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Title: The Ship of Fools, Volume 1
Author: Sebastian Brandt
Translator: Alexander Barclay
Release Date: December 23, 2006 [EBook #20179]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SHIP OF FOOLS, VOLUME 1 ***
Produced by Frank van Drogen, Keith Edkins and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
file was produced from images generously made available
by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)
Transcriber’s note: A few typographical errors in the 1874 introduction
have been corrected: they are listed at the end of the text. In the spirit
of that edition, the text of the Ship of Fools itself has been retained
exactly as it stands, even to the punctuation.
[Illustration]
THE SHIP OF FOOLS TRANSLATED BY ALEXANDER BARCLAY[Illustration]
VOLUME FIRSTEDINBURGH: WILLIAM PATERSON
LONDON: HENRY SOTHERAN & CO.
MDCCCLXXIV.
PREFATORY NOTE.
It is necessary to explain that in the present edition of the Ship of
Fools, with a view to both philological and bibliographical interests, the
text, even to the punctuation, has been printed exactly as it stands in the
earlier impression (Pynson’s), the authenticity of which Barclay himself
thus vouches for in a deprecatory apology at the end of his labours (II.
330):—
“… some wordes be in my boke amys
For though that I my selfe dyd it correct
Yet with some fautis I knowe it is infect
Part by my owne ouersyght and neglygence
And part by the prynters nat perfyte in science
And other some escaped ar and past
For that the Prynters in theyr besynes
Do all theyr workes hedelynge, and in hast”
Yet the differences of reading of the later edition (Cawood’s), are
surprisingly few and mostly unimportant, though great pains were evidently
bestowed on the production of the book, all the misprints being carefully
corrected, and the orthography duly adjusted to the fashion of the time.
These differences have, in this edition, been placed in one alphabetical
arrangement with the glossary, by which plan it is believed reference to
them will be made more easy, and much repetition avoided.
The woodcuts, no less valuable for their artistic merit than they are
interesting as pictures of contemporary manners, have been facsimiled for
the present edition from the originals as they appear in the Basle
edition of the Latin, “denuo seduloque reuisa,” issued under Brandt’s own
superintendence in 1497. This work has been done by Mr J. T. Reid, to whom
it is due to say that he has executed it with the most painstaking and
scrupulous fidelity.
The portrait of Brandt, which forms the frontispiece to this volume, is
taken from Zarncke’s edition of the Narrenschiff; that of Barclay
presenting one of his books to his patron, prefixed to the Notice of his
life, appears with a little more detail in the Mirror of Good Manners and
the Pynson editions of the Sallust; it is, however, of no authority, being
used for a similar purpose in various other publications.
For the copy of the extremely rare original edition from which the text of
the present has been printed, I am indebted to the private collection and
the well known liberality of Mr David Laing of the Signet Library, to whom
I beg here to return my best thanks, for this as well as many other
valuable favours in connection with the present work.
In prosecuting enquiries regarding the life of an author of whom so little
is known as of Barclay, one must be indebted for aid, more or less, to the
kindness of friends. In this way I have to acknowledge my obligations to Mr
Æneas Mackay, Advocate, and Mr Ralph Thomas, (“Olphar Hamst”), for searches
made in the British Museum and elsewhere.
For collations of Barclay’s Works, other than the Ship of Fools, all of
which are of the utmost degree of rarity, and consequent inaccessibility, I
am indebted to the kindness of Henry Huth, Esq., 30 Princes’ Gate,
Kensington; the Rev. W. D. Macray, of the Bodleian Library, Oxford; W. B.
Rye, Esq., of the British Museum; Henry Bradshaw, Esq., of the University
Library, Cambridge; and Professor Skeat, Cambridge.
For my brief notice of Brandt and his Work, it is also proper to
acknowledge my obligations to Zarncke’s critical edition of the
Narrenschiff (Leipzig, 1854) which is a perfect encyclopædia of everything
Brandtian.
T. H. JAMIESON.
ADVOCATES’ LIBRARY,
EDINBURGH, December 1873.
*
Volume I.
INTRODUCTIONNOTICE OF BARCLAY AND HIS WRITINGS
BARCLAY’S WILL
NOTESBIBLIOGRAPHICAL CATALOGUE OF BARCLAY’S WORKS
THE SHIP OF FOOLS*
Volume II.
THE SHIP OF FOOLS (CONCLUDED)
GLOSSARYCHAPTER I. OF THE ORIGINAL (GERMAN), AND OF THE LATIN, AND FRENCH VERSIONS
OF THE SHIP OF FOOLS*
INTRODUCTION.
