Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 5.djvu/91

Rh regions. To this request, after much discussion pro and C071, the Society consented, and agreed to follow her guidance; they then proceeded to a somewhat darkened chamber, where, in place of a door, they found the open mouth of a serpent, the head of which filled all one side of the room; and having assembled around this door, while Cerberus kept barking, Ceres inquired if her lost child were there, and having received the reply that she was, the mother added that she desired to receive her daughter back.

But to this there came answer from Pluto to the effect that he would not give her up; this reply being accompanied by an invitation for Ceres and all her company to the nuptials, which were then about to be solemnized; and that bidding having been accepted, they all passed through the abovedescribed mouth, which was full of teeth, and, moving on hinges, permitted only two of the guests to pass at a time, after which it closed again. By degrees, however, the whole assembly got in, when they found themselves in a vast chamber of a circular form, which had but one small glimmer of light in the centre, and this burnt so faintly that the guests could not distinguish each other without difficulty; here they were forced into their seats, which surrounded a table covered with black, by a most hideous-looking devil, who drove each to his place with a huge toasting-fork, when Pluto commanded that, in honour of his wedding, the pains of hell should cease during all the time that those guests remained there, a command which was obeyed accordingly.

Now, around that chamber there had been painted all the gulphs and caverns of the regions of the damned, with their several pains and torments; in an instant therefore, and with the swiftness of a flash of lightning, fire being set to a match prepared for the purpose, there sprang up flames in each of those cavernous dungeons, when the mode and manner in which the dwellers in those dismal abodes were tormented became at once fully apparent.

The viands to be consumed at that infernal supper, moreover, were all presented under the forms of the most abominable, disgusting, and repulsive looking animals; but beneath the hideous co vering of pastry, or other materials, there were, in fact, concealed the most exquisite meats, in the richest and most costly variety. The skin, I say, and the external