The Dedalus Book of Medieval Literature
Page 21
Thomas Murner
On The Great Lutheran Fool
Luther explains Protestantism to Murner (lines 3746–3904)
LUTHER
Well, since I find you of a mind
and to my daughter well inclined,
I’d better tell you how you can
turn into a good Lutheran.
In fact, I think I’ll write it down
so my views can be spread around
to men and women in the town,
and everyone will understand
the new doctrines that we have planned,
and so our Lutherosity
can be maintained more easily.
The first rule that we have devised
is that the Pope must be despised
(he is the devil’s spawn from hell!)
then bishops must be mocked as well,
and all the clergy and the priests
(the devil spawned them too, the beasts,
and he imbued them with his vice).
The Pope’s also the Antichrist,
because the geese in Germany
never elected him, you see?
I know his crown is triple, but
one is too many for that mutt!
And as for all his Papal Bulls,
the silly, vicious, impious fool,
enforced by legates double-quick
(he really is a massive prick!),
we’ll trample on them straight away,
and we won’t fast, confess or pray.
We will not recognise his writ,
we’ll make a bonfire out of it,
and we shall do the same, what’s more,
for the Holy Roman Emperor,
the princes and all the estates,
the Emperor’s associates.
If this lot promulgates a law,
that’s one we’ll take care to ignore.
The laws that they try to impose,
we’ll laugh and spit at all of those.
We won’t keep anything they say,
or care about it anyway,
for Christian Faith makes us all free
to reject all authority.
Baptism frees us all today,
so kings and princes have no say.
Now, Lutheran rule number three
is to reject the liturgy.
The Mass? The devil thought of it
and it won’t help us, not a bit,
neither in life, nor afterward.
A mass is an insult to God,
a piece of loathsome frippery
to rob us all dishonestly
of all our Lutherosity.
The Mass can’t be a sacrifice,
the Gospel shown by artifice;
don’t water wine in the chalice.
Confession we don’t need at all
unless it’s between two good pals.
Confirming, marriage, the Last Rites?
throw the whole lot out of our sight,
never let them come to light!
If to be Lutheran you yearn,
for every sacrament you’ll turn –
that’s what Luther makes us learn!
Smash up each church and monastery,
slash every icon that you see,
the sacraments must be debased
and nuns out of their convents chased,
and monks out of the monastery –
do that, if Lutheran you’d be.
If like a Lutheran you’d preach,
the monks and priests you must impeach,
and mock the clergy near and far
to show how Lutheran you are,
that you speak truth, open and free,
and be everyone’s enemy.
Whatever monks once did of yore,
bring it all up and to the fore,
and talk about their luxury
(but not about their piety).
To dredge up every little bit
that there has ever been of shit
is what everyone has to do
(just so that they’ll stink of it, too).
Those wicked arguments that man
has had since Christendom began,
and which have long since, far and wide,
by Christian men been set aside –
revive the lot! Bring back the schism!
We don’t want all this pacifism.
Yes, that’s our spirit and our mood,
we’ll wash our hands in pools of blood,
and wade in it up to the knee –
now that’s real Lutherosity!
Cultivate lies carefully
but truth must be claimed publicly;
just say that what we say holds good,
but other folk trot out falsehood.
If you should find us lying, too,
we always claim that it is true,
the very Gospel, nothing false,
that’s what it has to be, of course.
And keep it quiet, furthermore,
that we’ve got weaponry in store
(so we can rob the priests, you see,
more quickly and more easily).
We’ll take their cash and gold away,
the priests have plenty anyway.
We’ll damn the bishops merrily,
and we’ll nick all their property,
then let the merchants have their turn,
and take away the cash they earn
(like those in Prague just had to learn –
yes, their town council had enough
when we took all the merchants’ stuff,
we stole whatever we could find
and didn’t leave a scrap behind).
But let me shorten what I’ve said
and summarise the rules instead:
just keep this thought inside your head –
anger and malice are our creed,
they burn within us, yes indeed!
When someone’s better off than we,
our one desire has to be
to take it off him, every groat,
and then to get him by the throat,
take all his goods into our hands,
and after, raze his house and lands
and torch the lot and watch it burn –
that’s the way of a Lutheran!
Well now, enough doctrine, my friend,
my set of rules is at an end –
just turn everything inside out,
and that’s our Gospel, without doubt;
so there is what you have to do
if you would be Lutheran too.
