The Visions of Dom Francisco de Quevedo VillegasQuevedo, Francisco de
General
The Visions of Dom Francisco de Quevedo Villegas
Quevedo, Francisco de
Satire; Spanish literature -- Translations into English
The devil of subornation came next, which was a good-complexioned and a
well-timbered devil, to my great amazement I must acknowledge, for I had
never seen any devils till now but what were extreme ugly. The air of
his face was so familiar to me that methought I had seen it in a thousand
several places; sometime under a veil, sometime open; now under one shape
and then under another. One while he called himself child’s-play;
another while, kind entertainment; here, payment; there, restitution;
and, in a third place, alms: but, in fine, I could never learn his right
name. I remember in some places I have heard him called inheritance,
profit, good cheap, patrimony, gratitude. Here he was called doctor;
there, bachelor. With the lawyers, solicitors, and attorneys, he passed
under the name of right; and the confessors called him charity.
He was well accompanied, and styled himself Satan’s lieutenant; but there
was a devil of consequence that opposed him, might and main, and made
this proclamation of himself. “Be it known,” says he, “that I am the
great embroiler and politic entangler of affairs. The deluder of
princes, the pretext of the unworthy, and the excuse of tyrants. I can
make black, white; and give what colour I please to the foulest actions
in nature. If I had a mind to overturn the world, and put all in a
general confusion, I could do it; for I have it in my power to banish
order and reason out of it; to turn sauciness and importunity into merit,
example into necessity; to give law to success, authority to infamy, and
credit to insolence. I have the tongues of all counsellors at my girdle,
and they shall speak neither more nor less than just as I please. In
short, that’s easy to me which others account impossible, and while I
live ye need never fear either virtue, justice, or good government in the
world. This devil of subornation, that talks of his lieutenancy, what
could he ever have done without me? He’s a rascal that no person of
quality would admit into his company, if I did not fit him with vizors
and disguises. Let him hold his tongue then, and know himself; and let
me hear no more of those disputes about the lieutenancy of hell, for I
have Lucifer’s broad seal to show for my title to’t.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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