Francisco de Quevedo

“ At the very name of priest and lay-elder Lucifer looked as pale as death, stood stone-still, as mute as a fish, and in his very looks discovered his apprehensions. After a little pause he roused himself as out of a trance: “A priest do ye say? a lay-elder? tyrants? lawyers? physicians? A composition to poison all the devils in hell, and purge their very guts out.” With that, away he went to visit the avenues and set his guards, and who should he met next but the meddler, in a monstrous haste and hurry. “Nay then,” says he, “here is the forerunner of ill-luck. ”

“ Dost thou not know that all the minutes of our life are but as so many links of a chain that has death at the end on’t? and every moment brings thee nearer thy expected end, which perchance, while the word is speaking, may be at thy very door; and doubtless at thy rate of living, it will be upon thee before thou art aware. How stupid is he that dies while he lives, for fear of dying! How wicked is he that lives, as if he should never die; and only fears death when he comes to feel it! ”

“ I cursed the monks many and many a time, I remember, to the pit of hell, heaven forgive me for’t; for the strumpet would be perpetually gadding abroad, under colour of going to confession, and in sooth I was never any great friend to penance and mortification. And then would I be easing my mind ever and anon to this cursed Moor. ‘I cannot imagine,’ said I, ‘where this mistress of thine should commit all the sins that she goes every hour of the day to confess at yonder monastery.’ And then would this dog-Moor answer me. ”

“ He there in the mortar is that Anaxarchus that was pounded to death by command of Nicocreon. He with the flat nose is Socrates; the little crump-shouldered wretch was the famous Aristotle; and t’other there, the divine Plato. Those in the corner are all of the same profession too, grave and learned philosophers, that have displeased tyrants with their writings; and, in fine, the world is stored with their works and hell with the authors. To come to the point, most mighty Lucifer, we are all of us dealers in politics, great writers and deep-read men in the maxims of State and Government. ”

“ I prithee give it to the devil from me as a token of my love; for ’tis a present equal to the severest revenge. Nothing can ever destroy that Republic but conscience; and then you’ll say ’tis like to be long-lived; for if every man had his own, it would not be left worth a groat. To speak freely, ’tis an odd kind of common-wealth. ’Tis the very arse-gut, the drain and sink of monarchies, both in war and peace. ”

“ Observe me now, and I will show you that this widow that looks as if she had nothing in her mouth but the service for the dead, and only hallelujahs in her soul, that this mortified piece of formality has green thoughts under her black veil, and brisk imaginations about her, in despite of her calamity and misfortune. The chamber you see is dark; and their faces are muffled up in their funeral dresses. And what of all this? when the whole course of their mourning is but a thorough cheat. Their weeping signifies nothing more, than crying, at so much an hour ”

“ 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? ”

“ Hear then in the devil’s name, and be mannerly. Hear, and learn I say, and let’s have no more of that grinning, unless ye have a mind to leave your beard behind ye. Do you imagine that all that are married marry? No, not the one half of them. When you are married, the priest has done his part; but after that, to marry, is to do the duty of a husband. Alack! how many married men live as if they were single; and how many bachelors on the other side, as if they were married! after the mode of the times. And wedlock to divers couples is no other than a more sociable state of virginity. ”

“ I know that very well; but in the meantime your designers and painters are but a company of buzzards. The bones you talk of are the dead, or otherwise the miserable remainders of the living; but let me tell you that you yourselves are your own death, and that which you call death, is but the period of your life, as the first moment of your birth is the beginning of your death; and effectually, ye die living, and your bones are no more than what death has left and committed to the grave. ”

“ For our parts, we are angels still, though black ones, and were turned into devils only for aspiring into an equality with our Maker: whereas the very corruption of mankind is the generation of a catchpole. So that, my good Father, your labour is but lost in plying this wretch with relics; for you may as soon redeem a soul from hell, as a prey out of his clutches. ”

