The earth dislodged by the cataclysm was forced
through an opening, a kind of nozzle of the funnel of Hell, to the
antipodes and it there emerged, forming a mountain, which became the
site of the Garden of Eden and Purgatory. The phenomenon made land in
the northern and water in the southern hemisphere. Here is the
description:
"Upon this side he fell down out of heaven
And all the land, that whilom here emerged
For fear of him made of the sea a veil
And came to our hemisphere; and peradventure
To flee from him, what on this side
Left the place vacant here and back recoiled."
(Inf., XXXIV, 121.)
The material structure of the Inferno is a series of nine concentric
circles--darkness brooding over the whole region,--with ledges, chasms,
pits, swamps and rivers. The rivers, though different in name and
aspect, appear to be one and the same stream winding its way through the
various circles. We see it first as the boundary of Hell proper and it
is known as the Acheron. It comes again to view in the fourth circle and
is called the Styx. In the seventh circle, second round, it emerges as
the red blood stream of Phlegethon. In the very depths of Hell it forms
the frozen lake of Cocytus.
Pages:
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131