Voltando et percuotendo gli molesta.
They reach a spot, void of all ray of light,
Which howls as seas in storms, where winds opposing fight:
The hellish whirlwind, never resting, hurls
The hovering spirits snatch’d upon its whirls:
And vexing smites, and eddying turns them round.
Milton seems to have conceived from this passage of Hesiod his idea of Satan falling down the chaotic void, book ii.:
A vast vacuity: all unawares,
Fluttering his pennons vain, plumb down he drops
Ten thousand fathoms deep: and to this hour