The Dog & The Fever

Dog and fever, what more natural to us? We're dogs, all of us, at our best and worst and if the fever hasn't got us, all, then let us find other means to hide it than our present ones for its sweat reeks from us.

Quevedo was in exile for having killed a man at the entrance to the cathedral for having kicked a lady at her prayers on the stones. He was embittered at the treatment he had received and walking about impotent on his country estate to which he was confined began to write.

The fever had him and he was boiling over. For he, if anyone, knew the intrigues of the court as he knew only too well that others in high positions were profiting by his absence. But his enemies were not ordinary enimies, they occupied high positions, the chief of them a high churchman. To attack such a man required subtly, double talk.

Quevedo was the man for double talk so he sat down to his novella and let fly. He was young, the keenest wit of his day and the most dangerous with word and weapon. He wasn't taking their stuff and yet, and yet - one must live, somehow. He addreswed his patron as one has seen in the dedicatory epistle.

For a low down mut you've got to be low down. That too Quevedo knew and practiced. Low down double talk, to bring down the highest : the dog and the fever.

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Quevedo, Francisco Comez de Quevedo y Villegas (1580-1645) was a dark, thick set man of brilliant intellect who made violent enemies. It's hard to find out the exact identity of the cleric whom he despised.

The story begins with the poet in exile walking about in the country, longing to get back into town as his mind burning with suppressed indignation - taking the terms for his distribe from the peasant scenes which immediately surround him in his exile.

The mill turns, the water flows, the cat sits by the fire and the world, the little world he inhabits goes on. But he cannot talk. He cannot speak outright. He is bound, hog-tied. He has to soeak to someone who will understand him, will undtand all the references which he cannot make outright. He writes to his patron, to amuse him at some moment fo ease after his labors with government, sitting back "of a mjind to taste vinegar" for his friends' sake,

One is thrust upon the choler, the bile that the man feels as he writes, all the violence of his mood - born in Madrid, where his father, who came from the mountains of Burgos, was secretary to Ann of Austria, fourth wife of Phillip II. Early left and orphan - a mania fro quotations

The cynical greed of ministers, the meanness of their flatterers, the corruption of the royal officers, the financial scandals, afforded ample scope to Quevedo's as a painter of manners. At Valladolid, where the court resided from 1601 to 1606, he mingled freely with those intrigues and disorders, and lost the purity of his morals but not his uprightness and integrity.

In 1611 he fought a duel in which his adversary was killed - he was

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an accomplished swordsman, near-sighted ( he wore glasses with heavy lenses ) powerful as a bull. Fled to Italy - became Secretary to Pedro Tellez Girón, duke of Osuna, and viceroy to Naples. Thus he learned politics--the one science which he had studied perhaps till then neglected--initiated himself into the questions which that divided Europe, and penetrated the ambitions of the neighbors of Spain, as well as the secret history of the intriguers protected by the favor of Philip III. ... The disgrace of Osuna (1620) compromised Quevedo, who was arrested and exiled to his estate at La Torre de Juan Abad in New Castille.

Though involved in the process against the duke, Quevedo remained faithful to his patron, he was restored to court by one Olivares to whom he had recommended himself "his biting wit which had no equal for persons. General politics, social economy, war, finance, literary and religious questions, all came under his disseminating knife the pitiless mockers, the profound observer of all that is base and absurd in human nature

Cada qual por si, Dios para todos.

Jame lo hache!

Ave Maria purissima ( ave Maria pumissira )

Commentary

Quevedo, Don Francisco Gomez Quevedo Villegas, poet and man of affairs, having wandered about Spain for some months following his first arrest and imprisonment, finds himself "in the country", much to his distaste, waiting for something to turn up; as much as such a man ever wants for anything.

