fiend is thus described : 



" With head uplift above the wave, and eyes 

 That sparkling blazed, his other parts beside 

 Prone on the flood, extended long and large, 

 Lay floating many a rood, in bulk as large 

 As whom the fables name of monstrous size, 

 Titanian, or Earth-born, that warr'd on Jove, 

 Briareus or Typhon, whom the sea 

 By ancient Tarsus held, or that sea-beast, 

 Leviathan, which God, of all His works, 

 Created hugest that swim th' ocean stream." 



Later, when he is in eager flight, this fine image is em- 

 ployed : 



" As when a gyphon through the wilderness, 

 With winged course, o'er hill or moor or dale, 

 Pursues the Arimaspian, who by stealth 

 Had from his wakeful custody purloined 

 The guarded gold." 



And afterwards, when the actual transformation of the 

 rebellious host into serpents is described, we see their chief 



" Still greatest in the midst, 

 Now dragon grown, larger than whom the sun 

 Ingender'd in the Pythian vale or slime, 

 Huge Python." l 



There is nobility of fancy throughout. 



Traditionally the snake is "crested," so no poet re r ers to 

 a snake of any importance without mentioning its crest. 



1 The python, curiously enough, has the vestiges of legs. P. R. 



