This engraving was first published by Hieronymus Cock in Antwerp in 1559. The boat shows the inscription: Die blau schuÿte (The blue boat). In the lower left corner we read: Hieronÿmus – Bos – Inuentor (which suggests that the engraving was made after a design by Hieronymus Bosch). Somewhat more to the right we see the monogram PAME, which refers to the engraver Peter van der Heyden (Petrus a Merica: ‘heide’ in Dutch = ‘merica’ in Latin = ‘heath’ in English). In the lower right corner we read: Cock – excudebat – 1559 – cum gratia et privilegio. Below, a Dutch four-line poem accompanies the engraving. It reads: Daer platbroeck speelman is en stierman in de bane / Daer sien hem de voghelen voer eenen huÿben ane / En al tiert sijn gheselscap datse moghen sweeten / Het sullen de sanghers in de blau schuÿte heeten (literal translation: ‘Where Flatpants is minstrel and steersman of the journey / There the birds think he is an owl / And although his companions yell until they sweat / They will be called the singers in the blue boat).
A second state of this engraving was published by Johannes Galle in Antwerp in around 1650. Above, in capitals, the Latin, French, and Dutch inscriptions: Navis ad perditionem vehens / Le bateau qui meine a la perdition / Het schip van bedervenis (The ship of perdition). The boat has the inscription (in capitals): Die blav schvyte. In the lower left corner: Hieronÿmus – Bos – Inuentor. In the lower right corner: F. and Io. Galle excud. Below, a Dutch four-line poem: Die in geselschap wilt van lichte vrouwen sijn, / Bij sanck en snaeren-spel in luijardije leven: / In overdaet gevult met lacker spijs en wijn, / Compt met dees blauw schuÿt licht tot calis aengedreven (He who wants to be in the company of frivolous women / and to lead a lazy life with singing and string music, / excessively filled with tasty food and wine, / will soon arrive in Calis with this blue boat).
Similar engravings can be seen for example at:
Bonhams in London, Hampel in Munich 2018, Boijmans van Beuningen in Rotterdam, National Gallery of Art in Washington, the Noordbrabants Museum in 's-Hertogenbosch, the Koninlijke Bibliotheek van Belgie in Brussels, Sotheby's in London 2012, the Saint Louis Art Museum
LITERATURE
Gossart [1907: 300 (nr. III.B.6)] classifies the engraving under the engravings that were published after Bosch’s death after his compositions.
Lafond [1914: 102-103] compares the strings of the steerman’s harp (which he calls a lyre) to a spider’s web. The word platbroeck could refer to a cowardly man and to a eunuch. The owl (huijben) refers to a stupid person.
According to Enklaar [1937: 72-74 / 82] the engraving represents a company of Carnival merrymakers who mock society. The colour blue refers to worthlessness, deceit, and keeping up appearances.
Baldass [1943: 16] supposes that the engraving is based on the work of a Bosch follower who may have adapted a Bosch original.
Bax [1948: 160 / 199, 1979: 212 / 262-263] thinks that the vegetation in the foreground does not suggest the season of Carnival. Does the engraving satirize people taking part in a Summer festival? The second line of the poem below says that the birds consider the steersman an owl, i.e. a stupid person.
Cat. Brussels 1963: 219-220 (cat. nr. 387). Refers to Enklaar 1937 (actually the second edition of 1956).
Tolnay [1965: 348] thinks the engraving is a copy of a now lost Bosch original.
Cat. ’s-Hertogenbosch 1967: 224-225 (cat. nr. 98). The engraving is a variant of Bosch’s Ship of Fools. It is not clear to what extent this composition goes back to an original idea of Bosch. The expression voer eenen huijben ane sien means ‘to consider someone an owl’, i.e. to think he is stupid.
Cat. Brussels 1970: 47 (cat. nr. 117, plate 30). De Pauw-de Veen interprets the first letter of the inscription on the boat as a ‘b’ which is a mirror image for ‘d’. This is not correct: the first letter is in fact a capital D, admittedly represented in a somewhat awkward way. The engraving is a variant of Bosch’s Ship of Fools (Louvre).