Out of favor and poor, what is a fellow to do? Why, being a writer he can write. The short "novela" here presented, _El Perro y La Calentura_, is a product of that period - one of the lesser products, a piece of pure literary invention, for the sheer zest of it. This constitutes both its charm and its value today, a day when unconventionality, not to say tangency in the arts must find its roots somewhere - unless it be wholly irrelevant. Quevedo asked no one where to head in. Nor do we.

The man is 45 years of age, at the top of his bent - though this work seems to have been tossed off quite casually - if not without guile - as an aside, while more "serious" compositions were in the process of making or being prepared for the printer at Zaragossa. The date is October 15, 1625; at the bottom of the dedicatory epistle, to Don Fernando de Soto-mayor, the brother, by the way, of the Inquisitor-General; not a bad lead for a man out of favor at court!

My mother, Raquel Helene Rose Hoheb de Williams, who

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knows some good Quevedo stories, confined to her bed, did most
of the work of translation.

Quevedo was born an *hidalgo* of old Castillian stock, in the north, the valley of Toranzo, near Burgos, the Sierra Morena, where his ancestors lived poor but dignified for several generations. But that this "terror and wonder of the age", this late heir of theirs, should have come down upon Madrid from the northern mountains seems altogether fitting. The cold, windy mountains.

The child lost his father almost at birth and his
mother not long afterward - to the court, so it is said. One may
well imagine that she was not intrigued at the thought of
bringing up, with inadequate funds, this tadpole, as he must
have appeared then, big in the head and weak in the nether
extremity. Consequently he was shipped off to school at an early
age where his record, first and last, was never less than brilliant.

In El Buscon, one of the major works of his maturity, he records many a scene from those penurious years :

"God knows how we were plagued with this old hag. She was too
deaf to hear anything, though she understood signs in spite
of being half blind. She used to pray incessantly until one day
the string of beads broke over the stew as it was boiling. On
that occasion she placed before us a very sanctified meal. Some
of the boys exclaimed, "Black peas? From Ethiopia?" Others
cried, "What? Peas in mourning? Who can have passed away?" Our

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master happened to bite on one of them, and it pleased God to break
one of his teeth. On Fridays the old jade would dish us up some
eggs - so full of her reverened # grey hairs that they appeared
no less venerable than herself. It was a common practice for her
to dip the kitchen shovel instead of the ladle into the pot; and
to serve up porringers of broth containing coals, nits, chips of
wood and the heads of flax she spun: all was thrown in to fill
and swell our bellies." -

This was at the peak of the Golden Age of Spanish letters,
Lope de Vega, Góngora, Cervantes; the youth plumped for a career
as a writer and his mode of life took upon himself, from the start,
the burdens and responsibilities of satire. It was a choice which
well suited his nature.

"He read at meals, in the coach, and in bed, smoking a hobby (later) of collecting small, portable volumes for the pocket: and his library consisted of some 5000 books treating of every branch of human knowledge then available."

But he was anything but a bookworm. Popular at court as the
years grew, you saw a figure strolling and not unprepossessing in
appearance considering the deformity which caused him to walk with
a kind of shuffling # limp. Of average height he was sturdily
built; a few old scars from dueling encounters marked a clear
though pale complexion which covered broad features; sparkling
eyes regarded everything through a pair of cragantuan horn-rimmed
spectacles; a massive head crowned with luxurient black hair, and
his animated countenance was always in training for laughter."

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One day at a gathering in the house of Count de Moranda, "Presidente" of Castille, Quevedo entered into an argument about some problem of swordsmanship with the celebrated master of the art, Don Luis Pacheco de Narrez, who was also the author of a handbook on the same subject. Padre Packece knowing himself no match for the young scholar in point of wit, a trial by weapons was proposed by the overconfident swordsman. To the amazement and amusement of the bystanders the lame, short-sighted poet very soon disarmed the professor of swordsmanship.

