“I dare say that your wit will serve ye now to imagine, that I’m talking of rooks and jackdaws; but I say, No. I speak of lawyers, attorneys, clerks, scriveners, and their fellows, that with the dash of a pen can defeat their clients of their estates, and fly away with them when they have done.”
Upon these words Nostradamus vanished, and somebody plucking me behind, I turned my face upon the most meagre, melancholic wretch that ever was seen, and covered all in white. “For pity’s sake,” says he, “and as you are a good Christian, do but deliver me from the persecution of these impertinents and babblers that are now tormenting me, and I’ll be your slave for ever” (casting himself at my feet in the same moment; and crying like a child). “And what art thou,” quoth I, “for a miserable creature?” “I am,” says he, “an ancient, and an honest man, although defamed with a thousand reproaches and slanders: and in fine, some call me another, and others somebody, and doubtless ye cannot but have heard of me. As somebody says, cries one, that has nothing to say for himself; and yet till this instant, I never so much as opened my mouth. The Latins call me Quidam, and make good use of me to fill up lines, and stop gaps. When you go back again into the world, I pray’e do me the favour to own that you have seen me, and to justify me for one that never did, and never will either speak or write anything, whatever some tattling idiots may pretend. When they bring me into quarrels and brawls, I am called forsooth, a certain person; in their intrigues, I know not who; and in the pulpit, a certain author; and all this, to make a mystery of my name, and lay all their fooleries at my door. Wherefore I beseech ye help me;” which I promised to do. And so this vision withdrew to make place for another.
And that was the most frightful piece of antiquity that ever eye beheld in the shape of an old woman. She came nodding towards me, and in a hollow, rattling tone (for she spoke more with her chops than her tongue) “Pray’e,” says she, “is there not somebody come lately hither from the other world?” This apparition, thought I, is undoubtedly one of the devil’s scarecrows. Her eyes were so sunk in their sockets, that they looked like a pair of dice in the bottom of a couple of red boxes. Her cheeks and the soles of her feet were of the same complexion. Her mouth was pale, and open too; the better to receive the distillations of her nose. Her chin was covered with a kind of goose-down, as toothless as a lamprey; and the flaps of her cheeks were like an ape’s bags; her head danced, and her voice at every word kept time to’t. Her body was veiled, or rather wrapped up in a shroud of crape. She had a crutch in one hand, which served her for a supporter; and a rosary in t’other, of such a length, that as she stood stooping over it, a man would have thought she had been fishing for death’s heads. When I had done gaping upon this epitome of past ages, “Hola! grannum,” quoth I, good lustily in her ear, taking for granted that she was deaf, “what’s your pleasure with me?” With that she gave a grunt, and being much in wrath to be called grannum, clapped a fair pair of spectacles upon her nose, and pinking through them, “I am,” quoth she, “neither deaf, nor grannum; but may be called by my name as well as my neighbours,” (giving to understand, that women will take it ill to be called old, even in their very graves). As she spake, she came still nearer me, with her eyes dropping, and the smell about her perfectly of a dead body. I begged her pardon for what was past, and for the future her name, that I might be sure to keep myself within the bounds of respect. “I am called,” says she, “Doüegna, or Madam the Gouvernante.” “How’s that?” quoth I, in a great amazement. “Have ye any of those cattle in this country? Let the inhabitants pray heartily for peace then; and all little enough to keep them quiet. But to see my mistake now. I thought the women had died, when they came to be gouvernantes, and that for the punishment of a wicked world, the gouvernantes had been immortal. But I am now better informed, and very glad truly to meet with a person I have heard so much talk of. For with us, who but Madam the Gouvernante, at every turn? ‘Do ye see that mumping hag,’ cries one? ‘Come here ye damned jade,’ cries another. ‘That old bawd,’ says a third, ‘has forgotten, I warrant ye, that ever she was a whore, and now see if we do not remember ye.’” “You do so, and I’m in your debt for your remembrance, the great devil be your paymaster, ye son of a whore, you; are there no more gouvernantes than myself? Sure there are, and ye may have your choice, without affronting me.” “Well, well,” said I, “have a little patience, and at my return, I’ll try if I can put things in better order. But in the meantime, what business have you here?” Her reverence upon this was a little qualified, and told me that she had now been eight hundred years in hell, upon a design to erect an order of the gouvernantes; but the right worshipful the devil-commissioners are not as yet come to any resolution upon the point. For say they, if your gouvernantes should come once to settle here, there would need no other tormentors, and we should be but so many Jacks out of office. And besides, we should be perpetually at