Pieter Bruegel and the Art of Laughter - AAAARG.ORG

notes to page 115 213
“told for amusement, in a mood of relaxation and confidence, and, despite
their frequently bawdy subject matter, recited in mixed company ”;
see Charles Muscatine, “The Fablieux,” in A New History of French Literature,
ed. Denis Hollier (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press,
1989), p. 70; and Lodder 1996, pp. 120–122.
59. Nyeuwe clucht boeck 1983, pp. 48 and 44 respectively; see p. 44 for Wickram’s
further assurance that his collection is suitable for use on ship voyages
and in bathhouses, and for commercial travelers.
60. The Fabulous Feast (1524); Erasmus-Thompson 1965, pp. 254–266, esp.
265–266: in a jocular discussion concerning the most honorable part of
the body, one guest maintains that it is the mouth, the other insists that
it is “the part which we sit on . . . because priority in seating is allowed
to belong to the highest rank.” At their next meeting, the first guest breaks
wind in the other’s face, on the grounds that he is greeting him with the
most honorable part. This was perhaps not the most prudent story to
include in a book intended to teach Latin to schoolboys (the 1524 edition
of the Colloquies was dedicated to the son of Johannes Froben, at that
time eight years old). However, in both De civilitate and the Colloquies, Erasmus
counsels his young readers to feign ignorance of any bawdy stories
told in their presence; see Wesseling 2002, p. 128. For a discussion of
the Colloquies as pedagogy, see Elias 2000, pp. 143–148. For scatology and
obscenity elsewhere in Erasmus’s writings, see Wesseling 2002, pp. 126–
128; and, more generally, Barbara C. Bowen, “The ‘Honorable Art of Farting’
in Continental Renaissance Literature,” in Persels and Ganim 2004,
pp. 1–13.
61. Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, Mirror of Everyday Life: Genreprints in the Netherlands,
1550–1700, catalogue by Eddy de Jongh and Ger Luijten, trans. by
Michael Hoyle, 1997, pp. 71–74, cat. no. 7. Cf. Rabelais, who has Panurge
say that Nature made the sun to light our daily labors, but takes it away
at night, so that we may stop working, eat, and relax. See Rabelais-Cohen
1955, pp. 328–329 ( bk. 3, chap. 15).
62. Starter 1974, fol. Alv; also quoted in Van Stipriaan 1996, pp. 25 and 24,
fig. 3. The Dutch proverb is found as early as 1550; see Kamper spreekwoorden
1959, p. 52, no. 15: “Hy laet den Geck wt der mouwe kijcken,”
with a variant in no. 16: “Hy en can den Geck in der mouwen niet holden”
(He cannot keep the fool in the sleeve). This proverb is also alluded to
in the play Bot Verstant en Cloucken Geest (Van Eeghem 1943, p. 227, line 308),