WHAT IS HELL? It may be relative. However happy you may be now, maybe it is Hell if
being with God is good enough. That's the idea of Dante's First Circle (for the virtuous
pagans), I think. I saw this expressed well in Marlowe's Doctor Faustus, I-iii:
MEPHISTOPHELES. Unhappy spirits that fell with Lucifer,
FAUSTUS. Where are you damn'd?
MEPHISTOPHELES. In hell.
FAUSTUS. How comes it, then, that thou art out of hell?
MEPHISTOPHELES. Why, this is hell, nor am I out of it:
FAUSTUS. What, is great Mephistophilis so passionate
FAUSTUS. And what are you that live with Lucifer?
The last lines show the folly of the novice sinner, and a few sins too-- pride, malice,
and presumption.
Conspir'd against our God
with Lucifer,
And are for ever damn'd with Lucifer.
Think'st thou that I, that
saw the face of God,
And tasted the eternal joys of heaven,
Am not tormented
with ten thousand hells,
In being depriv'd of everlasting bliss?
O, Faustus,
leave these frivolous demands,
Which strike a terror to my fainting soul!
For being deprived of the joys
of heaven?
Learn thou of Faustus manly fortitude,
And scorn those joys thou
never shalt possess...
[ http://php.indiana.edu/~erasmuse/w/03.08.09a.htm ]