Légende d'Ulenspiegel. English

by Charles de Coster

  "At that the old girl told me that the only thing for me to do wasto return at once whence I came, and that if my wife had left me shehad indeed done well, seeing that all men are thieves and rascals,heretics, unfaithful, poisoners, and deceivers of women; and shethreatened to set her dog on me if I did not make off at once. Whichin truth I did incontinently, for that I perceived a great mastifflying there growling at her feet. When, therefore, I had reached theboundary of the field, I sat me down to rest myself and to eat a bitof ham. And I was between two clover-fields. Suddenly I heard a greatnoise just behind me, and turning round I saw the old girl's mastiff,no longer now in menacing mood but wagging his tail as sweetly aspossible and as much as to say that he was hungry and would like apiece of my ham. I was for throwing him some small bits when all atonce his mistress appeared on the scene, and shouted out fiercely:

  "'Seize the man! Seize him with your fangs, my son!'

  "I started to run away, the great mastiff hanging on to me by mybreeks. And now he had bitten off a piece of them, together witha gobbet of my own flesh. The pain made me angry and I turned andgave him such a smart stroke with my stick upon his front pawsthat I must have broken one of them at least. At that he fell down,crying out in his dog language: 'Mercy! Mercy!' the which I grantedhim. Meanwhile his mistress, finding no stones to throw at me, hadbegun to threaten me with pieces of earth and bits of grass. So Imade good my retreat. And is it not a sorry thing, and a thing mostunjust and most cruel, that because a girl has not been good-lookingenough to find some one to marry her, she must needs go and take herrevenge on a poor innocent like me?"

  IV

  Some while after these happenings, when Nele had returned to her homewith Katheline, Lamme and Ulenspiegel came to Bruges. They were atthe place called Minne-Water, the Lake of Love--though the learnedfolk would have it to be derived from Minre-Water, that is, the Waterbelonging to the order of monks who are called Minims. Be this as itmay, here on the bank of the lake, Lamme and Ulenspiegel sat themselvesdown, watching those that passed in front of them under the trees. Thegreen branches hung over the pathway like a vault of foliage, andbelow there sauntered both men and women, youths and maids, claspingeach other's hands, with flowers on their heads, walking so closetogether and gazing so tenderly into each other's eyes that theyseemed to see nothing else in all the world save themselves alone.

  As he watched them, the thoughts of Ulenspiegel were far away withNele, and his thoughts were sad thoughts. Yet his words were ofanother colour, bidding Lamme come off with him to the tavern fora drink. But Lamme paid no attention to what Tyl was saying, for hehimself was absorbed no less by the sight of those loving pairs.

  "In the old days," he said, "we too, my wife and I, were wont to goa-courting, while others, just as we are now, would watch us, aloneand companionless by the lake-side."

  "Come and have a drink!" said Ulenspiegel, "Belike we will find theSeven at the bottom of a pint of beer."

  "That's but a drunkard's notion," answered Lamme, "for you knowquite well that the Seven are giants, and taller than the roof ofthe Church of St. Sauver itself!"

  The thoughts of Ulenspiegel were still with Nele, but none the lessdid he hope to find, perchance, good quarters in some inn, a goodsupper, and a comely hostess into the bargain. Again, therefore, didhe urge his companion to come along with him and drink. But Lammewould not listen to him, gazing sadly at the tower of Notre Dame,and addressing himself in prayer to Our Lady somewhat in this wise:

  "O Blessed Lady, patroness of all lawful unions, suffer me, I pray,to see yet once again the white neck, the soft and tender neck,of my love!"

  "Come and drink!" cried Ulenspiegel. "Belike you will find herdisplaying these charms of hers to the drinkers in the tavern."

  "How dare you harbour such a thought!" cried Lamme.

  "Come and drink!" repeated Ulenspiegel. "Your wife has turned innkeeperwithout a doubt."

  And thus conversing, they repaired to the Marche du Samedi, and enteredinto the Blauwe Lanteern--at the sign of the Blue Lantern. And therethey found a right jolly-looking innkeeper.

