The Visions of Dom Francisco De Quevedo Villegas by Francisco de Quevedo y Villegas

HOMER makes Jupiter the author or inspirer of dreams; especially the dreams of princes and governors; and if the matter of them be pious and important. And it is likewise the judgment of the learned Propertius that good dreams come from above, have their weight, and ought not to be slighted. And truly I am much of his mind, in the case of a dream I had the other night. As I was reading a discourse touching the end of the world, I fell asleep over the book, and dreamt of the last judgment. (A thing which in the house of a poet is scarce admitted so much as in a dream.) This fancy minded me of a passage in Claudian: that all creatures dream at night of what they have heard and seen in the day, as the hound dreams of hunting the hare.

Methought I saw a very handsome youth towering in the air, and sounding of a trumpet; but the forcing of his breath did indeed take off much of his beauty. The very marbles, I perceived, and the dead obeyed his call; for in the same moment, the earth began to open, and set the bones at liberty, to seek their fellows. The first that appeared were sword-men, as generals of armies, captains, lieutenants, common soldiers, who supposing that it had sounded a charge, came out of their graves, with the same briskness and resolution, as if they had been going to an assault or a combat. The misers put their heads out, all pale and trembling, for fear of a plunder. The cavaliers and good fellows believed they had been going to a horserace, or a hunting-match. And in fine, though they all heard the trumpet, there was not any creature knew the meaning of it (for I could read their thoughts by their looks and gestures). After this, there appeared a great many souls, whereof some came up to their bodies, though with much difficulty and horror; others stood wondering at a distance, not daring to come near so hideous and frightful a spectacle. This wanted an arm, that an eye, t'other a head. Upon the whole, though I could not but smile at the prospect of so strange a variety of figures, yet was it not without just matter of admiration at the all-powerful Providence, to see order drawn out of confusion, and every part restored to the right owner. I dreamt myself then in a churchyard; and there, methought, divers that were loth to appear were changing of heads; and an attorney would have demurred upon pretence that he had got a soul was none of his own, and that his body and soul were not fellows.