Cat. Antwerp 1976: 95 (cat. nr. 86). An engraving by Peter van der Heyden after Hieronymus Bosch. A variant of Bosch’s (supposed) painting of the Ship of Fools is in the Louvre. The ‘b’ in the inscription on the boat is a mirror image for ‘d’.
Unverfehrt [1980:285-286 (cat. nr. 144, ill. 238)] considers the engraving an inventive derivative of Bosch’s Ship of Fools. The inscription Hieronÿmus Bosch Inuentor has no credibility and only served Cock’s commercial goals.
Vandenbroeck [1989: 90-91] interprets the people in the boat as a licentious company. He also focuses on the first line of the inscription. ‘In de baen stieren’ meant ‘to lead a licentious life’, and ‘bane’ was a metaphor for the vagina but could also mean ‘evil, guilt, sorrow’. So, ‘stierman in de bane’ does not only mean ‘steersman on the flat (water)’ but also ‘steersman / leader in evil’ and ‘he who copulates’. The birds fly toward the steersman because they consider him an owl: they think he is innocent and they do not understand that he will lead them into sin. The steersman is at the same time a minstrel. Minstrels were considered sinners, devil’s servants, and spoilers of young people by late medieval moralists. The nest on the man’s head refers to ‘nest dragen’ (literally: to carry nest) meaning ‘to plan evil things’. The dry branch refers to worthlessness, sin and/or Luxuria. The cherries probably refer to the male genitals. The complete scene is a satire on and a warning of those who drag along people into a life of licentiousness and debauchery.
Vandenbroeck [2001: 126] refers to Jacop van Oestvoren’s Blue Boat poem. The engraving goes back to a Bosch composition in which he rejects excessive merrymaking.
Vandenbroeck [2002: 337 (nr. 79)] states that the Cock engraving was made after a design of Bosch (see the inscription). The sea is an image of the world and its vanities [24]. The engraving is a reversed example of wisdom, representing those who are governed by their impulses [27]. Bosch expressed his repudiation of merrymaking and lust through a number of profane themes, i.a. in a number of compositions that only came down to us in engravings, such as the Blue Boat [96].
Silver [2006: 322 / 380] states that the engraving is probably only an imitation but that it can provide clues about sixteenth-century understanding of such imagery. He refers to the Carnival Guild of the Blue Boat. That the birds take the steersman for an owl means that they think he is stupid. The engraving stands close to Bosch’s Ship of Fools and satirizes the pleasures of luxury, especially music. The branches on the steerman’s head suggest an owl’s nest, i.e. a ‘place of folly’.
De Vrij [2012: 644-645] refers to the Jacop van Oestvoren poem (1413). The ‘blue boat’ was a staple of Netherlandish folklore. Flatpants is the skipper who steers the boat to nowhere: he is a debaucher who foolishly spent his money, and his crew is bent on making merry (which includes more than just singing, see the cherries and jugs). De Vrij also refers to the second state of the engraving. De Vrij believes that the engraving was designed by Peter van der Heyden, and that it has nothing to do with Bosch. Meanwhile, De Vrij’s translations of the two legends are highly unreliabe and even partially wrong.
Ilsink [in Cat. Louvain 2013: 250-251 (cat. nr. 63a)] refers to the ‘Guild of the Blue Boat’, a guild of merrymakers that paraded in the streets during Carnival festivities. Because of the poor quality of the composition it is very unlikely that this engraving is a faithful copy of a lost Bosch original.
Jaco Rutgers [in Cat. Hamburg 2016: 100 (cat. nr. 8)] writes that the Blue Boat was a standard motif of Carnival festivities in the Low Countries. It was considered a boat of sin leading its crew of bragging representatives of the various social classes to perdition. The word ‘huÿben’ in the legend is incorrectly translated as ‘oaf’ (Trottel).