  The donkey meanwhile was unharnessed from the cart, and was put upin the stables and provided with a good feed of oats. Our travellersthemselves ordered supper, and when they had eaten their fill, theywent to bed and slept soundly till morning, only to wake up and eatagain. And Lamme, who was wellnigh bursting with all that he hadeaten, said that he could hear in his stomach a sound like the musicof the spheres.

  Now when the time came to pay the bill, mine host came to Lamme andtold him that the total amounted to six patards.

  "He has the money," said Lamme, pointing to Ulenspiegel.

  "No such thing," said Ulenspiegel.

  "What about that half-florin?" said Lamme.

  "I haven't got it," said Ulenspiegel.

  "Here's a nice way of going on!" cried the innkeeper. "I shall stripyour doublet and shirt from the two of you!"

  Suddenly Lamme took courage of all he had been drinking:

  "And if I choose to eat and to drink," he cried, "yea, to eat andto drink the worth of twenty-seven florins, and more, do you thinkI shall not do so? Do you think that this belly of mine is not theequal of a penny? God's life! Up to now I have fed on ortolans. Butyou, never have you carried anything of that sort under your belt ofgreasy hide. For you, you bad man, must needs carry your suet in thecollar of your doublet, far otherwise than I that bear three inchesat least of delicate fat on this good belly of mine."

  At this the innkeeper fell into a passion of rage, and though he was astammerer he began to talk at a great rate, and the greater his hastethe more he stammered and spluttered like a dog that has just comeout of the water. Ulenspiegel began to throw pellets of bread at him,and Lamme, growing more and more excited, continued his harangue inthe following strain:

  "And now, what do you say? For here have I enough, and more thanenough, to pay you for those three lean chickens forsooth, and thosefour mangy poulets, to say nothing of that big simpleton of a peacockthat parades his paltry tail in the stable yard. And if your veryskin was not more dry than that of an ancient cock, if your bones evennow were not falling to very dust within your breast, still should Ihave the wherewithal to eat you up, you and your slobbering servantthere--your one-eyed serving-maid and your cook, whose arms are notlong enough to scratch himself though he had the itch! And do you see,"he continued, "do you see this fine bird of yours that for the sake ofhalf a florin would have deprived us of our doublet and our shirt? Say,what is your own wardrobe worth, preposterous chatterbox that you are;and I will give you three liards in exchange for the lot!"

  But the innkeeper, who by this time was beside himself with rage,stammered and spluttered more and more, while Ulenspiegel went onthrowing pellets of bread in his face, till Lamme at last cried outagain in a voice brave as a lion's:

  "What's the value, think you, skinny-face, of a fine donkey witha splendid nose, long ears, large chest, and legs as strong asiron? Twenty-eight florins at the least, is it not so, most seedy ofinnkeepers? And how many old nails have you, pray, locked fast awayin your coffer, with which to pay the price of so fine an animal?"

  More than ever did the innkeeper puff and blow, yet dared not budgean inch from where he stood. And Lamme said again:

  "And what is the value, think you, of a fine cart of ash-wood, finelypainted in crimson, and furnished with a hood of Courtrai cloth forprotection from sun and rain? Twenty-four florins at the least, isit not so? And how much is twenty-four florins added to twenty-eightflorins? Answer that, you miser that cannot even count! And now,since it is market day, and since your paltry tavern happens to befull of peasants that are come to market, behold I will put up mycart to auction and my donkey too, and I will sell them here, now,and at once!"

  Which, in very truth, he did. For all they that were there knew verywell who Lamme was. And he actually realized from the sale of hisdonkey and cart as much as forty-four florins and ten patards. Andhe jingled the money under the
innkeeper's nose, and said to him:

  "Scent you not the savour of festivities to be?"

  "Yea," answered mine host. But under his breath he swore thatif ever Lamme came to him and offered to sell him his very skin,he would buy it for a liard and make of it an amulet for a charmagainst extravagance.

