Inferno

“ The first circle of the Inferno is Limbo, where are the souls of children and the unbaptized; of the heathen philosophers and poets. They are neither in pain nor glory, they do not shriek nor groan but only sigh. ”

“ But one thing at least is obvious: the uniform congruousness of the impression which the physical and moral factors of each description combine to produce. In fact, the Inferno is an account of 'man, as deserving ill by the exercise of his free will,' in which all the external surroundings are brought into precise accord with the central conception. ”

“ I followed them with my eyes going through life, which would be nothing to them but fields, mountains, or forests. I saw them veiled in a kind of light, sheltered from darkness, protected for a time against the fearful spell of memory and thought. ”

“ In so speaking they saw further than the flesh. In their remorse and disgust it was not mere physical disillusionment that so crushed them. They saw further. They were overcome by an impression of bleak truth, of aridity, of growing nothingness, at the thought that they had so many times grasped, rejected, and vainly grasped again their frail carnal ideal.
They felt that everything was fleeting, that everything wore out, that everything that was not dead would die, and that even the illusory ties holding them together would not endure. Their sadness did not bring them together. ”

“ Upon life, is to leave you face to face
With Hell’s Powers, and at their cruel grace.
Dread not; whatever penalties you owe
You will pay to the full, but not Below.
Hell’s horrors are mere bugbears; and, as they,
Shadows from the realities of day;
Warnings as well.
In no drear realm beneath
Wanders Tantalus, with fear-frozen breath
Lest the huge rock shall snap the slender thread, [115]
And thunder down upon his helpless head.
It is a parable. The weight of cares,
The uncertainties in human affairs—
These men attribute to the wrath of God;
Charging Heaven with strokes from Fortune’s rod. ”

“ Through darkness was I to make the last journey towards that dread bourne whence no traveller returns? The slow death in the darkness, drifting about on the bitter waters of that secret sea—that was the thought that my soul revolted from. And strange thoughts, horrible thoughts, a man thinks placed as I was. At times his reason leaves him, his whole soul rises in impious revolt, and the devil rages freely therein, as if already his victim’s bed were made in hell. ”

“ It is the place of skulls, where death holds his carnival in companionship with worms, and hell laughs in the face of heaven. Dark storms are gathering there—convolving clouds, charged with no common wrath. Terrors set themselves in battle-array before the Son of God; and tempests burst upon him, which might sweep all mankind in a moment to eternal ruin. ”

“ It has now been made clear that the damned will one day be cast, body and soul, into the huge and awful furnace of Hell, into the immense lake of fire, where they will be surrounded by flames. There will be fire below them, fire above them, fire all round about them. Every breath will be the scorching breath of a furnace. These infernal flames will penetrate every portion of the body, so that there will be no part or member, within or without, that is not steeped in fire.
How despairing the cries, how agonizing the shrieks that will ascend from this bed of torture! ”

“ Visions of eternal torment rose in her mind, a tangible searing hell alive with flame and devils, a sea of liquid fire, an ocean of boiling pitch, Satan commanding in the midst, and a myriad of fiends working his tormenting will. ”

“ As if the hermit were more immune from death than the hunter! Overhead hover fearful fire-breathing demons bearing beautiful women head downwards to their doom. Towards the centre of the entire picture, of which this forms but a half, sweeps Death, a sombre flying figure with a great scythe, whom cripples and the sorrowful invoke in vain; underneath are his slain, upon whose bodies swoop demons with long pitchforks and angels with long crosses, fighting furiously for the spoil, in a game of pull devil, pull angel. ”

“ But how wilt thou do, to dwell with devouring Fire? How wilt thou dwell with everlasting Burnings? Whatsoever thou think'st now, think what Hell will be when the Day comes, thou must descend into it; Thou may'll drink or laugh away thy Fear of it, but what will it be to thee, when thou feelest thy self wrapped up in the Flames of it, and not a Drop of water to cool thy Tongue! ”