ICONOGRAPHICAL ANALYSIS
The Guild of the Blue Boat
One of the texts in a fifteenth-century manuscript (The Hague, Koninklijke Bibliotheek, 75 H 57) is a Middle Dutch poem of 297 lines (the opening lines – some 40 verses – are missing). It is a mock charter inviting various sorts of people to become a member of what seems to be a mock guild, ‘The Guild of the Blue Boat’ (Het Gilde van de Blauwe Schuit). In the last lines the author, who calls himself Jacop van Oestvoren, dates the poem ‘Shrove Tuesday 1413’.
The complete manuscript was edited by Eelco Verwijs in 1871 [Verwijs ed. 1871]. The Blue Boat text was re-edited by Herman Pleij [Blauwe Schuit ed. 1981], who also wrote a complete book (his dissertation) on it [Pleij 1983]. The poem invites several social ranks (impoverished noblemen, abbots and prelates, lower clergymen, sons of well-to-do burghers, monks and nuns, beguines, young women who have married an old man, craftsmen, merchants and household servants) to board the blue boat, in order to lead a dissolute life. All these persons are said to suffer from particular flaws and vices that make them suitable to join the Guild of the Blue Boat. Nevertheless, arsonists, thieves, murderers, pirates, traitors, pickpockets, and prostitutes are not allowed to join the guild.
Apparently, the Guild of the Blue Boat can be related to Carnival festivities. It was a temporary fantasy in which all kinds of ‘fools’ could unite to create a topsy-turvy world for as long as Carnival lasted. In reality, the members of the guild were settled citizens, and their behaviour during Carnival was the opposite of the behaviour that bourgeois morals expected from them. In an ironical way they showed the bad example. Jacop van Oestvoren’s text is a clear specimen of this method of ‘negative self-defining’: the verses were meant to be read out loud during Carnival, inviting a number of ‘fools’ (such as shabby clergymen and binging burghers) to board the ‘blue boat’. Persons of good behaviour are declined, and those fools who repent (i.e. when they marry or become wise or rich) have to get off the boat as soon as possible. The reason why the guild also declines arsonists etc. is that from a bourgeois perspective these persons were considered ‘incorrigible’ and immune to ironical Carnival mockery. In other words, their behaviour was too awful to become an object of laughter.
That the ‘Blue Boat’ fantasy can be related to Carnival is confirmed by lines 280-282 of the Blue Boat poem (which literally read: Published in A.D. 1413, exactly on Shrove Tuesday) but there is also iconographical and archival evidence. In the upper left corner of Bruegel’s Battle between Carnival and Lent (Vienna, 1559), we see an inn that belongs to the side of Carnival. Its signboard shows a blue boat, accompanied by the inscription Dit is in d blau scuit (this is in the blue boat). In the 14th century, a house near the Peertbrug (Horse Bridge) in Antwerp was called ‘De Blauwe Schuyte’ (The Blue Boat) [Enklaar 1937: 47]. In 1577, a house in the Windmolenbergstraat in ’s-Hertogenbosch was also called ‘The Blue Boat’ [Cat. ’s-Hertogenbosch 1992: 50]. In 1540 and later, a house in Breda had the same name [Enklaar 1940: 112]. Whether all or some of these houses were inns is uncertain. In 1550, the city archives of Nijmegen mention den schipgesellen op Vastelavont, doe sij myt die Blauwe Schute omvoiren (the ship’s mates on Shrove Tuesday, when they toured around with the Blue Boat) [Verwijs ed. 1871: XXXI, Enklaar 1937: 50 / 79].
