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An Angel came to me and said: 'O pitiable, foolish young man! О
horrible! О dreadful state! Consider the hot, burning dungeon thou art
preparing for thyself to all Eternity, to which thou art going in such
career.'
I said: 'Perhaps you will be willing to show me my eternal lot, and
we will contemplate together upon it, and see whether your lot or mine is
most desirable.'
So he took me thro' a stable, and thro' a church, and down into the
church vault, at the end of which was a mill. Thro' the mill we went, and
came to a cave. Down the winding cavern we groped our tedious way, till a
void boundless as a nether sky appear'd beneath us, and we held by the roots
of trees, and hung over this immensity. But I said: 'If you please, we will
commit ourselves to this void, and see whether Providence is here also. If
you will not, I will.' But he answer'd: 'Do not presume, О young man, but as
we here remain, behold thy lot which will soon appear when the darkness
passes away.'
So I remain'd with him, sitting in the twisted root of an oak. He was
suspended in a fungus, which hung with the head downward into the deep.
By degrees we beheld the infinite Abyss, fiery as the smoke of a
burning city; beneath us, at an immense distance, was the sun, black but
shining; round it were fiery tracks on which revolv'd vast spiders,
crawling after their prey, which flew, or rather swum, in the infinite deep,
in the most terrific shapes of animals sprung from corruption; and the air
was full of them, and seem'd composed of them-these are Devils, and are
called Powers of the Air. I now asked my companion which was my eternal lot?
He said: 'Between the black and white spiders.'
But now, from between the black and white spiders, a cloud and fire
burst and rolled thro' the deep, blackening all beneath; so that the nether
deep grew black as a sea, and rolled with a terrible noise. Beneath us was
nothing now to be seen but a black tempest, till looking East between the
clouds and the waves we saw a cataract of blood mixed with fire, and not
many stones' throw from us appear'd and sunk again the scaly fold of a
monstrous serpent. At last, to the East, distant about three degrees,
appear'd a fiery crest above the waves. Slowly it reared like a ridge of
golden rocks, till we discover'd two globes of crimson fire, from which the
sea fled away in clouds of smoke; and now we saw it was the head of
Leviathan. His forehead was divided into streaks of green and purple like
those on a tiger's forehead. Soon we saw his mouth and red gills hang just
above the raging foam, tinging the black deep with beams of blood, advancing
toward us with all the fury of a Spiritual Existence.
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