The Sleeping Bard
E >>
Ellis Wynne >> The Sleeping Bard
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 | 6 |
7 |
8 |
9
On coming out of this wonderful nook I heard a confused talking, and
after every word such a ghastly laughter, as if five hundred devils were
casting their horns with laughing. On approaching to see the cause of
such a rarity as laughter in Hell, I discovered that it was only got up
to incense two honorable gentlemen, newly arrived, who were insisting on
being shown respect suitable to their gentility. One of them was a round
bodied squire, having with him a big roll of parchment--namely his map of
pedigree--out of which he recited from which of the fifty tribes of North
Wales he was sprung, and how many justices of the peace, and how many
sheriffs his house had produced. "Come, come," said one of the devils,
"we know the merits of the greater part of your ancestry. If you had
been like your father or your great grandfather, we should not have
ventured to come in contact with you; but you are only the heir of the
pit of darkness, you dirty hell-dog! You are scarcely worthy of a
night's lodging," added he, "and yet we'll grant you some nook, wherein
to await the dawn;" and with that word the goblin with his pitchfork,
gave him more than thirty tosses in the fiery air, until he at length
cast him into an abyss out of sight. "That may do," said the other, "for
a squire of half blood, but I hope you will behave better to a knight,
who has had the honor of serving the king in person, and can name twelve
earls and fifty baronets belonging to his ancient house." "If your
ancestors and your ancient house be all that you can bring in your
defence, you may go the same road as he," said one of the devils,
"because we can scarcely remember one ancient house, of which some
oppressor, murderer, or strong thief did not lay the foundation, and
which he did not transmit to people as froward as himself, or to lazy
drones, or drunken swine, to maintain whose extravagant magnificence, the
vassals and the tenantry must be squeezed to death, whilst every handsome
colt or pretty cow in the neighbourhood must be parted with for the
pleasure of the mistress, and every lass or married woman, may consider
herself fortunate, if she escape the pleasure of the master; the
freeholders, meanwhile, being either obliged to follow him like fawning
hounds, rob themselves for his benefit, and sell their patrimonies at his
pleasure, or be subject to frowns and hatred, and be dragged into every
disagreeable and vexatious employment during their lives.
"O these little great country folks," continued the devil, "how genteely
they swear in order to obtain credit with their mistresses, or with the
shop-keepers; and when they have decked themselves out, O how insolently
they look upon many of the middling officers of the church and state, and
how much worse on the common people! as if they were a species of
reptiles in comparison with themselves. Woe is me! is not all blood of
the same color? Did you not come all into the world by the same way?"
"But, nevertheless, with your permission," said the knight, "there are
some who are of much purer birth than others." "Destruction take you!"
said the goblin, "there is not one carcass of you all better than the
rest; you are all polluted with radical sin from Adam. But, sir," said
he, "if your blood be better than other blood, less scum will exude from
you when boiling; however, in order to be sure of its quality, it will be
as well to search you with fire as well as water." Thereupon a devil in
the shape of a chariot of fire received him, and the other in mockery
lifted him into it, and away he was hurried like lightning. After a
short time the angel caused me to look, and I could see the wretched
knight suffering a terrible steeping in a frightful boiling furnace, in
company with Cain, Nimrod, Esau, Tarquin, Nero, Caligula, and the others
who were the founders of genealogies, and were the first to set up arms
of nobility.
A little farther on, my guide caused me to look through the hollow of a
rock, and there I beheld a number of coquettes briskly at work, doing and
repeating all their former follies upon earth. Some were twisting their
mouths, some were pulling their front locks with irons, some were
painting themselves, some patching their faces with sooty ointments, to
make the yellow look more fair; some quite mad at seeing their visages,
after all their pains in coloring and variegating, more hideous than
those of the very devils, were endeavouring to break the mirrors, or were
tearing off with their nails and their teeth the whole artificial
blush--the ointments, skin, and flesh coming off all together. The cries
which they uttered occasionally were most dismal. "The curse of curses,"
would one say, "on my father, for making me marry when a girl, an old
sapless stump, whose work in raising desires which he could not gratify
has driven me hither." "A thousand curses on my parents," would another
say, "for sending me to a cloister to learn chastity; they would not have
done worse in sending me to a roundhead to learn generosity, or to a
quaker to learn manners, than to a papist to learn honor." "Destruction,"
said another, "seize my mother for her avaricious pride in preventing my
obtaining a husband when I wanted one, and thus obliging me to purloin
the thing I might have honorably come by." "Hell, and double Hell to the
lustful wretch of a gentleman, who first began tempting me," would the
third say; "if he had not, betwixt fair and foul, broken the hedge, I had
not become a cell open to every body, nor had I come to this cell of
devils!" And then they fell to tearing themselves again.
