Légende d'Ulenspiegel. English

by Charles de Coster

  To this the King and his illustrious companion as with one voicemade answer:

  By battle and fire, By death and sword, Seek the Seven.

  In death and blood, Ruin and tears, Find the Seven.

  Ugly, cruel, wicked, deformed, Very scourge of the whole earth, Burn the Seven.

  Listen now, attend and see, Tell us, poor thing, are you not glad? Find the Seven.

  And all the spirits sang now together:

  In death and blood, In ruin and tears, Find the Seven.

  Listen now, attend and see, Tell us, poor thing, are you not glad? Find the Seven.

  But Ulenspiegel only said:

  "Your Highness, and you my Lords Spirits, I understand nothing ofyour language. You are mocking me, without a doubt."

  But the spirits, without listening to him at all, went on with theirsinging:

  When the North Shall kiss the West, Then shall be the end of ruin. Find the Seven, And the Cincture.

  And they sang with such an effect of unanimity and such a terrifyingforce of sound that the very earth trembled and the heavensshuddered. And the birds twittered, the owls hooted, the sparrowschirruped with fear, the sea-eagles wailed aloud, flying hither andthither in their dismay. And all the animals of the earth, lions,snakes, bears, stags, roe-bucks, wolves, dogs, and cats, roared,hissed, belled, howled, barked, and miawed most terribly.

  And the spirits kept on singing:

  Listen now, attend and see, Love the Seven, And the Cincture.

  And the cocks crowed, and all the spirits vanished away, exceptingonly one wicked lord of the mines, who took Nele and Ulenspiegel eachin one of his arms, and cast them most roughly into the void.

  Then they awoke and found themselves lying by each other, as if theyhad been asleep, and they shivered in the chill morning air.

  And Ulenspiegel beheld the sweet body of Nele, all golden in thelight of the rising sun.

  HERE BEGINS THE SECOND BOOK OF THE LEGEND OF THE GLORIOUS JOYOUS ANDHEROIC ADVENTURES OF TYL ULENSPIEGEL AND LAMME GOEDZAK IN THE LANDOF FLANDERS AND ELSEWHERE

  I

  One morning in September Ulenspiegel took his staff, three florinsthat had been given him by Katheline, a piece of pig's liver and aslice of bread, and set out to go from Damme to Antwerp, seeking theSeven. Nele he left asleep.

  On the way he met a dog who followed after him, smelling aroundbecause of the liver, and jumping up at his legs. Ulenspiegel wouldhave driven off the dog, but seeing the persistence of the animal,he thus addressed him:

  "My dear dog, you are certainly ill-advised to leave your home,where you would find awaiting you an excellent meal of patties andother fine remains (to say nothing of the marrow-bones), to follow,as you are now doing, a mere adventurer of the road, a vagabond that islike to lack so much as a root to give you for nourishment. Follow myadvice, most imprudent little dog, and return to your innkeeper. Andfor the future, take good care to avoid the rain and snow, the hail,the drizzling mists, the glassy frosts and other such wretched fareas is alone reserved for the back of the poor wanderer. Keep close athome, rather, in a corner of the hearth, and warm yourself, curled upin front of the cheerful fire. But leave to me the long wandering inmud and dust, in cold and heat, to be roasted to-day, to-morrow frozen,plenished on Friday but on Sunday famished for want of food. For,trust me, little dog, the wise thing is to return at once like asensible and experienced little dog to the place whence you came."

  But it would seem that the animal did not hear a single word of whatUlenspiegel was saying, for he continued to wag his tail and jump hishighest, barking all the while, in his desire for food. Ulenspiegelimagined that all this was just a sign of friendliness, and gave nothought to the liver which he carried in his scrip.

  So on and on he walked, with the dog following behind. And whenthey had gone in this way the better part of a league, they saw acart on the roadside with a donkey harnessed thereto, holding hishead down. On a bank, at the side of the road, between two clumps ofthistles, reclined a man. He was very fat, and in one hand he held theknuckle-end of a leg of mutton, and in the other hand a bottle. Hegnawed the knuckle-bone and drank from the bottle, but when he wasdoing neither of these things he would fall to weeping and groaning.

  Ulenspiegel stopped on his way, and the dog stopped too, but quicklyjumped up on to the bank, smelling doubtless a good odour of liver andmutton. There he sat on his hind legs by the fat man's side, and beganto paw at the stranger's doublet, as much as to say, "Please give mea share of your meal!" But the man elbowed him off, and holding upthe knuckle-bone in the air began to moan aloud most piteously. Thedog did likewise in the eagerness of his desire, while the donkey(who was weary of being tied to the cart and thus prevented fromgetting at the thistles) set up, in his turn, a most piercing bray.

  "What's the matter now, Jan?" the man inquired of his donkey.