daggers-drawing about the brands and candle-ends which they would still be filching, and laying out of the way; and for us to have our fuel to seek, would be very inconvenient. “I have been in purgatory too,” she said, “upon the same project, but there so soon as ever they set eye on me, all the souls cried out unanimously, libera nos, etc. As for heaven, that’s no place for quarrels, slanders, disquiets, heart-burnings, and consequently none for me. The dead are none of my friends neither, for they grumble, and bid me let them alone as they do me; and be gone into the world again if I please, and there (they tell me) I may play the gouvernante in sæcula sæculorum. But truly I had rather be here at my ease than spend my life crumpling, and brooding over a carpet at a bed-side, like a thing of clouts, to secure the poultry of the family from strange cocks, which would now and then have a brush with a virgin pullet, but for the care of the gouvernantes. And yet ’tis she, good woman, bears all the blame, in case of any miscarriage: the gouvernante was presently of the plot, she had a feeling in the cause, a finger in the pie. And ’tis she in fine that must answer for all. Let but a sock, an old handkercher, the greasy lining of a masque, or any such frippery piece of business be missing, ask the gouvernante for this, or for that. And in short, they take us certainly for so many storks and ducks, to gather up all the filth about the house. The servants look upon us as spies and tell-tales: my cousin forsooth, and t’other’s aunt dares not come to the house, for fear of the gouvernante. And indeed I have made many of them cross themselves, that took me for a ghost. Our masters they curse us too for embroiling the family. So that I have rather chosen to take up here, betwixt the dead and the living, than to return again to my charge of a Doüegna, the very sound of the name being more terrible than a gibbet. As appears by one that was lately travelling from Madrid to Vailladolid, and asking where he might lodge that night. Answer was made at a small village called Doüegnas. ‘But is there no other place,’ quoth he, ‘within some reasonable distance, either short or beyond it?’ They told him no, unless it were at a gallows. ‘That shall be my quarter then,’ quoth he, ‘for a thousand gibbets are not so bad to me as one Doüegnas.’ Now ye see how we are abused,” quoth the gouvernante, “I hope you’ll do us some right, when it lies in your power.”
She would have talked me to death, if I had not given her the slip upon the removing of her spectacles; but I could not ’scape so neither, for looking about me for a guide to carry me home again, I was arrested by one of the dead; a good proper fellow, only he had a pair of rams’ horns on his head, and I was about to salute him for Aries in the Zodiac; but when I saw him plant himself, just before me, with his best leg forward, stretching out his arms, clutching his fists, and looking as sour as if he would have eaten me without mustard, “Doubtless,” said I, “the devil is dead and this is he.” “No, no,” cried a bystander, “this is a man:” “Why then,” said I, “he’s drunk, I perceive, and quarrelsome in his ale, for here’s nobody has touched him.” With that, as he was just ready to fall on, I stood to my guard, and we were armed at all points alike, only he had the odds of the headpiece. “Now, sirrah,” says he, “have at ye, slave that you are to make a trade of defaming persons of honour. By the death that commands here, I’ll ha’ my revenge, and turn your skin over your ears.” This insolent language stirred my choler I confess, and so I called to him “Come, come on, sirrah; a little nearer yet, and if ye have a mind to be twice killed, I’ll do your business; who the devil brought this cornuto hither to trouble me?” The word was no sooner out, but we were immediately at it, tooth and nail, and if his horns had not been flatted to his head, I might have had the worst on’t. But the whole ring presently came in to part us, and did me a singular kindness in’t, for my adversary had a fork, and I had none. As they were staving and tailing, “You might have had more manners,” cried one, “than to give such language to your betters, and to call Don Diego Moreno cuckold.” “And is this that Diego Moreno then?” said I. “Rascal that he is to charge me with abusing persons of honour. A scoundrel,” said I, “that ’tis a shame for death to be seen in’s company, and was never fit for anything in his whole life, but to furnish matter for a farce.” “And that’s my grievance, gentlemen,” quoth Don Diego, “for which with your leave he shall give me satisfaction. I do not stand upon the matter of being a cuckold, for there’s many a brave fellow lives in Cuckold’s-Row. But why does he not name others, as well as me? As if the horn grew upon nobody’s head but mine: I’m sure there are others that a thousand times better deserve it. I hope, he cannot say that ever I gored any of my superiors; or that my being cornuted has raised the price of post-horns, lanthorns, or pocket-ink-horns. Are not shoeing-horns and knife-handles as cheap now as ever? Why must I walk the stage then more than my neighbours? Beyond question there never lived a more peaceable wretch upon the face of the earth, all things considered, than myself. Never was man freer from jealousy, or more careful to step aside at the time of visit: for I was ever against the spoiling of sport, when I could make none myself. I confess I was not so charitable to the poor as I might have been; the truth of’t is, I watched them as a cat would do a mouse, for I did not love them. But then in requital, I could have out-snorted the Seven Sleepers, when any of the better sort came to have a word in private with my wife. The short on’t is, we agreed blessedly well together, she and I; for I did whatever she would have me; and she would say a thousand and a thousand times ‘Long live my poor Diego, the best conditioned, the most complaisant husband in the world; whatever I do is well done, and he never so much as opens his mouth good or bad.’ But by her leave that was little to my credit, and the jade when she said it was beside the cushion. For many and many a time have I said ‘This is well,’ and ‘That’s ill.’ When there came any poets to our house, fiddlers or morrice-dancers, I would say, ‘This is not well.’ But when the rich merchants came ‘Oh, very good,’ would I say, ‘this is as well as well can be.’ Sometimes we had the hap to be visited by some penniless courtier, or low-country officer perchance; then should I take her aside, and rattle her to some tune: ‘Sweetheart,’ would I say, ‘pray’e what ha’ we to do with these frippery fellows and damme boys. Shake them off, I’d advise ye, and take this for a warning.’ But when any came that had to do with the mint or exchequer, and spent freely (for lightly come, lightly go), ‘I marry, my dear,’ quoth I, ‘there’s nothing to be lost by keeping such company.’ And what hurt in all this now? Nay, on the contrary, my poor wife enjoyed herself happily under the protection of my shadow, and being a femme couverte, not an officer durst come near her. Why should then this buffoon of a poetaster make me still the ridiculous entertainment of all his interludes and farces, and the fool in the play?” “By your favour,” quoth I, “we are not yet upon even terms; and before we part, you shall know what ’tis to provoke a poet. If thou wert but now alive, I’d write thee to death, as Archilocus did Lycambes. And I’m resolved to put the history of thy life in a satire, as sharp as vinegar, and give it the name of The Life and Death of Don Diego Moreno.” “It shall go hard,” quoth he, “but I’ll prevent that,” and so we fell to’t again, hand and foot, till at length the very fancy of a scuffle waked me, and I found myself as weary, as if it had been a real combat. I began then to reflect upon the particulars of my dream, and to consider what advantage I might draw from it: for the dead are past fooling, and those are the soundest counsels which we receive from such as advise us without either passion or interest.
THE END OF THE SECOND VISION
THE THIRD VISION OF THE LAST JUDGMENT
Homer makes Jupiter the author or inspirer of dreams; especially the dreams of princes and governors; and if the matter of them be pious and important. And it is likewise the judgment of the learned Propertius that good dreams come from above, have their weight, and ought not to be slighted. And truly I am much of his mind, in the case of a dream I had the other night. As I was reading a discourse touching the end of the world, I fell asleep over the book, and dreamt of the last judgment. (A thing which in the house of a poet is scarce admitted so much as in a dream.) This fancy minded me of a passage in Claudian: that all creatures dream at night of what they have heard and seen in the day, as the hound dreams of hunting the hare.
Methought I saw a very handsome youth towering in the air, and sounding of a trumpet; but the forcing of his breath did indeed take off much of his beauty. The very marbles, I perceived, and the dead obeyed his call; for in the same moment, the earth began to open, and set the bones at liberty, to seek their fellows. The first that appeared were sword-men, as generals of armies, captains, lieutenants, common soldiers, who supposing that it had sounded a charge, came out of their graves, with the same briskness and resolution, as if they had been going to an assault or a combat. The misers put their heads out, all pale and trembling, for fear of a plunder. The cavaliers and good fellows believed they had been going to a horserace, or a hunting-match. And in fine, though they all heard the trumpet, there was not any creature knew the meaning of it (for I could read their thoughts by their looks and gestures). After this, there appeared a great many souls, whereof some came up to their bodies, though with much difficulty and horror; others stood wondering at a distance, not daring to come near so hideous and frightful a spectacle. This wanted an arm, that an eye, t’other a head. Upon the whole, though I could not but smile at the prospect of so strange a variety of figures, yet was it not without just matter of admiration at the all-powerful Providence, to see order drawn out of confusion, and every part restored to the right owner. I dreamt myself then in a churchyard; and there, methought, divers that were loth to appear were changing of heads; and an attorney would have demurred upon pretence that he had got a soul was none of his own, and that his body and soul were not fellows.