“ But if I were to begin the world again, I think I should make another kind of testament. I would say: ‘A curse upon him that shall have my estate when I am dead, and may the first bit of bread he eats out on’t choke him. The devil in hell take what I cannot carry away, and him too, that straggles for’t, if he can catch him. If I die, let my boy Robin have the strappado, three hours a day, to be duly paid him during life. ”

“ There stood at my elbow a strange kind of mongrel devil, begot betwixt a black and a white; with a head so bestruck with little horns, that it looked at a distance like a hedgehog. I took the boldness to ask him, where they quartered the Sodomites, the old women and the cuckolds. “As for the cuckolds,” said he, “they are all over hell, without any certain quarter or station; and in truth, ’tis no easy matter to know a cuckold from a devil, for (like kind husbands) they wear their wives’ favours still, and the very same headpieces in hell that they wore living in the world. ”

“ And truly ’twas well that his hour was come, for he had better a great deal die well than live on as he did.’ Thieves and murtherers that ye are, you yourselves are that hour ye talk of. The physician is only death in a disguise, and brings his patient’s hour along with him. Cruel people! Is it not enough to take away a man’s life, and like common hangmen to be paid for’t when ye have done, but you must blast the honour too of those you have dispatched, to excuse your ignorance? ”

“ Ye have death at the table, in your daily food and nourishment; for your life is maintained by the death of other creatures. And you have the lively picture of it, every night for your bedfellow. With what face then can you charge your misfortunes upon sudden death? that have spent your whole life, both at bed, and at board, among so many remembrances of your mortality. No, no; change your style, and hereafter confess yourselves to have been careless and incredulous. You die, thinking you are not to die yet ”

“ Tell me,” says he, “if a brave prince had not better be damned than subject himself to hear one of these turdy-facy-paty-nasty lowsie-fartical rascals, with a scabbed head and a plantation of lice in his beard, and his eyes crept into the nape of his neck, pronouncing, for an aphorism, that a prince that looks only to one is a tyrant, and that a true king is the shepherd and servant of his people. Ah, rash and besotted coxcombs! If a king looks only to others, who shall look to him? ”

“ Where are the flatterers that speak nothing but pleasing things? The make-bates and incendiaries, that are the very canker of human society? Where are the story-mongers? The masters of the faculty of lying? that report more than they hear, affirm more than they know, and swear more than they believe. Those slanderous backbiters, that like vultures prey only upon carrion? Where are the hypocrites that turn devotion into interest, and make a revenue of a commandment? That pretend ecstasy when they are drunk, and utter the fumes and dreams of their luxury and tipple for revelations? ”

“ And then she fell to blubbering, sobbing, and raving a thousand times worse than before. “Alas, alas, who will trouble himself with a poor widow! I have never a friend left to look after me; what shall become of me!”
At this pause came in the chorus with their nose-instruments; and there was such blowing, snobbing, snivelling, and throwing snot about, that there was no enduring the house. ”

“ Do not you know that man’s life is a warfare? That the world, the flesh, and the devil, are three vigilant enemies? And that it is as much as his soul is worth, to put himself, but for one minute, out of his guard. Princes tell ye, that your bloods and your lives are theirs, and that to shed the one, and lose the other, in their service, is no obligation, but a duty. You are still however to look to the cause; wherefore turn head, and come along with us, and be happy.” The soldiers heard all this with exceeding patience and attention ”

“ Why must I then be quartered among a pack of rascals?” “My gentleman friend,” quoth the devil, “your grandfather wore a sword, as he was usher to a fencing school; and we know very well what his son and grandchild can pretend to. But let that pass; you have led a wicked and infamous life, and spent your time in whoring, drinking, blaspheming, and in lewd company; and do you tell us now of the privileges of your nobility? Your testimonials; and the Seal of the Office? A fart for your privileges, testimonials, office and all. There is no honour, but virtue. ”