But on March 1611 an incident occured which was to change the whole aspect of Quevedo's affairs. At dusk on the last day of the month the poet was visiting the Church of San Martin of Madrid. His attention fixed upon a lady, seemingly of quality, devoutly praying, Quevedo was astounded to see a man approach and give her, for no apparent reason a resounding slap in the face. Burning with indignation the poet rushed forward, seized the aggressor and dragged him outside the holy precincts. Swords were drawn; and in the fierce combat which ensued Quevedo's opponent fell bleeding; he died a few hours later.

This proved to be a turning point in the author's career, for the victim was a personage of some note. Before the threatened vengeance of friends and relatives of the deceased man, the poet retreated and found shelter in the palace of his friend Don Pedro Tellez Giron, Duke of Osuna, Viceroy to Sicily, who, having embraced the refugee gave him a place as secretary on his staff.

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 reveal, to entice in order to tell, more than can be told; it is a device to entangle the senses, as such, for the sheer sense of the words: Quevedo was a master of words, of double entendre and bravura - of which, though little, something can still be brought over from the old Spanish for our minds as well as our eyes.

I give you truths in chemises
(said he)

Not far from naked.

It is a device that might well be used more in our times, with our language as it is, largely in flux, rich in slang and cant terms, the language of a multiple witted population - but I mean a barbed, not an infantile weapon, not adenoid-witted journalese; a language pointed to the heart of the matter not Hollywood the ureters of a piddling/hyperprostatism, a meeting place for true belly laughter at the idiocies of our day. The clary.

As Quevedo used it, you should read how Quevedo used it, in the hour of All Men, it goes often to the language of the people." Toward the end of the present work especially, as the pace quickens, he says - descending to the dregs of speech - "This way you must never write:" and from there on it leaps to the attack; at the very end, an orgy of jazz counterpoint: unfortunate, lost to precise sense but, still, wonderfully generative of excitement as the words pile up, zippe zappe, and we glimpse a scene in a garden, a walled garden. An old man with a dyed beard, a church dignitary, near to the court, and his kept woman, a girl of barely fifteen.

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Also, of course, a young man. Outside the garden wall there is, it is time of fiesta. It is peaceful in the garden where the young "wife" is idling under the watchful eye of her keeper.

The old boy? He must have lost sight of her for a moment. Is it night? It must be night. The lights and music of the fiesta reach to the girl. Has the old man fallen asleep? Of course.

Suddenly he wakes and senses the event. He gropes through the paths of the garden, calls out and gets no answer. The noise of the carneval. Distracted, going about in the dark all at once - *pardicas*! - he steps upon the back of something live in his way and falls. *Chinfarrada*. *Percox*. A wild chase ensues through trees whose low branches catch his beard.

Over the wall! Moor or Christian. He takes his child-wife to task, drags her indoors. She smoozles him in the most brazen style. Seduces him skilfully . but what will the event prove nine months hence?

Or do I go too fast? What, for Quevedo?

I confess both Mother and I were stumped by the four or five last pages, though they intrigued us immesurably. I sent them to Professor Salinas at Johns Hopkins asking him if he would not help me out. But he returned them untouched, saying, This is written in early 17th Century slang, no one knows what it means now. Furthermore the text is impure, the printers of those days made many mistakes. Some words, such for instance as "tabloa" are certainly not Spanish. -

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Perhaps, thought I, it should read "tablada", tabled, laid in short. It would be in the spirit of Quevedo. The old boy must have indulged in many a vicious grin when he was scribbling this passage, at top speed in all probability. He'd been all round the country killing time, waiting to get back into Madrid - which he'd been forbidden to approach nearer than a distance of ten leagues. Going about on his "sturdy legs" he must have picked up more than one low-life phrase or word for his list.

In 1621, Phillip III died. With the fall from power of Osuna and the death of the monarch who had always shown himself kindly disposed toward the poet, the enemies of Quevedo had their opportunity.

It was no more than a year or two since, upon the successful completion of an important mission from Sicily, Philip, delighted with the skill and daring of his servant, had offered Quevedo, so it is said, the position of Secretary of State. This, tactfully, the poet declined.

