All 9 Uses
abyss
in
Dante's Inferno -- translated by Longfellow
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- 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 1.1-11abyss = a hole or dropoff so deep the bottom cannot be seen -- often used figuratively to imply a frightening bottomless pit - 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?†Canto 1.23-34
Definitions:
-
(1)
(abyss) a hole or dropoff so deep the bottom cannot be seen -- often used figuratively to imply a frightening bottomless pit
- (2) (meaning too rare to warrant focus)