Recreation in the Renaissance

12 Recreation in the Renaissance
ing to the example of gardening, as an activity which some enjoy
regardless of the physical energies it consumes: ‘In that condition, man
would therefore have worked in the same way in which we see some
people work in their gardens, without perceiving any tiredness, because
it brings them much pleasure and since, not being obliged as mercenaries
to work for their subsistence, they always quit work before getting
tired.’ 7 The simile, thus, is only appropriate as long as the gardener is a
man free of obligations and burdens, an issue which, in any post-Edenic
society, raises questions of social hierarchy (more on that will be said
below). If in these passages from Frain du Tremblay Adam has not been
mentioned by name, we encounter him later in the book, at the opening
of the eighth conversation. This is, however, Adam after the Fall, a different
scene which by contrast confirms the earlier statements: ‘I do not
doubt that Adam had some recreation, however rigorous his penance
might have been. Since he became subject to illness as soon as he
became a sinner, in fact, he also fell into the necessity of relaxing his
spirit and his body, in order to regain new forces and resume work.’ 8
Recreation has here started its functional existence as a pause between
unattractive obligations.
In spite of the orthodox flavour of its references to the Bible and the
Church Fathers, Frain du Tremblay and Thiers’s scheme is on the whole
unusual within its own literary genre. The conventional moral assessment
of pastimes gives them firm roots in the laws of God and nature,
rather than representing them as the side-effect of a loss of innocence
and a dramatic turn in the story of humankind.
A saint, an archer and his bow (story of an exemplum)
The need for recreation was expressed and reinforced by a tradition of
proverbs and similes, whereby either other living creatures or human
artefacts proved the point, by displaying a comparable necessity for a
periodic break from their ordinary occupations or uses. Even moralists
who had no intention of being soft on current recreational customs
were obliged to start their discussion of the topic by acknowledging the
validity of this general rule. This is the case with the Apulian writer
Cesare Rao, who in 1587 published a not lenient Invective against players.
‘Without any recreation or pastime’, he writes, ‘life is like a long road
without any hostel.’ And he adds two more images: ‘Unless they are
occasionally eased, bows tend to lose their strength, and eventually
break. If fields did not periodically rest, in the end they will become
bare.’ 9