But, it must be stated that his ability was outstanding. Twice as secretary to Osuna, Viceroy for Spain in Sicily Quevedo had been entrusted to carry large sums amounting to many thousands of ducats to the impovrished monarch in Madrid. Both times, in spite of evident dangers, he had succeeded - once by ship from Marseilles and once overland - in completing his task.

Furthermore, at his trial, Osuna freely testified that he had followed his secretary's advice he might not have come to

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being the disgraceful end he was then called upon to face. To Quevedo's credit it was said that he had devised a method of collecting the sums necessary for government without impovérishing the people.

Nevertheless, on his return to Spain he was arrested as a "Libeller" and placed in confinement. At first he was placed in a vile prison but after a short time falling ill he was removed, still in custody, to more congenial surroundings at Villaneuva and very soon after he was liberated - but forbidden to approach nearer than ten leagues of Madrid.

This brings us to the point where, at present, writing began : the courtier lost in the country, distressed, seeking to get back at least to some kind of a living - for except when he was Secretary to Osuna, Quevedo was broke his life long.

On September 25, 1624 the Duke of Osuna died. This was perhaps the worst blow Quevedo hitherto had experienced. From that day he devoted himself almost exclusively to studious and literary pursuits. So for a while he went about on his "sturdy legs" (as he says here) stewing over the injuries of his times. But, at some less to settle himself for the moment, he began to write seriously.

Finding a satisfactory publisher at Zaragossa he began also to collect his works for the first time.

"The Dog and the Fever" is a wort attack upon those in power - scurrilous but veiled. Quevedo was unsuppressable, come what may his laughter must break out. It is in a lighter vein than some of his weightier themes employing all

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In spite of all attempts I have not been able to discover the butt of this satire, it is, obviously, someone well known other-wise the thing would be pointless, a cleric, by internal evidence, of considerable importance, who is being viciously attacked - always withholding the key clue that will finally reveal him to the casual reader - but an identity clear enough for the informed.

The purpose though, as in all satire, is to reveal, while escaping libel. He didn't however escape it - which perhaps made him not such a good satirist, after all. Laughter should be the outcome. Barbed laughter. Backed by personal integrity of a high order, if Quevedo was not the Prince of Virtue he was surely servant to the Prince and a man, in the full sense, incorruptible, to boot.

> Many speak ill of me
> And I of many a one.
> My speech is the braver
> than their
> for against many I am alone.

But it would not be for long. The many were creeping upon on him.

His was no craven attack, it was against men in power because they were corrupt. Los Suenos (The Visions) were his sermons to all classes of corrupt officials, effete judges, dishonest lawyers, ignorant doctors, and a host of others who one way or another had strayed from the paths of virtue, decent behavior and good morals.

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If he was not the Prince of Virtue he was surely his
willing servant, a man to be trusted, unless he

from the visions, the 5th Vision, the visit in Jesu's time,
as translated by Sir Robert L'Estrange in 1667 we get a view
of his style - so different from that of the 13th Century
florentine who treated a similar theme:

"I began to take thought, what might be the meaning of this
oglio of people of several conditions and humors met together;
but I was quickly diverted from that consideration by the
apparition of a creature which looked as though it were of the
feminine gender. It was a person of a thin and slender make,
laden with crowns, garlands, sceptres, scythes, sheep-hooks,
pattens, hobnailed shoes, tiaras, straw hats, mitres, caps,
embroideries, skins, silk, wool, gold, lead, diamonds, shells,
pearles and pebbles. She was dressed up in all the colors of
the rainbow; she had one eye shut, the other open; young on one
side, and old on the other. I thought at first,
she had been a great way off, when indeed she was very near
me, and when I took her to be at my chamber door, she was at
my bed's head. How to unriddle this mystery I knew not; nor was
it possible for me to make out the meaning of an equipage so
extravagant, and so fantastically put together. It gave me no
affright, however, but on the contrary I could not forbear laughing,
for it came just into my mind that I had formerly seen in Italy a farce,
where the mimic, pretending to come from the other world,
was just thus accounted, and never was anything more nonsensi-

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cally pleasant. I held as long as I could, and at last, I asked
what she was. She answered me, "I am Death". Death! the very
word brought my heart into my mouth. "And I beseech you, Madam,"
quoth I with great humility and respect, "whither is your honor
going?" "No further", said she.