  "Nothing," said Ulenspiegel, answering for him, "except that he wouldfain make his breakfast off those thistles that grow there on eitherside of you, like the thistles that are carved on the rood-screen atTessenderloo, below the figure of Our Lord. Nor would this dog here,I'm thinking, be any the less inclined to join his jaws together onthe bone you have got there. But in the meanwhile I will give him apiece of this liver of mine."

  The man looked up at Ulenspiegel, who straightway recognized him asnone other than his friend Lamme Goedzak of Damme.

  "Lamme," he cried, "you here? And what are you doing, eating anddrinking and moaning? Has some soldier or other been so impertinentas to box your ears, or what's the matter? Tell me."

  "Alas!" said Lamme, "my wife!"

  And he would have emptied his bottle of wine there and then had notUlenspiegel laid a hand on his arm and suggested that it were fairerthat the drink should be given to him that had none. "Besides," headded, "to drink thus distractedly profits naught but one's kidneys."

  "Well said," answered Lamme, handing his friend the bottle, "but willyou drink, I wonder, to any better purpose?"

  Ulenspiegel took the bottle, drank his fill, then handed it back again.

  "Call me a Spaniard," he said, "if I've left enough to make a minnowdrunk!"

  Lamme inspected the bottle. Then, without ever ceasing to groan,he rummaged in his wallet and produced another bottle, and anotherpiece of sausage which he cut up in slices and began to munch in themost melancholy fashion.

  "Do you never stop eating, Lamme?" asked Ulenspiegel.

  "Often, my son," he replied. "But now I am eating to drive away sadthoughts. Where are you, wife of mine?" And as he spoke, Lamme wipedaway a tear. After which he cut himself ten slices of sausage.

  "Lamme," said Ulenspiegel, "you should not eat so quickly, taking nothought at all for the poor pilgrim."

  Lamme, who was still whimpering, gave four of the slices toUlenspiegel, who ate them up immediately, and was much affected bytheir good flavour. But Lamme said, eating and crying all at thesame time:

  "O wife, O goodly wife of mine! How sweet she was, how beautiful shewas! Light as a butterfly, nimble as the lightning, and with a voicelike a skylark! For all that, she was overfond of fine clothes. Alas,but how well she looked in them! And surely, the flowers also, arethey not fond of rich apparel? Oh, if you had seen her, my son--herlittle hands, so nimble to caress, such hands as you never couldhave suffered to come in contact with saucepan or frying-pan! Andher complexion, which was clear as the day, would surely have beenburnt by standing over the kitchen fire. And what eyes she had! Onlyto look at them was to be melted quite with tenderness. Alas, I havelost her! Go on eating, Tyl; it is good Ghent sausage."

  "But why has she left you?" asked Ulenspiegel.

  "How should I know?" Lamme replied. "Alas! gone for ever are thosedays when I used to go to her home a-courting! Then, verily, she wouldfly away fro
m me, half in love and half in fear! And her arms werebare, as like as not (beautiful arms they were, so round and white),but if she saw me looking at them she would cover them quickly withthe sleeve of her gown.

  "At other times, again, she would gladly lend herself to my caresses,and I would kiss her closed eyes, and that lovely neck of hers, solarge and firm. She would shiver all over, uttering little cries oflove, and then, leaning her head backwards, she would give me a playfulslap upon my nose. Thereafter she would laugh and I would cry aloud,and we would wrestle together right amorously, and there was naughtbetwixt us but laughter and fun. But there, there. Is any wine leftin the bottle, Tyl?"

  Tyl gave him what remained.

  "This ham does great good to my stomach," he said.

  "To mine also," answered Lamme, "but I shall never see my dear oneagain. She has fled away from Damme. What say you, will you come withme in my cart to look for her?"

  "That will I," answered Ulenspiegel.

  So they got up into the donkey-cart, and the donkey set up a mostmelancholy bray to celebrate their departure.

  As for the dog, he had already made off, well filled, without a wordto any one.

  II

  While the cart went lumbering along on the top of the dike, with thepond on one side and the canal on the other, Ulenspiegel sat broodingon the past and cherishing in his bosom the ashes of Claes. He pondereddeeply upon that vision he had seen, and asked himself if indeed itwere true or false, and if those spirits of Nature had been making mockof him, or if perchance they had been revealing to him under a figurethose things that must be done if the land of his fathers were to berestored. In vain did he turn the matter over and over in his mind,for he could not discover what was meant by those words, the "Seven"and the "Cincture." He called to mind the late Emperor Charles V,the present King, the Governess of the Netherlands, the Pope of Rome,the Grand Inquisitor, and last of all, the General of the Jesuits--sixgreat persecutors of his country whom most willingly would he haveburned alive had he been able. But he was forced to conclude thatnone of these was the personage indicated, for that they were all tooobviously worthy of being burnt, and would be in another place. Andhe could only go on repeating to himself those words of the Lord ofthe Spring:

  When the North Shall kiss the West, Then shall be the end of ruin. Love the Seven, And the Cincture.

