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 THIRD VISION OF THE LAST JUDGMENT
HOMER makes Jupiter the author or inspirer of dreams; especially the
dreams of princes and governors; and if the matter of them be pious and
important. And it is likewise the judgment of the learned Propertius
that good dreams come from above, have their weight, and ought not to be
slighted. And truly I am much of his mind, in the case of a dream I had
the other night. As I was reading a discourse touching the end of the
world, I fell asleep over the book, and dreamt of the last judgment. (A
thing which in the house of a poet is scarce admitted so much as in a
dream.) This fancy minded me of a passage in Claudian: that all
creatures dream at night of what they have heard and seen in the day, as
the hound dreams of hunting the hare.
Methought I saw a very handsome youth towering in the air, and sounding
of a trumpet; but the forcing of his breath did indeed take off much of
his beauty. The very marbles, I perceived, and the dead obeyed his call;
for in the same moment, the earth began to open, and set the bones at
liberty, to seek their fellows. The first that appeared were sword-men,
as generals of armies, captains, lieutenants, common soldiers, who
supposing that it had sounded a charge, came out of their graves, with
the same briskness and resolution, as if they had been going to an
assault or a combat. The misers put their heads out, all pale and
trembling, for fear of a plunder. The cavaliers and good fellows
believed they had been going to a horserace, or a hunting-match. And in
fine, though they all heard the trumpet, there was not any creature knew
the meaning of it (for I could read their thoughts by their looks and
gestures). After this, there appeared a great many souls, whereof some
came up to their bodies, though with much difficulty and horror; others
stood wondering at a distance, not daring to come near so hideous and
frightful a spectacle. This wanted an arm, that an eye, t’other a head.
Upon the whole, though I could not but smile at the prospect of so
strange a variety of figures, yet was it not without just matter of
admiration at the all-powerful Providence, to see order drawn out of
confusion, and every part restored to the right owner. I dreamt myself
then in a churchyard; and there, methought, divers that were loth to
appear were changing of heads; and an attorney would have demurred upon
pretence that he had got a soul was none of his own, and that his body
and soul were not fellows.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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