Other archival documents do not relate the Blue Boat (explicitly) to Carnival festivities. The 1564 city archives of Bergen op Zoom mention de gesellen die met de Blau Scuyte geloopen hebben op den Ommeganck-dach (the guildsmen who have toured around with the Blue Boat on Procession Day) [Enklaar 1937: 48 / 79, Van Autenboer 1963: 113, Cat. ’s-Hertogenbosch 1992: 65]. In this case, a Blue Boat was not seen in the streets during Carnival, but during the Holy Cross procession, on the first Sunday after Low Sunday [Van Autenboer 1963: 111]. The 1534 city archives of the same city have the following entry: betaelt Jacop van Rausschem, schilder, die aengenomen heeft die Blaeu Scute te schilderen van achter tot voeren met alle die nyeuwe schilden ende wapenen daeraen, zoe dat behoort (paid to Jacop van Rauschem, painter, who has accepted to paint the Blue Boat from back to front with all the new escutcheons and coats of arms attached to it, as seems befitting). And a few years later these archives report: betailt Aert de Scilder, die de Blau Scuyte geveruwt heeft (paid to Aert the Painter, who painted the Blue Boat) [Enklaar 1937: 48 / 82-83].
The ‘Blue Boat’ motif also appears in some Middle Dutch literary texts. One of the poems in the printed collection of rederijker poetry published by Jan van Doesborch in 1528-30 propagates drinking and feasting and has the following lines: Ende segt metten gesellen vander blauwer schuit: / Laet ons drincken laet ons storten, / Al mindert ons goet ons dagen die corten (and say with the guildsmen of the blue boat: / let us drink, let us drain. / Although our goods diminish, our days are declining) [Doesborch II ed. 1940: 212 (nr. CXVII, verses 11-13)]. In Verlaten Kennisse, a play written by an anonymous rederijker and probably dating from the late sixteenth century, two sinnekes (negative, diabolical characters) are quarrelling. The first sinneke says: Rijt nu opt tgroene gele paert (now ride the green-yellow horse), and the other sinneke replies: Loopt selffs inde blauwe schuijt (and you, board the blue boat) [Verlaten Kennisse ed. 1992: 107r (verse 488)]. One of the secular songs in a songbook dating from about 1600 is een out liedeken (an old song) that should be sung op de wijze: Vande blauwe Schuyt (to the tune of The Blue Boat) [Amoreuse Liedekens ed. 1984:48]. A mock charter written in Utrecht in 1446 mentions a ‘Guild of the Blue Boat’ [Enklaar 1937: 50-51, Pleij 1983: 46]. Finally, a chronicle which was probably compiled, copied, and completed in 1717 by the Antwerp notary Geeraard Bertrijn (1648-1722) mentions that in the year 1413 a tournament was organised on the Antwerp Market Square, in which duke Anthony of Brabant (1384-1415) participated, ende daer was een geselschap van der blauwer schuyten (and there was a company of the blue boat) [Chronijck der Stadt Antwerpen ed. 1879: 7].
Apparently, the ‘Blue Boat’ was a well-known motif in the popular culture of the Low Countries in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and whenever it appeared in a particular context this context received a moralizing and satirizing connotation of debauchery and squandering. Based on this cultural-historical information, we can safely interpret the Cock engraving as a Carnival satire on foolish behaviour and licentious merrymaking.
The Cock engraving
In a small boat, which is apparently floating on the sea not far from the shore, and which is steered by a skinny musician, an old and a young woman and four men are giving themselves up to flirting and drunken bragging. A pitcher is hanging from the side of the boat, and another pitcher is standing on the head of the musician, atop some dry branches. Some birds are flying toward the musician’s head. The musician’s right hand is holding what seems to be a pair of cherries. On the shore (in the foreground) we see two more birds (a duck and a sea gull?). The first line of the legend identifies the man to the right, who is standing up and holding the rudder of the boat, as the steersman (stierman) and thus as the leader of the merrymaking company. He is also called ‘flatpants’ (platbroeck).
