Chapter XIV: Part III: Mediæval Ages (8)

Rutebœuf, the Trouvère, of the Thirteenth Century, if not the principal author of the Fabliaux was the first to put them into rhyme.

Most of his tales are too long and rambling to quote, and we content ourselves with one.

_THE ASS’S TESTAMENT_

A priest there was in times of old,
Fond of his church, but fonder of gold,
Who spent his days and all his thought
In getting what he preached was naught.
His chests were full of robes and stuff,
Corn filled his garners to the roof,
Stored up against the fair-times gay,
From Saint Rémy to Easter Day.
An ass he had within his stable,
A beast most sound and valuable.
For twenty years he lent his strength
For the priest, his master, till at length,
Worn out with work and age, he died.
The priest, who loved him, wept and cried;
And, for his service long and hard,
Buried him in his own churchyard.

Now turn we to another thing:
’Tis of a bishop that I sing.
No greedy miser he, I ween;
Prelate so generous ne’er was seen.
Full well he loved in company
Of all good Christians still to be;
When he was well, his pleasure still,
His medicine best when he was ill.
Always his hall was full, and there
His guests had ever best of fare.
Whate’er the bishop lack’d or lost
Was bought at once despite the cost;
And so, in spite of rent and score,
The bishop’s debts grew more and more.
For true it is--this ne’er forget--
Who spends too much gets into debt.
One day his friends all with him sat,
The bishop talking this and that,
Till the discourse on rich clerks ran,
Of greedy priests, and how their plan
Was all good bishops still to grieve,
And of their dues their lords deceive.
And then the priest of whom I’ve told
Was mention’d; how he loved his gold.
And because men do often use
More freedom than the truth would choose,
They gave him wealth, and wealth so much,
As those like him could scarcely touch.
“And then besides, a thing he’s done,
By which great profit might be won,
Could it be only spoken here.”
Quoth the bishop, “Tell it without fear.”
“He’s worse, my lord, than Bedouin,
Because his own dead ass, Baldwin,
He buried in the sacred ground.”
“If this is truth, as shall be found,”
The bishop cried, “a forfeit high
Will on his worldly riches lie.
Summon this wicked priest to me;
I will myself in this case be
The judge. If Robert’s word be true,
Mine are the fine and forfeit too.”

* * * * *

“Disloyal! God’s enemy and mine,
Prepare to pay a heavy fine.
Thy ass thou buriedst in the place
Sacred to church. Now, by God’s grace,
I never heard of crime more great.
What! Christian men with asses wait?
Now, if this thing be proven, know
Surely to prison thou wilt go.”
“Sir,” said the priest, “thy patience grant;
A short delay is all I want.
Not that I fear to answer now--
But give me what the laws allow.”
And so the bishop leaves the priest,
Who does not feel as if at feast.
But still, because one friend remains,
He trembles not at prison pains.
His purse it is which never fails
For tax or forfeit, fine or vails.

The term arrived, the priest appeared,
And met the bishop, nothing feared;
For ’neath his girdle safe there hung
A leathern purse, well stocked and strung
With twenty pieces fresh and bright,
Good money all, none clipped or light.
“Priest,” said the bishop, “if thou have
Answer to give to charge so grave,
’Tis now the time.”
“Sir, grant me leave
My answer secretly to give.
Let me confess to you alone,
And, if needs be, my sins atone.”
The bishop bent his head to hear,
The priest he whispered in his ear:
“Sir, spare a tedious tale to tell.
My poor ass served me long and well,
For twenty years my faithful slave,
Each year his work a saving gave
Of twenty sous---so that in all
To twenty livres the sum will fall;
And, for the safety of his soul,
To you, my lord, he left the whole.”
“’Twas rightly done,” the bishop said,
And gravely shook his godly head:
“And, that his soul to heaven may go,
My absolution I bestow.”
Now have you heard a truthful lay,
How with rich priests the bishops play;
And Rutebœuf the moral draws
That, spite of kings’ and bishops’ laws,
’Gainst evil is the man secure
That shields himself with money’s lure.

In the Fourteenth century, Eustache Deschampes wrote more than a thousand ballades, virelais and other forms of light verse.

One of his ballades, here given in translation, is of a distinctly modern type of wit.

_ADVICE TO A FRIEND ON MARRIAGE_

Ope! Who? A friend! What wouldst obtain?
Advice! Whereof? Is’t well to wed?
I wish to marry. What’s your pain?
No wife have I for board and bed,
By whom my house is wisely led.
One meek and fair I wish to gain,
Young, wealthy, too, and nobly bred;
You’re crazy--batter out your brain!

Consider! Grief can you sustain?
Women have tempers bold and dread;
When for a dish of eggs you’re fain,
Broth, cheese, you’ll have before you spread:
Now free, you’ll be a slave instead--
When married, you yourself have slain.
Think well. My first resolve is said;
You’re crazy--batter out your brain!

No wife will be like her you feign;
On angry words you shall be fed,
So shall you bitterly complain,
With woes too hard to bear, bested:
Better a life in forest led
Than of such beast to bear the strain.
No! The sweet fancy fills my head;
You’re crazy--batter out your brain!

_ENVOY_

Soon you will long that you were dead
When married; seek in street or lane
Some love. No! Passion bids me wed;
You’re crazy--batter out your brain!

Olivier Basselin who flourished in the Fifteenth century, and who was a fuller by trade, is another one of the literary “Fathers,” his title being, “Le Pere Joyeux du Vaudeville.” Born at Vire, surrounded by valleys, it is held by some, while contradicted by others, that the modern term vaudeville is a corruption of Vaux de Vire.

