2While these accounts all describe downward travels, Richard Crashaw’s translation of the first book of Marino’s poem on the Massacre of the Innocents, “Sospetto d’Herode” (abbreviated SH) and John Milton’s Paradise Lost (abbreviated PL) distinctively start in the underworld before introducing a fallen creature’s journey upwards, from Hell to earth. Crashaw’s “Sospetto d’Herode” starts with a description of Hell and Lucifer chained at the centre of the world, followed by his visions and his decision to send Cruelty to envenom Herod’s soul and have him murder the infant Jesus who threatens the fallen angel’s kingdom. Similarly, after a brief introduction of the subject of the epic and a conventional invocation of the heavenly muse, the action in PL begins with Satan and the other rebel angels, bound to a lake of fire in Hell, freeing themselves from their chains and setting foot on land. Here they discover minerals and erect their meeting place called Pandemonium where they discuss possible ways of retaliating. After mentioning God’s creation of a new world, Satan decides to leave Hell and fly up to this newly created place ruled by man, a journey related in Book II.

6A focus on materialism constitutes a second important trend in studies of Milton’s and Crashaw’s poetry. Ryken commented on Milton’s monism and on the material continuity between the visible and invisible worlds (35-42). Rumrich highlights Milton’s materialism arguing that Chaos is presented as the infinite material dimension of God and, similarly, according to Cummins, Milton’s God “refers to his own materiality when he tells the Son that chaos is ‘boundless’” and the allegorical figure of Night represents God’s “material identity” (84-85). Fallon examines Milton’s thought in light of Descartes and Hobbes’ competing philosophical systems to demonstrate the “unequivocal materialist monism” of Paradise Lost (97): “Spirit and matter become for Milton two modes of the same substance: spirit is rarefied matter, and matter is dense spirit. All things, from insensate objects through souls, are manifestations of this one substance” (79). Through the “aggressive materiality” of Paradise Lost (Lehnhof 439), scatology signals damnable degradation but also, paradoxically, goodness: “In keeping with his materialist convictions, Milton fuses the corporeal and the spiritual, projecting digestive and evacuative bodily processes onto the divine as well as the demonic” (447).

9Intimately linked to the notion of ut pictura poesis, the term “landscape” was introduced in English as a technical term used by painters, defined as a view of natural inland scenery or as a picture or painting of it (OED). A consideration of the actual place occupied by Hell in the physical space of the cosmos described in both poems will provide us with a description of Hell as it is generally conceived. The accumulation of physical references drawn from shared cultural and theological background will show the way hypotyposes, representations “made in such vivid language that they appeal to the eye rather than the ear” (Quintilian, 397) and copia work conjointly to help readers visualise Hell. Finally, the analysis of concrete anatomical metaphors will underline the materiality of the infernal landscapes perceived by the reader.

The location of Hell

10“Sospetto d’Herode” begins at the time of Christ’s birth with Lucifer plotting his revenge and instilling fear and jealousy in the heart of Herod to have him murder all new-born babes, the first book of Paradise Lost presents Satan and the other apostate angels fallen into Hell before the creation of the world described in Genesis. Crashaw’s geocentric universe therefore markedly differs from Milton’s mythical pre-creative cosmos in which Hell is found beyond chaos, in the outer reaches of a universe potentially comprising many worlds.

11Hell is described in the fifth stanza of “Sospetto d’Herode”:

• 8 Quotations are all from Crashaw 1972 [1970].

Below the Botome of the great Abysse,
There where one Center reconciles all things;
The worlds profound Heart pants; There placed is
Mischifes old Master, close about him clings
A curl’d knot of embracing Snakes, that kisse
His correspondent cheekes: these loathsome strings
Hold the perverse Prince in eternall Ties
Fast bound, since first he forfeited the skies8.

