The Visions of Dom Francisco de Quevedo Villegas. Francisco de Quevedo
in good time,” said the Father, “thou shalt have thy discharge; that is to say, in pity to this miserable creature, and not for thy own sake. But tell me now, what makes thee torment him thus?” “Nothing in the world,” quoth the devil, “but a contest betwixt him and me, which was the greater devil of the two.”
The conjurer did not at all relish these wild and malicious replies; but to me the dialogue was extreme pleasant, especially being by this time a little familiarized with the devil. “Upon which confidence, my good Father,” said I, “here are none but friends; and I may speak to you as my confessor, and the confidant of all the secrets of my soul; I have a great mind, with your leave, to ask the devil a few questions, and who knows but a man may be the better for his answers, though perchance contrary to his intention! keep him only in the interim from tormenting this poor creature.” The conjurer granted my request, and the spirit went on with his babble. “Well,” says he smiling, “the devil shall never want a friend at court, so long as there’s a poet within the walls. And indeed the poets do us many a good turn, both by pimping and otherwise; but if you,” said he, “should not be kind to us,” looking upon me, “you’ll be thought very ungrateful, considering the honour of your entertainment now in hell.” I asked him then what store of poets they had? “Whole swarms,” says the devil; “so many, that we have been forced to make more room for them: nor is there anything in nature so pleasant as a poet in the first year of his probation; he comes ye laden forsooth, with letters of recommendation to our superiors, and enquires very gravely for Charon, Cerberus, Rhadamanthus, Æacus, Minos.”
“Well,” said I, “but what’s their punishment?” (for I began now to make the poets’ case my own). “Their punishments,” quoth the devil, “are many, and suited to the trade they drive. Some are condemned to hear other men’s works: (and this is the plague of the fiddlers too) we have others that are in for a thousand year, and yet still poring upon some old stanzas they have made of jealousy. Some again are beating their foreheads with the palms of their hands, and even boring their very noses with hot irons, in rage that they cannot come to a resolution, whether they shall say face or visage; whether they shall write jail or gaol; whether cony or cunny, because it comes from cuniculus, a rabbit. Others are biting their nails to the quick, and at their wits’ end for a rime to chimney; and dozing up and down in a brown study, till they drop into some hole at last, and give us trouble enough to get them out again. But they that suffer the most, and fare the worst, are your comic poets, for whoring so many queens and princesses upon the stage, and coupling ladies of honour with lackeys, and noblemen with common strumpets, in the winding up of their plays; and for giving the bastinado to Alexander and Julius Cæsar in their interludes and farces. Now be it known to you, that we do not lodge these with other poets, but with pettifoggers and attorneys, as common dealers in the mystery of shifting, shuffling, forging, and cheating: and now for the discipline of hell, you are to understand we have incomparable harbingers and quartermasters; insomuch that let them come in whole caravans, as it happened t’other day, every man is in his quarter before you can say what’s this.
“There came to us several tradesmen; the first of them a poor rogue that made profession of drawing the long bow; and him we were about to put among the armourers, but one of the company moved and carried it, that since he was so good at draughts, he might be sent to the clerks and scriveners; a sort of people that will fit you with draughts, good and bad, of all sorts and sizes, and to all purposes. Another called himself a cutter, we asked him whether in wood or stone? ‘Neither,’ said he, ‘but in cloth and stuff’ (Anglicè a tailor); and him we turned over to those that were in for detraction and calumny, and for cutting large thongs out of other men’s leather. There was a blind fellow would fain have been among the poets, but (for likeness’ sake) we quartered him among the lovers. After him, came a sexton, or (as he styled himself) a burier of the dead; and then a cook that was troubled in conscience for putting off cats for hares: These were dispatched away to the pastry-men. A matter of half a dozen crack-brained fools we disposed of among the astrologers and alchymists. In the number, there was one notorious murderer, and him we packed away to the gentlemen of the faculty, the physicians. The broken merchants we kennelled with Judas for making ill bargains. Corrupt ministers and magistrates, with the thief on the left hand. The embroilers of affairs, and the water-bearers take up with the vintners; and the brokers with the Jews. Upon the whole matter, the policy of hell is admirable, where every man has his place according to his condition.”
