All 9 Uses of
abyss
in
Dante's Inferno -- translated by Longfellow
- The heavens expelled them, not to be less fair; Nor them the nethermore abyss receives, For glory none the damned would have from them.†
Canto 1.1-11
- Thus he went in, and thus he made me enter The foremost circle that surrounds the abyss.†
Canto 1.1-11 *
- Not causeless is this journey to the abyss; Thus is it willed on high, where Michael wrought Vengeance upon the proud adultery.†
Canto 1.1-11
- Inferno: Canto XI Upon the margin of a lofty bank Which great rocks broken in a circle made, We came upon a still more cruel throng; And there, by reason of the horrible Excess of stench the deep abyss throws out, We drew ourselves aside behind the cover Of a great tomb, whereon I saw a writing, Which said: "Pope Anastasius I hold, Whom out of the right way Photinus drew."†
Canto 1.1-11
- When the exasperated soul abandons The body whence it rent itself away, Minos consigns it to the seventh abyss.†
Canto 1.12-22
- After I this had all from me unloosed, As my Conductor had commanded me, I reached it to him, gathered up and coiled, Whereat he turned himself to the right side, And at a little distance from the verge, He cast it down into that deep abyss.†
Canto 1.12-22
- Then was I still more fearful of the abyss; Because I fires beheld, and heard laments, Whereat I, trembling, all the closer cling.†
Canto 1.12-22
- But lightly in the abyss, which swallows up Judas with Lucifer, he put us down; Nor thus bowed downward made he there delay, But, as a mast does in a ship, uprose.†
Canto 1.23-34
- "Ere from the abyss I tear myself away, My Master," said I when I had arisen, "To draw me from an error speak a little; Where is the ice? and how is this one fixed Thus upside down? and how in such short time From eve to morn has the sun made his transit?"†
Canto 1.23-34
Definition:
-
(abyss) a hole or dropoff so deep the bottom cannot be seen -- often used figuratively to imply a frightening bottomless pit