The strangers were most reluctant to advance, insisting that they were on the wrong road; still, onward they went, up to the bank of a wide, dark torrent, whilst we followed in their wake and crossed over with them, my companion, meanwhile, holding the water to my nostrils to protect me from the stench rising out of the river. When I beheld some of the inhabitants (for till now I had not seen a single devil, though I had heard their voices) I asked: “What, pray, my Guide, is the name of this death-like stream?” “The river of the Evil One,” answered he, “wherein all his subjects are immersed to render them accustomed to the country; its cursed waters changed their countenance, washing away every relic of goodness, every shadow of hope and happiness.” And on seeing the horde pass through, I could perceive no difference in loathsomeness between the devils and the damned. Some wished to crouch at the bottom of the river, there to remain in suffocation to all eternity, rather than find further on a worse dwelling; but as the proverb says: “He whom the devil urges must run,” so these damned beings, thrust on by the demons, were swiftly borne along the stream of destruction to their eternal ruin; where I too saw at the first glimpse more tortures and torments than man’s heart can imagine, far less a tongue repeat; to see one of which was enough to cause one’s hair to stand on an end, his blood to freeze, his flesh to melt, his bones to give way, yea and his spirit to swoon within him. Why speak I of such deeds as the impaling or sawing of men alive, the tearing of the flesh in pieces with iron pincers or the broiling of it, chop by chop, with candles, or the jambing of skulls as flat as a slate, in a press, and all the most frightful degradation the earth ever witnessed? All such are but pleasures compared with one of these. Here, a million shrieks, harsh groans and deep sighs; there, fierce lamentations and loud cries in answer: the howling of dogs were sweet, delightful music compared with these voices. Before we had gone far from the shores of that accursed river into wild Perdition, we could see by the light of their own fire, here and there, men and women without number, whom a countless host of devils unceasingly and with all their might kept always torturing; and as the devils were shrieking from the intensity of their own suffering, they made the damned give response to the utmost. I observed the part nearest me more minutely: there, the devils with pitchforks hurled them head foremost upon poisonous hatchels formed of terrible, barbed darts, thereon to struggle by their brains; then shortly, they threw them together, layer on layer, upon the summit of one of the burning crags, there to blaze like a bonfire. Thence they were snatched away up the ravines amidst the eternal ice and snow; [73] then plunged again into an enormous flood of seething brimstone to be parched, stifled, and choked by the direful stench; thence to a quagmire of vermin, to embrace hellish reptiles far more noxious than serpents or vipers. After that the devils took knotted rods of fiery steel from the furnace, wherewith they beat them so that their howls resounded throughout all Hell, so inexpressibly excruciating was the pain, and then they seized hot irons to sear the bloody wounds. No swoon or trance is there to beguile with a moment’s respite, but an unchanging strength to suffer and to feel; though one would have thought that after one awful wail there never could be the strength to raise another as weirdly-loud; yet never will their key be lowered, with the devils ever answering: “This is your welcome for aye.” And worse, were it possible, than the pain, was the scorn and bitterness of the devils’ mockery and derision, but worst of all, their own conscience was now thoroughly awakened, and devoured them more relentlessly than a thousand infernal lions.
Still down we go, down afar—the further we go the worse the plight; at the first view I saw a horrid prison wherein a great many men were uttering blasphemous groans beneath the scourges of the devils: “Who are all these?” asked I; “This,” answered the Angel, “this is the abode of Woe-that-I-had-not.” “Woe that I had not been cleansed of all manner of sin in good time,” quoth one. “Woe is me that I had not believed and repented before my coming here,” quoth another. Next to the cell of Too-late-a-repentance, and of Pleading-after-judgment, was the prison of the Procrastinators, who were always promising to mend their ways, but who never fulfilled the promise. “When this trouble is past,” saith one, “I will turn over a new leaf.” “When this hinderance goes by, I’ll be another man yet,” said another. But when that comes about, they are no nearer; some other obstacle ever and anon occurs to preventing their starting towards the gate of holiness; and if sometimes a start is made, it takes but little to turn them back again. Next to these was the prison of Presumption, full of those who, whenever they were urged of old to be rid of their Wantonness, or drunkenness, or avarice, would say: “God is merciful, and better than His word; He will never damn his own creature upon a cause so trivial.” But here they yelped blasphemy, asking: “Where is that mercy boasted to be infinite?” “Silence, ye whelps!” said a huge, crabbed devil who heard them, “Silence! would he have mercy who did nought to obtain it? Would ye that Truth should make its word a lie, merely to gain the company of dross so vile as ye? Was too much mercy shewn you, a Saviour, a Comforter given you, and the angels, books, sermons and good examples? Will ye not cease plaguing us now, prating of mercy where it never was.”