“As I remember,” said I, “you were speaking e’en now concerning lovers. Pray tell me, have you many of them in your dominions? I ask, because I am myself a little subject to the itch of love, as well as poetry.” “Love,” says the devil, “is like a great spot of oil, that diffuses itself everywhere, and consequently hell cannot but be sufficiently stocked with that sort of vermin. But let me tell you now, we have several sorts of lovers; some dote upon themselves; others upon their pelf; these upon their own discourses; those upon their own actions; and once in an age perchance, comes a fellow that dotes upon his own wife; but this is very rare, for the jades commonly bring their husbands to repentance, and then the devil may throw his cap at them. But above all, for sport (if there can be any in hell) commend me to those gaudy monsieurs, who by the variety of colours and ribands they wear (favours as they call them) one would swear, were only dressed up for a sample, or kind of inventory of all the gewgaws that are to be had for love or money at the mercers. Others you shall have so overcharged with perruque, that you’ll hardly know the head of a cavalier from the ordinary block of a tire-woman: and some again you’d take for carriers, by their packets and bundles of love-letters; which being made combustible by the fire and flame they treat of, we are so thrifty, as to employ upon the singeing of their own tails, for the saving of better fuel. But, oh! the pleasant postures of the maiden-lover, when he is upon the practice of the gentle-leer, and embracing the air for his mistress! Others we have that are condemned for feeling and yet never come to the touch: these pass for a kind of buffoon pretenders; ever upon the vigil, but never arrive at the festival. Some again have lost themselves with Judas for a kiss.
“One story lower is the abode of contented cuckolds; a nasty poisonous place, and strewed all over with the horns of rams and bulls, etc. Now these are so well read in woman, and know their destiny so well beforehand, that they never so much as trouble their heads for the matter. Ye come next to the admirers of old women; and these are wretches of so depraved an appetite, that if they were not kept tied up, and in chains, they’d horse the very devils themselves, and put Barabbas to his trumps, to defend his buttocks: for the truth is, whatever you may think of a devil, he passes with them for a very Adonis or Narcissus.
“So much for your curiosity; a word now for your instruction. If you would make an interest in hell, you must give over that roguy way ye have got of abusing the devils in your shows, pictures, and emblems: one while forsooth we are painted with claws, or talons, like eagles, or griffons. Another while we are dressed up with tails, like so many hackney-jades with their fly-flaps: and now and then ye shall see a devil with a coxcomb. Now I will not deny, but some of us may indeed be very well taken for hermits, and philosophers. If you can help us in this point, do; and we shall be ready to do ye one good turn for another. I was asking Michael Angelo here a while ago, why he drew the devils in his great piece of the Last Judgment, with so many monkey faces, and jack-pudding postures. His answer was, that he followed his fancy, without any malice in the world, for as then, he had never seen any devils; nor (indeed) did he believe that there were any; but he has now learned the contrary to his cost. There’s another thing too we take extremely ill, which is, that in your ordinary discourses, ye are out with your purse presently to every rascal, and calling of him devil. As for example. Do you see how this devil of a tailor has spoiled my suit? how the devil has made me wait? how this devil has cozened me, etc., which is very ill done, and no small disparagement to our quality, to be ranked with tailors: a company of slaves, that serve us in hell only for brush-wood; and they are fain to beg hard to be admitted at all: though I confess they have possession on their sides, and custom, which is another law. Being in possession of theft, and stolen goods; they make much more conscience of keeping your stuffs, than your holy days, grumbling and domineering at every turn, if they have not the same respect with the children of the family. Ye have another trick, too, of giving everything to the devil, that displeases ye, which we cannot but take very unkindly. ‘The devil