13These different conceptions stem from distinct traditions. Crashaw’s vision is in keeping with the medieval representation of the entire cosmos revolving around Hell, a representation which was derived from classical descriptions of the underworld that came to be adopted and adapted by the Christian community. It is best summarised by Arthur Lovejoy in The Great Chain of Being:

For the centre of the world was not a position of honor; it was rather the place farthest removed from the Empyrean, the bottom of the creation, to which its dregs and baser elements sank. The actual centre, indeed, was Hell; in the spatial sense the medieval world was literally diabolocentric. (101-102)

14The archetypical literary depiction of Hell at the core of the earth is provided by Dante for whom Lucifer dwells in “the middle, at whose point unites / All heavy substance” (170). The contiguity of Hell and earth is also visually underscored in an emblem by Francis Quarles depicting the fiery heart of the earth awaiting the slothful: man is sitting on a sphere representing the earth. A portion of the crust has been removed to reveal sulphurous flames, the devil and three infernal creatures (28).

[I]f the Hell of the damned is indeed the same as that which had been prepared for the devil and his angels, as said above in Matt. 25: 41, and [if] the apostasy of the devil took place before the fall of man, it is unlikely that Hell should be prepared within the world, and in the bowels of an earth not yet cursed. (Milton 2012, 893)

16Milton then explicitly draws from the authority of John Chrysostom who, indeed, located Hell “out of the pale of this world” in his thirty-first homily on Paul’s Letters to the Romans:

And where (it is said) and in what place is this Hell? For some fablers say that it is in the valley of Josaphat, thus drawing that which was said about a certain by-gone war, to apply to Hell. But the Scripture does not say this. But in what place, pray, will it be? Somewhere as I think at least quite out of the pale of this world. For as the prisons and mines are at a great distance from royal residences, so will Hell be somewhere out of this world. (558)

17Despite this fundamental difference between Crashaw and Milton, we find a similar emphasis on the verticality of the cosmos. The relative position of Heaven and Hell implies that Hell is located as far from Heaven as possible. In “Sospetto d’Herode,” the rhyme “ties” / “skies” (st. 5) highlights the distance separating Lucifer and Heaven. In Paradise Lost, Hell is “As far removed from God and light of Heav’n / As from the centre thrice to th’ utmost pole.” (I, 73-74). Although the distance is hyperbolically multiplied by three, the mathematical simile comparing their journey to a line drawn from the periphery of a sphere to its centre is indeed reminiscent of the geocentric cosmos and might even echo Crashaw’s line “There where one Centre reconciles all things” (SH, st. 5). Indeed, as Schaar contends, “reconcile” must be understood in its geometric sense as “the centre [which] unites the radii from the periphery of the universe and thus brings its parts into harmony” (1971, 102).

18Images of verticality and katabatic references establish a similar link between Hell and Heaven to emphasise how low and far from Heaven the angels have fallen. The hyperbolic expression “below the Botome of the great Abysse” (SH, st. 5) reinforces the image of the bottomless pit suggested by the “great Abysse” and strikingly highlights the depth of Hell. In Paradise Lost, enjambments, parallel structures and repetitions similarly amplify the downward movement of the damned angels:

[...] down they fell
Driv’n headlong from the pitch of Heaven, down
Into this Deep, [...] (II, 771-773)

19This description echoes the first mention of their fall which hyperbolically lasted “Nine times the space that measures day and night / To mortal men” (I, 50-51). Hell is therefore the lowest point in the cosmos and as such it is also the heaviest and least ethereal. Devoid of lightness, even the air seems to solidify when Lucifer flies “Aloft, incumbent on the dusky air / That felt unusual weight” (I, 226-227). Milton’s materialism seems to imply that although the spiritual and the material are one substance, hell is made of the least spiritual of all.

20In “Sospetto d’Herode” as well as in Paradise Lost, the poetic voice reinforces the materiality of Hell by locating it as far from Heaven as possible. Both representations of the cosmos are indebted to Aristotle’s conception of natural bodies and its expression in the medieval philosophy of the contemptus mundi according to which the world has been corrupt since the Fall. According to Aristotle, the heaviest elements gather at the centre of the world which constitutes the bottom of the earthly sphere. Earth being the least pure element, it is altogether deprived of lightness and “earthy things sink to the bottom of all things and move towards the centre” (1922, 311b). The Christian spiritual tradition adapted the distinction between the elements described in Antiquity by associating earth as matter but also as a planet with heaviness and the flesh. In its first letter, John thus encourages men to refrain from earthly pleasures which only lead to damnation: “For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father but is of the world.” (1Jn 2: 16). Inspired by this conception of the world, Bernard of Cluny, amongst others, underlined the strong link between the body, the flesh and the earth as a planet and as an element in order to vilify everything that is related to the earth: “He is flesh made of earth, earthly flesh, smoke, a shadow, a lump of rottenness” (63). Hence the explicit allusion to the fact that the earth belongs to Satan (SH, Argomento: “he whose Birth / Meanes Heav’n, should meddle with his Earth”) and the enumeration of correspondences between infernal landscapes and earthy analogues, “Rocks, caves, lakes, fens, bogs, dens and shades of death” (PL, II, 621).