She had come to take him, not as a corpse, but living to
the other world.

"Get up then and come along; and never hang an arse for
the matter; for what you will not do willingly you shall do in
spite of your teeth." This put me in a cold sweat; but without
more delay up I started, and desired leave only to put on my
breeches. "No, no" said she, "no matter for clothes, nobody
wears them upon this road; wherefore come away, naked as you
are, and you'll travel better."

Mother tells another story about him : Leaning from a
balcony one day three girls watched him as he approached along
the street below them. As he neared, one of them dropped
a rose at his feet. Up he looked. "That's not the only thing
you drop", said he and continued on his way.

He was married at 54 to a certain Esperanza. She was gone a year later. He never mentioned her in his writing more than to say, once casually:

No esperaba hallar otra Esperanza.

To find another such as she he found himself hopelessly

His wild songs in the Gypsy dance were remarkable except
productions for an hidego.

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During these years, the satistist's enemies never entirely
abandoned their scheming to cause his complete downfall. His old
* enemy* Don Luis Pacheco de Narvez, the fencing master; Montalban,
the popular writer; Fray Diego Niseno, the Jesuit Provincial of
San Basilio (could this have been HE?), and four others calling
themselves "men of learning" collaborated in framing an indict-
ment of the life and works of Quevedo, whom they disignated
"master of errors, doctor in shamelesness, licentiate in buffon-
eries, batchelor of filth, professor of vice, and devil's proto-
type amongst men". This attack was published in in 1636 at
Valencia with the approval of two distinguished pedants, Professor
Jaime Esquierdo and Fray Vicente Lanuza (I wonder).

Upon this attack Quevedo predicted that Montalban would
die a raving lunatic, and he repeated the prediction to a friend.
The sinister prophesy was fulfilled sooner than extorted; and
Father Niseno (whom Quevedo called *Ni se no*) preaching
from the pulpit on the occasion of Montalban's funeral too
opportunity to deliver further polemics against the author of
the "Visions". Quevedo ignored it at the time, but later wrote:

> Many speak ill of me
> And I of many a one.
> My speech is the braver
> They are many, I am alone.

Brought to the attention of the Inquisitor-General who
examined the works, in question they were found meritorious and
was acquitted - the recommendation being made that only the
official Madrid editions of his works be considered official.

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But that didn't end the matter. Corrupt as they were, those who were out to do the poet an *applies of police* not quite dare to *confront* themselves. The moral zeal *expressed in mordant terms* such that many of the leaders of the day at court squirmed under his lash but *could not* keep him down. They did not give up.

When the enemies of the satirist realized that their indument was a failure, they had recourse to other methods that were not so *honest*. His audacious *piece*, "The Hour of all Men* and *Fortune in her Wits*, was written in the year 1635 and no doubt some knowledge of its contents reached the ear of *Theonise* personnage *the Conde-Dugue*. de Olivares, now the King's favorite. In 1637 the "Island of Monopantos" (which was later embodied in "The Hour of All Men") was launched to attack the financial tricks of the favorite and his friends.

One day in 1639, Phillip IV on sitting down to table found some verses wrapped in a serviette. The lines were libellous and had a Quevedoesque sting. ( It was later proved that he did not write them)

On the night of the 7th December two court officials came to arrest him at his lodgings; he was searched, stripped, the keys of his estate taken etc. This proved to be the end. After six years of imprisonment and lingering agony, filth, disease and final collapse. The poet died 1645.