If popularity be taken as the measure of success in literary effort,
Sebastian Brandt’s “Ship of Fools” must be considered one of the most
successful books recorded in the whole history of literature. Published in
edition after edition (the first dated 1494), at a time, but shortly after
the invention of printing, when books were expensive, and their circulation
limited; translated into the leading languages of Europe at a time when
translations of new works were only the result of the most signal merits,
its success was then quite unparalleled. It may be said, in modern phrase,
to have been the rage of the reading world at the end of the fifteenth and
throughout the sixteenth centuries. It was translated into Latin by one
Professor (Locher, 1497), and imitated in the same language and under the
same title, by another (Badius Ascensius, 1507); it appeared in Dutch and
Low German, and was twice translated into English, and three times into
French; imitations competed with the original in French and German, as well
as Latin, and greatest and most unprecedented distinction of all, it was
preached, but, we should opine, only certain parts of it, from the pulpit
by the best preachers of the time as a new gospel. The Germans proudly
award it the epithet, “epoch-making,” and its long-continued popularity
affords good, if not quite sufficient, ground for the extravagant eulogies
they lavish upon it. Trithemius calls it “Divina Satira,” and doubts
whether anything could have been written more suited to the spirit of the
age; Locher compares Brandt with Dante, and Hutten styles him the new
law-giver of German poetry.
A more recent and impartial critic (Müller, “Chips from a German Workshop,”
Vol. III.), thus suggestively sets forth the varied grounds of Brandt’s
wonderful popularity:—“His satires, it is true, are not very powerful, nor
pungent, nor original. But his style is free and easy. Brant is not a
ponderous poet. He writes in short chapters, and mixes his fools in such a
manner that we always meet with a variety of new faces. It is true that all
this would hardly be sufficient to secure a decided success for a work like
his at the present day. But then we must remember the time in which he
wrote…. There was room at that time for a work like the ‘Ship of Fools.’
It was the first printed book that treated of contemporaneous events and
living persons, instead of old German battles and French knights. People
are always fond of reading the history of their own times. If the good
qualities of their age are brought out, they think of themselves or their
friends; if the dark features of their contemporaries are exhibited, they
think of their neighbours and enemies. Now the ‘Ship of Fools’ is just such
a satire which ordinary people would read, and read with pleasure. They
might feel a slight twinge now and then, but they would put down the book
at the end, and thank God that they were not like other men. There is a
chapter on Misers—and who would not gladly give a penny to a beggar? There
is a chapter on Gluttony—and who was ever more than a little exhilarated
after dinner?
There is a chapter on Church-goers—and who ever went to church for
respectability’s sake, or to show off a gaudy dress, or a fine dog, or a
new hawk? There is a chapter on Dancing—and who ever danced except for the
sake of exercise? There is a chapter on Adultery—and who ever did more
than flirt with his neighbour’s wife? We sometimes wish that Brant’s satire
had been a little more searching, and that, instead of his many allusions
to classical fools (for his book is full of scholarship), he had given us a
little more of the chronique scandaleuse of his own time. But he was too
good a man to do this, and his contemporaries were no doubt grateful to him
for his forbearance.”
Brandt’s satire is a satire for all time. Embodied in the language of the
fifteenth century, coloured with the habits and fashions of the times,
executed after the manner of working of the period, and motived by the
eager questioning spirit and the discontent with “abusions” and “folyes”
which resulted in the Reformation, this satire in its morals or lessons is
almost as applicable to the year of grace 1873 as to the year of
gracelessness 1497. It never can grow old; in the mirror in which the men
of his time saw themselves reflected, the men of all times can recognise
themselves; a crew of “able-bodied” is never wanting to man this old,
weather-beaten, but ever seaworthy vessel. The thoughtful, penetrating,
conscious spirit of the Basle professor passing by, for the most part,
local, temporary or indifferent points, seized upon the never-dying follies
of human nature and impaled them on the printed page for the amusement,
the edification, and the warning of contemporaries and posterity alike. No
petty writer of laborious vers de societe to raise a laugh for a week, a
month, or a year, and to be buried in utter oblivion for ever after, was
he, but a divine seer who saw the weakness and wickedness of the hearts of
men, and warned them to amend their ways and flee from the wrath to come.
Though but a retired student, and teacher of the canon law, a humble-minded
man of letters, and a diffident imperial Counsellor, yet is he to be
numbered among the greatest Evangelists and Reformers of mediæval Europe
whose trumpet-toned tongue penetrated into regions where the names of
Luther or Erasmus were but an empty sound, if even that. And yet, though
helping much the cause of the Reformation by the freedom of his social and
clerical criticism, by his unsparing exposure of every form of corruption
and injustice, and, not least, by his use of the vernacular for political
and religious purposes, he can scarcely be classed in the great army of the
Protestant Reformers. He was a reformer from within, a biting, unsparing
exposer of every priestly abuse, but a loyal son
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