21Furthermore, insofar as infernal landscapes are intimately linked to the architecture of Hell, the physical properties of adamant, one of the materials mentioned in both poems, reinforce the distance between heaven and Hell. Adamant describes some hard rock and its association with sin and Satan is explicated in the definition of “stony heart” in Thomas Wilson’s Christian Dictionarie:

This is the Brazen fore-head, the Iron sinnew, the stony hart, the hart of Adamant, which nothing can bow, nor break; neither promises, nor threatnings; blessings, nor afflictions. It is called Rom. 2, 5. An Heart that cannot repent. Vnto which Estate men come by long custome of sinne. This hard Hart, comes by the iudgement of God: Secondly, by the malice of Satan: thirdly, by the peruerse wil of man (220).

Physical properties and tangibility of Hell

23In Paradise Lost, the first vision of Hell occurs in Book One when Lucifer contemplates the dismal landscape surrounding him:

At once as far as angels’ ken he views
The dismal situation waste and wild,
A dungeon horrible, on all sides round
As one great furnace flamed, yet from those flames
No light, but rather darkness visible
Served only to discover sights of woe,
Regions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace
And rest can never dwell, hope never comes
That comes to all; but torture without end
Still urges, and a fiery deluge, fed
With ever-burning sulphur unconsumed:
Such place Eternal Justice had prepared
For those rebellious, here their prison ordained
In utter darkness (I, 59-72)

24“[H]e views” introduces the elaborate hypotyposis describing the main physical characteristics of the infernal landscape and the correspondent lexical field of vision (“visible,” “sights,”). Emptiness and depth are suggested by “Dungeon” which could refer to a “secure cell, underground chamber, or pit for the confinement of prisoners [c1390]” (OED). Besides, “utter” must also be understood in the spatial sense of “indefinitely remote, farther out” but also in the physical one of “complete, extreme,” thus combining the topoï of distance and darkness. A second salient feature is the emphasis on darkness with the paradox “darkness visible” or the enjambment “from those flames / No light” underscoring the negation. Finally, the prevalence of fire is underscored by the polyptoton “flamed” / “flames”, given vocal prominence by the alliterations line 62, as well as by the oxymoron “fiery Deluge” and the antithesis “ever-burning sulphur unconsumed” echoing the Christian paradox of eternal fire expanded upon by Augustine in Book XXI of The City of God, especially with the concrete natural analogies describing the effect of fire on salamanders, charcoal, diamonds or lime to demonstrate that bodies may remain unconsumed and alive to burn eternally in Hell’s fire (417-420). A lexical field of ruin or mourning properly endows the place with its characteristic evil and pernicious quality (“dismal,” “horrible,” “waste and wild,” “woe,” “doleful”).

25These properties, already found in “Sospetto d’Herode,” are repeated throughout Paradise Lost. In both poems, the hollowness of Hell is hinted at through numerous references to emptiness but also to its representation as a hollow sphere. Milton mentions “Hell’s concave” (I, 542) and “the fiery concave” (II, 635); it is therefore a cavity, the surface of which is curved like the interior of a sphere. Hell is also “this huge convéx of fire”, a spherical prison which “immures” the fallen angels “round” (II, 434-435), and the voice also refers to “this vast recess” (PL II, 254) and “the hollow abyss” (II, 518). Besides, the vacuity of Hell is amplified by numerous references to depth and the topos of the bottomless abyss alluded to in the fifth stanza of “Sospetto d’Herode” and recurring throughout Paradise Lost: “bottomless perdition” (I, 45); “fiery gulf” (I, 52); “infernal pit” (I, 657 and II, 850), “The dark unbottomed infinite abyss” (II, 405). Hell is repeatedly referred to as “the deep” (II, 79), “the great deep” (I, Argument), “the gloomy deep” (I, 152) or “the vast and boundless deep” (I, 177), “this abhorrèd deep” (II, 87), the noun or adjective occurring more than 80 times throughout the epic. Hyperbolic descriptions also include mentions of the “deepest Hell” (V, 542) or the phrase “in the lowest deep a lower deep” (IV, 76).