I was glad to quit such a pack of female dogs. But before I had passed
on many steps, I was surprised to see another shoal of imprisoned
wenches, twice more detestable than they. Some had been changed into
toads, some into dragons, some into serpents who were swimming and
hissing, glavering and butting in a fetid, stagnant pool, much larger
than Llyn Tegid. {84} "In the name of wonder," said I, "what sort of
creatures may these be?" "There are here," said he, "four sorts of
wenches, all notoriously bad. First, there are procuresses, with some of
the principal lasses of their respective bevies about them. Second,
gossiping ladies with a swarm of their news-bearing hags. Third,
bouncing madams, and a pack of sneaking curs on both sides of them, for
no man, but for downright fear of them, would ever go nigh them. Fourth,
scolds, become a hundred times more horrible than vipers, with their
poisonous stings going creak, creak to all eternity."
"I had imagined that Lucifer had been a king of too much courtesy, to put
a gentlewoman of my rank with such little petty she-devils as these,"
said one, something like a winged serpent, only that she was much more
fierce. "O that he would send here, seven hundred of the worst devils in
Hell in exchange for thee, thou poisonous hell-spawn!" said another ugly
viper. "O! many thanks to you," said a gigantic devil who overheard
them, "we set too much value on our place and merits, to condescend to
become mates of yours; and though we are willing to admit that you are
fully as competent to torment people as the best of us, we would,
nevertheless, not yield up our duties to you." "And yet," said the angel
softly, "Lucifer has another reason for keeping such a particular watch
over these; he knows well, that if they should break out, they would turn
all Hell topsy-turvy." From here we went, still going downward, to a
place where I beheld a frightful den, in which was a horrible clamour,
the like of which I had never heard, for swearing, cursing, blaspheming,
snarling, groaning, and crying. "Who is here?" said I. "This," said he,
"is the den of the thieves. Here is a swarm of game-keepers, lawyers,
stewards, and the old Judas in the midst of them; they have been
excessively annoyed at seeing the tailors and weavers above them, in a
more comfortable chamber." Almost before I could turn myself, there came
a horse of a devil, bearing a physician and an apothecary, whom he cast
down amongst the pedlars and the duffers, for selling bad, rotten ware;
but they beginning to fume at being placed in such low company, one of
the devils said, "stay, stay! you _do_ deserve a different place," and
cast them down amongst the conquerors and the murderers. There was a
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.
Below this there was a hanging ledge, where there were some apothecaries
ground to dust, and stuffed into earthen pots amongst album grecum, dung
of geese and swine, and many an old stinking ointment.
We were now journeying forward, continually descending, along the
wilderness of Destruction, through innumerable torments, eternal and not
to be described--from cell to cell, from cellar to cellar, and the last
always surpassing the others in horror and ghastliness; at last we
arrived at a vast porch, more cheerless than any thing we had seen
before. It was a very spacious porch, and the pathway through it, which
was frightfully steep, led to a kind of dusky nook of incredible ugliness
and horror, and there the palace was. At the upper end of the accursed
court, among thousands of horrible objects, I could, by means of the
radiance of my heavenly companion, perceive amidst the dreary darkness
two feet of enormous magnitude, reaching to the roof of the whole
infernal firmament. I enquired of my conductor what this horrible thing
might be? "Patience," said he, "you shall obtain a more ample view of
this monster as you return; but move forward now to see the royal
palace."
Whilst we were proceeding down the porch of Horror, we heard a noise
behind us, as of an immense number of people. Having turned aside to let
them pass forward, we beheld four distinct bands, and soon discovered
that the four princesses of the city of Destruction, were bringing their
subjects as presents to their father. I recognised the princess Pride,
not only by her being before the others, but also by her habit of
stumbling every moment, for want of looking beneath her feet. She had
with her a vast many kings, potentates, courtiers, gentlemen, and pompous
people, many quakers, innumerable females of every rank and degree.
