Monday, September 14, 2015

On the Hell Monster Archeron

"Tundale, an Irish nobleman, envisioned hell as a titanic monster, Archeron, with two sinners propped up in its mouth like caryatid columns to hold the gaping maw (which would allow nine thousand men to pass through at once) open. One of the "pillars" was upside down. The monster had three gullets, all issuing for constant inextinguishable fire and the lamentations of the numberless, devoured condemned. (I imagine this as sounding like a minor, complex chord.) Being dragged inside by a guiding angel, Tundale experienced tears, fog and mist, the crushing sound of teeth, and glacial cold as well as (of course) an unbearable burning sensation."

http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/foster-three-purgatory-poems-vision-of-tundale

From Jorge Luis Borges, The Book of Imaginary Beings

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