At length, when the whole congregation came to understand that this was the day of judgment, it was worth the while to observe what shifting and shuffling there was among the wicked. The epicure and whoremaster would not own his eyes, nor the slanderer his tongue, because they’d be sure to appear in evidence against them. The pickpockets ran away as hard as they could drive from their own fingers. There was one that had been embalmed in Egypt, and staying for his tripes, an old usurer asked him, if the bags were to rise with the bodies? I could have laughed at this question, but I was presently taken up with a crowd of cutpurses, running full speed from their own ears (that were offered them again) for fear of the sad stories they expected to hear. I saw all this from a convenient standing; and in the instant, there was an outcry at my feet, “Withdraw, withdraw.” The word was no sooner given, but down I came, and immediately a great many handsome ladies put forth their heads, and called me clown, for not paying them that respect and ceremony which belonged to their quality (now you must know that the women stand upon their pantofles, even in hell itself). They seemed at first very gay and frolic; and truly, well enough pleased to be seen naked, for they were clean-skinned and well made. But when they came to understand that this was the great day of accompt; their consciences took check, and all the jollity was dashed in a moment; whereupon they took to the valley, miserably listless and out of humour. There was one among the rest, that had had seven husbands, and promised every one of them never to marry again, for she could never love anything else she was sure: this lady was casting about for fetches, and excuses, and what answer she should make to that point. Another that had been as common as Ratcliff highway, would neither lead nor drive, and stood humming and hawing a good while, pretending she had forgot her night-gear, and such fooleries; but spite of her heart, she was brought at last within sight of the throne, where she found a world of her old acquaintance that she had carried part of their way to hell, who had no sooner set eye on her, but they fell a pointing and hooting, so that she took up her heels and herded herself in a troop of serjeants. After this, I saw a many people driving a physician along the bank of a river, and these were only such as he had unnecessarily dispatched before their time. They followed him with cries of, “Justice, justice,” and forced him on toward the judgment-seat, where they arrived in the end with much ado. While this passed, I heard, methought, upon my left hand a paddling in the water, as if one had been swimming: and what should this be, but a judge in the middle of a river washing and rinsing his hands, over and over. I asked him the meaning of it; and he told me, that in his lifetime he had been often daubed in the fist, to make the business slip the better, and he would willingly get out the grease before he came to hold up his hand at the bar. There followed next a multitude of vintners and tailors, under the guard of a legion of devils, armed with rods, whips, cudgels, and other instruments of correction: and these counterfeited themselves deaf, and were very loth to leave their graves, for fear of a worse lodging. As they were passing on, up started a little lawyer, and asked whither they were going; they made answer, that they were going to give an account of their works. With that the lawyer threw himself flat upon his belly in his hole again: “If I am to go downward at last,” says he, “I am thus much onward of my way.” The vintner sweat as he walked, till one drop followed another; “That’s well done,” cried a devil at’s elbow, “to purge out thy water, that we may have none in our wine.” There was a tailor wrapped up in sarcenets, crook-fingered and baker-legged, spake not one word all the way he went, but alas! alas! how can any man be a thief that dies for want of bread? But his companions gave him a rebuke for discrediting his trade. The next that appeared were a band of highwaymen, following upon the heels one of another, in great distrust and jealousy of thieves among themselves. These were fetched up by a party of devils in the turning of a hand and lodged with the tailors; “for,” said one of the company, “your highwayman is but a wild tailor.” They were a little quarrelsome at first, but in the conclusion, they went down into the valley, and kennelled quietly together. After these came Folly with her gang of poets, fiddlers, lovers, and fencers: the people of all the world, that dream the least of a day of reckoning; these were disposed of among the hangmen, Jews, scribes, and philosophers. There were also a great many solicitors wondering among themselves, that they should have so much conscience when they were dead, and none at all living. In fine, the word was given, Silence.
The throne being erected, and the great day come: a day of comfort to the good, and of terror to the wicked. The sun and the stars waited on the footstool; the wind was still; the water quiet; the earth in suspense and anguish for fear of her children: and in brief, the whole creation was in anxiety and disorder. The righteous they were employed in prayers and thanksgivings; and the ungodly in framing of shifts and evasions, to extenuate their pains. The guardian angels were at hand, on the one side to acquit themselves of their duties and commissions. And on the other side, were the devils hunting for more matters of aggravation and charge against offenders. The Ten Commandments had the guard of a narrow gate, which was so strait, that the most mortified body could not pass it, without leaving a good part of his skin behind him.