Such Transcendent Poetry, Part II:

Dante's "Divine Comedy" is presented in three parts: Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradisio. In the Inferno, the most famous of the three, Dante the Pilgrim (still alive) invents the modern paradigm of "Hell," with its fires, demons, penitents -- and horror.

In a particularly chilling episode, Dante the Pilgrim witness a quintessentially hellish punishment. In "Hell" as we normally envision it, this is the exactly the sort of thing we would expect to see. Reading it gave me goosebumps:

From Canto XXV, the Inferno

Note: I've italicized my favorite bits.

Now if, my reader, you should hesitate

to believe what I shall say, there’s little wonder;

for I, the witness, scarcely can believe it.

***

The wounded thief stared speechless at the beast,

and standing motionless began to yawn

as though he needed sleep, or had a fever.

The snake and he were staring at each other;

one from his wound, the other from its mouth

fumed violently, and smoke with smoke was mingling.

***

The smoke from each was swirling round each other

and turned into the member man conceals,

while from the wretch’s member grew two legs.

The one rose up, the other sank, but neither

dissolved the bond between their evil stares,

fixed eye to eye, exchanging face for face;

the standing creature’s face began receding

toward the temples; from the excess stuff pulled back,

the ears were growing out of flattened cheeks,

while from the excess flesh that did not flee

the front, a nose was fashioned for the face,

and lips puffed out to just the normal size.

The prostrate creature strains his face out long

and makes his ears withdraw into its head,

the way a snail pull in its horns. The tongue,

that once had been one piece and capable

of forming words, divides into a fork,

while the other’s fork heals up. The smoke subsides.

The soul that had been changed into a beast

went hissing off along the valley’s floor,

the other close behind him, spitting words.

For full effect, you should read Canto XXV in its entirety. http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Divine_Comedy