If you see all things upside-down,
leave the fire for the frying pan,
if a baby craps when at the font
we know that he’s the one we want!
We call them ‘Children of Mayhem,’
and that’s the Lutheran order, then,
which is observed by Luther’s men.
You mustn’t go to church too much,
or use the Book of Hours and such.
Well, Murner, I’ve spelt out to you
what our order demands you do,
and if by our rules you will live,
then gladly my daughter I’ll give.
Is your answer affirmative?
MURNER
Odds bodikins, this is good stuff,
your rules all seem easy enough.
If they’re the rules that you avow,
I’d be at least abbot by now …
Murner discovers that his bride has scurvy (4246–91)
MURNER
Out, out! In every devil’s name,
by whose force we together came!
You scruffy monk’s whore, ratbag, clown!
Out, out! May thunder strike you down.
If you are Luther’s sweet child true,
how can you be so poxy, too?
You stink the room out totally,
and want to go to bed with me?
Out, out! Clear
off! It’s very plain
I don’t want to see you again!
If I should find you, I declare
that I shall flay you, that I swear!
You slagheap, poxy pile of stink,
you slut! How could you even think
that ever by my side you’d lie?
Go to the sows in the pigsty!
LUTHER
Hang on a minute, Murner, hey!
Why are you hitting her that way,
driving my daughter from your door
with blows and curses? What’s it for?
They warned me you would really be
a trial, and how you’d repay me!
Before my friends you’ve brought me shame
who, in my honour, kindly came
to share this spicy wedding-feast!
Have you become some kind of beast
to beat my daughter on the bum
out here in front of everyone?
MURNER
Take my advice, hear what I say,
and keep your daughter well away,
or else I’ll never be your friend.
That ratbag’s poxed from end to end –
one sniff of her and you can tell,
so take the brat, and go to hell!
Besides, you told me your intent,
that marriage be no sacrament.
If it’s a sacrament no more
well then, I’ve done no wrong, I’m sure.
Rascals and whores, divorce at will
the minute you have had your fill!
If to no sacrament I’m true,
well, piss on her and piss on you!
Just look at her – her poxy sores
are thicker than a sow’s, and more!
They’re thicker than a tinker’s cough,
so take the slut and bugger off!
Luther dies of shock and Murner arranges a burial (4414–76)
MURNER
A burial reflects the worth
a man had when he lived on earth.
The one thing Luther did down here
for peaceful Christendom, I fear,
was bring us schism and the sword,
and now he’s reaped evil’s reward.
Off to the shit-house with the chap
who said the sacraments were crap –
send him off with a thunderclap!
The shit-house is the place for such
as leave no scrap of filth untouched.
HOW LUTHER’S BURIAL WAS HYMNED WITH A MIGHTY CATERWAULING
From Luther’s teaching I deduce
that Holy Mass is not much use
in death or in our life on earth,
and for damned souls has damn-all worth.
…
Of other details I’m not sure,
but I’ll be kind to Pa-in-Law
and we at least shall sing something,
and all the cats together bring.
A cat is what they’ve made of me
(and not behaved too courteously)
remember though, touch not the cat!
But if I asked them after that
to Luther’s requiem today,
the cats would make them stay away,
which would insult me anyway,
and that would be a great disgrace
and I should lose a lot of face.
Therefore, my pussies, jump up higher
and we shall make a funeral choir,
we cats will sing around the pyre.
I shall start off, and you join in,
and keep it low, lads, no screeching,
just stay in tune, I beg you all,
and let’s not have a caterwaul.
Come black cats, grey cats, anyhow,
and sing miaow, miaow, miaow,
miaow, miaow – keep singing too,
for Murn-iaow, the Tomcat-Fool.
Mew, mew, the tenors to the fore,
miaow, miaow, bass in the score.
Now if I’m not a pussy-cat,
how come I can miaow like that?
So now it’s clear by what great rule
they call me-iaow the Tomcat-Fool.
I can miaow with such fine tone
and sing that Pa-in-Law has gone,
and not leave him to lie alone.
If cats had not answered my call
he’d have no requiem at all …
EPILOGUE: LAMENTS FOR A MISSPENT YOUTH
Living a life of wickedness is never really a problem while one is actually doing it. It is not death that is the wages of sin, but old age and attendant debility. This section includes expressions of the problem from the point of view of men and women (though the writers were probably all men). The male-voice pieces are pretty specific about the parts which fail to operate; the one in a woman’s voice is more generally elegaic.