Platbroeck
At first sight, the viewer is inclined to relate this name to the man’s leanness (his buttocks are so skinny that his pants are almost falling off), but apparently platbroeck was a sixteenth-century invective referring to an unsuccessful, impotent lover or to an incompetent oaf. Kiliaan’s Dutch-Latin dictionary (1599) simply translates ‘platbroecke’ as eunuchus [Etymologicum ed. 1974: 496]. This translation is confirmed by a passage in tSpel vanden Ontrouwen Rentmeester (The Play of the Unfaithful Bailiff), a rederijkers play dating from about 1587. An innkeeper wants to kiss his wife, but she declines him with the words: Ey, laet staen! Wat gaet u overe, ghy platbroeck! / Siet hier toch! Tis wat, u slappich bedryven! / Ey, kinnentassere, en hebdy niet vergeten te schryven? (hey, cut that out! What do you think you are doing, you flatpants! / Look at you! It is really something, your soft performance! / Hey, chin-groper, haven’t you forgotten to charge? – literally: to write) [Ontrouwe Rentmeester ed. 1899: 99 (verses 552-554)]. Here, platbroeck seems to refer to an impotent man. Slappich bedryven (soft performance) and schryven (to write) can be understood in an ambiguous way: these phrases can refer to the fact that the innkeeper is slow at putting down his clients’ consumptions, but they can also refer to the innkeeper’s poor performance in bed (‘to write’ as a sexual metaphor).
In another rederijkers play dating from about 1561, De hel vant brouwersgilde (The Hell of the Brewers’ Guild), the devil Lucifer says about arrogant and vain city girls: Compter dan een vent, die haer wil vrijen / ist een heckspringer die van tharnis ruijckt die is pertinent / anders ist laet den platbroeck staen besien (when some guy wants to be her boyfriend / he will be successful if he is a tearaway who reeks of the harnass / otherwise, it is: let flatpants stand there and watch) [Hel vant brouwersgilde ed. 1992: 7v (verses 643-645)]. Apparently, these city girls prefer young (and rich) noblemen (identified as such by the ‘harnass’ reference) to simple boys with no money. In Van Sint Jans onthoofdinghe (The Beheading of St John), a play written by the Amsterdam rederijker Jan Thönisz in around 1550, one sinneke calls another sinneke disapprovingly onaerdighe platbrûeck (ugly flatpants) [Sint Jans onthoofdinghe ed. 1996: 60 (verse 248)]. In one of the poems in his Testament Rhetoricael (1561) the Bruges rederijker Eduard De Dene writes that when an innkeeper drinks too often at the expense of his clients, zo es hy als van alle bancknechten versmaet / rechts voor eennen platbrouck gherekent daer (then he is despised by all clients / and considered a flatpants) [Testament Rhetoricael III ed. 1980: 60 (fol. 348v, verses 12-13)]. And in another poem, in which he says goodbye to everyone and everything, the same author writes: Adieu alle platbroucx ende walsche graven [literally: Goodbye to all flatpants and French (?) counts], in which the exact meaning of the last phrase escapes us [Testament Rhetoricael III ed. 1980: 211 (fol. 442r, verse 15)]. Walsche graven may hide an erotic pun, though, as walsche could refer to the female pubis. In a text dating from the late sixteenth century, women who shave their pubic hair are referred to as women die hare walsche groene scheere [Leenhof der Ghilden/Parafrase ed. 1950: 38 (verse 72)].
The word ‘platbroek’ can also be found in modern Dutch dictionaries. J.J. Mak’s Rhetoricaal Glossarium [1959, page 322], a dictionary focusing on rederijkers language, explains the word as: ‘Onhandige, ongeschikte minnaar, sukkel’ (clumsy, unfit lover, oaf). The standard Dutch dictionary Van Dale [1995 edition, page 2306] points out that the word is still used in some regions today with the meaning ‘laf, karakterloos mens’ (cowardly, characterless person). Freddy Michiels’s Het Groot Sinjorenboek – Woordenlijst Antwerpse Taal [Antwerp, 2010 (4), p. 398], a dictionary focusing on the Antwerp dialect, defines: ‘Iemand die niets durft, die het initiatief altijd aan een ander overlaat, een lafaard’ (Someone who does not risk anything, who always leaves the decision to someone else, a coward). And the Erotisch Woordenboek [1977, p. 155], a dictionary of Dutch erotic language, has: ‘gecastreerde man; vervolgens ook impotente, onhandige minnaar’ (castrated man; furthermore also impotent, clumsy lover).