26References to the propagation of sound tangibly materialise the hollowness of Hell: “He called so loud, that all the hollow deep / Of Hell resounded” (I, 314-315), “Hell trembled at the hideous Name, and sighed / From all her Caves, and back resounded Death” (II, 788-789). In “Sospetto d’Herode” the voice mentions “the hollow vaults of Night” (st. 19) and the propagation of sound already highlights the emptiness of the place:

Thrice howl’d the Caves of Night, and thrice the sound,
Thundring upon the bankes of those black lakes
Rung, through the hollow vaults of Hell profound: (st. 38)

27Secondly, darkness is prevalent in both poems. In “Sospetto d’Herode,” the “dimme / Aire” is embraced with a “dismall shade” (st. 18), the expression “dark House of Shades, horror and Night” (st. 27) amplifies the “sad shades” mentioned a few stanzas further up (st. 11). Darkness is endowed with concrete materiality when the voice refers to black carbonaceous substance in stanza 34, “these thy sooty Kingdomes,” but also in Paradise Lost, when the speaker mentions “soot and cinders” (X, 570). In addition, the adjective “palpable” found in the expression “the palpable obscure” (II, 406)) describes the intensity of obscurity as well as its tangibility by suggesting that it can actually be touched by one’s fingers.

28Finally, references to fire abound in both poems. In “Sospetto d’Herode,” Lucifer fills “a burnisht Throne of quenchlesse fire” (st. 6) and we find “sulphur-breathed Torches” (st. 50). In Paradise Lost, the voice describes “the Sulphurous Hail” (I, 171), the “burning marl” (I, 296), or “the firm brimstone” (I, 350). The adjectives all describe the concrete physical properties of the elements described. Characteristically, fires in the underworld shed no light. The metaphor “gloomy Mantle of dark flames” (SH, st. 6) is evocative of the absence of light and when the speaker describes the “black” woods surrounding Cruelty’s house, he enjoins readers to see “obscurely” to highlight the fact that the flames burning in Hell shed no light: “Through the thick shades obscurely might you see” (st. 44). This idea is also found in Paradise Lost: “from those flames / No light, but rather darkness visible” (PL I, 62-63). The paradox of “darkness visible” was a well-known theological commonplace found notably in Gregory the Great’s Moralia or Basil’s and Ambrose’s homilies on the six days of the Creation (Steadman, 121-128). These theological discussions focused on the question of the materiality of darkness and were summarised by Thomas of Aquinas in his Summa Theologica (III. Suppl. Q. 74, A.6): “Consequently in hell the place must be so disposed for seeing as regards light and darkness, that nothing be seen clearly, and that only such things be dimly seen as are able to bring anguish to the heart” (quoted in Steadman 125).

29Interestingly, if we come across a reference to “black lakes” in Crashaw’s poem (st. 38), echoing depictions of the infernal waters of the Greek underworld, Styx, Lethe, Acheron, Phlegethon and Cocytus. Milton explicitly names those rivers and the description he offers in Book II is far more evocative:

Four ways their flying march, along the banks
Of four infernal rivers that disgorge
Into the burning Lake their baleful streams;
Abhorrèd Styx the flood of deadly hate,
Sad Acheron of sorrow, black and deep;
Cocytus, named of lamentation loud
Heard on the rueful stream; fierce Phlegethon
Whose waves of torrent fire inflame with rage.
Far off from these a slow and silent stream,
Lethe the River of Oblivion rolls
Her wat’ry labyrinth [...] (II, 574-584)

30While Crashaw’s “black lakes” reasserts the darkness of the underworld, Milton combines references to fire and liquidity through the oxymorons “burning lake” and “torrent fire.” The materiality of infernal landscapes is therefore intensified and rendered more complex in Paradise Lost by the recurrent association of different elements. Indeed, the speaker similarly mentions “fiery waves” (I, 184), a “burning lake” (I, 210) or “lake of fire” (I, 255), but also “inflamèd sea” (I, 300) and “floods and whirlwinds of tempestuous fire” (I, 77). In addition, when Lucifer first sets foot on firm land, the lines “He lights, if it were Land that ever burn'd / With solid, as the Lake with liquid fire;” (I, 228-229) tend to harmonise infernal landscapes, whether made of earth or water, through fire.

