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Philip Pullman takes the title of his trilogy from the following key passage in //Paradise Lost//, Book II, 890-920. This is the moment just after Sin opens the gates of Hell and together the unholy family look out onto Chaos:

Before their eyes in sudden view appear [ 890 ] The secrets of the hoarie deep, a dark Illimitable Ocean without bound, Without dimension, where length, breadth, & highth, And time and place are lost; where eldest Night And Chaos, Ancestors of Nature, hold [ 895 ] Eternal Anarchie, amidst the noise Of endless Warrs, and by confusion stand. For hot, cold, moist, and dry, four Champions fierce Strive here for Maistrie, and to Battel bring Their embryon Atoms; they around the flag [ 900 ] Of each his faction, in their several Clanns, Light-arm'd or heavy, sharp, smooth, swift or slow, Swarm populous, unnumber'd as the Sands Of Barca or Cyrene's torrid soil, Levied to side with warring Winds, and poise [ 905 ] Their lighter wings. To whom these most adhere, Hee rules a moment; Chaos Umpire sits, And by decision more imbroiles the fray By which he Reigns: next him high Arbiter Chance governs all. Into this wilde Abyss, [ 910 ] The Womb of nature and perhaps her Grave, Of neither Sea, nor Shore, nor Air, nor Fire, But all these in their pregnant causes mixt Confus'dly, and which thus must ever fight, Unless th'Almighty Maker them ordain [ 915 ] Into this wild Abyss the warie fiend Stood on the brink of Hell and look'd a while, Pondering his Voyage: for no narrow frith He had to cross.
 * His dark materials** to create more Worlds,