Apparently, in the sixteenth century the word ‘platbroek’ could have two meanings. On the one hand it referred to a man who is worthless in sexualibus, on the other hand it was used as an invective for a clumsy, deplorable person, a good-for-nothing. If we interpret the cherries in the steerman’s right hand as an erotic symbol, as was suggested by Vandenbroeck and De Vrij, this somehow seems to contradict the first meaning, whereas the latter meaning fits in well with the basic message of the engraving (licentious merrymaking is objectionable). The first line of the legend not only identifies the standing man as a stierman (steersman) but also as a speelman (minstrel, musician). He is further identified as such by the minstrel’s badge on his shoulder (which shows a drinking cup) and by the harp on his back.
Speelman
The strings of this harp look very unusual, and as Lafond [1914] and Vandenbroeck [1989] pointed out they somehow remind the viewer of a spider’s web. This may have a special meaning. In sixteenth-century Middle Dutch literature a spider’s web sometimes occurs in a metaphorical sense: the absence of spider’s webs means that someone or something is active, whereas lack of activity is symbolized by the fact that spider’s webs get a chance to grow. When, for example, the Bruges rederijker Eduard De Dene criticizes the slackness of the law he writes: De wet es tzommeghen plaetsen als Copghespin (in some places the law is like spider’s webs) [Testament Rhetoricael II ed. 1979: 86 (fol. 198r, verse 25). And when he criticizes a female neighbour who is gossiping about him we read: Zou wachte myn huus met allen nauwe / wiens tonghe ghenaecte gheen Copghespin (she watched my house carefully / and no spider’s webs grew on her tongue) [Testament Rhetoricael I ed. 1976: 269 (fol. 144v, verses 18-19)]. Does the spider’s web-like form of the strings point out that the minstrel-steersman is too lazy to play his harp? Indeed, the man is not playing his harp, it hangs unused on his back.
His open mouth seems to point out that he is singing, though, and it is clear that the fat man lying on his back, the old woman, and the man behind her are singing as well, whereas the young woman is holding a songbook. The two last lines of the legend likewise focus on this singing (pointing out that it sounds more like bragging than singing), but probably the second line also refers to this noisy merrymaking. The birds are said to consider the standing man a huÿben (owl), and indeed: five birds are flying around his head, one bird is sitting on his left shoulder, and in the foreground two more birds are present.
Huÿben
The fact that the birds think the steersman is an owl, could mean that they consider him a stupid person, as was suggested by Bax [1948: 160, 1979: 212] and others. But this does not explain the conspicuous presence of the birds in the engraving. It may be relevant to point out that the word huÿben in the legend more than likely refers to a little owl (athena noctua). Kiliaan’s Dutch-Latin dictionary (1599) translates huyben / huybeke(n) as ‘busio, asio, otus, noctua, ulula’ [Etymologicum ed. 1974: 204]. In 1580, the Antwerp humanist Johannes Goropius Becanus writes (in Latin) the following about the bird who is dedicated to Athena/Minerva: ‘The birds that are called ulula by the Romans, are named hubens, hubekens and kuts in our language; this species earns the star prize for cleverness’ [Becanus ed. 2014: 419]. Apparently, the engraving alludes to two well-known characteristics of the little owl (huyben, ulula).
In his Historia Animalium (as early as the 4th century B.C.), Aristotle already pointed out that the owl is hated by other birds, and that this is why bird-catchers use it as a decoy bird: ‘By day the other small birds too fly round the owl (what is called “admiring”) and fly at her and pluck at her; hence the bird-catchers use the owl in hunting all sorts of small birds’ [Historia Animalium ed. 1991: 222-223 (609a, 13-17)]. In late medieval art and literature this motif was widespread (also in the art of Bosch). It is nicely exemplified by a passage from the Middle English allegorical poem The Owl and the Nightingale (circa 1200), in which the nightingale says to the owl (in Brian Stone’s excellent translation): ‘I know how cruelly you attack / small birds who cannot fight you back; / at every opportunity / you peck and tear them wantonly. / And that is why all birds detest you, / why when they find you they molest you, / screeching and crying as they chase / and mob you till you leave the place. / Even the tiniest of the tits / would gladly tear you into bits’ [The Owl and the Nightingale ed. 1971: 183]. In most or at least many cases, little owls were used as decoy birds.
