Pieter Bruegel and the Art of Laughter - AAAARG.ORG

220 notes to pages 128–129
on the context in which the proverb “She could plunder in front of
Hell . . .” appears in the Kamper spreekwoorden. The proverb about the blind
man receives an extensive commentary in Agricola 1971, 1:554, no. 748.
14. See respectively Brant-Zeydel 1962, chap. 64, pp. 212–215 (the quotation
on p. 214); Dichten en spelen van Jan van den Berghe, ed. C. Kruyskamp, Uitgave
van de Vereeniging der Antwerpsche Bibliofielen, 2nd ser., no. 4 (The
Hague: Martinus Nijhoª, 1950), p. 28, lines 645–655; and Thomas Nashe,
The Anatomie of Absurdities, quoted in De Bruyn 1979, p. 130.
15. Three Days Lord, in Netherlandic Secular Plays from the Middle Ages: The “Abele Spelen”
and the Farces from the Hulthem Manuscript, trans. and ed. Theresia de
Vroom, Carleton Renaissance Plays in Translation 29 (Ottawa: Dovehouse
Editions, 1997), p. 235, lines 69–70.
16. Modern literature on the shrewish wife is extensive, but see Gibson 1979,
with further references; and more recently Van Engeldorp-Gastelaers
1984; and Kusue Kurokawa, “Noah’s Wife as a Virago: A Folkloric Figure
in English Mystery Plays,” The Profane Arts of the Middle Ages / Les arts
profanes du moyen-âge 5, no. 2 (Fall 1996 ): 218–235.
17. Goedthals 1568, pp. 39–40: “En jaarmarkt sonder dief / En schoone
maeght sonder lief / En schure met coren sonder musen / En oudt man
sonder lusen /En oudt wijf sonder schelden / Dese vijf dinghen vindt men
selden” (An annual market without a thief / A beautiful girl without love
/ A grain harvest without mice / An old man without lice [or fleas] / An
old wife without scolding / These five things one finds seldom). A variant
of this verse can be found in Veelderhande 1971, p. 2.
18. Described in F. Muller, De Nederlandsche geschiedenis in platen: Beredeneerde
beschrijving van Nederlandsche historieplaten, zinneprenten en historische kaarten, 4
vols. (Amsterdam: F. Muller, 1863–82), 1: no. 418 Ae II. The impression
illustrated is a fairly late reissue, for it is inscribed “Hugo Allardt excudit,”
the address of a publisher active in Amsterdam until his death in
1684. Jones 2002a, p. 220, no. 9, notes that it is a later state of a print
published by Cornelisz Visscher, who died in 1558 (no. 8).
19. In the inscription accompanying this print, we learn that the Bigorne symbolizes
the grave that frees men from the mistreatment of their wives. For
later variants of this composition, and some related English prints, see
Jones 2002a, pp. 220–221, nos. 7–10, and 212–213, figs. 1, 2 respectively.
20. Chaucer-Benson 1987, p. 152, line 1188. See the note to these lines for