Since then it is difficult to *let me sum up* briefly and very roughly *the story of El Perro y La Calenture*; for the assistance of the change reader who may be interested

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Quevedo himself called it a *Novela Peregrina* (from the same root as peregrination: he was wading about Spain at the time in virtual exile). It appears to have been written during the summer of 1625 - twenty years after El Quixote and shows a continuation of the dawning sense of reality which, among the best minds, was prevalent in Spain of that day.

Quevedo begins by stating where he is, in the country, perhaps at Torre de Juan Abad, looking toward the court. In secret, listening for knlopers who might even there spy upon him, he begins to whisper his story, he the Dog, into the ear of the fever, a woman - who listens and later replies. That is the whole story: gossip - with a sting couched very much, generally, in the terms of the people.

He, the Dog, is so fed up with what he knows that he wants to shove in his fingers and disgorge the mess that is eating out his heart - but he wishes, on a deeper level, to amuse, to amuse his patron and his patron's lady who is his lectress: to bark, but not to bite!

He goes on, using the imagery of his surroundings, the country mill, the sayings of the people, "old Spain", in a sort of admiring contempt for them, facing what, of their own level, the corrupt court can laugh at, pitifully.

The creatures of his fancy come from every corner, every peasant's hutch: the cat and the chestnuts - # "Cat" by the way, is the cant term of the # moment for rascal. So he begins:

2 (cont'd)

An old guy - the old guy begins to act kittenish,
There are cigarettes and, as though he thought the
making an ass of himself - lively
brain lies in the beard. Castagnettes, shake the tambourine,
to his wood (Quevedo)"

But, feeling that he is pressing malice too close,
he halts his ridicule, and, after all, all truths are
not to be spoken. And, after all, you should not complain, you're
lucky to have the privileges of a husband and had better
say thank you and call it quits. It might be worse - and
probably is. Don't boast about it. There are many things you
should be grateful for - even though they're not much to be
grateful for.

Now follows a list of fool's perquisites at which he
should not be surprised - since they affect him so closely -
if he only knew !

This is one of Quevedo's "lists", put down without
comment other than the facts of which they speak. This in
itself is a fascinating part of composition, used
several times in this work - almost contemporary in its
literary method : no comment, nothing "about" the subject,
a bare mention of the smaller points, placing before the attention, as
an object, with what aim a man might see - swiftly and to
the point. The list is loaded with Quevedo's contempt.
The ridiculousness of a blacksmith in a damask apron -
instead of the heavy hammer one he needs.

Much else might be said but, addressing his reader,

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the "Dog" calls a halt in his indictment. Or does he? It is
only a pause in which to get his breath before being on.
For on he goes lashing out with ridicule at an infant! "an
child of sixty," who already says "daddy!" "Look, old man, wine is good -
but . . . no more than four shots at the most!" Be
warned and - take it easy. I tell you this out of the good-
news of my heart."

Then back comes Quevedo to his original figure of
the reeds that surround the mill. I mean no evil. really,
he says "I am a dog; to bark, not to bite." Ha! but "God
keep me from madness."

And "Suddenly I betook myself to the garden with
my doggish speech, short as the luck of a greybeard, verse
of a dirge or hair of goat. Pardon me, your Grace, that I think
to cool the soup by barking; and thus coming back to my
them, or anathema, I would ask, Lady mine: For whom does
the wife of the blind man shave?"

And there we are again.

Now comes the Mother Prioress - who must have been
in the scheme. But beware of silence, lest a belch of vanity
should cause the most austere of hermits (Quevedo) to
burst into laughter.

And so, alas and alas: We begin again one of the
lists that make this writing of Cuenta de Cuentas what it is:
A literary device of charm and puzzlement - a definite
invention for our ingenuous amusement. A veiled instruction

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And we are at page 10 of the script.

