The Visions of Dom Francisco de Quevedo Villegas

by Francisco de Quevedo

My very soul was full of anguish, to see so many doleful spectacles; and yet I could not but smile, to see the vintners everywhere up and down hell, as free as if they had been in their taverns, and only prisoners upon parole. I asked how they came by that privilege; and a devil told me, there was no need of shackling them, or so much as shutting them up; for there was no fear of their making a ’scape, that took so much pains in the world, and made it their whole business to come thither. “Only,” says he, “if we can keep them from throwing water in the fire, as they do in their wines, we are well enough. But if you would see somewhat worth the while, leave these fellows, and follow me; and I’ll show ye Judas and his brethren, the stewards, and purse-bearers.” So I did as he bade me, and he brought me to Judas, and his companions, who had no faces, divers of them, and most of them no foreheads.

I was well enough pleased to see him, and to be better informed; for I had ever fancied him to be a kind of an olive-coloured, tawny-complexioned fellow, without a beard; and an Eunuch into the bargain: which perhaps (nay probably) he was; for nothing but a capon, a thing unmanned, could ever have been guilty of so sordid and treacherous a villainy, as to sell and betray his Master, with a kiss; and after that, so cowardly, as to hang himself in despair, when he had done. I do believe, however, what the Church says of him, that he had a carrot beard and a red head; but it may be his beard was burnt, and as he appeared to me in hell I could not but take him for an Eunuch, which to deal freely, is my opinion of all the devils, for they have no hair; and they are for the most part wrinkled and baker-legged.

Judas was beset with a great many money-mongers and purse-bearers, that were telling him stories of the pranks they had played, and the tricks they had put upon their masters, after his example. Coming up to them, I perceived that their punishment was like that of Titius, who had a vulture continually gnawing upon his liver; for there were a number of ravenous birds perpetually preying upon them, and tearing off their flesh; which grew again as fast as they devoured it; a devil in the meantime crying out, and the damned filling the whole place with clamour and horror; Judas, with his purse, and his pot by his side, bearing a large part in the outcry and torment. I had a huge mind (methought) to have a word or two with Judas, and so I went to him with this greeting: “Thou perfidious, impudent, impious traitor,” said I, “to sell thy Lord and Master at so base a price, like an avaricious rascal.” “If men,” said he, “were not ungrateful, they would rather pity, or commend me, for an action so much to their advantage, and done in order to their redemption. The misery is mine, that am to have no part myself in the benefit I have procured to others. Some heretics there are (I must confess to my comfort) that adore me for’t. But do you take me for the only Judas? No, no. There have been many since the death of my Master, and there are at this day, more wicked and ungrateful, ten thousand times than myself; that buy the Lord of Life, as well as sell Him, scourging and crucifying Him daily with more spite and ignominy than the Jews. The truth is, I had an itch to be fingering of money, and bartering, from my very entrance into the apostleship. I began, you know, with the pot of ointment, which I would fain have sold, under colour of a relief to the poor. And I went on, to the selling of my Master, wherein I did the world a greater good than I intended, to my own irreparable ruin. My repentance now signifies nothing. To conclude, I am the only steward that’s condemned for selling; all the rest are damned for buying: and I must entreat you, to have a better opinion of me; for if you’ll look but a little lower here, you’ll find people a thousand times worse than myself.” “Withdraw then,” said I, “for I have had talk enough with Judas.”

I went down then some few steps, as Judas directed me; and there I saw a world of devils upon the march, with rods and stirrup-leathers in their hands, lashing a company of handsome lasses, stark naked, and driving them out of hell, (which methought was pity, and if I had had some of them in a corner, I should have treated them better) with the stirrup-leathers, they disciplined a litter of bawds. I could not imagine why these, of all others, should be expelled the place, and asked the question. “Oh,” says a devil, “these are our factresses in the world, and the best we have, so that we send them back again to bring more grist to the mill: and indeed, if it were not for women, hell would be but thinly peopled; for what with the art, the beauty, and the allurements of the young wenches, and the sage advice and counsel of the bawds, they do us very good service. Nay, for fear any of our good friends should tire upon the road, they send them to us on horseback, or bring them themselves, e’en to the very gates, lest they should miss their way.”