While making our exit from this glaring pit, I heard one moaning and crying dolefully: “I knew no better; no pains were ever taken to teach me to read my duties, nor could I spare the time to read and pray whereof I had need in order to earn bread for myself and my poor family.” “Indeed,” quoth a crookback devil who stood close at hand, “hadst thou no leisure to tell merry tales, no idle roasting before thy fire through the long winter evenings when I was up the chimney, so that no time might have been given to learning to read or pray? What of thy Sabbaths? Who was it that was wont to accompany me to the alehouse rather than the parson to the church? How many a Sunday afternoon was spent in vain, noisy talk of worldly things, or in sleeping, instead of in learning to meditate and pray? Didst thou act according to thy knowledge? Silence, sirrah, with thy lying chatter!” “Thou raving bloodhound!” exclaimed the condemned, “’tis not long since thou wert whispering other words in mine ear; hadst thou said this another day, it is not likely I would have come hither.” “Ah!” said the devil, “it matters not that we tell you the hateful truth here; for there is no fear of your returning hence now to carry tales.”
Lower down I could see a deep, valley whence arose the bluish glare of what seemed to be a countless number of enormous, burning mounds; and after drawing nigh, I knew by their howling that they were men piled mountains high with terrible flames crackling through them. “That hollow,” said the Angel, “is the abode of those who after committing some heinous deeds, exclaim: ‘Well, I am not the first—I have plenty of companions,’ and thus thou see’st they have plenty, to verify their words and add to their affliction.” Opposite this was a large cellar where I saw men tortured just as withes are twisted or wet sheets wrung. “Who, prithee, are these?” asked I. “They are the Mockers,” said he, “and the devils from pure derision essay to find whether they can be twisted as pliantly as their tales.” A little below, but scarcely visible, was another gloomy dungeon-cell, wherein was what had once been men, but now with the faces of wolf-hounds, up to their lips in a morass, madly howling blasphemy and lies as often as they got their tongues clear of the mire. Just then a legion of devils passed by, and some attempted to bite the heels of ten or twelve of the devils that had brought them there: “Woe and ruin take you, ye hell-hounds!” exclaimed one of the bitten devils, at the same time stamping upon the quagmire until they sank in the reeking depths. “Who more deserving of hell than ye, who gossipped and imagined all manner of tales, who retailed lies from house to house so that ye might laugh, after setting the entire neighbourhood at war? What more would one of us have done?” “This,” said the Angel, “is the abode of the slanderers, defamers and backbiters, and of all envious cowards who always do hurt in word or deed behind one’s back.”
From thence we went past an enormous lair, the vilest I had yet seen, and the fullest of vermin, of soot, and of stench. “This,” said he, “is the place of those who hoped for heaven because they were harmless, in other words, because they were neither good nor bad.” Next to this foul pit I saw a great multitude sitting down, whose groans were more fierce than anything I had heard hitherto in hell. “Save us all!” cried I, “what makes these complain more than all others, seeing there be no pain, nor demon near them?” “Ah,” answered the Angel, “if the pain without is less, that which is within is more,—here are stubborn heretics, the godless and unchristian, many of the worldy-wise, of apostates, of the persecutors of the church, and millions such as they, who have utterly been given over to the more bitterly painful punishment of the conscience, which now without let or ceasing has its full sway over them. “I will not this time,” quoth conscience, “be drowned in beer, or blinded by rewards, or deafened by song and good company, or hushed or stupified by a thoughtless torpor; now I will be heard, and never shall the truth, the stinging truth, cease dinning in your ears.” The will creates a desire for the lost paradise, the memory reproaches them with the ease wherewith it might have been gained, and the reason shews the greatness of the loss, and the certainty that nought awaits them but this unspeakable gnawing for ever and ever; so by these three means, conscience rends them more terribly than would all the devils in hell.
