And when the voices had ceased the man made a sign with his hand, and of a sudden the waters of the Lys rose as if God had lifted up the river-bed. And the river became like a rough sea; but the waves did not roll on the quay, but each lifted separately, bearing on its crest a foam of fire. Then each of these flames rose into the air, drawing up the water like a pillar, and there seemed to poor Smetse and his wife and the men to be hundreds of thousands of these pillars of water, swaying and foaming.
Then each pillar took on the form of a fearful animal, and suddenly there appeared, mingled together, striking and wounding one another, all the devils whose work was to torment poor damned souls. There were to be seen, crawling over crooked and shivering men’s legs, monstrous crabs, devouring those who were servile in their lives. Near these crabs were ostriches bigger than horses, who ran along flapping their wings. Under their tails they had laurel-wreaths, sceptres, and crowns, and behind their tails were made to run those men who in our world spent all their time running after vain honours, without a care for doing good. And the ostriches went quicker than the wind, while the men ran without respite behind them in the effort to get the wreaths, crowns, and sceptres; but they could never reach them. In this way they were led to a treacherous pond full of loathsome mud, wherein they fell shamefully and stayed stuck for all eternity, whilst the mocking ostriches walked up and down on the bank dangling their bawbles.
Among the ostriches were squadrons of many-coloured apes, diapered like butterflies, whose concern was with miserly Jewish and Lombard usurers. These men, when they entered hell, looked round them carefully, screwing up their eyes under their spectacles, collected from the ground divers rusty nails, old breeches, filthy rags, buttons showing the wood, and other old stuff, then dug a hole hastily, hid their treasures in it and went off to sit down some way away. The apes, seeing this, would leap on the hole, empty out its content, and throw it into the fire. Then the misers would weep, make lamentations, and be beaten by the apes, and at last go off to find some more secret place, hide there once again their new depredations, and see once again the hole emptied and the apes coming once again to beat them, and so on for all eternity.
In the air, above the apes, soared eagles, who had, instead of a beak, four-and-twenty matchlock barrels firing together. These eagles were called Royal, because their concern was with conqueror princes, who were too fond in their lifetime of the sounds of war and cannon. And for their punishment these matchlocks were fired off in their faces again and again throughout eternity.
Besides the ostriches, apes, and eagles, reared up a great serpent with a bear’s coat, who writhed and twisted this way and that. He was of great length and breadth, beyond all measure, and had a hundred thousand hairy arms, in each of which he held an iron pike as sharp as a razor. He was called the Spaniards’ Serpent, because in hell it was his task to gash about with his pikes without mercy all the bands of traitor pillagers who had despoiled our good country.
Keeping clear of this serpent with great prudence, darted about mischievous little winged pigs whose tails were eels. These tails were designed for the perpetual teazing of such gluttons as came to hell. For the pig would come up to such a one, hold the eel close to his mouth, and, when he tried to bite it, suddenly fly away from him, and so on throughout eternity.
There were to be seen also, marching up and down in their gorgeous feathers, monstrous peacocks. Whenever some vain dandy came their way, giving himself airs in his fine clothes, one of these peacocks would go to him and spread its tail, as if inviting him to pluck out a fine feather for his bonnet. But as soon as the dandy approached to take his feather, Master Peacock would let fly in his face with filthy and evil-smelling water, which spoilt all his fine clothes. And throughout eternity the dandy would try to get the feather, and throughout eternity be so swilled down.
Among these fearful animals, wandered two by two male and female grasshoppers as big as a man, the one playing on a pipe, and the other brandishing a great knotted stick. Whenever they saw a man who, in his lifetime, leapt, by cowardice, from good to evil, from black to white, from fire to water, always on the side of the strongest, these grasshoppers would go to him, and one would play the pipe, while the other, leaning on his stick with great dignity, would say: “Leap for God,” and the man would leap; “Leap for the Devil,” and the man would leap again; “Leap for Calvin, leap for the Mass, leap for the goat, leap for the cabbage,” and the man would keep leaping. But he never leapt high enough for the liking of the grasshopper with the stick, and so he was each time belaboured in a most pitiless manner. And he leapt without ceasing and was belaboured without respite, while the pipe made continual pleasant music, and so on throughout eternity.
Farther on, naked and lying on cloths of gold, silk, and velvet, covered with pearls and a thousand resplendent gems, more beautiful than the most beautiful ladies of Ghent, Brussels, or Bruges, lascivious and smiling, singing, and playing on sweet instruments, were the wives of the devils. These dealt out punishment to old rakes, corrupters of youth and beauty. To them these she-devils would call out amorously, but they could never get near them. Throughout eternity these poor rakes had to look at them without being able to touch them even with the tip of the nail of their little finger. And they wept and made lamentation, but all in vain, and so on through centuries and centuries.
There were also mischievous little devils with drums, made of the skins of hypocrites, whose masks hung down over the drum case as ornament. And the hypocrites to whom they belonged, without their skins, without their masks, in all their ugliness, ashamed, hooted, hissed, spat at, eaten up by horrible flies, and followed by the little devils beating their drums, had to wander up and down hell throughout eternity.