His songs are mostly convivial and his humor broad and rollicking.

_TO MY NOSE_

Fair Nose! whose rubies red have cost me many a barrel
Of claret wine and white,
Who wearest in thy rich and sumptuous apparel
Such red and purple light!

Great Nose! who looks at thee through some huge glass at revel,
More of thy beauty thinks:
For thou resemblest not the nose of some poor devil
Who only water drinks.

The turkey-cock doth wear, resembling thee, his wattles,
How many rich men now
Have not so rich a nose! To paint thee, many bottles
And much time I allow.

The glass my pencil is for thine illumination;
My color is the wine,
With which I’ve painted thee more red than the carnation,
By drinking of the fine.

’Tis said it hurts the eyes; but shall they be the masters?
Wine is the cure for all;
Better the windows both should suffer some disasters,
Than have the whole house fall.

_APOLOGY FOR CIDER_

Though Frenchmen at our drink may laugh,
And think their taste is wondrous fine,
The Norman cider, which we quaff,
Is quite the equal of his wine,--
When down, down, down it freely goes,
And charms the palate as it flows.

Whene’er a potent draught I take,
How dost thou bid me drink again?
Yet, pray, for my affection’s sake,
Dear Cider, do not turn my brain.
O, down, down, down it freely goes,
And charms the palate as it flow.

I find I never lose my wits,
However freely I carouse,
And never try in angry fits
To raise a tempest in the house;
Though down, down, down the cider goes,
And charms the palate as it flows.

To strive for riches in all stuff,
Just take the good the gods have sent;
A man is sure to have enough
If with his own he is content;
As down, down, down, the cider goes,
And charms the palate as it flows.

In truth that was a hearty bout;
Why, not a drop is left,--not one;
I feel I’ve put my thirst to rout;
The stubborn foe at last is gone.
So down, down, down the cider goes,
And charms the palate as it flows.

Francois Villon, born 1431, though not paternally designated, is called, and rightly, the Prince of Ballade Makers.

Two translations are here given of one of his most popular poems, and another witty Ballade is added.

_THE BALLADE OF DEAD LADIES_

_Translated by Dante Gabriel Rossetti_

Tell me now in what hidden way is
Lady Flora the lovely Roman?
Where’s Hipparchia, and where is Thais,
Neither of them the fairer woman?
Where is Echo, beheld of no man,
Only heard on river and mere,--
She whose beauty was more than human?...
But where are the snows of yester-year?

Where’s Héloïse, the learned nun,
For whose sake Abeillard, I ween,
Lost manhood and put priesthood on?
(From Love he won such dule and teen!)
And where, I pray you, is the Queen
Who willed that Buridan should steer
Sewed in a sack’s mouth down the Seine?...
But where are the snows of yester-year?

White Queen Blanche, like a queen of lilies,
With a voice like any mermaiden,--
Bertha Broad-foot, Beatrice, Alice,
And Ermengarde the lady of Maine,--
And that good Joan whom Englishmen
At Rouen doomed and burned her there,--
Mother of God, where are they then?...
But where are the snows of yester-year?

_Envoi:_

Nay, never ask this week, fair lord,
Where they are gone, nor yet this year,
Except with this for an overword,--
But where are the snows of yester-year?

_A BALLADE OF OLD TIME LADIES_

_Translated by John Payne_

Tell me, where, in what land of shade,
Hides fair Flora of Rome? and where
Are Thaìs and Archipiade,
Cousins-german in beauty rare?
And Echo, more than mortal fair,
That when one calls by river flow,
Or marish, answers out of the air?
But what has become of last year’s snow?

Where did the learn’d Héloïsa vade,
For whose sake Abelard did not spare
(Such dole for love on him was laid)
Manhood to lose and a cowl to wear?
And where is the queen who will’d whilere
That Buridan, tied in a sack, should go
Floating down Seine from the turret-stair?
But what has become of last year’s snow?

Blanche, too, the lily-white queen, that made
Sweet music as if she a siren were?
Broad-foot Bertha? and Joan, the maid,
The good Lorrainer the English bare
Captive to Rouen, and burn’d her there?
Beatrix, Eremburge, Alys--lo!
Where are they, virgins debonair?
But what has become of last year’s snow?

_Envoi_:

Prince, you may question how they fare,
This week, or liefer this year, I trow:
Still shall the answer this burden bear--
But what has become of last year’s snow?

_BALLAD OF THE WOMEN OF PARIS_

Albeit the Venice girls get praise
For their sweet speech and tender air,
And though the old women have wise ways
Of chaffering for amorous ware,
Yet at my peril dare I swear,
Search Rome, where God’s grace mainly tarries,
Florence and Savoy, everywhere,
There’s no good girl’s lip out of Paris.

The Naples women, as folk prattle,
Are sweetly spoken and subtle enough:
German girls are good at tattle,
And Prussians make their boast thereof;
Take Egypt for the next remove,
Or that waste land the Tartar harries,
Spain or Greece, for the matter of love,
There’s no good girl’s lip out of Paris.

Breton and Swiss know nought of the matter,
Gascony girls or girls of Toulouse;
Two fisherwomen with a half-hour’s chatter
Would shut them up by threes and twos;
Calais, Lorraine, and all their crews,
(Names enow the mad song marries)
England and Picardy, search them and choose,
There’s no good girl’s lip out of Paris.

_Envoi_:

Prince, give praise to our French ladies
For the sweet sound their speaking carries;
’Twixt Rome and Cadiz many a maid is,
But no good girl’s lip out of Paris.