31Darkness, depth, hollowness, fire, water. Those properties are not uncommon and we find them in most classical texts dealing with the underworld as well as in the Scripture. Hell is predominantly dark in Homer’s Odyssey. In Book XI, Hell is said to be composed of “dark regions” (155) and before Ulysses’s journey into the underworld, the voice mentions “the dark descent” (149) and “the dark rock [which] o’erhangs the infernal lake” (150). Similarly, Matthew alludes to infernal torments endured by the dead in a place of “outer darkness”: “But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Mt 8: 12). Hell is profound in Virgil’s Aeneid where we find references to the “deep abyss” (174), “the monstrous cave” and “vast abyss” (246), as well as in the Pauline epistles (Rom. 10: 7: “the deep,” Eph. 4: 8: “lower parts of the earth.”). Likewise, the inner part of the earth consists of a network of communicating caves and hollow recesses in Plato’s Phaedo (98-100), a topos recurring in Dante’s Hell (75, 93, 96, 154), Satan’s den being synthetically described as a “hollow vale” (104). Finally, it is mostly fiery in the Gospels. Luke alludes to the torments experienced in Hell by using the synecdoche “this flame” (Luke 16: 24) and Mark repeatedly mentions “the fire that never shall be quenched” (Mark 9: 43 and 9: 45) as well as “hell fire” (Mark 9: 47). In the Book of Revelation, John describes the “lake of fire, burning with brimstone” (Rev. 19: 20) and the “lake which burneth with fire and brimstone” (Rev. 21: 8).

32However, while they occur separately, here and there, in those texts, the repetition and amplification of these features in the poems under study strengthen the vividness of Crashaw’s and Milton’s depictions of Hell. The recurrence of the same properties, frequently with the same words or phrases, participates in an expansive rhetoric of copia helping readers visualise the scene through abundant and rich descriptions of Hell. As Erasmus expounds in On Copia of Words and Ideas, the rhetorical figure of evidentia is a powerful method of amplification: “we do not state a thing simply, but set it forth to be viewed as though portrayed in color on a tablet, so that it may seem that we have painted, not narrated, and that the reader has seen, not read” (47). Both poems emphasise the materiality of Hell. Its concrete physicality finds a most pregnant expression in the poetic representation of infernal landscapes through metaphorical references to human anatomy.

Anatomical metaphors

33Likening poetry and painting in his Poetics, Aristotle distinguishes between three ways of representing things:

Since a poet is an imitator, as well as a painter or any taker of likenesses, it is necessary that he should imitate, always some one of these three things: he will represent things either such as they are or were, such as people call them, or they appear, or such as they ought to be. And these are related, in common expressions, in foreign terms, or in metaphor (1819, 66).

35Strikingly ambivalent body metaphors assimilating hell to a heart or a womb turn upside down generally positively connoted topoï to use them in a negative, infernal, context, thus offering readers a point of comparison with their own body and physical experience to intensify their visualisation of the concrete materiality of Lucifer’s abode.

36In Crashaw’s poem, Hell is assimilated to a human heart: “The worlds profound Heart pants” (st. 5). From an anatomical perspective, the metaphor underlines the centrality of the heart as well as its motor function as a source of heat and as a means of initiating blood circulation. The physiological function of the heart is underscored by the verb “pant” which specifically describes the movements of the heart and translates the Latin palpĭto defined by Thomas Thomas as “To pant or rise often, as the hart or braine doth, to mooue, leape, daunce, or stirre: to throbbe” (n/a).