  Meanwhile there was a sweet and gentle-looking young woman thatstood in the yard without, and she came up oftentimes to the windowand looked at Lamme, but withdrew her pretty face each time that hemight have seen her. And the same evening, when Lamme was going up tobed, stumbling about on the staircase without any light (for he hadbeen drinking not wisely), he was aware of a woman that put her armsround him, and greedily kissed his cheek and mouth and his nose even,and moistened his face with amorous tears, and then left him.

  But Lamme, who was thoroughly drowsed by all that he had been drinking,lay down straightway and went to sleep; and on the morrow he departedto Ghent together with Ulenspiegel. There he went seeking his wifein all the cabarets and taverns of the town. But at nightfall herejoined Ulenspiegel at the sign of the Singing Swan.

  V

  Now King Philip was obstinate as a mule, and he thought that hisown will ought to dominate the entire world as if it had been thewill of God himself. And his will was this: that our country, littleaccustomed as it was to obedience, should now curb itself under anancient yoke without obtaining any reforms at all. And the be-alland the end-all of his desire was the aggrandizement of that HolyMother of his, the Catholic Church, Apostolic and Roman, One, Entire,Universal, changeless and unalterable, and this was his will for noother reason at all than just the fact that it was his will. And inthis he was like some woman without sense, that tosses about all nightupon her bed as though it were a bed of thorns, endlessly torturedby her own imaginings.

  "Yes," he would say, "O most Holy Saint Philip, and you, O my LordGod, if only I could turn the Low Countries into a common grave, andcast therein all the inhabitants of that country, then surely theywould return to Thee, my most blessed Patron, and to Thee, my LadyVirgin Mary, and to ye, my good masters, the saints and saintessesof Paradise!"

  And he really tried to do as he said; so that he was more Roman thanthe Pope and more Catholic than the Councils!

  And the people of Flanders and of the Low Countries began to growanxious again, and to think that they could discern in the distancethis crowned spider, working in the sombre house of the Escurial,reaching out his long claws with their nippers open, and spreadingwide the web in which he might enwrap them all and suck them whiteof their blood.

  Ulenspiegel, for his part, went spreading the alarm wherever he could,and stirring up the people against the ravishers of his country andthe murderers of his parents.

  One day, therefore, when he was in the Marche du Vendredi, near bythe Dulle-Griet--the Great Canon--Ulenspiegel lay flat down on hisstomach in the middle of the road. A charcoal-burner who happened tobe passing came up and asked him what he was doing there.

  "I am giving my nose a wetting," Ulenspiegel told him, "so that Imay discover where this great wind is coming from."

  Next a carpenter came along.

  "Do you take the pavement for a mattress?" he asked.

  "Before long," said Ulenspiegel, "there are some that will be takingit for a counterpane."

  A monk came up and stopped by his side.

  "What does this booby here?"

  "He entreats your blessing, lying flat at your feet," saidUlenspiegel. The monk gave his blessing and went away. But Ulenspiegelcontinued where he was with his head pressed to the earth, till atlast a peasant came along and asked him what he was listening for. "Doyou hear some noise or other?" he said.

  "Yes," replied Ulenspiegel. "I hear the wood beginning to grow,that wood whence many a faggot shall be made for the burning ofpoor heretics."

  "Do you hear aught else?" inquired a sergeant of the commune.

  "Yes," said Ulenspiegel, "I hear the men-at-arms that are on their wayfrom Spain. If you have anything you wish to save, bury it now, forin a little while our cities will not be safe from thieves any more."

  "The man is mad," said the sergeant.

  And the people of the town thought so too.