From Clement Marot, a delightful French poet of the Sixteenth century, we give the following two extracts translated by Leigh Hunt.

_A LOVE-LESSON_

A sweet “No! no!” with a sweet smile beneath
Becomes an honest girl,--I’d have you learn it;
As for plain “Yes!” it may be said, i’ faith.
Too plainly and too oft,--pray, well discern it!

Not that I’d have my pleasure incomplete,
Or lose the kiss for which my lips beset you;
But that in suffering me to take it, Sweet!
I’d have you say--“No! no! I will not let you.”

_MADAME D’ALBRET’S LAUGH_

Yes! that fair neck, too beautiful by half,
Those eyes, that voice, that bloom, all do her honour;
Yet, after all, that little giddy laugh
Is what, in my mind, sits the best upon her.

Good God! ’twould make the very streets and ways,
Through which she passes, burst into a pleasure!
Did melancholy come to mar my days
And kill me in the lap of too much leisure,
No spell were wanting, from the dead to raise me,
But only that sweet laugh wherewith she slays me.

About this time appeared the Heptameron, a series of tales of similar form and character to the Decameron of Boccaccio. This work was attributed to Margaret of Navarre, and doubtless was written by the queen with the assistance of some of her people. The tales are too long to quote.

Jehan du Pontalais wrote a clever satirical skit on the love of money.

_MONEY_

Who money has, well wages the campaign;
Who money has, becomes of gentle strain;
Who money has, to honor all accord:
He is my lord.
Who money has, the ladies ne’er disdain;
Who money has, loud praises will attain;
Who money has, in the world’s heart is stored,
The flower adored.
O’er all mankind he holds his conquering track--
They only are condemned who money lack.

Who money has, will wisdom’s credit gain;
Who money has, all earth is his domain;
Who money has, praise is his sure reward,
Which all afford.
Who money has, from nothing need refrain;
Who money has, on him is favor poured;
And, in a word,
Who money has, need never fear attack--
They only are condemned who money lack.

Who money has, in every heart does reign;
Who money has, all to approach are fain;
Who money has, of him no fault is told,
Nor harm can hold.
Who money has, none does his right restrain;
Who money has, can whom he will maintain;
Who money has, clerk, prior, by his gold,
Is straight enrolled.
Who money has, all raise, none hold him back--
They only are condemned who money lack.

Francois Rabelais was born in or about 1495, in Chinon, Touraine. Successively, monk, physician and scientist, he is best known as a master of humor and grotesque invention. His romance of Gargantua and Pantagruel is an extravagant, satirical criticism of the follies and vices of the period, burlesquing the current abuses of government and religion.

Unable to escape a paternal label,

An able writer in the _Foreign Quarterly Review_ speaks of Rabelais as “an author without parallel in the history of literature: an author who is the literary parent of many authors, since without him we should probably have never known a Swift, a Sterne, a Jean Paul, or, in fact, any of the irregular humorists: an author who did not appear as a steadily shining light to the human race, but as a wild, startling meteor, predicting the independence of thought, and the downfall of the authority of ages: an author who for the union of heavy learning with the most miraculous power of imagination, is perhaps without a competitor.”

The works of Rabelais abound in learning and serious intent, but the riotous humor and flashing wit are presented with an accompaniment of repulsive coarseness intolerable to the modern mind.

This phase, however, was a part of the manners and customs of his time, and to philosophers and students Rabelais will ever be a mine of deep and recondite wisdom and thought.

Indicative of his wildly extravagant fancy are the following extracts.

_OF THE ECLIPSES THIS YEAR_

This year there will be so many eclipses of the sun and moon, that I fear (not unjustly) our pockets will suffer inanition, be full empty, and our feeling at a loss. Saturn will be retrograde, Venus direct, Mercury as unfixed as quicksilver. And a pack of planets won’t go as you would have them.

For this reason the crabs will go side-long, and the rope-makers backward; the little stools will get upon the benches, and the spits on the racks, and the bands on the hats; fleas will be generally black; bacon will run away from peas in lent; there won’t be a bean left in a twelfth cake, nor an ace in a flush; the dice won’t run as you wish, tho’ you cog them, and the chance that you desire will seldom come; brutes shall speak in several places; Shrovetide will have its day; one part of the world shall disguise itself to gull and chouse the other, and run about the streets like a parcel of addle-pated animals and mad devils; such a hurly-burly was never seen since the devil was a little boy; and there will be above seven and twenty irregular verbs made this year, if Priscian don’t hold them in. If God don’t help us, we shall have our hands and hearts full.

_OF THE DISEASES THIS YEAR_

This year the stone-blind shall see but very little; the deaf shall hear but scurvily; the dumb shan’t speak very plain; the rich shall be somewhat in a better case than the poor, and the healthy than the sick. Whole flocks, herds, and droves of sheep, swine and oxen; cocks and hens, ducks and drakes, geese and ganders, shall go to pot; but the mortality will not be altogether so great among apes, monkeys, baboons and dromedaries. As for old age, ’twill be incurable this year, because of the years past. Those who are sick of the pleurisy will feel a plaguy stitch in their sides; catarrhs this year shall distill from the brain on the lower parts; sore eyes will by no means help the sight; ears shall be at least as scarce and short in Gascony, and among knights of the post, as ever; and a most horrid and dreadful, virulent, malignant, catching, perverse and odious malady, shall be almost epidemical, insomuch that many shall run mad upon it, not knowing what nails to drive to keep the wolf from the door, very often plotting, contriving, cudgeling and puzzling their weak shallow brains, and syllogizing and prying up and down for the philosopher’s stone, tho’ they only get Midas’s lugs by the bargain. I quake for very fear when I think on’t; for I assure you, few will escape this disease, which Averroes calls lack of money, and by consequence of the last year’s comet, and Saturn’s retrogradation, there will be a horrid clutter between the cats and the rats, hounds and hares, hawks and ducks, and eke between the monks and eggs.