“ Lights up the impenetrable horror of gloom,
Chilling the very soul, like an impending doom.
Is this the lone region of death and fell despair?
And is hell with all its fury lurking there?
Do Satan and Apollyon roam those deadly deeps,
Gloating o’er the suffering of the damned that ne’er sleeps?
Was’t there the rebellious hosts of heaven found their doom,
To shriek in nameless torture in so dread a tomb?
Hist! hist! did ye hear it? that shuddering roll
Of frenzied anguish, creeping up from damnation’s goal?
O relentless Time! Let’s flee away from this dread sphere ”

“ Or, it may be, with demons, who impair The strength of better thoughts, and seek their prey In melancholy bosoms, such as were Of moody texture from their earliest day, And loved to dwell in darkness and dismay, Deeming themselves predestined to a doom Which is not of the pangs that pass away; Making the sun like blood, the earth a tomb, The tomb a hell, and hell itself a murkier gloom. ”

“ Oh, my friends, if one such dark hour has ever come home to you; if you have ever let the sun go down upon your wrath, and so given place to the devil, then you know something at least of what eternal death is. You know how, in such moments, there is a worm in the heart, and a fire in the heart, compared with which all bodily torment would be light and bearable ”

“ Consider, that of all bodily torments, which we can suffer in this world, there is none more terrible than to burn alive: but, alas! there is no comparison between burning here, and burning in hell. All our fires upon earth are but painted flames, if compared to the fire of hell. The fire of this world was made to serve us, and to be our comfort: that of hell was created to be an instrument of God's vengeance upon sinners. ”

“ If thou lookest downwards, thou may's see hell gaping and opening its mouth to swallow thee up quick; Many dangers attend thee every day, many miseries every moment, legions of devils stand about thee, watching for thee, and waiting only for the leave of God, to drag thy soul into the lake of fire. ”

“ Our Lord speaks of the darkness of Hell as exterior darkness, the most appalling, the most fearful that can be. A traveller who has lost his way in a forest and is benighted, feels a nameless terror coming over him.
Now there is a land which is covered with the shadow of death, where no order, but an eternal horror reigns. That land is Hell. An oppressive gloom weighs upon the lost; an indescribably terrible darkness prevails. ”

“ Slowly their dread mastered them; their faces grew grey and then green; one man gave back a step, then another; one by one they tore away their eyes from the dormant horror; glared at one another in the agony of utter fear; turned with one accord, and fled—fled as men flee with the fear of death at their backs, and the devils of the lone Night and the waste on their heels. ”

“ Of rage, despair, smote the shuddering hills,
With’ring the verdure all amain,
And rolled in nameless horror along
The lines of that ensanguined plain.
Nearer and nearer swooped the celestial
Legions in majesty and might,
Until, all ruined and beaten down,
The demon foe were put to flight,
And Satan seized and bound with a chain,
And hurled blaspheming back once more
Down the accursed, eternal void of
Damnation’s frenzied awful shore!
Closed and sealed was that deadly maw
Of desolation and of doom,
That man might escape the horror of an
Everlasting suffering and gloom. ”

“ To present you with emblems of tormented spirits, or to draw before your eyes the picture of hell, are things too light for so ponderous a subject as this; nor can any man frame or invent words, be they never so deep and profound, sufficient to the life to set out the torments of hell.
All those expressions of fire, brimstone, the lake of fire, a fiery furnace, the bottomless pit, and a hundred more to boot, are all too short to let forth the miseries of those that shall be damned souls. ”

“ I, a sinner like the rest of you, live nevertheless in the fear of hell fire. Hell fire has become, I think, to many of the present generation a mockery and a derision. I come to tell you that it is no mockery, that it as surely lies there, a blazing furnace, in front of us as though we saw it with our own eyes ... ”

“ How rough that wood was, wild, and terrible:
By the mere thought my terror is renewed. ”

“ Shall lead Hell captive, maugre Hell, and shew
The powers of darkness bound: thou, at the sight
Pleased, out of Heaven shalt look down and smile,
While, by the raised, I ruin all my foes,
Death last, and with his carcase glut the grave ”

