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

Item. To prevent all wrongs, we do appoint that, for the future, no verses be imported from France or Italy, or other foreign parts, whence our poets steal, and pretend to make them their own; and that whatsoever poet shall be found guilty of this offence, be obliged to wear good clothes, and to keep himself clean and sweet for a week at least.

Our poet was very well pleased with this decree, for he wore a cassock that was grey with age, and so ragged, that it was a wonder he could go about without dropping in pieces. His gown and other accoutrements were only fit to manure the ground, which made me smile. And I told him: It is further ordained, That all women, who fell in love with mere poets, should be reputed as desperate persons, who hang or drown themselves, and as such never be buried in hallowed ground. And considering the mighty crop of roundelays, sonnets, songs and ballads, these over-rank years have produced, we do ordain, that all parcels of them, which have escaped the grocers and tobacconists as unworthy those employments, be sent to the necessary houses, without any appeal allowed them.

To conclude; I came to the last article which runs thus:

However, taking it into our pitiful consideration, that there are three sorts of persons in the nation so very miserable that they cannot live without this sort of poets, which are players, blind men, and ballad-singers; we do ordain that there may be some journeymen of this profession, provided they be licensed by the aldermen-poets of their wards; with this limitation, that the players-poets shall not use any devils or conjurers in their farces, nor conclude their comedies in matrimony; that the blind men shall not sing dismal stories which happened at Jerusalem or Morocco, nor patch up their verses with “eke also, and well a-day,” and the like; and, that the ballad-singers shall no longer run upon Gil and Pascual, nor quibble upon words, nor contrive their songs so, that altering but the names, they may serve upon all occasions. To conclude, we command all poets in general to discard Jupiter, Venus, Apollo, and all the herd of heathen gods and goddesses, on pain of having none but them to pray by them on their deathbed.

All that heard the proclamation read were highly pleased, and begged copies of it; only the old man began to swear by his Bible, that it was a satire upon him, because of what it contained concerning the blind men, and that he knew what he did better than any man, and went on, saying, “Do not mistake me, I once lay in the same house with Liñan, and dined several times with Espinel, and was in Madrid as near Lope de Vega as to any man in the room, and have seen Don Alonso de Ercilla a thousand times, and have a picture at home of the divine Figueroa, and I bought the old breeches Padilla left off when he became a friar, which I still wear, though bad enough.” These were all old Spanish famous poets, with whom he pretended to be thus acquainted, as if the knowledge of them would have made his nonsense the more tolerable. At the same time he showed us the breeches, which set all the company into such a fit of laughing, that none of them cared to leave the lodging. But it was now two of the clock, and having to travel further, we left Madrid. I took my leave of him, though unwillingly enough, and travelled on towards the pass on the mountains.

It pleased God, to divert me from evil thoughts, that I met with a soldier; we fell into discourse. He asked me whether I came from the Court? I told him I only passed through the town. “It is fit for nothing else,” answered the soldier, “it is full of base people; by the Lord, I had rather lie at a siege up to the waist in snow, expecting a kind bullet, and half starved, than endure the insolencies they offer a man of honour.” I replied, he should consider that at Court there were people of all sorts, and that they made great account of any person of worth. He cut me off short, saying in a great passion, “Why, I have been this half year at Court, suing for a pair of colours, after twenty campaigns, and having shed my blood in the king’s service, as appears by these wounds.” And at the same time he showed me a scar half a quarter long on his groin, which was as plain a tumour as the light of the sun; and two seams on his heels, saying, they had been shots; but I concluded, by some I have of the same sort, that they had been chilblains broken. He pulled off his hat to show me his face, where appeared a long gash from ear to ear, and quite across his nose, besides other smaller cuts, that made it look like a mathematical draught, all of lines. “These,” said he, “I received at Paris, serving my God and my king, for whom I have had my countenance carved out and disfigured; and in return, I have received nothing but fair words, which are equivalent at present to foul actions. Let me entreat you, learned sir, to read these papers; for, by heavens, a more remarkable man, I vow to God, never went into the field”; and he spoke truth, for he had marks enough to be known by. With this, he began to pull out tin-cases, and to show me a multitude of papers, which I believed belonged to another, whose name he had borrowed. I read them, and said a thousand things in his praise, pretending that neither the Cid nor Bernardo could compare with him.