The Sleeping Bard; Or, Visions of the World, Death, and HellWynne, Ellis
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The Sleeping Bard; Or, Visions of the World, Death, and Hell
Wynne, Ellis
Allegories; Christian life; Religious literature, Welsh; Welsh literature -- 18th century; Welsh literature -- Translations into English
Next was to be seen the _death of Love_, and by his feet were hundreds of
instruments, and books of music, and verses, and love letters, and also
ointments and colors to beautify the countenance, and a thousand other
embellishing wares, and also some swords. "With some of those swords,"
said my companion, "bandits have been slain whilst fighting for women,
and with others, love-lorn creatures have stabbed themselves." I could
perceive that this death was purblind.
At the next door, was a death who had the most repulsive figure of all:
his entire liver was consumed. He was called the _death of Envy_. "This
one," said Sleep, "assaults losing gamesters, slanderers, and many a
female rider, who repineth at the law which rendered the wife subject to
her husband." "Pray, sir," said I, "what is the meaning of female
rider?" "Female rider," said he, "is the term used here, for the woman
who would ride her husband, her neighbours, and her country too, if
possible, and the end of her long riding will be, that she will ride the
Devil, from that door, down to hell."
Next stood the door of the _death of Ambition_, and of those who lift
their nostrils on high, and break their shins for want of looking beneath
their feet. Beside this door were crowns, sceptres, banners, all sorts
of patents and commissions, and all kinds of heraldric and warlike arms.
But before I could look on any more of these countless doors, I heard a
voice commanding me by my name to prepare. At this word, I could feel
myself beginning to melt, like a snow ball in the heat of the sun;
whereupon my master gave me some soporific drink, so that I fell asleep,
but by the time I awoke, he had conveyed me to a considerable distance,
on the other side of the wall. I found myself in a valley of pitchy
darkness, and as it seemed to me, limitless. At the end of a little
time, I could see by a dim light, like that of a dying candle,
innumerable human shades--some on foot, and some on horseback, running
through one another like the wind, silently and with wonderful solemnity.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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