Coming out of that wondrous defile, I heard much talking, and for every word such wild horse-laughter as if some five hundred devils would shed their horns with laughing. But after I had drawn near to behold the very rare sight of a smile in hell, what was it but two gentlemen, lately arrived, appealing for the respect due to their rank, and the merriment was intended only to give affront to them. A pot-bellied squire stood there with an enormous roll of parchment, his genealogical chart, declaring from how many of the Fifteen Tribes of Gwynedd he had sprung, how many justices of the peace, and how many sheriffs there had been of his house. “Ha ha,” cried one of the devils, “we know the merit of most of your forebears, were you like your father, or great-great-grandsire, we would not have deigned to touch you. But thou, thou art but the heir of utter darkness, vile whelp, thou art hardly worth a night’s lodging; and yet thou shalt have some nook to await the dawn.” And at the word the impetuous monster pierces him with his pitchfork, and after whirling him thirty times through the fiery welkin, hurled him into a hole out of sight. “That is right enough for a half-blood squire,” said the other, “but I hope ye will be better mannered towards a knight who has served the king in person; twelve earls and fifty knights can I recount from mine own ancient line.” “If thine ancestors, and thy long pedigree are all thy plea, thou canst go the same gate,” quoth a devil, “for we remember scarce one old estate of large extent which some oppressor, some murderer or robber has not founded, leaving it to others as arrant as they, to idle blockheads or to drunken swine. To maintain lavish pomp, they had to grind their vassals and tenants, and if there be a beautiful pony or a fine cow which my lady covets, she will have them, and well it happens if the daughters, yea, even the wives, escape the lust of their lord. And the small free-holders around them must either vainly follow or give bail for them, resulting in their own ruin, the loss of their possessions, and the sale of their patrimony, or expect to be hated and despised, and forced to every idle pursuit. Oh how nobly they swear to gain the confidence of their minions or of their tradesmen, and when decked out in their finery, how contemptuously they look upon many an officer of importance in church and state, as if such were mere worms compared with them. Woe’s me, is not all blood of one color? Was it not the same way that ye all entered the world?” “For all that, craving your pardon,” said the knight, “there are some births purer than others.” “For the great doom all your carcases are the same,” said the imp, “everyone of you is defiled by the sin that took its origin in Adam.” “But, sir,” continued he, “if your blood is aught better than another, the less scum will there be when shortly it will be bubbling through your body, and if there be more, we must examine you, part by part, through fire and through water.” Thereupon, a devil in the shape of a fiery chariot receives him, and the other mockingly lifts him thereinto, and away he goes with the speed of lightning. Ere long the angel bade me look, and I saw the poor knight most horribly sodden in an enormous boiling furnace with Cain, Nimrod, Esau, Tarquin, Nero, Caligula, and others who first established lineage, and emblazoned family arms.
After wending our way onward a little, my guide bade me peer through a riven wall, and within I saw a group of coquetts busily primming up, doing and undoing the deeds of folly they were formerly wont to do on earth; some puckering their lips, some plucking their eyebrows with irons, some anointing themselves, some patching their faces with black spots to make the yellow look whiter, and some endeavouring to crack the mirror; and after all the pains to color and adorn, upon seeing their faces far uglier than the devils’, they would tear away with tooth and nail all the false coloring, the spots, the skin and the flesh all at once, and would shriek most dismally. “Accursed be my father,” said one, “it was he who forced me when a girl to wed an old shrivelling, and it was his kindling my desires with no power to satiate them, that doomed me to this place.” “A thousand curses on my parents,” cried another, “for sending me to a monastery to be taught to live a life of chastity; they might as well have sent me to a Roundhead to learn how to be generous, or to a Quaker to be taught good manners, as to a Papist to be taught honesty.” “Fell ruin seize my mother,” shrieked a third, “whose covetous pride refused me a husband at my need, and so drove me to obtain by stealth what I might have honestly obtained.” “Hell, a double hell to the raging bull of a nobleman who first tempted me,” cried another, “had he not by fair and foul broken through all bounds, I would not have become a common chattel, nor would I have come to this infernal place;” and then would they lacerate themselves again.
