II.—THE VISION OF DEATH IN HIS NETHERMOST COURT.
One long, cold, and dark winter’s night, when one-eye’d Phœbus well nigh had reached his utmost limit in the south and, from afar, lowered upon Great Britain and all the Northern land, and when it was much warmer in the kitchen of Glyn Cywarch [43a] than at the top of Cader Idris, and better in a cosy room with a warm bedfellow than in a shroud in the lychgate, I was meditating upon a talk I had had by the fireside with a neighbour concerning the brevity of human life, and how certain it was that death would come to all, and yet how uncertain its coming. Thus engaged, I had just lain down, and was half-asleep, when I felt a heavy weight stealthily creeping over me, from head to heel, so that I could not move a finger—my tongue only was unbound. I perceived, methought, a man upon my chest, and above him, a woman. After eyeing him carefully I recognised by his strong odours, dewy locks and blear eyes, that the man was no other than my good Master Sleep. “I pray you, sir,” cried I, squeaking, “what have I done to you that you bring that witch here to torment me?” “Hush,” said he, “it is only my sister Nightmare; we twain are going to pay our brother Death [43b] a visit, and want a third to accompany us, and lest thou shouldst resist we came upon thee, just as he does, unawares. Consequently come thou must, willy-nilly.” “Alas,” I cried, “must I die?” “Nay,” said Nightmare, “we will spare thee this time.” “But an’t please you,” said I, “your brother Death has never spared anyone yet who came beneath his stroke—he who wrestled with the Lord of Life himself, though it was little he gained by that contest.” Nightmare, at that word, rose up angrily and departed. “Come along,” cried Sleep, “thou wilt never repent of thy journey.” “Well,” said I, “may there never be night in Sleepton, and may Nightmare never have rest save on an awl’s point if ye bring me not back where ye found me.”
Then away we went over hills and through forests, across seas and valleys, over castles and towers, rivers and rocks, and where should we alight but at one of the gates of the daughters of Belial, at the rear of the City of Destruction, where I noticed that the three gateways of Destruction contracted into one at the back, and opened upon the same place—a murky, vaporous, pestilent place, full of noisome mists, and terrible lowering clouds. “Prithee, good sir,” asked I, “what place be this?” “The chambers of Death,” replied Sleep. And no sooner had I asked than I could hear some wailing, groaning, and sighing; some deliriously muttering to themselves or feebly moaning, others in great travail, and with all the signs of man’s departure from life; and, now and then, would one give a long-drawn gasp, and lapse into silence. At that moment, I heard a key being turned in a lock, and at the noise I looked around for the door, and gazing steadfastly, perceived thousands upon thousands of doors, seemingly afar off but really close at hand. “Please, Master Sleep, where do these doors open upon?” asked I. “Upon the land of Oblivion,” was the answer, “an extensive domain [44] under the sceptre of my brother Death, and this great rampart is the boundary of vast Eternity.” By this I could see that there was a little death-imp at every door, each one bearing arms, and a name different from that of his fellows; though it was evident that they, one and all, were the ministers of the same king. Nevertheless they were continually quarrelling about the sick; one would snatch the patient to take him as a gift through his own door, while another strove to take him through his.
On our approach, I observed that over each door the name of the Death who kept it was written, and also that at each door were an hundred various things left all of a heap, showing plainly that those who went through were in haste. Over one door I saw “Hunger,” and yet on the floor close by were full purses, and bags, and brass-nailed trunks. “This is the Porch of Misers,” said Sleep. “Whom do those rags belong to?” “To the misers, mostly,” he replied, “but there are some which belong to idlers, gossipmongers and others, who, poor in everything except in spirit, preferred to die of hunger rather than ask for help.” Next door was Death-by-Cold, and when I came opposite him I could hear much shuddering and shivering, and at his door, were many books, pots and flagons, a few sticks and bludgeons, compasses, cords and ship’s tackle. “Scholars have gone this way,” said I. “Yea, lonely and helpless, far from the succour of those who loved them, their very garments stolen from them. Those,” he continued, pointing to the pots, “are relics of the boon companions, whose feet were benumbed under the benches, while their heads were seething in drink and noise; those things over there belonged to those who journeyed amid snow-clad mountains, and to North Sea traders.” The next was a lanky skeleton called Fear-Death—so transparent you could see he had no heart; at his door, too, there were bags and chests, bars and strongholds. Through this one went userers and traitors, oppressors and murderers, though many of these last called at the next door, at which was a Death named Gallows, with a rope ready round his neck. Next to him was Love-Death, and at his feet thousands of musical instruments and song-books, love-letters, spots and pigments to beautify the face, and hundreds of tinselled toys for the same purpose, together with a few swords: “With these rivals have fought duels for their mistresses, and some have killed themselves,” said Sleep. I could see that this Death was sandblind. At the next door was a Death whose colour was worst of all, and whose liver was entirely gone—his name was Envy. “This is the Death,” said Sleep, “which brings hither those who have lost money, slanderers, and a rideress or two, who are jealous of the law which demands that a wife should submit herself unto her husband.” “Pray, sir, what is a rideress?” “A rideress is a woman who will over-ride her husband, her neighbourhood, and the whole country if she can, and by dint of long riding, at last, rides a devil from that door down to the bottomless pit.” Next was the door of Ambition-Death for those who hold their heads high, and break their necks, for want of looking on the ground they tread on; at this door lay crowns, sceptres, standards, petitions for offices, and all manner of arms of heraldry and war.