  VI

  Now in those days, day in, day out, King Philip of Spain was usedto spend his time fingering old papers and scribbling and writingon leaves of parchment. To these alone did he confide the secretsof his cruel heart, for he loved no man living, and knew that noneloved him. For he desired to direct his great empire by himself alone,and like a weary Atlas he was bowed under that weight. Melancholy andphlegmatic by nature, this excess of work was consuming a body thatwas already none too strong. Hating as he did every happy face, hehad begun to hate our land of Flanders, for its gaiety if for nothingelse. And he hated our merchants just because they were wealthy andluxurious, and he hated our nobility just because they were free inspeech and frank in manner, and because of the high ardour of theirbravery and their jovial bearing. Neither had he forgotten the talethat was told how, as early as the year 1380, the Cardinal de Cousahad pointed out the abuses of the Church, and had preached the needof reformation, since which time the revolt against the Pope andthe power of Rome had begun to be manifest in our land, and was now,under different forms and sects, rife in every head like water boilingin a kettle with the lid on.

  And although, under the Emperor Charles, the Papal Inquisition hadalready been the death, by burning, burying alive, or hanging, ofso many as a hundred thousand Christians, and although the propertyof these unfortunates had gone into the coffers of the Emperor andthe King like rain falling into a sink, Philip decided that this wasnot enough, and now imposed on the country a new College of Bishops,and aspired to introduce into Flanders all the horrors of the SpanishInquisition.

  And the Town Heralds sounded their trumpets and their timbrels, anddeclaimed a proclamation to the effect that all heretics, whethermen, women, or girls, should be done to death. Those who would recanttheir heresies were to be hanged, but those who were obstinate wereto be burnt at the stake. The women and girls were to be buried alive,and the executioner was to dance upon their dead bodies.

  And the flame of resistance began to burn and run through all thecountry.

  VII

  It was the fifth of April, just before Easter, and the Counts Louis ofNassau, de Culembourg, and de Brederode (he that was surnamed Herculethe Toper) were entering the courtyard of the palace of Brussels,together with three hundred gentlemen. They were come to seek anaudience of the Governess of the Netherlands, Madame the Duchess ofParma, and were mounting the great stairway of the palace four by four.

  Coming at length into the hall where my Lady was seated they presentedtheir petition, which entreated her to use her influence with KingPhilip for the abolition of all those decrees which concerned religionand the introduction into Flanders of the Spanish Inquisition. Thispetition, which afterwards became known as "The Compromise," alsodeclared that in our already disaffected country such a policy as theintroduction of the Inquisition could only result in troubles of allkinds, ruin to the country, and universal misery.

  Berlaymont, who later on was to prove so treacherous and baneful tothe land of his birth, stood close by Her Highness, and mocked at thepoverty of certain of the confederate nobles who had come to visit her.

  "Have no fear, my Lady," he told her, "they are nothing but beggars!"

  And by these words he implied either that the said nobles had beenruined in the service of the King, or else that they were eager toemulate the luxury of the great Lords of Spain. And thus it was thatlater on these same nobles endeavoured to bring ridicule upon thewords of Berlaymont by saying that "they held it indeed an honour tobe esteemed and spoken of as beggars--beggars for the good service ofthe King and the advantage of these lands." And from that time theybegan to wear round their necks a golden medal carved with an effigyof the King. And on the obverse side of the medal were two handsclasped upon a beggar's wallet, with these words writ ther
eunder:"To the King, faithful even unto beggary." On their hats and bonnetsthey carried also little golden ornaments made in the form of beggars'hats and platters.

  And all this time Lamme went carrying his portly form about the town,seeking the wife that he never found.

  VIII

  One morning Ulenspiegel said to Lamme:

  "Come with me. Let us go and present our compliments to a certainhigh noble I wot of, a most renowned and powerful personage!"

  "Will he tell us where my wife is?" asked Lamme.

  "Certainly," answered Ulenspiegel, "if he knows."

  And away they went to Brederode, surnamed Hercule the Toper. And theyfound him in the courtyard of his house.

  "What do you want with me?" he demanded of Ulenspiegel.

  "To speak with you, my Lord."

  "Speak then," said Brederode.

  "You are a handsome, brave, and powerful nobleman," saidUlenspiegel. "Time was when you were able to flatten out a Frenchman infull armour as though he were no better than a mussel in its shell. Butif you are brave and powerful you are also well-informed. Can you tellus, therefore, why you wear this medal inscribed with these words:'To the King, faithful even unto beggary'?"