_OF THE FRUITS OF THE EARTH THIS YEAR_

I find by the calculations of Albumazar in his book of the great conjunction, and elsewhere, that this will be a plentiful year of all manner of good things to those who have enough; but your hops of Picardy will go near to fare the worse for the cold. As for oats they’ll be a great help to horses. I dare say, there won’t be much more bacon than swine. Pisces having the ascendant, ’twill be a mighty year for muscles, cockles, and periwinkles. Mercury somewhat threatens our parsly-beds, yet parsly will be to be had for money. Hemp will grow faster than the children of this age, and some will find there’s but too much on’t. There will be a very few _bon-chretiens_, but choak-pears in abundance. As for corn, wine, fruit and herbs, there never was such plenty as will be now, if poor folks may have their wish.

_RABELAIS IMITATES DIOGENES_

(_From the Author’s Prologue to Book III._)

When Philip, King of Macedon, enterprised the siege and ruin of Corinth, the Corinthians having received certain intelligence by their spies, that he with a numerous army in battle array was coming against them, were all of them, not without cause, most terribly afraid; and, therefore, were not neglective of their duty, in doing their best endeavors to put themselves in a fit posture to resist his hostile approach, and defend their own city. Some from the fields brought into the fortified places their movables, cattle, corn, wine, fruit, victuals and other necessary provisions. Others did fortify and rampire their walls, set up little fortresses, bastions, squared ravelins, digged trenches, cleansed countermines, fenced themselves with gabions, contrived platforms, emptied casemates, barricaded the false brayes, erected the cavalliers, repaired the contrescarpes, plaistered the courtines, lengthened ravelins, stopped parapets, mortised barbacans, new pointed the portcullises with fine steel or good iron, fastened the herses and cataracts, placed their sentries and doubled their patrol.

Every one did watch and ward, and not one was exempted from carrying the basket. Some polished corselets, varnished backs and breasts, cleaned the headpieces, mailcoats, brigandins, salads, helmets, murrions, jacks, gushets, gorgets, hoguines, brassars and cuissars, corselets, haubergeons, shields, bucklers, targets, greves, gauntlets and spurs.

Others made ready bows, slings, cross-bows, pellets, catapults, migraines or fire-balls, firebrands, balists, scorpions, and other such warlike engines, repugnatory, and destructive to the Helepolides.

They sharpened and prepared spears, staves, pikes, brown bills, halberts, long hooks, lances, zagages, quarterstaves, eelspears, partisans, troutstaves, clubs, battle-axes, maces, darts, dartlets, glaves, javelins, javelots, and truncheons.

They set edges upon scimetars, cutlasses, badelairs, backswords, tucks, rapiers, bayonets, arrow-heads, dags, daggers, mandousians, poniards, whinyards, knives, skenes, chipping knives, and raillons.

Diogenes seeing them all so warm at work, and himself not employed by the magistrates in any business whatsoever, he did very seriously (for many days together, without speaking one word) consider, and contemplate the countenance of his fellow-citizens.

Then on a sudden, as if he had been roused up and inspired by a martial spirit, he girded his cloak, scarf-ways, about his left arm, tucked up his sleeves to the elbow, trussed himself like a clown gathering apples, and giving to one of his old acquaintance his wallet, books, and opistographs, away went he out of town towards a little hill or promontory of Corinth called Craneum; and there on, the strand, a pretty level place, did he roll his jolly tub, which served him for an house to shelter him from the injuries of the weather: there, I say, in a great vehemency of spirit, did he turn it veer it, wheel it, whirl it, frisk it, jumble it, shuffle it, hurdle it, tumble it, hurry it, jolt it, jostle it, overthrow it, evert it, invert it, subvert it, overturn it, beat it, thwack it, bump it, batter it, knock it, thrust it, push it, jerk it, shock it, shake it, toss it, throw it, overthrow it upside down, topsyturvy, tread it, trample it, stamp it, tap it, ting it, ring it, tingle it, towl it, sound it, resound it, stop it, shut it, unbung it, close it, unstopple it. And then again in a mighty bustle he bandied it, slubbered it, hacked it, whittled it, wayed it, darted it, hurled it, staggered it, reeled it, swinged it, brangled it, tottered it, lifted it, heaved it, transformed it, transfigured it, transposed it, transplaced it, reared it, raised it, hoised it, washed it, dighted it, cleansed it, rinsed it, nailed it, settled it, fastened it, shackled it, fettered it, levelled it, blocked it, tugged it, tewed it, carried it, bedashed it, bewrayed it, parched it, mounted it, broached it, nicked it, notched it, bespattered it, decked it, adorned it, trimmed it, garnished it, gaged it, furnished it, bored it, pierced it, tapped it, rumbled it, slid it down the hill, and precipitated it from the very height of the Craneum; then from the foot to the top (like another Sisyphus with his stone) bore it up again, and every way so banged it and belabored it, that it was ten thousand to one he had not struck the bottom of it out.

Which when one of his friends had seen, and asked him why he did so toil his body, perplex his spirit, and torment his tub? the philosopher’s answer was, that not being employed in any other office by the Republic, he thought it expedient to thunder and storm it so tempestuously upon his tub, that amongst a people so fervently busy and earnest at work, he alone might not seem a loitering slug and lazy fellow. To the same purpose may I say to myself,--

Tho’ I be rid from fear,
I am not void of care.