38In “Sospetto d’Herode,” the centrality of the heart is related to the interpenetration of the topoï of depth and of internal fire. The metaphor assimilates Hell, the centre of the universe, and the heart, the centre of the body. Cardiocentrism is congruent with geocentrism, yet the appreciative anatomical representation is superseded by an infernal vision permeated with theology. When the voice describes the effect produced by the Erinyes on Herod’s heart, it is assimilated to a forge:

She comes to th’ King and with her cold hand slakes
His Spirits, the Sparkes of Life, and chills his heart,
Lifes forge [...] (st. 53)

39This literal allusion to a physiological phenomenon subtly echoes the infernal architecture described a few stanzas further up:

In this sad House of slow Destruction,
(His shop of flames) hee fryes himselfe, beneath
A masse of woes, [...] (st. 8)

40In these lines, “masse” refers to an unspecified body of matter and endows Lucifer’s surroundings with concrete materiality. “Slow destruction” and “fryes” describe processes matter may undergo and indeed this “sad House” is metaphorically assimilated to a forge. References to the heart thus echo one another to reinforce the assimilation of infernal landscapes and human anatomy, which almost enables readers to feel what Hell might be like.

42A second body metaphor describing infernal landscapes is that of the womb. In Paradise Lost, we find anatomical references to Eve’s “fruitful womb” (V, 388), to Mary’s, from which “the Son / Of God Most High” would proceed (XII, 381-382) as well as to Mother Earth when the creation of the earth is described:

The earth was formed, but in the womb as yet
Of waters, embryon immature involved,
Appeared not: over all the face of earth
Main ocean flowed, not idle, but with warm
Prolific humour soft’ning all her globe,
Fermented the Great Mother to conceive,
Satiate with genial moisture [...] (VII, 276-282)

43In both cases, although the reference is explicitly anatomical, one finds implicit metaphorical implications reminiscent of the commonplace topos of mother earth. The Greeks already associated earth and motherhood through the mythological figure of Gaia and many beliefs establish a link between earth and fecundity. For Mircea Eliade, the divine couple Heaven/Earth, which is actually one of the most compelling recurrent themes of universal mythology, assimilates the earth to a mother giving birth to living organisms: “la terre est Mère, c’est-à-dire qu’elle engendre des formes vivantes en les tirant de sa propre substance” (219). Those explicitly corporal and natural references are positively connoted to describe a source of life, salvation and abundance. However, this meliorative conception of Mother Earth, also expounded upon by Eliade, is subverted in the description of Chaos as “The womb of Nature and perhaps her grave” (II, 911) and in the eschatological body landscape of Hell, for instance when the land Lucifer first sets foot on is compared to Mount Etna:

[...] thund’ring Etna, whose combustible
And fuelled entrails thence conceiving fire,
Sublimed with mineral fury, aid the winds,
And leave a singèd bottom all involved
With stench and smoke: [...] (I, 233-237)

which God by curse
Created evil, for evil only good,
Where all life dies, death lives, and nature breeds,
Perverse, all monstrous, all prodigious things, (II, 622-625)

47Both the heart as a source of internal fire enabling life and the womb as a source of life are subverted in a vision implying the corruption of an originally good and familiar model to convey the horrid materiality of infernal landscapes, an aspect appreciable in “Sospetto d’Herode” and considerably elaborated upon in Milton’s Paradise Lost.

48Milton may not have read Crashaw and finding precise intertextual echoes or allusions will always remain an elusive and ultimately uncertain endeavour. As the poetic voice invoking celestial light in order to be able to “see and tell / Of things invisible to mortal sight” suggests, (PL, III, 54-55), Paradise Lost aims to describe what is beyond human visual perception. By providing information about the location of Hell, by repeatedly alluding to the physical properties of infernal landscapes and by intensifying the vividness of their descriptions through ambivalent anatomical metaphors, the speakers of “Sospetto d’Herode” and Paradise Lost help readers visualize Lucifer’s dwelling place even as they underline the materiality of Hell. In Paradise Lost, the accumulation and repetition of references to the material properties of the underworld and to the perverse body landscape of Hell, already conspicuously noticeable in “Sospetto d’Herode” and drawn from classical texts, the Scriptures or patristic exegesis, amplify the vivid description of Hell to present this place in its horrid physicality. Thus, an early poem by a relatively minor poet resonates in a masterpiece written several decades later, a process which could be aptly paraphrased by a couple of lines from Donne’s “Love’s Growth”: “as, in water stirred, more circles be / Produced by one” (21-22).