Dream of Hell

The dreams, satirical works, composed between 1606 and 1623, are stories of Lucianesque inspiration where various customs, trades and popular characters of their time are reviewed. These are Doomsday Dream, The Demon-Possessed Sheriff, Hell’s Dream, The World Inside and The Dream of Death, also known as the visit of jokes. In the Dreams, Francisco de Quevedo makes a satire of the different professions or social states: Jurists, doctors, butchers, hidalgos, poets, astrologers, to finish talking about the bad practitioners of the different religions. Then Mohammed, Luther and Judas enter the scene.

I, who in the Dream of Judgment saw so many things and in The demon-possessed bailiff heard part of those that I had not seen, as I know that dreams are most often mockery of the fantasy and leisure of the soul, and that the devil never told the truth, for not having some news of the things that God justly hides from us, I saw, guided by my guardian angel, what follows, by God’s particular providence; that it was to bring me, in fear, true peace. I found myself in a place favored by nature by the gentle tranquillity, where without malice the beauty entertained the sight (mute recreation), and without human response the fountains talked between the pebbles and the trees by the leaves, perhaps the bird sang, nor do I know determinedly if in competition with them or thanking them for their harmony. See how pilgrim our desire is, which found no peace in anything. I stretched out my eyes, careful to see some way to seek company, and I see, something worthy of admiration, two paths that were born from the same place, and one was moving away from the other as if fleeing from accompanying each other. It was the one with the right hand so narrow that it does not admit any increase, and it was, of the few people who went through it, full of bristles and rough edges and bad steps. However, I saw some who worked on passing it, but because they went barefoot and naked, some were left on the road, others the arms, others the heads, others the feet, and all were yellow and skinny. But I noticed that none of those who went around here looked back, but all of them were looking ahead. To say that someone can go on horseback is laughable. One of those who were there, asking him if I could walk that desert on horseback, said to me:
—St. Paul left him to take the first step on this path.

Fragment of the work