For perceiving no account to be made of me towards the discharge of a trust of any great concernment, and considering that through all the parts of this most noble kingdom of France, both on this and on the other side of the mountains, every one is most diligently exercised and busied; some in the fortifying of their own native country, for its defence; others, in the repulsing of their enemies by an offensive war; and all this with a policy so excellent, and such admirable order, so manifestly profitable for the future, whereby France shall have its frontiers most magnifically enlarged, and the French assured of a long and well-grounded peace, that very little withholds me from the opinion of good Heraclitus, which affirmeth war to be the parent of all good things; and therefore do I believe that war is in Latin called _bellum_, not by antiphrasis, as some patchers of old rusty Latin would have us to think, because in war there is little beauty to be seen; but absolutely and simply; for that in war (_bellum_ in _Latin_) appears all that is good and graceful, _bon_ and _bel_ in French, and that by the wars is purged out all manner of wickedness and deformity. For proof whereof the wise and pacific Solomon could no better represent the unspeakable perfection of the divine wisdom, than by comparing it to the due disposure and ranking of an army in battle array, well provided and ordered.

Therefore by reason of my weakness and inability, being reputed by my compatriots unfit for the offensive part of warfare; and on the other side, being no way employed in matter of the defensive, although it had been but to carry burdens, fill ditches, or break clods, each whereof had been to me indifferent, I held it not a little disgraceful to be only an idle spectator of so many valorous, eloquent, and warlike persons, who in the view and sight of all Europe act this notable interlude or tragicomedy, and not exert myself, and contribute thereto this nothing, my all; which remained for me to do. For, in my opinion, little honor is due to such as are mere lookers on, liberal of their eyes, and of their strength parsimonious; who conceal their crowns and hide their silver; scratching their head with one finger like grumbling puppies, gaping at the flies like tithe calves; clapping down their ears like Arcadian asses at the melody of musicians, who with their very countenances in the depth of silence express their consent to the prosopopeia.

Having made this choice and election, it seemed to me that my exercise therein would be neither unprofitable nor troublesome to any, whilst I should thus set agoing my Diogenical Tub.

_THE LOST HATCHET_

There once lived a poor honest country fellow of Gravot, Tom Wellhung by name, a wood-cleaver by trade, who in that low drudgery made shift so to pick up a sorry livelihood. It happened that he lost his hatchet. Now tell me who ever had more cause to be vexed than poor Tom? Alas, his whole estate and life depended on his hatchet; by his hatchet he earned many a fair penny of the best wood-mongers or log-merchants, among whom he went a-jobbing; for want of his hatchet he was like to starve; and had Death but met him six days after without a hatchet, the grim fiend would have mowed him down in the twinkling of a bed-staff. In this sad case he began to be in a heavy taking, and called upon Jupiter with most eloquent prayers (for, you know, necessity was the mother of eloquence), with the whites of his eyes turned up toward heaven, down on his marrow-bones, his arms reared high, his fingers stretched wide, and his head bare, the poor wretch without ceasing was roaring out by way of Litany at every repetition of his supplications, “My hatchet, Lord Jupiter, my hatchet, my hatchet, only my hatchet, oh, Jupiter, or money to buy another, and nothing else; alas, my poor hatchet!”

Jupiter happened then to be holding a grand council about certain urgent affairs, and old Gammer Cybele was just giving her opinion, or, if you had rather have it so, it was young Phœbus the Beau; but, in short, Tom’s outcry and lamentations were so loud that they were heard with no small amazement at the council-board by the whole consistory of the gods. “What a devil have we below,” quoth Jupiter, “that howls so horridly? By the mud of Styx, haven’t we had all along, and haven’t we here still, enough to do to set to rights a world of puzzling businesses of consequence? Let us, however, despatch this howling fellow below; you, Mercury, go see who it is, and discover what he wants.” Mercury looked out at heaven’s trapdoor, through which, as I am told, they hear what’s said here below. By the way, one might well enough mistake it for the scuttle of a ship; though Icaromenippus said it was like the mouth of a well. The light-heeled deity saw that it was honest Tom, who asked for his lost hatchet; and, accordingly, he made his report to the Synod. “Marry,” said Jupiter, “we are finely holped up, as if we had now nothing else to do here but to restore lost hatchets. Well, he must have it for all that, for so ’tis written in the Book of Fate, as well as if it was worth the whole Duchy of Milan. The truth is, the fellow’s hatchet is as much to him as a kingdom to a king. Come, come, let no more words be scattered about it; let him have his hatchet again. Run down immediately, and cast at the poor fellow’s feet three hatchets! his own, another of gold, and a third of massy silver, all of one size; then, having left it to his will to take his choice, if he take his own, and be satisfied with it, give him t’other two. If he take another, chop his head off with his own; and henceforth serve me all those losers of hatchets after that manner.”

Having said this, Jupiter, with an awkward turn of his head, like a jackanapes swallowing pills, made so dreadful a phiz that all the vast Olympus quaked again. Heaven’s foot-messenger, thanks to his low-crowned, narrow-brimmed hat, and plume of feathers, heel-pieces, and running-stick with pigeon-wings, flings himself out at heaven’s wicket, through the empty deserts of the air, and in a trice nimbly alights on the earth, and throws at friend Tom’s feet the three hatchets, saying to him: “Thou hast bawled long enough to be a-dry; thy prayers and requests are granted by Jupiter; see which of these three is thy hatchet, and take it away with thee.”

