In Paradise lost Satan is on a journey from hell to earth, where he plans to turn humanity against God. . .
He arrives to the gate of hell and sees:
“The one seemed woman to the waist, and fair,
But ended foul in many a scaly fold,
Voluminous and vast—a serpent armed
With mortal sting. About her middle round
A cry of Hell-hounds never-ceasing barked
With wide Cerberean mouths full loud, and rung
A hideous peal; yet, when they list, would creep,
If aught disturbed their noise, into her womb,
And kennel there; yet there still barked and howled Within unseen.”
A woman whose upper body is beautiful. . . but the bottom half of her is a serpent. . . and surround by rabid dogs.
her name?
Sin.
For the lips of a forbidden woman drip honey, and her speech is smoother than oil, but in the end she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword. Her feet go down to death; her steps follow the path to Sheol; (Proverbs 5:3–5)