The princess Lucre was next, with her silly, mean figure, bringing along
with her very many of the money loving race--such as usurers, lawyers,
extortioners, overseers, game-keepers, harlots, and some ecclesiastics
also. Next to these was the amiable princess Pleasure and her daughter
Folly, conducting their subjects--consisting of players at dice, cards,
draughts, games of legerdemain, and of poets, musicians, tellers of old
stories, drunkards, ladies of pleasure, debauches, pretty fellows, with a
thousand million of all kinds of baubles, to serve now as instruments of
punishment for the lost fools. After these three had gone with their
prisoners to the palace, to receive their judgment--behold Hypocrisy, the
last of all, conducting a more numerous rout than any of the others, of
all nations and ages, of town and country, gentle and simple, males and
females. At the tail of the two-faced multitudes we advanced till we
came in sight of the palace, through many dragons and horned sprites, and
warriors of Hell, the black wardens of the gloomy pandemonium, I all the
time crouching very carefully within my veil. We entered the frightful
and awful edifice, every corner of which abounded with horror. The walls
were immense rocks of glowing adamant, the pavement of an insufferably
sharp flint, the roof of burning steel, meeting like an arch of greenish-
blue and dusky-red flames, and in its size and its heat, resembling an
immense vaulted baking oven.
Opposite to the door, on a flaming throne, the Arch-Fiend was seated, his
principal lost angels on both sides of him, on thrones of fire terrible
to behold--sitting according to their former rank in the regions of
light, when they were amiable messengers. It would only be in vain to
endeavour to relate how obscene and horrible they were; and the longer I
looked at any one of them, seven times more hideous he appeared. In the
midst, above the head of Lucifer, was a vast fist, holding a very
frightful bolt. The princesses, after making their obeisance, returned
to the world to their charges, without making any stay. As soon as they
had departed, a gigantic, wide-mouthed devil, by command of the king,
uttered a shout louder than a hundred discharges of artillery, as loud if
possible as the last trumpet, for the purpose of summoning the infernal
parliament. And lo! the rabble of Hell instantly filled the palace and
the porch in every shape, after the image and similitude of the principal
sin, which each delighted to thrust upon mankind. After commanding
silence, Lucifer, with his look directed to the potentates nearest to
him, began to speak, very graciously, in the following manner:--
"Ye potentates of Hell! princes of the black abodes of Despair! Though
by our confederacy we have lost possession of those thrones, from which
we once shone resplendent through the higher regions; our confederacy
was, nevertheless, a glorious one, as we aimed at nothing less than the
whole. And we have not lost the whole either; for lo! the extensive and
profound regions, to the extremest wilds of vast Destruction, are yet
beneath our sway. It is true we reign in horrible agony; but spirits of
our eminence prefer ruling in torment to serving in ease. And besides
this, we are on the eve of obtaining another world, more than three parts
of the earth having been beneath my banner for a long time.
"And although the Almighty Enemy, sent his own son to die for the beings
of that world; yet I, by my baubles, obtain ten souls, for every one
which he obtains by his crucified son. And although I have not been able
to reach him, who sits in the high places and discharges the invincible
thunderbolts, yet revenge of some kind is sweet. Let us complete the
destruction of the remnant of human beings, still in the favour of our
destroyer. I remember the time, when you caused them to be burnt by
multitudes and cities, and even the whole race of the earth, by means of
the flood, to be swept down to us in the fire. But at present, though
your strength and your natural cruelty are not a whit diminished, yet you
are become in some degree inactive; if that had not been the case, we
might long since have destroyed the few who are godly, and have caused
the earth to be united with this our vast empire. But know, ye black
ministers of my displeasure, that unless ye be more resolute and more
diligent, and make the most of the short time which yet remains to you
for doing evil, ye shall experience the weight of my anger, in torments
new and strange to the oldest of you. This I swear by the deepest Hell,
and the vast, eternal pit of Darkness." And, thereupon, he frowned, till
the palace became seven times more gloomy than before.