Wellhung lifts up the golden hatchet, peeps upon it, and finds it very heavy; then staring on Mercury cries, “Gadzooks, this is none of mine; I won’t ha’t.” The same he did with the silver one, and said, “’Tis not this either; you may e’en take them again.” At last, he takes up his own hatchet, examines the end of the helve, and finds his mark there; then, ravished with joy, like a fox that meets some straggling poultry, and sneering from the tip of the nose, he cries, “By the Mass, this is my hatchet; Master God, if you will leave it me, I will sacrifice to you a very good and huge pot of milk, brim full, covered with fine strawberries, next Ides, _i.e._, the 15th of May.”

“Honest fellow,” said Mercury, “I leave it thee; take it; and because thou hast wished and chosen moderately, in point of hatchet, by Jupiter’s command I give thee these two others; thou hast now wherewith to make thyself rich: be honest.”

Honest Tom gave Mercury a whole cart-load of thanks, and paid reverence to the most great Jupiter. His old hatchet he fastened close to his leathern girdle, and girds it about his breech like Martin of Cambray; the two others, being more heavy, he lays on his shoulder. Thus he plods on, trudging over the fields, keeping a good countenance among his neighbors and fellow-parishioners, with one merry saying or other, after Patelin’s way.

The next day, having put on a clean white jacket, he takes on his back the two precious hatchets, and comes to Chinon, the famous city, noble city, ancient city, yea, the first city in the world, according to the judgment and assertion of the most learned Massoreths. In Chinon he turned his silver hatchet into fine testons, crown-pieces, and other white cash; his golden hatchet into fine angels, curious ducats, substantial ridders, spankers, and rose nobles. Then with them purchases a good number of farms, barns, houses, outhouses, thatch-houses, stables, meadows, orchards, fields, vineyards, woods, arable lands, pastures, ponds, mills, gardens, nurseries, oxen, cows, sheep, goats, swine, hogs, asses, horses, hens, cocks, capons, chickens, geese, ganders, ducks, drakes, and a world of all other necessaries, and in a short time became the richest man in all the country. His brother bumpkins, and the yeomen and other country-puts thereabout, perceiving his good fortune, were not a little amazed, insomuch that their former pity of poor Tom was soon changed into an envy of his so great and unexpected rise; and, as they could not for their souls devise how this came about, they made it their business to pry up and down, and lay their heads together, to inquire, seek, and inform themselves by what means, in what place, on what day, what hour, how, why, and wherefore, he had come by this great treasure.

At last, hearing it was by losing his hatchet, “Ha, ha!” said they, “was there no more to do, but to lose a hatchet, to make us rich?” With this they all fairly lost their hatchets out of hand. The devil a one that had a hatchet left; he was not his mother’s son, that did not lose his hatchet. No more was wood felled or cleared in that country through want of hatchets. Nay, the Æsopian apologue even saith, that certain petty country gents, of the lower class, who had sold Wellhung their little mill and little field to have wherewithal to make a figure at the next muster, having been told that this treasure was come to him by that means only, sold the only badge of their gentility, their swords, to purchase hatchets to go to lose them, as the silly clodpates did, in hopes to gain store of coin by that loss.

You would have truly sworn they had been a parcel of your petty spiritual usurers, Rome-bound, selling their all, and borrowing of others to buy store of mandates, a pennyworth of a new-made pope.

Now they cried out and brayed, and prayed and bawled, and lamented and invoked Jupiter, “My hatchet! My hatchet! Jupiter, my hatchet!” On this side, “My hatchet!” On that side, “My hatchet! Ho, ho, ho, ho, Jupiter, my hatchet!” The air round about rung again with the cries and howlings of these rascally losers of hatchets.

Mercury was nimble in bringing them hatchets; to each offering that which he had lost, as also another of gold, and a third of silver.

Everywhere he still was for that of gold, giving thanks in abundance to the great giver Jupiter; but in the very nick of time, that they bowed and stooped to take it from the ground, whip in a trice, Mercury lopped off their heads, as Jupiter had commanded. And of heads thus cut off, the number was just equal to that of the lost hatchets. --_Gargantua and Pantagruel._

There is an epigram in Martial, and one of the very good ones--for he has all sorts--where he pleasantly tells the story of Cælius, who, to avoid making his court to some great men of Rome, to wait their rising, and to attend them abroad, pretended to have the gout; and the better to color this, anointed his legs and had them lapped up in a great many swathings, and perfectly counterfeited both the gesture and countenance of a gouty person; till in the end, Fortune did him the kindness to make him one indeed.

“Tantum cura potest, et ars doloris!
Desit fingere Cælius podagram.”

I think I have read somewhere in Appian, a story like this, of one who to escape the proscriptions of the triumvirs of Rome, and the better to be concealed from the discovery of those who pursued him, having hidden himself in a disguise, would yet add this invention, to counterfeit having but one eye; but when he came to have a little more liberty, and went to take off the plaster he had a great while worn over his eye, he found he had totally lost the sight of it indeed, and that it was absolutely gone. ’Tis possible that the action of sight was dulled from having been so long without exercise, and that the optic power was wholly retired into the other eye for we evidently perceive that the eye we keep shut sends some part of its virtue to its fellow, so that it will swell and grow bigger; and so, inaction, with the heat of ligatures and plaster might very well have brought some gouty humor upon this dissembler of Martial.

Reading in Froissart the vow of a troop of young English gallants, to keep their left eyes bound up till they had arrived in France and performed some notable exploit upon us, I have often been tickled with the conceit: suppose it had befallen them as it did the Roman, and they had returned with but one eye apiece to their mistresses, for whose sakes they had made his ridiculous vow.

