The Visions of Dom Francisco de Quevedo Villegas. Francisco de Quevedo
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men are only damned for cleaving to’t. And briefly I find none of their names in our books, which is no wonder, for he that has nothing to trust to, shall be left by the devil himself in time of need. To deal plainly with you, where have you greater devils than your flatterers, false friends, lewd company, envious persons, than a son, a brother, or a relation, that lies in wait for your life to get your fortune, that mourns over you in your sickness, and wishes you already at the devil. Now the poor have none of this; they are neither flattered, nor envied, nor befriended, nor accompanied: there’s no gaping for their possessions; and in short, they are a sort of people that live well, and die better; and there are some of them, that would not exchange their rags for royalty itself: they are at liberty to go and come at pleasure, be it war or peace; free from cares, taxes, and public duties. They fear no judgments or executions, but live as inviolable as if their persons were sacred. Moreover they take no thoughts for tomorrow, but setting a just value on their hours, they are good husbands of the present; considering that what is past, is as good as dead, and what’s to come, uncertain. But they say, ‘When the devil preaches, the world’s near an end.’”
“The Divine Hand is in this,” said the holy man that performed the exorcism, “thou art the father of lies, and yet deliverest truths able to mollify and convert a heart of stone.” “But do not you mistake yourself,” quoth the devil, “to suppose that your conversion is my business; for I speak these truths to aggravate your guilt, and that you may not plead ignorance another day, when you shall be called to answer for your transgressions. ’Tis true, most of you shed tears at parting, but ’tis the apprehension of death, and no true repentance for your sins that works upon you: for ye are all a pack of hypocrites: or if at any time you entertain those reflections, your trouble is, that your body will not hold out; and then forsooth ye pretend to pick a quarrel with the sin itself.” “Thou art an impostor,” said the religious, “for there are many righteous souls, that draw their sorrow from another fountain. But I perceive you have a mind to amuse us, and make us lose time, and perchance your own hour is not yet come to quit the body of this miserable creature; however, I conjure thee in the name of the Most High to leave tormenting him, and to hold thy peace.” The devil obeyed; and the good Father applying himself to us, “My masters,” says he, “though I am absolutely of opinion that it is the devil that has talked to us all this while through the organ of this unhappy wretch, yet he that well weighs what has been said, may doubtless reap some benefit by the discourse. Wherefore without considering whence it came; remember, that Saul (although a wicked prince) prophesied; and that honey has been drawn out of the mouth of a lion. Withdraw then, and I shall make it my prayer (as ’tis my hope) that this sad and prodigious spectacle may lead you to a true sight of your errors, and, in the end, to amendment of life.”
THE END OF THE FIRST VISION
THE SECOND VISION OF DEATH AND HER EMPIRE
Mean souls do naturally breed sad thoughts, and in solitude, they gather together in troops to assault the unfortunate; which is the trial (according to my observation) wherein the coward does most betray himself; and yet cannot I for my life, when I am alone, avoid those accidents and surprises in myself, which I condemn in others. I have sometime, upon reading the grave and severe Lucretius, been seized with a strange damp; whether from the striking of his counsels upon my passions, or some tacit reflection of shame upon myself, I know not. However, to render this confession of my weakness the more excusable, I’ll begin my discourse with somewhat out of that elegant and excellent poet.
“Put the case,” says he, “that a voice from heaven should speak to any of us after this manner; what dost thou ail, O mortal man, or to what purpose is it, to spend thy life in groans, and complaints under the apprehension of death? where are thy past tears and pleasures? Are they not vanished and lost in the flux of time, as if thou hadst put water into a sieve? Bethink thyself then of a retreat, and leave the world with the same content, and satisfaction, as thou wouldst do a plentiful table, and a jolly company upon a full stomach. Poor fool that thou art! thus to macerate and torment thyself, when thou may’st enjoy thy heart at ease, and possess thy soul with repose and comfort, etc.”
This passage brought into my mind the words of Job, cap. 14, and I was carried on from one meditation to another, till at length, I fell fast asleep over my book, which I ascribed rather to a favourable providence, than to my natural disposition. So soon as my soul felt herself at liberty, she gave me the entertainment of this following comedy, my fancy supplying both the stage and the company.
In the first scene, entered a troop of physicians, upon their mules, with deep foot-cloths, marching in no very good order, sometime fast, sometime slow, and to say the truth, most commonly in a huddle. They were all wrinkled and withered about the eyes; I suppose with casting so many sour looks upon the piss-pots and close-stools of their patients, bearded like goats; and their faces so over-grown with hair, that their fingers could hardly find the way to their mouths. In the left hand they held their reins, and their gloves rolled up together; and in the right, a staff à la mode, which they carried rather for countenance, than correction; (for they understood no other menage than the heel) and all along, head and body went too, like a baker upon his panniers. Divers of them, I observed, had huge gold rings upon their fingers, and set with stones of so large a size, that they could hardly feel a patient’s pulse, without minding him of his monument. There were more than a good many of them, and a world of puny practisers at their heels, that came out graduates, by conversing rather with the mules than the doctors: well! said I to myself, if there goes no more than this to the making a physician, it is no marvel we pay so dear for their experience.
After these, followed a long train of mountebank-apothecaries, laden with pestles, and mortars, suppositories, spatulas, glister-pipes and syringes, ready charged, and as mortal as gun-shot, and several titled boxes with remedies without, and poisons within: ye may observe that when a patient comes to die, the apothecary’s mortar rings the passing-bell, as the priest’s requiem finishes the business. An apothecary’s shop is (in effect) no other than the physician’s armoury, that supplies him with weapons; and (to say the truth) the instruments of the apothecary and the soldier are much of a quality: what are their boxes but petards? their syringes, pistols; and their pills, but bullets? And after all, considering their purgative medicines, we may properly enough call their shops purgatory; and why not their persons hell? their patients the damned? and their masters the devils? These apothecaries were in jackets, wrought all over with Rs, struck through like wounded hearts, and in the form of the first character of their prescriptions, which (as they tell us) signifies recipe (take thou) but we find it to stand for recipio (I take.) Next to this figure, they write ana, ana, which is as much as to say an ass, an ass; and after this, march the ounces and the scruples; an incomparable cordial to a dying man; the former to dispatch the body, and the latter, to put the soul into the highway to the devil. To hear them call over their simples, would make you swear they were raising so many devils. There’s your opopanax, buphthalmus, astaphylinos, alectorolophos, ophioscorodon, anemosphorus, etc.
And by all this formidable bombast, is meant nothing in the world but a few paltry roots, as carrots, turnips, skirrets, radish and the like. But they have the old proverb at their fingers’ end: “he that knows thee will never buy thee;” and therefore everything must be made a mystery, to hold their patients in ignorance, and keep up the price of the market. And were not the very names of their medicines sufficient to fright away any distemper, ’tis to be feared the remedy would prove worse than the disease. Can any pain in nature, think ye, have the confidence to look a physician in the face, that comes armed with a drug made of man’s grease? though disguised under the name of mummy, to take off the horror and disgust of it: or to stay for a dressing with Dr. Whachum’s plaster, that shall fetch up a man’s leg to the size of a mill-post? When I saw these people herded with the physicians, methought the old sluttish proverb, that says, “there is a great distance between the pulse and the arse,” was much to blame for making such a difference in their dignities, for I find none at all; but the physician skips in a trice from the pulse to the stool and urinal, according to the doctrine of Galen, who sends all his