The Visions of Dom Francisco de Quevedo Villegas

by Francisco de Quevedo

I passed out of the first court, into the maids’ quarter, which was the very strongest part of the whole building; and so’t had need; for divers of the young wenches were so extravagant and furious, that no other place would have held them. (The wives and widows were in another room apart.) Here ye should have one, sobbing and raging with jealousy of a rival. There another, stark mad for a husband, and inwardly bleeding because she durst not discover it. A third was writing of letters all riddle and mystery, mending and marring, till at last the paper had more blots than whole words in it. Some were practising in the glass the gracious smile, the roll of the eye, the velvet lip, etc. Others again were in a diet of oatmeal, clay, chalk, coal, hard wax, and the like. Some were conditioning with their servants for a ball, or a serenade, that the whole town might ring of the address. “Yes, yes,” they cried, “you can go to the park with this lady, and to a play with that lady, and to Banstead with t’other lady, and spend whole nights at beste or ombre with my Lady Pen-Tweezel; but by my troth, I think you are ashamed to be seen in my company.” Some I saw upon the very point of sealing and delivering. “I am thine,” cries one, “and thine alone, or let all the devils in hell, etc. But be sure you be constant.” “If I be not,” says he, “let my soul,” etc., and the silly jade believes him. In one corner ye should have them praying for husbands, that they might the better love at random; in another, nothing would please them but to be married men’s wives, and this disease was looked upon as a little desperate. Some again stood ready furnished with love letters and tickets to be cast out at the window, or thrust under the door, and these were looked upon not only as fools but beasts.

I had seen as much already as I desired, for I had learned of old that he that keeps such company seldom comes off without a scratched face; but if he misses a mistress, he gets a wife, and stands condemned to a repentance during life, without redemption, unless one of the two dies. For women in the case are worse than pirates; a galley-slave may compound for his freedom, but there’s no thought of ransom in case of wedlock. I had a good mind to a little chat with some of them, but (thought I) they’ll fancy I’m in love with them. And so I e’en marched off into the married quarter, where there was such ranting, damning, and tearing, as if hell had been broke loose. And what was all this? but a number of women that had been locked up and shackled by their husbands, to keep them in obedience, and had now broken their prisons, and their chains, and were grown ten times madder than before. Some I saw caressing and coaxing their husbands, in the very moment they designed to betray them. Others were picking their husbands’ pockets to pay now and then for a by-blow. Some again were upon a religious point, and all upon the humour (forsooth) of pilgrimages and lectures; when alas! they had no other business with the altars or churches than a sacrifice to Venus, or a love meeting. Divers there were that went to the bath; but bathing was the least part of their errand. Others to confession, that mistook their martyr for their confessor: some to be revenged of jealous husbands were resolving to do the thing they feared, and pay them in their own coin. Others were for making sure aforehand by way of advance; for that’s the revenge, they say, that’s as sweet as muscadine and eggs. One was melancholy for a delay; another for a defeat; a third is preparing to make her market at a play. There was one among the rest was never out of her coach; and asking her the reason, she told me, she loved to be jolted. In this crowd of women, you must know that there were no wives of ambassadors, soldiers, or merchants that were abroad upon commission; for such were considered in effect as single women, and not allowed as members of this commonwealth.