Moloch now arose, one of the infernal potentates, and after making his
obeisance to the king, he said, "O emperor of the Air! mighty ruler of
Darkness! no one ever doubted my propensity to malice and cruelty; the
sufferings of others have been, and still are, my supreme delight. It is
as capital sport to me, to hear the shrieks of infants perishing in the
fire as of old, when thousands of sucklings were sacrificed to me outside
of Jerusalem. When was I ever slack at my work? Since the return of the
crucified Enemy to the supreme abodes, I have employed myself in slaying
and burning his subjects. I did all I could, to destroy the Christians
from the face of the earth, during the reigns of ten emperors; and many
an awful butchery I have made of them in modern times, both in Paris and
England, to say nothing of other places: but what are we the nearer to
our object for all this? The One above has caused the tree to grow,
after its branches have been severed; and all our efforts, are nothing
better than showing one's teeth, without the power of biting." "Pshaw!"
said Lucifer, "a fig for such heartless legions as ye. I will no longer
rely upon you! I will do the work myself, and the glory thereof I will
share with no one. I will go to the earth in my own kingly person, and
will swallow up the whole; not one man, henceforth, shall be found on the
earth to adore the Almighty." Thereupon he gave a furious bound,
attempting to set off, in a firmament of living fire; but, behold! the
fist above his head shook the terrific bolt till he trembled in the midst
of his frenzy, and before he could move far, an invisible hand lugged the
old fox back by his chain, in spite of his teeth. Whereupon he became
seven times more frantic; his eyes were more terrible than lightnings,
black thick smoke burst from his nostrils, and dark green flames from his
mouth and entrails: he gnawed his chain in his agony, and hissed forth
direful blasphemy, and the most frightful curses.
But perceiving how vain it was to seek to break loose, or to struggle
with the Almighty, he returned to his place and proceeded with his
discourse somewhat more calmly, but with ten times more malice. "The
Omnipotent Thunderer has vanquished me, and he alone could have done so.
To him I submit. Against him all my fury is in vain; I will, therefore,
direct it against nearer and lower objects, and pour it in showers upon
those who are yet under my banner, and within the reach of my chain.
Arise, ye ministers of Destruction! rulers of the unquenchable fire! and
as my wrath and my venom flow forth and my malice boileth out, do ye
assiduously spread the whole tide amongst the damned, particularly the
Christians. Urge the instruments of torture to the utmost--devise as
many more as you can--double the fire and the boiling, until the very
cauldrons be overturned; and when they are in the most extreme,
inexpressible torture, mock, deride, and upbraid them; and when your
whole stock of ironry and bitterness is expended, hasten to me, and you
shall obtain more."
There had been for some time a comparative silence in Hell, and the more
cruel tortures had been suspended; but now the stillness which Lucifer
had caused was broken, when the ghastly butchers rushed like wild hungry
bears upon their prisoners. O then there arose an oh! oh! oh! a wail,
and universal howling, more loud than the sound of cataracts, or the
tumult of an earthquake, so that Hell became seven times more frightful.
I should have swooned if my dear companion had not rendered me
assistance. "Take now," said he, "plenty of the water, that you may
obtain strength to see things yet more horrible than these." But
scarcely had these words proceeded from his mouth, when, lo! the
celestial Justice, who sits above the precipice keeping the gate of Hell,
came scourging three men with a rod of fiery scorpions. "Ha! ha!" said
Lucifer, "here are three right reverend gentlemen, whom Justice himself
has deigned to conduct to my kingdom." "Oh! woe is me," said one of the
three, "who asked him to trouble himself?" "Be it known," said Justice,
with a glance which made the devils tremble till they knocked one against
another, "that it is the will of the Great Creator, that I should myself
bring these three accursed murderers to their home. Sirrah," said he to
one of the devils, "unbolt for me the prison of the murderers, where are
Cain and Nero, Bonner, Bradshaw, Ignatius, and innumerable others of a
similar description." "Alas, alas! we never killed any body," said one
of the prisoners. "No, because you did not get time and because you were
prevented," said Justice. When the den was opened, there came out such a
horrible puff of bloody flame, and such a yell as if a thousand dragons
were giving their last gasp in their death agony. Into this den Justice
hurled his prisoners; {93} and on his way back he breathed obliquely,
such a tempest of fiery whirlwinds upon the Arch-Fiend and all his
potentates, as he passed by them, that Lucifer, Beelzebub, Satan, Moloch,
Abaddon, Asmodeus, Dagon, Apollyon, Belphegor, Mephistophiles, and all
the other principal demons were whisked away, and tumbled headlong into a
kind of gulf, which was opening and closing in the midst of the palace,
and whose aspect was more horrible, and whose steam was more frightful
than the aspect and vapour of any gulf which I had previously seen.
