The Sleeping Bard; Or, Visions of the World, Death, and Hell — John Shaqi
The Sleeping Bard; Or, Visions of the World, Death, and HellWynne, Ellis
General
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
multitude shut up here, for playing with false dice and concealing cards;
but before I could observe much, I heard, close by the door, a terrible
rush and rustle, with a hie! hie! get on! ho! yo! hip! I turned to see
what it was; but perceiving nothing but horned goblins, I enquired of my
guide whether there were cuckolds amongst the devils? "No," said he,
"they are in a particular cell. These are drovers who would fain escape
to the place of the Sabbath-breakers, and are driven hither against their
will." At that word, I looked, and perceived their polls full of the
horns of sheep and cattle, and those who drove them, casting them down
beneath the feet of the bloodiest robbers. "Crouch there," said one;
"though you feared so much of old the thieves on London road, you were
yourselves the very worst species of highwaymen, living upon the road and
plundering, yes, and murdering poor families. O how many poor creatures
did you not keep, with their hungry mouths open, in vain expectation of
the money for the sale of the beasts, which they had intrusted to you;
and you in the mean time in Ireland, or in the King's Bench laughing at
them, or upon the road in the midst of your wine and harlots."
On quitting this den of furious heat, I got a sight of a lair, exceeding
all the rest I had seen in Hell, but one, in frightful stinking
filthiness, where was a herd of accursed drunken swine, disgorging and
swallowing, swallowing and disgorging, continually and without rest, the
most loathsome snivel. The next pit was the couch of gluttony, where
Dives and his companions were upon their bellies, eating dirt and fire
alternately, without any liquid ever. A cave or two lower there was an
exceedingly spacious kitchen, in which some were in a state of roasting
and boiling, others frying and burning in an oven half heated. "Behold
the place of the merciless and the unfeeling," said the angel. I then
turned a little to the left hand, where there was a cell more light than
any one which I had yet seen in Hell, and enquired what place it was?
"The abode of the infernal dragons," replied the angel, "who are hissing
and snarling, rushing and preying upon one another every minute." I
approached; and oh! the look which cannot be described was upon them, the
whole light was but the living fire in their eyes. "These are the seed
of Adam," said my guide, "morose wretches, and furious savage men; but,
yonder," said he, "are some of the old seed of the great dragon Lucifer;"
and verily, I could perceive not a whit more amiability in the one sort
than in the other. In the next cellar were the misers, in a state of
horrible agony with their hearts cleaving to coffers of burning treasure,
the rust whereof was ceaselessly cankering them, because those hearts had
been ceaselessly bent upon getting money--O the consuming torment, worse
than frenzy, that was now going on within them, with care and repentance.
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