Mothers have reason to rebuke their children when they counterfeit having but one eye, squinting, lameness, or any other personal defect; for, besides that their bodies being then so tender may be subject to take an ill bent, Fortune, I know not how, sometimes seems to delight in taking us at our word; and I have heard several examples related of people who have become really sick, by only feigning to be so. I have always used, whether on horseback or on foot, to carry a stick in my hand, and even to affect doing it with an elegant air; many have threatened that this fancy would one day be turned into necessity: if so, I should be the first of my family to have the gout.

But let us a little lengthen this chapter, and add another anecdote concerning blindness. Pliny reports of one who, dreaming he was blind, found himself so indeed in the morning without any preceding infirmity in his eyes. The force of imagination might assist in this case, as I have said elsewhere, and Pliny seems to be of the same opinion; but it is more likely that the motions which the body felt within, of which physicians, if they please, may find out the cause, taking away his sight, were the occasion of his dream.

Let us add another story, not very improper for this subject, which Seneca relates in one of his epistles: “You know,” says he, writing to Lucilius, “that Harpaste, my wife’s fool, is thrown upon me as an hereditary charge for I have naturally an aversion to those monsters; and if I have a mind to laugh at a fool, I need not seek him far, I can laugh at myself. This fool has suddenly lost her sight: I tell you a strange, but a very true thing; she is not sensible that she is blind, but eternally importunes her keeper to take her abroad, because she says the house is dark. That what we laugh at in her, I pray you to believe, happens to every one of us: no one knows himself to be avaricious or grasping: and again, the blind call for a guide, while we stray of our own accord. I am not ambitious, we say; but a man cannot live otherwise at Rome; I am not wasteful, but the city requires a great outlay; ’tis not my fault if I am choleric--if I have not yet established any certain course of life: ’tis the fault of youth. Let us not seek our disease out of ourselves; ’tis in us, and planted in our bowels; and the mere fact that we do not perceive ourselves to be sick, renders us more hard to be cured. If we do not betimes begin to see to ourselves, when shall we have provided for so many wounds and evils wherewith we abound? And yet we have a most sweet and charming medicine in philosophy; for of all the rest we are sensible of no pleasure till after the cure: this pleases and heals at once.” This is what Seneca says, that has carried me from my subject, but there is advantage in the change.

As in England, the French published many jest books containing short anecdotes or epigrams, as well as the ubiquitous noodle stories.

* * * * *

A wife said to her husband, who was much attached to reading, “I wish I were a book, that I might always have your company.” _Then_, answered he, _I should wish you an almanac, that I might change once a year_.

* * * * *

It was said of a malicious parasite, that he never opened his mouth but at the expense of others; because he always ate at the tables of others, and spoke ill of everybody.

* * * * *

The Duke of Vivonne, who was a heretic in medicine, being indisposed, his friends sent for a physician. When the Duke was told a physician was below, he said, _Tell him I cannot see him, because I am not well. Let him call again at another time_.

* * * * *

The Marechal de Faber, at a siege, was pointing out a place with his finger. As he spoke, a musket-ball carried off the finger. Instantly stretching another, he continued his discourse, _Gentlemen, as I was saying_--. This was true _sang froid_.

A man, carrying on an unjust process, was advised to pray to God for its success. _Stop, stop_, replied he, _God must hear nothing of this_.

* * * * *

Another princess of France, being espoused by the king of Spain, in passing through a town, on her way to Madrid, the magistrates of the place, which was a famous mart for stockings, waited on the queen with a present of a dozen pairs of remarkable fineness. The Spanish grandee, who attended her, full of the jealous humour of his nation, said, in a passion. “You fools, know that a queen of Spain has no legs.” The magistrates retired in terror, and the poor queen, weeping sadly, said, _Must I then have both my legs cut off?_

* * * * *

In a village of Poitou, a peasant’s wife, after a long illness, fell into a lethargy. She was thought dead; and being only wrapped in linen, as the custom of burying the poor in that country is, she was carried to the place of interment. In going to church, the body, being borne aloft, was caught hold of by some briars, and so scratched, that as if bled by a surgeon, she revived. Fourteen years after, she died in earnest, as was thought; and as they carried her to church, the husband exclaimed, _For God’s sake, do not go near the briars_.

* * * * *

A gentleman, seeing in his yard a mass of rubbish, blamed his people for not removing it. A domestic said, no cart could be got. “Why,” answered the master, “do you not make a pit beside the rubbish, and bury it?” “But,” answered the domestic, “where shall we put the earth that comes out of the pit?” _You great fool_, replied his master, _make the pit so large as to hold all_.

* * * * *

A lady sitting near the fire, and telling a long story, a spark flew on her gown, and she did not perceive it till it had burnt a good while. _I saw it at first, madam_, said a lady who was present, _but I could not be so rude as to interrupt you_.

When Rabelais lay on his death-bed, he could not help jesting at the very last moment; for, having received the extreme unction, a friend coming to see him, said, he hoped he was prepared for the next world. _Yes, yes_, answered Rabelais, _I am ready for my journey now; they have just greased my boots_.

GERMAN WIT AND HUMOR

Brandt’s _Das Narrenschiff_, or _The Ship of Fools_, a long satirical poem, was published at the close of the Fifteenth century.

It was followed by _The Boats of Foolish Women_ and other imitative works.

Among them, was _The Praise of Folly_, by Desiderius Erasmus, a Dutch classical scholar and satirist.