Pursuing my journey, I saw, a good way before me, a large building, that looked (methought) like some enchanted castle, or the picture of ill-luck; it was all ruinous, the chimneys down, the planchers all to pieces, only the bars of the windows standing; the doors all bedaubed with dirt, and patched up with barrel-heads, where they had been broken. The glass gone, and here and there a quarrel supplied with paper. I made no doubt at first but the house was forsaken; but, coming nearer, I found it otherwise, by a horrible confusion of tongues and noises within it. As I came just up to the door, one opened it, and I saw in the house many devils, thieves, and whores. One of the craftiest jades in the pack, placed herself presently upon the threshold, and made her address to my guide and me. “Gentlemen,” says she, “how comes it to pass, I pray’e, that people are damned both for giving and taking? The thief is condemned for taking away from another; and we are condemned for giving what is our own. I do not find, truly, any injustice in our trade; and if it be lawful to give every one their own, and out of their own, why are we condemned?” We found it a nice point, and sent the wench to counsel learned in the law, for a resolution in the case. Her mentioning of thieves made me inquire after the scriveners and notaries. “Is it possible,” said I, “that you should have none of them here? for I do not remember that I have seen so much as one of them upon the way; and yet I had occasion for a scrivener, and made a search for one.” “I do believe indeed,” quoth the devil, “that you have not found any of them upon the road.” “How then?” said I, “what, are they all saved?” “No, no,” cried the devil, “but you must understand, that they do not foot it hither, as other mortals; but come upon the wing, in troops like wild geese; so that ’tis no wonder you see none of them upon the way. We have millions of them, but they cut it away in a trice, for they are damnedly rank-winged, and will make a flight, in the third part of a minute, betwixt earth and hell.” “But if there be so many,” said I, “how comes it we see none of them?” “For that,” quoth the devil, “we change their names, when they come hither once, and call them no longer notaries or scriveners, but cats: and they are so good mousers, that though this place is large, old, and ruinous, yet you see not so much as a rat or a mouse in hell, how full soever of all other sorts of vermin.” “Now ye talk of vermin,” said I, “are there any catchpoles here?” “No, not one,” says he. “How so,” quoth I, “when I dare undertake there are five hundred rogues of the trade for one that’s ought.” “The reason is,” says the devil, “that every catchpole upon earth carries a hell in’s bosom.” “You have still,” said I, crossing myself, “an aching tooth at those poor varlets.” “Why not,” cried he, “for they are but devils incarnate, and so damnedly versed in the art of tormenting, that we live in continual dread of losing our places, and that His Infernal Majesty should take these rascals into his service.”

I had enough of this, and travelling on, I saw a little way off a great enclosure, and a world of souls shut up in’t; some of them weeping and lamenting without measure, others in a profound silence. And this I understood to be the lovers’ quarter. It saddened me to consider, that death itself could not kill the lamentations of lovers. Some of them were discoursing their passions, and teasing themselves with fears and jealousies; casting all their miseries upon their appetites and fancies, that still made the picture infinitely fairer than the person. They were for the most part troubled with a simple disease, called (as the devil told me) “I thought.” I asked him what that was, and he answered me, it was a punishment suitable to their offence: for your lovers, when they fall short of their expectations, either in the pursuit or enjoyment of their mistresses, they are wont to say, “Alas! I thought she would have loved me; I thought she would never have pressed me to marry her; I thought she would have been a fortune to me; I thought she would have given me all she had; I thought she would have cost me nothing; I thought she would have asked me nothing; I thought she would have been true to my bed; I thought she would have been dutiful and modest; I thought she would never have kept her gallant.” So that all their pain and damnation comes from I thought this or that, or so, or so.

In the middle of them was Cupid, a little beggarly rogue, and as naked as he was born, only here and there covered with an odd kind of embroidery: but whether it was the workmanship of the itch, pox, or measles, I could not perfectly discover; and close by him was this inscription—

Many a good fortune goes to wrack;
And so does many an able back;
With following whores and cards and dice,
Were poxed and beggared in a trice.

“Aha!” said I, “by these rhymes methinks the poets should not be far off;” and the word was hardly out of my mouth, when I discovered millions of them through a park pale, and so I stopped to look upon them. (It seems in hell they are not called poets now, but fools.) One of them showed me the women’s quarter there hard by, and asked me what I thought of it, and of the handsome ladies in it. “Is it not true,” says he, “that a buxom lass is a kind of half chamber-maid to a man? when she has stripped him and brought him to bed, she has done her business, and never troubles herself any further about the helping him up again, and dressing him.” “How now,” said I, “Have ye your quirks and conceipts in hell? In troth ye are pleasant: I thought your edge had been taken off.” With that, out stepped the most miserable wretch of the whole company laden with irons: “Ah!” quoth he, “I would to God the first inventor of rhymes and poetry were here in my place,” and then he went on with this following and sad complaint.

A Complaint of the Poets in Hell

Oh, this damned trade of versifying
Has brought us all to hell for lying!
For writing what we do not think;
Merely to make the verse cry clink.
For rather than abuse the metre,
Black shall be white, Paul shall be Peter.

One time I called a lady, whore;
Which in my soul she was no more
Than I am; a brave lass, no beggar,
And true, as ever man laid leg o’er.
Not out of malice, Jove’s my witness,
But merely for the verses fitness.
“Now we’re all made,” said I, “if luck hold,”
And then I called a fellow cuckold;
Though the wife was (or I’ll be hanged)
As good a wench as ever twanged.
I was once plaguely put to’t;
This would not hit, that would not do’t;
At last, I circumcised (’tis true)
A Christian, and baptized a Jew.
Nay I’ve made Herod innocent
For rhyming to Long-Parliament:
Now to conclude, we are all damned ho,
For nothing but a game at crambo.
And for a little jingling pleasure,
Condemned to torments without measure:
Which is a little hard in my sense,
To fry thus for poetic licence.
’Tis not for sin of thought or deed,
But for bare sounds, and words we bleed:
While the cur Cerberus lies growling
In consort with our catterwowling.