The hell of waters! where they howl and hiss,

And boil in endless torture.

Lord Byron 1788-1824: Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iv. Stanza 69.

I live not in myself, but I become

Portion of that around me; and to me

High mountains are a feeling, but the hum

Of human cities torture.

Lord Byron 1788-1824: Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iii. Stanza 72.

Better be with the dead,

Whom we, to gain our peace, have sent to peace,

Than on the torture of the mind to lie

In restless ecstasy. Duncan is in his grave;

After life's fitful fever he sleeps well:

Treason has done his worst; nor steel, nor poison,

Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing,

Can touch him further.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Macbeth. Act iii. Sc. 2.

And torture one poor word ten thousand ways.

John Dryden (1631-1701): Britannia Rediviva. Line 208.