Just as there is a long tradition of poetry addressed to the over-active penis (as with Dafydd ap Gwilym), there is also a poetry of complaint about its inactivity which goes back to Ovid’s temporary failure in the Amores, and has a famous post-medieval expression in the poetry of the Earl of Rochester (as well as in a soldiers’ song about a water-spout). It isn’t always old age that causes the problem. This first short text is from a German manuscript of the early fifteenth century, and it was printed by Lassberg (who supplied the title) in the 1820s with an apologetic note for including it at all, and pleading that it was strictly of linguistic interest. The second piece on a similar theme is by the Scottish poet Sir Duncan Campbell, who was born in 1443 and died at Flodden in 1513. Several Gaelic poems are attributed to him. He had a go at priests, and wrote a long and rather adjectival boast to his penis, much as Dafydd ap Gwilym did. He was also acutely aware of its failure, though one can only wonder about his wife and her reaction.
Priapeia
What shall I do? It’s pretty poor!
I can’t raise Willy any more!
He droops and dangles there today,
and won’t respond in any way
to all the ladies that I see,
and just hangs, detumescently!
He thinks he’ll stay there, limp and small,
and he’s got the idea that all
he’ll do is flop maliciously –
why should he act so viciously!
He’s started mocking everyone,
pisses on shoes (he thinks that’s fun!),
pees down your trousers, makes a mess,
he’s really like a stinking cess-pit,
pongs a lot, but doesn’t twitch.
As habits go, it’s quite a bitch!
A lady pilgrim, off to Rome
should not forget my balls, back home.
So let no lady’s eyes distress,
just let her bathe them in this piss,
and they won’t hurt her any more.
If Willy plumbed deep lakes before,
well, let’s recall that, and rejoice,
’cause now he droops without a choice!
Duncan Campbell of Glenorchy
Poem VI
Bad luck to him whose manly powers wane,
the sadness of it occupies my mind.
Think well on what has now become of me,
make sure you have no truck with womankind!
When I was younger, for a little while
I would enjoy myself in every way;
before my manly powers started to
malfunction, I was happy every day.
But now, alas, my comforts are no more
a great change, sadly, has come over me.
I had the taste of honey all the time
until I lost my male vitality.
Once (and quite properly) I drank the lot,
not one wine, red or white, beneath the sun
did I miss out, but sampled them as well.
It didn’t last though, and those times are done.
So there’s my problem now, the one I mean,
it’s plain enough for
anyone to see:
as long as I still had my vigour, then
there was a full share of good things for me.
My wife! Good God, she’s worse than all the rest,
now that I’ve come to be in this bad way.
She won’t stop nagging, scolding, bullying,
and just keeps at it (and me) every day.
Once there was no exotic food or spice
nor any kind of fine and tasty fish
beneath the sun that would not come my way,
to satisfy each culinary wish.
And while John Thomas had his health and strength,
the sweetest fruit you’d find in your whole life
was waiting for me three times every day
at least, provided by my own young wife.
If I had told her then that God was just
an ordinary chap, or goats were swine,
well, she’d agree with everything I said,
even if I claimed water to be wine.
But now, if I should offer her the moon
and stars, and everything there is to see,
now that John T. has ceased to function, she’ll
just say: ‘No thanks. You can’t do much for me!’
If all the heroes in the world were mine
to order, from the earth and oceans wide,
from east to west, it still would be no good;
my wife would still never be satisfied.
Sweet Jesus Christ, I beg you, hear my plea,
as you are king of every church, and mine,
please grant my willy everlasting strength,
so I can try to keep my wife in line.
Other great men, nobles and fighters all,
rampaged and ravaged lands from sea to sea –
then waned! The terra incognita where
they went must – sadly – now be home to me.
Life at the Ebb
The speaker in this very famous Old Irish poem, written probably in around 900 (opinions differ), doesn’t regret her wanton life – she thoroughly enjoyed it, in fact, making love and drinking far into the night. Now life is ebbing, though, and she has to come to terms with being an old woman, resentful that everything in nature seems to survive better than humans. She may be a nun, but no-one is really sure about that, or many other aspects of the text.