Mephistophiles,
desiring him to tell him some more of the secrets of hell; what pain the
damned are in, and how they were tormented; and whether the damned souls
might get again the favour of God, and so be released out of their
torments or not.

Whereupon the spirit answered: "My Faustus, thou mayst well leave to
question any more of such matters, for they will but disquiet thy mind;
I pray thee, what meanest thou, thinkest thou through these thy
fantasies to escape us? No, for if thou shouldst climb up to heaven,
there to hide thyself, yet would I thrust thee down again; for thou art
mine, and thou belongest to our society. Therefore, sweet Faustus, thou
wilt repent this thy foolish demand, except thou be content that I shall
tell thee nothing."

Quoth Faustus, ragingly: "I will know, or I will not live, wherefore
dispatch and tell me."

To whom Mephistophiles answered: "Faustus, it is no trouble unto me at
all to tell thee; and therefore since thou forcest me thereto, I will
tell thee things to the terror of thy soul, if thou wilt abide the
hearing: thou wilt have me to tell thee of the secrets of hell, and of
the pains thereof. Know, Faustus, that hell hath many figures,
semblances, and names; but it cannot be named or figured in such sort to
the living that are damned, as it is to those that are dead, and do both
see and feel the torments thereof: for hell is said to be deadly, out of
which came never any to life again but one, but he is nothing for thee
to reckon upon; hell is bloodthirsty, and is never satisfied: hell is a
valley into which the damned souls fall; for so soon as the soul is out
of man's body, it would gladly go to the place from whence it came, and
climbeth up above the highest hills, even to the heavens, where being by
the angels of the first model denied entertainment (in consideration of
their evil life spent on earth), they fall into the deepest pit or
valley, that hath no bottom, into a perpetual fire which shall never be
quenched; for like as the flint thrown in the water loseth not virtue,
neither is the fire extinguished, even so the hellish fire is
unquenchable: and even as the flint-stone in the fire burns red hot, and
consumeth not, so likewise the damned souls in our hellish fire are ever
burning, but their pain never diminishing. Therefore is hell called the
everlasting pain, in which is never hope for mercy; so it is called
utter darkness, in which we see neither the light, the s