But before I had time to notice any more of these innumerable doors, I heard a voice bidding me by name to be dissolved, and at the word I felt myself beginning to melt like a snowball in the heat of the sun; then my master gave me a sleeping draught, so that I slumbered; and when I awoke, he had taken me by some road or other far away on the other side of the castle. I perceived myself in a pitch-dark vale of infinite radius, methought, and shortly, I saw by a few bluish lights, like the flickering flame of a candle, countless, ah! countless shades of men, some afoot and some on horseback, rushing back and fro like the wind, in awful silence and solemnity; the land was barren, bleak and blasted, without either grass or hay, trees or animals, save deadly beasts and poisonous vermin of every kind—serpents, snakes, lice, frogs, worms, locusts, gids and all such that exist on man’s corruption. Through a myriad shades and reptiles, graves, churchyards and tombs, we made our way to view the land unmolested, until I happened to see some turning round and looking at me; in an instant, notwithstanding the prevailing silence, a whisper passed from one to another that there was a man from earth there. “A man from earth!” cried one, “a man from earth,” exclaimed another, while they crowded round me, like caterpillars, from every quarter. “Which way came you, sirrah?” asked a morkin of a death-imp. “Indeed, sir,” said I, “I know not any more than you do.” “What is your name?” he asked. “Call me here in your own country what ye will, but at home I am called the Sleeping Bard.”
At that word I could see an ancient mannikin, bent double, head to feet, like a bramble, straightening himself, and looking at me more malignantly than the red devil, and without a word he hurled a big skull at my head, but, thanks to a sheltering tombstone, missed me. “Truce, sir, I pray you,” cried I, “to a stranger who was never here before, and will never come again, could I but once find the way home.” “I’ll make you remember you’ve been here,” quoth he, and, again setting upon me with a thighbone, he beat me most unmercifully, while I dodged about as best as I could. “Ho ho!” I cried, “this country is very unmannerly towards strangers; is there no justice of the peace here?” “Peace, indeed,” said he, “thou, surely, hast no right to sue for peace, who disturbest the dead in their graves.” “Pray, sir, might I know your name, for I wot not that I have ever molested anyone from this country?” “Sirrah!” cried he, “know then that I, and not you, am the Sleeping Bard, and have been left in peace these nine centuries by all but you,” and again he set upon me. “Withhold, brother,” said Merlin [48a] who stood near, “be not too hasty; thank him rather for that he hath kept your name in respected memory on earth.” “In great respect, forsooth,” quoth he, “by such a blockhead as this. Are you, sirrah, versed in the four and twenty metres? Can you trace the line of Gog and Magog and of Brutus son of Silvius [48b] down to a century before the destruction of Troy? Can you prophesy when, and how the wars between the lion and the eagle, and between the stag and the red deer will end? Can you?” “Ho there! let me ask him a question,” said another who stood by a huge seething cauldron, [48c] “draw near, and tell me the meaning of this:—
“Upon the face of earth I’ll be
Until the judgment day,
And whether I be fish or flesh
No man can ever say.” [48d]
“I would know your name, sir,” said I, “so that I might the more befittingly give answer.” “I am Taliesin, Chief of the Western Bards, [48e] and those are lines from my mystery-song.” “I know not what your meaning may be, if it be not the yellow plague which destroyed Maelgwn Gwynedd, [49a] slew you upon the sea, and divided you between the ravens and fishes.” “Tush, you fool,” cried he, “I was foretelling of my two callings—as lawyer and poet—and which sayest thou now bears greatest resemblance, whether a lawyer to a raven, or a poet to a whale? How many will a single lawyer lay bare of flesh to swell his own paunch, and oh! so callously doth he shed blood and leave the man half dead! The poet, too, what fish can gulp as much as he? And though he hath always a sea round him, not all the ocean can quench his thirst. And when a man is both a poet and a lawyer, who can tell whether he is fish or flesh, and especially if he be a courtier as well, as I was, and had to change his taste with every