Pablo de Segovia, the Spanish Sharper - Francisco de Quevedo (good summer reads .TXT) 📗

them gave him a volley of welcomes. He embraced them all, and then some began to ask him for verses on the day of judgment in a lofty, bombastical style, that might provoke action; others would have commemorations for the departed; and so the rest, everyone according to his fancy, giving him eight reals a-man earnest. He dismissed them, and said to me, “I shall make above three hundred reals of the blind men, and therefore, with your leave, sir, I’ll withdraw for awhile now, to compose some lines, and after dinner we will hear the proclamation read, if you please.” Wretched life! for none are more miserable than those madmen that get their bread by such as are as mad as themselves. X

Of what I did at Madrid, and what happened to me on my way to Cerecedilla, where I passed the night.

The poet withdrew awhile to study profaneness and nonsense for the blind ballad-singers till it was dinnertime, which being over, they desired to have the proclamation read, and having nothing else to do at that time, I drew it out and complied with their desires. I have inserted it here, because I reckon it ingenious, and pat to the purposes mentioned in it. It ran as follows:

A Proclamation

Against Addle-headed, Numskull, and Dry-brained Poets.

The old poetaster laughed out very heartily when he heard this title, and said, “I might have had business cut out till tomorrow; I thought this had concerned me, and it is only against numskull poets.” I was mightily pleased with his conceit, as if he had been a Horace or a Virgil. I skipped over the preamble, and began with the first article, which was as follows:

In regard that this sort of vermin, called “poets,” are our neighbours and Christians, though wicked ones, and considering they spend all their days in worshipping of eyes, mouths, noses, and old ribbons and slippers, besides many other abominable sins they are guilty of, we think fit to direct and ordain, that all common halfpenny poets be confined together against Easter, as lewd women are wont to be, and that care be taken to convince them of their evil practices, and to convert them; and to this purpose we do appoint monasteries of penitent poets.

Item. Observing the excessive heats and droughts in the dog-days, caused by the abundance of suns, and other brighter stars, created and produced by those high-flying poets, we enjoin perpetual silence as to all heavenly beings, and appoint two months’ vacation for the Muses, as well as for the law, that they may have some time to recruit and recover the continual charge they are at.

Item. Forasmuch as this infernal sect of men, condemned to eternal flights, as murderers of good words and ravishers of sentences, have infected the women with the plague of poetry, we declare that we look upon this mischief done them as a sufficient revenge for the damage we received from their sex at the beginning of the world; and to supply the present wants and necessities the world now labours under, we do farther ordain, that all the songs and other verses, made by poets in praise of women, be burned like old lace, to take out the gold and silver they put into their lady’s hair and skins, and that all the oriental pearls, rubies, and precious stones be picked out of them, since they are so full of those rich metals and jewels.

Here the old poetaster was quite out of patience, and starting up in a fume, cried, “They had even as good rob us of all we have. Pray, sir, let us have no more of it, for I design to reverse that judgment, and remove the cause, not to chancery, for that would be a wrong to my coat and dignity, but to the spiritual court, where I will spend all I am worth. It would be very pleasant that I, who am a churchman, should put up with that wrong. I will make it appear that an ecclesiastical poet’s verses are not liable to that proclamation, and to lose no time, I will go and prove it in open court immediately.” I could have laughed heartily at him, but for the more expedition, because it grew late, I said to him, “Sir, this proclamation is made only for diversion, and is of no force, nor binding, as having no lawful authority.” “A vengeance on it,” replied the old man, in a great heat, “you should have told me so much before, sir, and might have saved me all this trouble. Do you consider what a thing it is for a man to have a stock of eight hundred thousand songs and ballads by him, and to hear such a decree? Proceed, sir, and God forgive you for putting me into such a fright.” Then I went on thus:

Item. For that very many, since they left their ancient idolatry of heathen gods and goddesses, still retaining some Pagan superstitions, are turned shepherds, which is the cause that the cattle are withered up with drinking nothing but their tears, and parched with the fire that continually burns in their souls, and so charmed with their music, that they forget to feed; we do ordain, that they quit that employment, and that such as love solitude have hermitages appointed them, and the rest be coachmen and watermen, because those are callings given to much mirth and ribaldry.

“It was some scoundrel, cuckoldy whoreson,” cried the mad rhymer, “that contrived this proclamation; and if I knew the dog, I would write such a satire upon him as should fret his soul, and all that read it. What a pretty figure a smooth-faced man as I am would make in a hermitage? And would it be fit for a person dignified as reader to turn coachman? Enough, sir, those jests are not to be borne with.” “I told you before,” said I, “that