The next quarter was that of the grave and wise, the right reverend widows, women in appearance of marvellous severity and reserve, and yet every one of them had her weak side, and ye might read her folly and distemper through her disguise. One of them I saw crying with one eye for the loss of one husband, and laughing with t’other upon him that was to come next. Another, with the Ephesian matron, was solacing herself with her gallant before her husband was thorough cold in the mouth, considering, that he that died half an hour ago is as dead as William the Conqueror. There were several others passing to and again, quite out of their mourning, that looked so demurely (I warrant ye) as if butter would not have melted in their mouths, and yet apostate widows (as I was told) and there they were kept as strictly, as if they had been in the Spanish Inquisition. Some were laying wagers whose mourning was most à la mode, and best made, or whose peak or veil became her best, and setting themselves off with a thousand tricks of ornament and dress. The widows I observed that were marching off, with the mark out of their mouths, were hugely concerned to be thought young, and still talking of masks, balls, fiddles, treats; chanting and jigging to every tune they heard, and all upon the hoity-toity like mad wenches of fifteen. The younger, on the other side, made use of their time and took pleasure while ’twas to be had. There were too of the religious strain; a people much at their beads, and in private; and these were there in the quality of love heretics, or platonics, and under the penance of perpetual abstinence from the flesh they loved best (which is the most mortifying Lent of all other). Some, that had skill in perspective, were before the glass with their boxes of patch and paint about them; shadowing, drawing out, refreshing, and in short, covering and palliating, all the imperfections of feature and complexion, every one after her own humour. Now these women were absolutely insufferable, for they were most of them old and headstrong, having got the better of their husbands, so that they would be taking upon them to domineer here, as they had done at home; and indeed, they found the master of the college enough to do.

When I had tired myself with this variety of folly and madness, I went to the devotees, where I found a great many women and girls that had cloistered up themselves from the conversation of the world; and yet were not a jot soberer than their fellows. These one would have thought might have been easily cured, but many of them were in for their lives, in despite of either counsel or physic. The room where they were was barricaded with strong bars of iron; and yet when the toy took them, they’d make now and then a sally; for when the fit was upon them, they’d own no superior but love, come what would on’t in the event. The greater part of these good people were writing of tickets and dispatches, which had still the sign of the cross at the top, and Satan at the bottom, concluding with this, or some such postscript: I commend this paper to your discretion. The fools of this province would be twattling night and day; and if it happened that any one of them had talked herself a-weary (which was very rare), she would presently take upon her very gravely to admonish the rest, and read a lecture of silence to the company. There were some that for want of better entertainment fell in love with one another; but these were looked upon as a sort of fops and ninnies, and therefore the more favourably used; but they’d have been of another mind, if they had known the cause of their distemper.

The root of all these several extravagances was idleness, which (according to Petrarch’s observation) never fails to make way for wantonness. There was one among the rest that had more letters of exchange upon the credit of her insatiable desires than a whole regiment of bankers. Some of them were sick of their old visitor, and called for a freshman. Others, by intervals, I perceived, had their wits about them, and contented themselves discreetly with the physician of the house. In short, it e’en pitied my heart to see so many poor people in so sad a condition and without any hope of relief, as I gathered from him that had them in care; for they were still puddering and royling their bodies; and if they got a little ease for the present, they’d be down again as soon as they had taken their medicine.

From thence I went to the single women (such as made profession never to marry) which were the least outrageous and discomposed of all; for they had a thousand ways to lay the devil as well as to raise him. Some of them lived like common highwaymen, by robbing Peter to pay Paul; and stripping honest men to clothe rascals, which is (under favour) but a lewd kind of charity. Others there were, that were absolutely out of their seven senses, and as mad as March hares for this wit and t’other poet, that never failed to pay them again in rhymes and madrigals, with ruby lips, pearly teeth, so that to read their verses, a man would swear the whole woman to be directly petrified.

Of sapphire fair, or crystal clear,
Is the forehead of my dear, etc.

I saw one in consultation with a cunning man to know her fortune; another, dealing with a conjurer for a philter, or drink to make her beloved. A third was daubing and patching up an old ruined face, to make it fresh and young again; but she might as well have been washing of a blackamoor to make him white. In fine, a world there were, that with their borrowed hair, teeth, eyes, eyebrows, looked like fine folks at a distance, but would have been left as ridiculous as Æsop’s crow, if every bird had fetched away his own feather. ’Deliver me (thought I, smiling and shaking my head) if this be woman.

And so I stepped into the men’s quarter, which was but next door, and only a thick wall between. Their great misery was that they were deaf to good advice, obstinately hating and despising both physic and physician; for if they would have either quitted or changed, they might have been cured. But they chose rather to die, and though they saw their error, would not mend it. Which minded me of the old rhyme:

Where love’s in the case,
The doctor’s an ass.