The Visions of Quevedo

by Francisco de Quevedo

“Why,” said I to the demon, “are you entered into the body of this man?”

“Because he was himself an alguazil, and a person of a licentious life. After having been banished from his paternal home, finding himself necessitous, he associated with alguazils to extort money, under pretence of executing the decrees of justice, and in the arrest of bodies, which he often abandoned for small sums. It was in the execution of this business, that he stole a silver cup from the house of a country curate, and subtracted a purse of one hundred ducats from the pocket of a man, who, for the stuff, was delivered from the hands of justice.”

I asked him if there were many of these people in hell?

“Very many,” answered he: “the constables have neither honour nor conscience; they drive their trade whether they know any thing of the matter or not: in that particular they resemble the poets. You shall scarcely find in hell, a single poet, who will not tell you that he was sent there on account of the versified lies he told in praise of some beauty. The poetic spirit hath its origin in the disposition of the heart, to receive tender impressions: it is the lover of heroism and romance; and to sustain this character, must necessarily make use of much artifice. The old poets serve as secretaries to young lovers; the young ones are ambitious of blazing as the heroes of their own compositions. There are so many poets in hell, that it can hardly fail of aggrandizing their quarter. I wish to speak in such a manner, that you may comprehend the nature of their occupations and torments there; but of which you cannot have an adequate idea, unless I shall here adduce some examples:—

“When these authors enter the subterranean abodes, they look around for a Charon, a dog Cerberus, a Rhadamanthus, a Pluto, and all the infernal divinities of fable. In place of that, the demons make them realize, that this is a place much more horrible than that: but this is not their severest punishment; they are forced to hear the compositions of other poets, who are their superiors in talent; then they are tormented by jealousy; they hate the epigrams of Martial, the stanzas of Catullus, the odes of Horace, the beauties of Virgil, the satires of Juvenal, the comedies of Terence, and the tragedies of Seneca. It is thus also the historians suffer, when they listen to the histories of Herodotus, of Titus, Livy, of Sallust, and of Cæsar.

“What a punishment for these rhymsters, when they recollect their own works! You cannot imagine the pain they experience, in finding a felicitous rhyme, a happy epithet, a just pause, or an harmonious cadence: they are more tormented by an a or an e, than Tantalus is by thirst, or the Italians are with their jealousy, when they have Frenchmen at their houses. And the comic poets, how are they punished, for having filched away the reputation of so many princesses and queens of Castile, of Leon, of Arragon, and other places! This is as fertile a field for them, as all the wars of the Moors of Granada; but for these larcenies, they suffer sharper agonies as Christians, than will ever be inflicted upon the barbarians and Mohammedans, for all their battles and burnings, or upon the alguazils, even for their violences and exactions.

“Behold, in review of the subject,” said the demon, who spake by the mouth of the possessed, “there is a much nearer resemblance between poets and alguazils, than one would, at a first glance, imagine.”

“A fine comparison,” said I, “for such a false spirit as you!”

“How!” answered he, “are not poets and alguazils both thieves? and if you would but confess it, you well know, that in making these remarks of poets, I speak to a poet, whom I wish to undeceive. Do you not recollect the old Spanish proverb, He who never composed two verses, had no wit; and he who produced four, was a fool?”

“I confess,” said I, “that to be a poet, one must have an original turn of imagination; and the same qualification is necessary to a painter: one would find it very difficult to assume, without merit, the rank of Apelles and Michael Angelo: but as they cannot justly call these celebrated artists so generally admired, fools, so neither do I believe they can accuse of folly the great poets of Spain, of Italy, of France, of Turkey, of Persia, and of China: for in all these places they have made verses.”