FLORRIE. I don't like it at all; I'll never go there.

L. I hope not, Florrie; or at least that you will get out again if
you do. And it is very difficult to get out, for beyond these
serpent forests there are great cliffs of dead gold, which form a
labyrinth, winding always higher and higher, till the gold is all
split asunder by wedges of ice; and glaciers, welded, half of ice
seven times frozen, and half of gold seven times frozen, hang down
from them, and fall in thunder, cleaving into deadly splinters,
like the Cretan arrowheads; and into a mixed dust of snow and
gold, ponderous, yet which the mountain whirlwinds are able to
lift and drive in wreaths and pillars, hiding the paths with a
burial cloud, fatal at once with wintry chill, and weight of
golden ashes. So the wanderers in the labyrinth fall, one by one,
and are buried there:--yet, over the drifted graves, those who are
spared climb to the last, through coil on coil of the path;--for
at the end of it they see the king of the valley, sitting on his
throne: and beside him (but it is only a false vision), spectra of
creatures like themselves, sit on thrones, from which they seem to
look down on all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them.
And on the canopy of his throne there is an inscription in fiery
letters, which they strive to read, but cannot; for it is written
in words which are like the words of all languages, and yet are of
none. Men say it is more like their own tongue to the English than
it is to any other nation; but the only record of it is by an
Italian, who heard the king himself cry it as a war cry, "Pape
Satan, Pape Satan Aleppe." [Footnote: Dante, Inf. 7, I.]

SIBYL. But do they all perish there? You said there was a way