The following is from the Dedicatory Epistle which introduces _The Praise of Folly_, and which is addressed to Sir Thomas More.

“But those who are offended at the lightness and pedantry of this subject, I would have them consider that I do not set myself for the first example of this kind, but that the same has been oft done by many considerable authors. For thus, several ages since, Homer wrote of no more weighty a subject than of a war between the frogs and mice; Virgil of a gnat and a pudding cake; and Ovid of a nut. Polycrates commended the cruelty of Busiris; and Isocrates, that corrects him for this, did as much for the injustice of Glaucus. Favorinus extolled Thersites, and wrote in praise of a quartane ague. Synesius pleaded in behalf of baldness; and Lucian defended a sipping fly. Seneca drollingly related the deifying of Claudius; Plutarch the dialogue betwixt Gryllus and Ulysses; Lucian and Apuleius the story of an ass; and somebody else records the last will of a hog, of which St. Hierom makes mention. So that, if they please, let themselves think the worst of me, and fancy to themselves that I was, all this while, a playing at push-pin, or riding astride on a hobby-horse. For how unjust is it, if when we allow different recreations to each particular course of life, we afford no diversion to studies; especially when trifles may be a whet to more serious thoughts, and comical matters may be so treated of, as that a reader of ordinary sense may possibly thence reap more advantage than from some more big and stately argument.... As to what relates to myself, I must be forced to submit to the judgment of others, yet, except I am too partial to be judge in my own case, I am apt to believe I have praised Folly in such a manner as not to have deserved the name of fool for my pains.”

A short extract from the book follows.

“It is one farther very commendable property of fools, that
they always speak the truth, than which there is nothing more
noble and heroical. For so, though Plato relates it as a
sentence of Alcibiades, that in the sea of drunkenness truth
swims uppermost, and so wine is the only teller of truth, yet
this character may more justly be assumed by me, as I can make
good from the authority of Euripides, who lays down this as an
axiom, ‘Children and fools always speak the truth.’ Whatever the
fool has in his heart, he betrays in his face; or what is more
notifying, discovers it by his words; while the wise man, as
Euripides observes, carries a double tongue; the one to speak
what may be said, the other what ought to be; the one what
truth, the other what time requires; whereby he can in a trice
so alter his judgment, as to prove that to be now white, which
he had just swore to be black; like the satyr at his porridge,
blowing hot and cold at the same breath; in his lips professing
one thing, when in his heart he means another.

Furthermore, princes in their greatest splendor seem upon this
account unhappy, in that they miss the advantage of being told
the truth, and are shammed off by a parcel of insinuating
courtiers, that acquit themselves as flatterers more than as
friends. But some will perchance object that princes do not love
to hear the truth, and therefore wise men must be very cautious
how they behave themselves before them, lest they should take
too great a liberty in speaking what is true, rather than what
is acceptable. This must be confessed, truth indeed is seldom
palatable to the ears of kings, yet fools have so great a
privilege as to have free leave, not only to speak bare truths,
but the most bitter ones too; so as the same reproof which, had
it come from the mouth of a wise man would have cost him his
head, being blurted out by a fool, is not only pardoned, but
well taken, and rewarded. For truth has naturally a mixture of
pleasure, if it carry with it nothing of offence to the person
whom it is applied to; and the happy knack of ordering it so, is
bestowed only on fools....”

However, but few individual names stand out in the early German literature that can by any stretch of definition be called humorous.

As in all other countries, legends and folk lore tales were rife, and eventually produced popular heroes about whom stories were invented.

Brother Rush, who seems to be merely a demon of darkness, is first found in print in Germany in 1515.

He is a tricksy sprite and goes through various vicissitudes of rather dull interest.

He was followed by Tyll Eulenspiegel, a far more popular personage, and translated to England under the name of Owleglas or Howleglas.

Eulenspiegel was a shrewd and cunning proposition and had many startling adventures, two of which are here given.

_EULENSPIEGEL’S PRANKS_

_The Golden Horseshoes_

Eulenspiegel came to the court of the King of Denmark, who liked him well, and said that if he would make him some diversion, then might he have the best of shoes for his horse’s hoofs. Eulenspiegel asked the king if he was minded to keep his word well and truly, and the king did answer most solemnly, “Yes.”

Now did Eulenspiegel ride his horse to a goldsmith, by whom he suffered to be beaten upon the horse’s hoofs shoes of gold with silver nails. This done, Eulenspiegel went to the king, that the king might send his treasurer to pay for the shoeing. The treasurer believed he should pay a blacksmith, but Eulenspiegel conducted him to the goldsmith, who did require and demand one hundred Danish marks. This would the treasurer not pay, but went and told his master.

Therefore the king caused Eulenspiegel to be summoned into his presence, and spoke to him:

“Eulenspiegel, why did you have such costly shoes? Were I to shoe all my horses thus, soon would I be without land or any possessions.”

To which Eulenspiegel did make reply:

“Gracious King, you did promise me the best of shoes for my horse’s hoofs, and I did think the best were of gold.”

Then the king laughed:

“You shall be of my court, for you act upon my very word.”

And the king commanded his treasurer to pay the hundred marks for the horse’s golden shoes. But these Eulenspiegel caused to be taken off, and iron shoes put on in their stead; and he remained many a long day in the service of the King of Denmark.

_Paying with the Sound of a Penny_

Eulenspiegel was at a tavern where the host did one day put the meat on the spit so late that Eulenspiegel got hungry for dinner. The host, seeing his discontent, said to him:

“Who cannot wait till the dinner be ready, let him eat what he may.”