“ The terrified women and children flee for life, the men huddle them inside a circle, and, on the principle of fighting the devil with fire, they swing blazing firebrands in the air, yell, whoop, and make frantic dashes at the marauding and bloodthirsty devils, so creating a terrific spectacle, and striking great fear into the hearts of the assembled hundreds of women, who are screaming and fainting and clinging to their valorous protectors. ”

“ In the city of Hell nothing is to be seen but dismal dungeons, dark caverns, frightful deserts, fetid swamps filled with every imaginable species of poisonous and disgusting reptile. In Heaven you behold the happiness and peaceful union of the saints; in Hell, perpetual scenes of wretched discord, and every species of sin and corruption, either under the most horrible forms imaginable, or represented by different kinds of dreadful torments. ”

“ In hell, the restless flame in which he is wrapt continually, among the advisers of evil, is seen, from the rocks above, like the firefly’s flitting to and fro; and the waving garment of torture, which quivers as he speaks, and aspires as he moves, condemns him to be led in eternal temptation, and to be delivered from evil nevermore. ”

“ In their dread hands lay the punishment of murder, of inhospitality, of ingratitude, and of all the cruellest and basest of crimes. Theirs was the duty of hurrying the doomed spirits entrusted to their merciless care over the Phlegethon, the river of fire that flows round Hades, and through the brazen gates that led to Torment, and their robes were robes worn
“With all the pomp of horror, dy’d in gore.” ”

“ But the sufferings of hell are a raging storm racking every limb and joint, a whirlwind of unthinkable woe, an eternal dance of anguish; for as one wave rolls upon another, and is followed by another and another in all eternity, so the scalding pangs and blows of hell follow one another ever and everlastingly, without end and without pause. ”

“ Some readers may think of it as a frantic revel of grim skeletons, or perhaps—like me in my boyish musings—imagine nameless shapes with Death and Hell gleaming in their faces, each clasping a mortal beguiled to its embrace, all flitting and floating round and round to unearthly music, and gradually receding through vast mysterious gloom till they are lost in its horrible obscurity. ”

“ The name of the rider— Death, the king of terrors; the pestilence, which is death in its empire, death reigning over a place or nation, death on horseback, marching about, and making fresh conquests every hour. 2. The attendants or followers of this king of terrors— hell, a state of eternal misery to all those who die in their sins; and, in times of such a general destruction, multitudes go down unprepared into the valley of destruction. It is an awful thought, and enough to make the whole world to tremble, that eternal damnation immediately follows upon the death of an impenitent sinner. ”

“ Every thought seemed pregnant with suffering, and sometimes bursts of agony were scrawled in trembling characters, that spoke the very extremity of terror. "Who is there can endure fire and flame for ever, for ever, and for ever?" "Death is before us—Hell follows it!" ”

“ So perishable earth and ever-enduring hell are alike mementoes of this antagonistic relation; and God and His enemy, the Creator and the destroyer, are made one in their delight over the torment of the human race,—the devil gladdened that they fall and are "lost" from heaven, God rejoicing that they are damned and "found" in hell!
All the rest of man's history is but an exception; sin, misery, damnation are instantial—the general rule. ”

“ Here is a little image of what you will be in hell, except you repent and fly to Christ.—Sermon X. Do but consider what it is to suffer extreme torment for ever and ever; to suffer it night and day, from one day to another, from one year to another, from one age to another; in pain, in wailing and lamenting, groaning and shrieking and gnashing your teeth; with your bodies and every member full of racking torture ”

“ Once I dreamed that I had gone into Hell, and heard the cries of the souls in torment, and waking I found that the strange city without was coming to life again with a jangle of hoots and whistles and screams. ”

“ But one whose soul hath been in Hell.
Strophe x.
The word Hell is here used, as in the Creed, to signify Hades, or the place of departed spirits. I have purposely shunned any imagining of its secret things, whether in the Paradise of the just, or the Phylace of the wicked; and have simply employed some of the revelations of the Apocalypse, in a reverent hint at the employment of the Angels in Heaven. The episode of Ulla and Arah is introduced to illustrate the received doctrine of the recognition of friends in the final abodes of the righteous. ”