I made all haste to leave their loathsome kennel, but I had not proceeded far before I observed, to my astonishment, another prison full of women, still more abominable; some had become frogs; some, dragons; some, serpents, and there they swam about, hissing and foaming, and butting one another, in a fœtid, stagnant pool that was much larger than Bala Lake. “Pray, what can these be?” asked I. “There are here,” said he, “four chief classes of women, not to mention their minions—Firstly: Panders, who maintained harlots to sell their virginity an hundred times, and the worst of these around them. Secondly: Mistresses of gossip, surrounded by thousands of tale-bearing hags. Thirdly: Huntresses followed by a pack of cowardly, skulking hounds, for no man ever dared approach them, unless in fear of them. Fourthly: The scolds, become a hundredfold more horrid than snakes, always grinding and gnashing their venomous stings.” “I would have deemed Lucifer too gracious a monarch to place a noble lady of my rank with these vulgar furies,” complained one, who much resembled the others, but was far more hideous than a winged serpent. “Oh, that he would send hither seven hundred of the basest demons of hell in exchange for thee, thou poisonous hellworm,” cried another ugly viper. “Many thanks to you,” quoth a gigantic devil, overhearing them, “we regard our place and worth as something better; though ye would cause everyone as much pain as we, yet we do not choose to be deprived of our office in your favor.” “And Lucifer hath another reason,” whispered the Angel, “for keeping strict guard over these, and that is, lest on breaking loose, they might send all hell into utter confusion.”
Thence we still descended until I saw an immense cavern wherein was such fearful clamor that I had never heard the like before—swearing, cursing, blaspheming, snarling, groaning and yelling. “Whom have we here?” I asked. “This,” answered he, “is the Den of Thieves; here are myriads of foresters, lawyers and stewards, with old Judas in their midst.” And it grieved them sorely to behold a pack of tailors and weavers above them in a more comfortable chamber. Hardly had I turned round when a demon, in the shape of a steed, bore in a physician, and an apothecary, and hurled them into the midst of the pedlars and horse cheats, because they had sold worthless drugs. And they too began murmuring against being allotted to such low society. “Stay, stay,” cried one of the devils, “ye deserve a better place,” and he pitched them down amongst conquerors and murderers. There were vast numbers in here for playing false dice and cheating at cards, but before I had time to observe them closely, I could hear by the door a huge crowd in wild tumult and shouts—hai, hw, ptrw-how-ho-o-o-p—as of cattle being driven along. I turned round to see the cause of it, but could perceive only the hornèd demons. I enquired of my Guide if there were cuckolds with the devils. “No,” said he, “they are in another cell; these are drovers who wished to escape to the prison of the Sabbath-breakers, and are sent here against their will.” Thereupon I look and saw that they had on their heads the horns of sheep and kine; and those that were driving them on, cast them down beneath the feet of blood-stained robbers. “Lie there,” said one, “however much ye feared footpads on the London road erstwhile, ye yourselves were the very worst class of highwaymen, who made your living on the road and on robbery, yea and by the perishing of many a poor family whom ye left in hunger, vainly hoping for the sustenance of their possessions, while ye were in Ireland or in the King’s Bench laughing at them, or on the road with your wine and lemans.” On leaving the furnace-like cave, I caught a glimpse of a haunt, which for loathsome, stinking abomination, went beyond anything (with one sole exception) that I had set my eyes upon in hell,—where an accursed herd of drunken swine lay weltering in the foulest slime.
The next den was the abode of Gluttony, where Dives and his companions, wallowing on their bellies, devoured dirt and fire alternately, with never a drop to drink. A little below this, was a very extensive roasting-kitchen, where some were being roasted and boiled, others broiling and flaming in a fiery chimney. “This is the place of the merciless and the unfeeling,” said the Angel. Turning a little to the left, where there was a cell lighter than any I had so far seen, I asked what place it was: “The abode of the Infernal Dragons,” said he, “which growl and rage, rush about and rend one another every instant.” I drew near and oh! what an indescribable sight they were! It was the glowing fire of their eyes that gave all that light. “These are the descendants of Adam,” said my Guide, “scolds and raving, wrathful men; but yonder are some of the ancient seed of the great Dragon, Lucifer;” but verily I could not perceive any difference in loveliness between them. In the next dungeon dwell the misers in awful torment, being linked by their hearts to chests of burning coin, the rust of which was consuming them without end, just as they had never thought of an end to the piling of them, and now they were tearing themselves to pieces with more than madness through grief and remorse. Below this was a charnel vault where some of the apothecaries had been ground down and stuffed into earthenware pots with Album graecum, dung, and many a stale ointment.