“ The poor devil thought it was high time to speak now, when they were just upon the point of passing his sentence; and so he cried out, “My lord,” said he, “I beseech you hear me; for though they say the devil is dead, it is not meant of your greatness.” So there was a general silence, and thus he proceeded.
“I cannot deny, my lord, but Tyburn is the way to paradise, and many a man goes to heaven from the gallows. But if you will set those that are damned for condemning others, against those that are saved from the gallows, hell will be found no loser by me at the foot of the account. ”

“ But, invectives apart, who but a tyrant would have put a loyal subject to death, only for his affection and regards to the memory of his dead father? how barbarously did he treat his favourites, Parmenio, Philotas, Calisthenes, Amintas, etc., so that good or bad is all a case, for ’tis crime enough to be the favourite of a tyrant; as, in the course of human life, every man dies because he is mortal, and the disease is rather the pretext of his death than the cause of it.” “You find now,” says Satan, “that tyrants will show their people many a dog trick, when the humour takes them. ”

“ Ye know that Scævola, when he found his mistake, in killing another for Porsenna (the secretary, for the prince) burned his right hand in revenge of the miscarriage; now the severity of the vengeance, was not so much the maiming or the crippling of himself, but the condemning of himself to be for ever left-handed. And so ’tis with a malefactor that suffers justice; the shame and punishment does not lie so much in the loss of his right hand, as that the other is left. ”

“ Pompey is forsaken, and persecuted by the Gods; Cæsar upon the heels of him, with victory and success. Shall Ptolomy now ruin himself, to protect a fugitive, against both heaven and Cæsar! I must confess, where honesty and profit are both of a side, ’tis well; but, where they disagree, the prince that does not quit his religion, for his convenience, falls into a direct conspiracy against himself. ”

“ We do from this time forward discharge all our officers and agents whatsoever, from giving themselves any further trouble of tempting men and women to sins of incontinence, for as much as we find, upon experience, that adultery and fornication will never be left, till the old woman scratches the stool for her backside. And though there may be several intervals of repentance, and some faint purposes of giving it over, yet the humour returns again with the next tide of blood, and concupiscence is as loyal a subject to us as any we have in our dominions. ”

“ Some again desired they would remember them in their prayers; which was just as much as if they had commended themselves to the devil by a third person. Some prayed for good matches for their daughters; others begged children for themselves: and sure the husband that allows his wife to ask children abroad will be so civil as to take them home, when they are given him. In fine, these hypocrites may for a while perchance impose upon the world, and delude the multitude; but no mask or disguise is proof against the all-piercing eye of the Almighty. ”

“ Upon the whole matter, every man sets up a court of honour within himself, pronounces everything honourable that serves his purpose, and laughs at them that think otherwise. To say the truth, all things are now topsy-turvy. A good faculty in lying is a fair step to preferment; and to pack a game at cards, or help the frail die, is become the mark and glory of a cavalier. The Spaniards were heretofore, I confess, a very brave, and well governed people; but they have evil tongues among them nowadays, that say they might e’en go to school to the Indians to learn sobriety and virtue. ”

“ There was a coachman by, that had served a judge, and thought ’twas no more for his old master to fetch a rascal out of hell than out of Newgate; which made this fellow stand upon his points, and ask the devil, how he durst give that language to so honourable a profession; “for,” says he, “who wears better clothes than your coachmen? Are not we in our velvets, embroideries, and laces? and as glorious as so many phaetons? Have not our masters reason to be good to us, when their necks are at stake and their lives at our mercy? Nay, we govern those, many times, that govern kingdoms ”

“ After this magnificent statue, followed a swarm of gaudy butterfly-lackeys: and his lordship’s company in the coach was a buffoon and a parasite. “Oh blessed prince!” said I, “to live at this rate of ease and splendour, and to have the world at will! What a glorious train is that! Beyond all doubt, there never was a great fortune better bestowed.” ”