A second well-known characteristic of the little owl is the terrifying sound it makes. The Middle English nightingale about this: ‘And certainly you terrify / every soul that hears you cry. / You screech and hoot to all your kin, / making a dreadful, grisly din; / and sage and fool agree, old Owl, / that you don’t sing, but simply howl’ [The Owl and the Nightingale ed. 1971: 189]. In Der Dieren Palleys, a book about animals published by Jan van Doesborch in Antwerp in 1520, we read about the ‘ulula’: Ulule (…) roepen seer vreeslijc ende gheeft een gheluyt ghelijck dat huylen ende roepen vanden woluen (little owls cry in a terrible way, and their call is like the howling and crying of wolves) [Dieren Palleys 1520: Aa3v]. Good to realize: the Latin word ‘ulula’ is derived from the verb ‘ululare’ (to cry, to scream).
Vandenbroeck [1989: 90-91] suggested that the birds in Cock’s engraving are attracted by the minstrel because they think he is innocent, and thus they refer to the people in the boat who do not realize that the minstrel-steersman will lead them to sin. But in the traditional ‘owl and birds’ symbolism the birds are not attracted by the decoy owl because they think he is innocent, but because they hate him and want to attack and challenge him. In my opinion, the ‘decoy bird’ symbolism does not play a key role in the engraving. The birds fly toward the minstrel because they abhor the disharmonic noise he and his companions are making, in sharp contrast to their own attractive warbling. The birds want to attack the minstrel, because (with the words of the Middle English nightingale) he doesn’t sing, but simply howls. Is this why the man sitting at his feet is holding his left hand against his ear? It could be a pitying gesture (‘oh boy, what is going on here?’), but it could also mean he is covering his ear(s) because he cannot stand the noise any longer (after having drunk too much?).
The merrymaking does not only include loud and disharmonic singing but also excessive drinking (see the two pitchers and the drinking cup on the minstrel’s badge) and flirting (see the cherries and the man who is bringing his hands toward the face of the young woman: is he a kinnentassere or ‘chin-groper’, like the one that was mentioned in The Play of the Unfaithful Bailiff above?). Both the bragging and the flirting are the result of excessive drinking. It is the classic triad Wein, Weib und Gesang (wine, women, and singing), and it leads to foolish behaviour and loss of goods. Regarding the ‘flirting’ part, it may be relevant to point out that cherries and a harp also appear in the Luxuria segment of the Prado Tabletop of the Seven Deadly Sins.
The nest on the minstrel’s head
The small branches on the head of the minstrel look like a nest. Vandenbroeck [1989: 91] correctly pointed out that in the art of Bosch and elsewhere dry branches could refer to things of little value and sin. He relates the branches to the expression nest dragen (to build a nest, but literally: to carry a nest) meaning ‘to plot something evil’, for which he refers to Bax [1948: 81, 1979: 103]. But Bax writes that nest dragen is a present-day expression current in the Southern Netherlands, so is this relevant for a sixteenth-century image? Silver [2006: 380] interprets the nest as an owl’s nest (which makes sense as according to the legend the birds take the minstrel to be an owl) with the symbolic meaning ‘a place of folly’, explaining elsewhere [2006: 280] that the Dutch proverb ‘this is a real owl’s nest’ (het is een regt uilennest) signifies a place of darkness and decay. But no sixteenth-century source for this expression is given. It can be found, though, in Harrebomée’s nineteenth-century dictionary of Dutch proverbs, with the explanation: Men zegt dit van eene vervallen, donkere woning (this is said of a decayed, dark house) [Harrebomée I 1980: 120]. Furthermore, it is quite a step from ‘place of decay’ to ‘place of folly’.
