Note 16 — Chapter I · ROGER BACON: THE TRUE AND THE LEGENDARY.
Reading edition
Demogorgon, or Demiourgos—the creative principle of evil—figures largely in literature. He is first mentioned by Lactantius, in the fourth century; then by Boccaccio, Boiardo, Tasso (‘Gierusalemme Liberata’), and Ariosto (‘Orlando Furioso’). Marlowe speaks, in ‘Tamburlaine,’ of ‘Gorgon, prince of Hell.’ Spenser, in ‘The Faery Queen,’ refers to—
‘Great Gorgon, prince of darkness and dead night, At which Cocytus quakes, and Styx is put to flight.’
Milton, in ‘Paradise Lost,’ alludes to ‘the dreaded name of Demogorgon.’ Dryden says: ‘When the moon arises, and Demogorgon walks his round.’ And he is one of the dramatis personæ of Shelley’s ‘Prometheus Unbound’: ‘Demogorgon, a tremendous gloom.... A mighty Darkness, filling the seat of power.’