mouth. But tell me, are there many of these folk now on earth?” “Yes, plenty,” answered I, “if a man can patch together any sort of metre, straightway he becomes a chaired bard. And of the others, there is such a plague of barristers, petty lawyers, and clerks that the locusts of Egypt preyed less heavily on the country than they. In your time, sir, there were only roadside bargains and a hands-breadth of writing on the purchase of a hundred pound farm, and a cairn or an Arthur’s quoit [49b] raised as a memorial of the purchase and boundaries. People have not the courage to do so nowadays, but more cunning, knavery, and written parchment, wide as a cromlech, is necessary to bind the bargain, and for all that it would be strange if no flaw existed or were contrived therein.” “Well, well,” said Taliesin, “I would not be worth a straw there, I may as well be here; truth will never be found where there are many bards, nor justice where many lawyers, until health be found where there be many doctors.”
Upon this a grey-haired, writhled shrimp, who had heard of the presence of an earthly man, came and fell at my feet, weeping profusely. “Alack, poor fellow,” cried I, “what art thou?” “One who suffers too much wrong on earth day by day,” he replied, “and your soul must obtain me justice.” “What is thy name?” I enquired. “I am called Someone,” was the answer, “and there is no love-message, slander, lie, or tale to breed quarrels, but that I am blamed for most of them. ‘In sooth,’ said one, ‘she is an excellent wench, and has spoken highly of you to Someone, although someone great was seeking her.’ ‘I heard Someone,’ said another, ‘reckoning a debt of nine hundred pounds on such and such an estate.’ ‘I saw Someone yesterday,’ said the beggar, ‘with a mottled neckerchief, like a sailor, who had come with a grain vessel to the next port;’ and so every rag and tag mauls me to suit his own evil purpose. Some call me ‘Friend.’ ‘A friend told me,’ saith one, ‘that so and so does not intend leaving a single farthing to his wife, and that there is no love lost between them.’ Others further disgrace me and call me a crow: ‘a crow tell me there is some trickery going on,’ they say. Yea, some call me by a more honoured name—Old Man, and yet not a half of the omens, prophecies, and cures attributed to me are really mine. I never counselled walking the old way if the new were better, and I never intended forbidding men to church by saying: ‘Frequent not the place where thou art most welcome,’ and a hundred such. But Someone is the name generally given me, and most often heard of when anything uncommonly bad happens; for if you ask one where that scandalous lie was told and who told it. ‘Indeed,’ he will say, ‘I know not, but Someone in the company said it,’ and if you enquire of all the company concerning the story, all have heard it of Someone, but no one knows of whom. Is it not a shameful wrong?” he cried, “I beg of you to inform everybody who names me that I uttered nought of such things. I never invented or repeated a lie to disgrace anyone, nor a single tale to cause kinsmen to fly at each other’s throats; I do not come near them; I know nothing of their scandal, or business, or accursed secrets—they must not charge me with their evils, but their own corrupt brains.”
Hereupon a little Death, one of the King’s secretaries, asked me my name, and bade Master Sleep carry me at once into the King’s presence. I had to go, though most unwilling, by reason of the power that took me up like a whirlwind, ’twixt high and low, thousands of miles back on our left, till we came, a second time, in sight of the boundary wall, and in an enclosed corner we could see a vast palace, roofless and in ruins, extending to the wall wherein were the countless doors, all of which led to this terrible court. Its walls were built of human skulls with hideous, grinning teeth; the clay was black with mingled tears and sweat, the lime ruddy with gore. On the summit of each tower stood a Deathling, with a quivering heart on the point of his shaft. Around the court were a few trees—a poisonous yew or twain, or a deadly cypress, and in these owls, ravens, vampires and the like, make their nests, and cry unceasingly for flesh, although the whole place is but one vast, putrid shamble. The pillars of the hall were made of thighbones, and those of the parlour of shinbones, while the floors were formed of layer upon layer of all manner of charnel.