Yet, the branches in the Cock engraving really seem to suggest a nest and more precisely an owl’s nest, as the branches are placed on the head of the minstrel, a metaphorical ‘owl’. Judging by the pitcher in the nest, we should probably understand that the minstrel-owl is not hatching up eggs but bad ideas (regarding excessive drinking, see the pitcher). Very much like the modern English verb ‘to hatch up’, the Middle Dutch verb (ute)broeden could refer to the hatching up of eggs and to the concocting of ideas [MNHW 1981: 117-118]. It may also be relevant to point out that owl’s nests do play a role in the art of Bosch. There is the Rotterdam Owl’s nest drawing, and in the lower left corner of the left interior panel of Bosch’s Hermit Saints triptych (Venice) we see a monster carrying a nest with an owl in it on its head.
The Galle engraving
The fact that the company of lichte vrouwen (frivolous women), singing and music-making (sanck en snaeren-spel), idleness (luijardije), and excessive drinking and eating (lacker spijs en wijn) are bound to lead to poverty is confirmed by the inscriptions and the legend of the second state of the engraving, published by Johannes Galle in the seventeenth century. Here, the blue boat is explicitly nicknamed Het schip van bedervenis (The ship of perdition). The last line of the poem below states that whoever indulges in these vices compt met dees blauw schuijt licht tot calis aengedreven, which was (remarkably enough) translated by De Vrij [2012: 644] as: ‘feel invited to drift along on the Blue Boat to Cologne’. In fact, this should read: ‘Will soon arrive in Calis with this blue boat’.
‘Calis’ was the Middle Dutch name for the city of Calais (France), but it could also function as a mock toponym referring to poverty, because the word calis allowed for a pun on the word kaal, meaning ‘poor, destitute’. The modern Dutch dictionary Van Dale still has the word Kalis with the meaning of ‘Calais’ and the word kalis with the meaning of ‘vagabond, beggar, destitute person’ [1995 edition, pp. 1347 / 1348]. In Dirck Pietersz. Pers’s Suyp-Stad of Dronckaerts Leven (literally: Booze-Town or the Life of Drunkards), a satire on the consequences of excessive drinking and merrymaking published in 1628, the author criticizes showy rich man’s sons who are an easy target for merrymakers who take profit from their money: De Calis-bende siet dees vetten voghel sweven, / En seght; een van ons al moet met den Ioncker leven, / En plucken hem so kael, tot hy in ’t selve gild, / Den Ioncker seght adieu, en al sijn geldjen spilt (free translation: The Calis gang spots this fat bird / And says: one of us should become friends with the Squire / And pluck his feathers until he, as a member of our guild, / says goodbye to his status of Squire and spends all his money) [Suyp-Stad ed. 1978: 110 (verses 675-678)]. About ‘kalis’, see also Vandenbroeck 2002: 49.
AFFINITY WITH BOSCH
No drawing or painting by the hand of Bosch representing a ‘blue boat’ has come down to us. The only reason why we can suppose that he once depicted this subject is the inscription Hieronÿmus Bos Inuentor in the engraving published by Hieronymus Cock in Antwerp in 1559. Normally such an inscription points out that the engraving’s iconography was based on an original idea of Bosch. But some authors have questioned the credibility of the Cock inscription. Nevertheless, De Vrij’s opinion seems too rigid when he writes: ‘The image has nothing to do with Bosch. The standing opinion that it varies on Bosch’s own Ship of Fools is simply not true as a comparison between both images will easily demonstrate’ [De Vrij 2012: 645]. Obviously, the Cock engraving is not directly based on the Bosch painting, but the fact that merrymakers in a boat are being criticized is something that the two images have in common. Whether Bosch himself has ever drawn or painted a ‘blue boat’ we will probably never know for sure. Nevertheless, the Cock engraving helps to understand why Bosch painted minstrels, singers, scores, and harps in his hell scenes (see for example the right interior panel of the Garden of Delights): in the engraving they appear in a context referring to frivolity and licentious merrymaking.
Additional bibliography
[explicit 5th July 2020 – Eric De Bruyn]