For, what does the moon care that the dog bays her - nor a young wife for the praise of an old husband. "Alas that he who puts foot in a brothel, puts another in the hospital." And so on for two challenging pages. Followed almost at once by a second catalogue in the same vein upon the themes of "All" and "Every" and then, "Don'ts", "Do nots" and "Believe". This is Quevedo in his light ribbing mode, tongue in cheek, the "writer" writing for the fun of it.

"Believe me, Christian people, that no cuckold is lost for lack of a bell-weather." And, "Don't believe in an old man red dyed, with the recipe of the flamingo, who making himself son of himself, and blotting out with logwood" - poor old bugger - "the brushstrokes of God, changes his marks like a donkey stolen by gypsies."

And, addressing the old boys himself, he continues: "Grey-haired fool, because you put your trust in a duenna etc etc etc" "Protect the girl"? Then to the girl herself, "Child, sell yourself dear, which is to say well loved"

Then he ridicules the fashion-mongers of his day who speak too prettily, "smoke of green gourds" and again, a catalogue (p 18) and God protect us from - from evil. "From this, from that "from the searching eyes of neighbors etc etc" for a page and more. All manner of admonishions toward incorrect conduct.

And advice to policemen, druggists, father confessors, and many more.

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An 20, in a short verse he admonishes us to "pay heed to these concepts, for under the load ( the packsaddle ) lie hid many secrets " for us to decipher - if we can.

At last, The never begins her story. Going back to the first scene she says, "I came to drink, lying on my face, from these coursing crystals" - but, edified as I find myself to be at your discourse, I prefer brevity."

"I have travelled, I have seen this, I have seen that." But before long the Dog resumed his and on we go: proverbs "Don't pull so hard that it breaks" "Measure yourself with your own rod", so always directed to the game in question - for four pages: "Stains come out by rubbing" etc until we come to the doctors. Sound and sage advice to whoever will profit by it,

- that an old man keeping a young girl for his pleasure - might well profit by a wise counsel."

For now the Doctors come! Now Quevedo lets go. It is a favorite figure in Italian and earlier stories but the point does get dulled in Quevedo's telling. (p26) "But inasmuch as neither friends nor enemies are good witnesses, let us change the subject."

And now, after another sheaf of proverbial advice, growing more and more stringent as time goes on. "One should not put one's trust in letters, in bulky letters, in Golden Hair by word of a poet." Red lips and blue eyes." "In long lived prosperity" - we find

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and among the rest, "Coward, I don't want money, to be
any man's tool, but a man must have money." You can well
imagine Quevedo himself was speaking there. "A woman and
a pane of glass, in a trice".

Now Quevedo begins to talk generally and to the point.
His advice is serious and reflects as much upon himself and
his present state as the world. It begins to hurt - and
he is more than half the butt of it as he goes on :

"But inasmuch as the file wastes itself in taking hold, I know
witness for, "Don't, don't, don't" and then, his
speech becoming more and more vulgar and more vague in some
passage with "Pop. Let's not beat about the bush," a brawl.
"Pell-mell" and we are in it. When for three and a half pages,
to the end, we are taken up by something, something
happening, tantalizing in its obscurity and gives us the
final event of this inappropriate liason, between an old
cleric and the young girl, the inevitable outcome

then comes the bang, which is not a composition in
obscurity only but in lowness - suitable to the occasion,
as Q. would have us believe. Quevedo descends to the level -
in a literary medium, a pure literary device - to those he
attacks. He has reached his point, the point he would
make, the climax of his scurrility and of his story - his
deliberate scurrility as a gossip and a clown.

Notes:

29

Defeated once his enemies returned to the attack by a
dishonorable ruse - as follows

When I looked up Captain Steven's translation -
Captain John Stevens, 1697 - "translation" at the library I
found that he had skipped the difficult passages, omitting
entirely the last pages.

So that this is the only complete rendering into English
of this minor classic, as far as that is possible ## in this
mythos, one to完成 it.

accomplish it.