Before I could enquire of the angel as to what it was, he said, "that is
a hole which leads to another vast world." "Pray," said I, "what is the
name of that world?" "It is called," said he, "Unknown, or extremest
Hell, the habitation of the devils, and the place to which they are at
present gone. The vast wilderness, over part of which you have come, is
called the country of Despair, a place intended for the lost until the
Day of Judgment, when it will fall into extremest, bottomless Hell, and
the two will become one. When that has happened one of ourselves will
come and close the gate of the whole region of horror upon the devils and
the damned, which gate shall never, to all eternity, be opened for them.
In the meantime, however, permission is given to the devils to come to
these cooler regions, in order to torment the lost souls. Yea, they
often obtain permission to go even into the air, and about the earth, to
tempt men to the destructive paths, which lead to this dismal prison,
from which there is no escape." In the midst of this history, and whilst
I was in great surprise at seeing the mouth of Unknown, so much
surpassing in horror the jaws of upper Hell, I could hear a prodigious
noise of arms, and loud discharges from one side, answered by what seemed
to be hoarse thunders from the other; the rocks of Death, meanwhile,
rebellowing the tumult.
"That is the sound of war," said I. "Is there war then in Hell?" "There
is," said the angel; "and it is impossible that there should not be here
continual war." Whilst we were moving out, to see what was the matter, I
beheld the mouth of Unknown opening, and casting up thousands of candles,
burning with a frightful green flame. These were Lucifer and his
potentates, who had contrived to subdue the tempest. But when the Arch
Fiend heard the noise of war, he became more pale than Death, and began
to call and gather together bands of his old experienced soldiers to
quell the tumult. At this moment he stumbled against a little puppy of
an imp, who had escaped between the feet of the combatants. "What is the
matter?" said the king. "Such a matter as will endanger your crown,
unless you look to yourself," said the imp. Close behind him came
another fiendish courier, bawling hoarsely, "you are plotting disquiet
for others, look now to your own repose. Yonder are the Turks, the
Papists, and the bloody-handed Roundheads, in three bands, filling all
the plains of the dark abodes, committing terrible outrages, and turning
every thing topsy-turvy." "How came they out?" said the Arch Fiend,
looking worse than Demigorgon. "The Papists," said the messenger, "broke
out of their Purgatory, I do not know how; and then on account of an old
grudge, they went to attack the back gate of the Paradise of Mahomet, and
let all the Turks out of their prison; and afterwards, in the hubbub, the
seed of Cromwell found some means to break out of their cells." Then
Lucifer turned about and looked under his throne, where were all the lost
kings, and caused Cromwell to be kept close in his kennel; and likewise
all the emperors of the Turks, under watch and ward. He then hastened
with his legions along the black wilds of Darkness, each obtaining light
from the fire which was incessantly tormenting his body. Guided by the
horrid uproar, the fiends advanced courageously towards the combatants;
then silence was enjoined in the name of the king, and Lucifer enquired,
"what is the cause of this disturbance in my kingdom?" "Please, your
infernal majesty," said Mahomet, "a dispute arose between me and pope
Leo, as to whether my Koran or the creed of Rome, had rendered you most
service; and whilst we were at it, a pack of Roundheads broke their
prison and put in their oar; asserting that their league and covenant,
deserved more respect at your hands than either. Thus from disputing we
have come to blows, and from words to arms. But at present, as your
majesty has returned from Unknown, I will refer the matter to yourself."
"Stay, we shall not let you escape thus!" said pope Julius; and to it
again they went, tooth and nail, in the most furious manner, till the
strokes were like an earthquake. O you should have seen the three armies
of the damned, tearing one another to pieces over the expanse of the
burning plains; and each individual body that was rent to pieces,
becoming joined again serpent fashion. At last Lucifer caused his old
soldiers, the champions of Hell, to pull them from each other, and it was
no easy matter to do so.
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 | 6 |
7 |
8 |
9