Bible -- History of Biblical events -- Poetry; English poetry -- Old English, ca. 450-1100
(ll. 689-709) Then answered the Eternal Lord: "Depart, thou
cursed Satan, into the house of pain; for thee is punishment
prepared, and not God's kingdom. By most high might I bid thee
bring no hope to such as dwell in hell, but tell them now of
this, thy greatest woe, that thou hast met the Maker of creation,
the Lord of men. Get thee behind Me! Know, accursed fiend, how
measureless and wide and dreary is the pit of hell! Measure it
with thy hands, take hold upon its bottom. Go, then, until thou
knowest all the circle of it; measure it first from above even
unto the abyss. Measure how broad the black mist stretches.
Then shalt thou know more clearly that thou strivest against God,
when thou hast measured with thy hands how high and deep is hell,
the grim grave-house, within. Go quickly, that thou measure, ere
two hours are past, the home allotted thee."
(ll. 710-728) Then vengeance came upon the fiend. Satan, the
cursed monster, fled away and sank to hell. And first he
measured with his hands its torment and its woe. The black flame
leaped against the evil spirit; and he beheld the captives as
they lay in hell. And there rose a howling throughout hell, when
their eyes fell on the fiend. God's foes had striven... the
black evil spirit, so that he stood upon the floor of hell, and
it seemed to him that from the pit to the doors of hell was an
hundred thousand miles in reckoning, as the Almighty Lord had
bidden him, for his sin, to measure all his torment. And he
remembered as he stood in the depths of hell! The foul fiend
with his eyes gazed through the loathsome den, until its
overwhelming horror, the host of devils... then mounted up...
With words of malice the accursed fiends began to speak and say:
(ll. 728-730) "Lo! thus may evil be upon thee always! Thou didst
not wish for good!"
FINIT LIBER II. AMEN.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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