Pieter Bruegel and the Art of Laughter - AAAARG.ORG

218 notes to pages 124–127
chapter 6
Epigraph: Prologue to The Ship of Fools, 1494, quoted from Brant-Zeydel 1962,
p. 61.
1. Roberts-Jones 2002, p. 96.
2. Van Mander-Miedema 1994–99, 1: fol. 233v (pp. 192–193). The translation
is my own. An inventory taken in 1647–48 of the paintings in the Hradschin,
the royal burcht in Prague, includes “[e]in Daªel mit Feuerstbrunst,
dorbey die Furia mit unterschidlichen Monstern” (a panel with fire and with
it a Furia [i.e., Dulle Griet] and various monsters), which has been taken as
a reference to Bruegel’s Dulle Griet. See Grauls 1957, p. 47, for this entry and
the putative later history of the painting. However, De Coo 1978, p. 33,
stresses that there is absolutely no proof that Bruegel’s painting was the one
described in the inventory of 1647–48. Indeed, it could have been a more
contemporary painting, perhaps a work by Ryckaert or Teniers discussed at
the end of this chapter (see Figs. 82, 83), which show that the proverb “to
plunder in front of Hell” was not unknown in the seventeenth century.
3. Grauls 1957, pp. 6–76.
4. Ibid., p. 28. Griet is derived from the name Margaret, sometimes spelled
Margriete in Netherlandish (ibid., p. 11), and Grauls assumes that its use to
designate ill-tempered women was inspired by the legends of St. Margaret,
who successfully struggled with the Devil several times. Other connotations
of the name Griet are discussed in W. S. Heckscher, “Is Griet’s Name
Really so Bad?” Manitoba Arts Review 4, no. 3 (1945): 26–32.
5. Goedthals 1568, p. 139: “Daer twee Grieten in een huys zijn; en behoeft
gheenen bassenden hont.”
6. Griet Suermuyl (Griet Sourmouth) appears in a factie (a comic dramatic
performance) given by the Lier chamber of rederijkers at the Antwerp Haechspel
of 1561, while Schele Griet (Cross-eyed Griet) is a character in a Haarlem
play of about 1600 (Hummelen 1968, 3 C 57 and 1 OK 5 respectively).
Griet Snatertans ( precise meaning unclear, but denoting one who babbles
or cackles; see Lambrecht 1945, p. 180, s.v., “Snateren” and “Snatere”)
figures in another farce of about 1600 (Hummelen 1968, 1 OG 11). For
several later examples of Griet in Dutch drama, see Hummelen 1968, 1
OA 10, 4 36. In Erasmus’s colloquy The Poetic Feast, the surly maid is appropriately
named Margaret; see Erasmus-Thompson 1965, pp. 158–176,
who notes that this lady is based on Erasmus’s real-life servant of the same