  "Alas!" he cried, "in death, in blood, in tears, find the Seven, burnthe Seven, love the Seven! What does it all mean? My poor brain reels,for who, pray, would ever want to burn that which he loved?"

  The cart by this time had progressed a good way along the road, whenall at once a sound was heard of some one stepping along the sand,and of a voice singing:

  Oh, have ye seen him, ye that pass, The lover I have lost, alas! Feckless he wandereth, knowing no tie-- Have ye seen him pass by?

  As tender lamb the eagle seizeth, So on my poor heart he feedeth. Beardless his chin, though to manhood nigh-- Have ye seen him pass by?

  If ye find him, ye may tell Weary with following faints his Nele. O Tyl, my beloved, hear me, I cry! Have ye seen him pass by?

  Languisheth ever the faithful dove, Seeking, seeking her fickle love. So, far more so, languish I-- Have ye seen him pass by?

  Ulenspiegel gave Lamme a blow on his great belly, and told him tohold his breath.

  "That," said Lamme, "is a very difficult thing, I fear, for a man ofmy corpulence."

  But Ulenspiegel, paying no further attention to his companion, hidhimself behind the canvas hood of the cart, and began to sing in thevoice of a man with a bad cold that has drunk well:

  In a shaky old cart with age all green, Your feckless sweetheart I have seen; And a glutton rides with him, like pig in sty-- I have seen him pass by.

  "Tyl," said Lamme, "you have a wry tongue in your cheek this morning!"

  But Tyl put his head out of a hole in the hood:

  "Nele, don't you know me?" he said.

  And Nele, for it was none other than she herself, was filled with fear,crying and laughing all at the same time, and her cheeks were wet asshe answered him:

  "I see you, and I know you, you wretch, you traitor!"

  "Nele," said Ulenspiegel, "if you want to give me a beating, you willfind a stick in the cart here. It is heavy enough in all conscience,and knotted so that it will leave its mark right enough."

  "Tyl," said Nele, "are you seeking the Seven?"

  "Even so," Tyl told her.

  Now Nele carried with her a bag, or satchel, that was so full itseemed likely to burst. This satchel she offered to Tyl, saying:

  "I thought it was unwholesome, Tyl, that a man should go on a journeywithout a good fat goose, and a ham, and some Ghent sausages. So takethem, and when you eat of them think of me."

  While Ulenspiegel stood gazing at Nele, quite oblivious of the satchelwhich she was holding out to him, Lamme poked out his head fromanother hole in the hood, and began to address the girl in his turn.

  "O girl most wise," he said, "O girl most prudent, if he refusessuch a gift it must be from pure absence of mind. But you had muchbetter give into my own keeping that goose of yours, that ham, andthose fine sausages. I will take care of them, I promise you!"

  "And who," asked Nele of her lover, "who may this red-face be?"

  "A victim of the married state," Tyl told her, "that is wasting awaywith sorrow, and would soon, in fact, shrink away to nothing, likean overbaked apple, were it not that he recuperated his strength fromtime to time and all the time by taking nourishment."

  "Alas, my son," sighed Lamme, "what you say is only too true."

  Now it was very hot, and Nele had covered her head with her apronbecause of the sun. Ulenspiegel looked upon her, and conceived asudden desire to be alone with her. He turned to Lamme, and pointedto a woman that was walking some way off in a field.

  "Do you see that woman?" he said.

  "I see her," said Lamme.

  "Do you recognize her?"

  "Heavens!" cried Lamme, "can it be my wife? In truth she is dressedlike no common country wench!"

  "Can you still be doubtful, you old mole?"

  "But supposing it were not her after all?" said Lamme.

  "You would be none the worse off," Ulenspiegel told him, "for overthere to the left, towards the north, I know a tavern that sells mostexcellent bruinbier. We will join you there, and here meanwhile issome salt ham that will provide an excellent relish to your thirst."

  So Lamme got down from the cart, and made off as fast as his legswould carry him in the direction of the woman in the field.

  Ulenspiegel said to Nele: "Why will you not come near me?"

  Then he helped her to climb up beside him on to the cart, and madeher sit close by his side. He removed her apron from her head and thecloak from her shoulders, and then when he had kissed her a hundredtimes at least, he asked her:

  "Where were you going to, beloved?"

  She answered him nothing, but seemed carried away in a sort ofecstasy. Ulenspiegel, in like rapture, said to her:

  "Anyway you are here now! And truly the wild hedgerow is dun besidethe sweet pink colouring of your skin, and though you are no queen,behold I will make a crown of kisses all for you! O sweet arms ofmy love, so tender, so rosy, and made for nothing but to hold mein their embrace! Ah, little girl, little love, how dare I touchyou? These rough hands of mine, will they not tarnish the purity ofyour white shoulder? Yea verily, for the lightsome butterfly may flitto rest upon the crimson carnation, but I, clumsy bumpkin that I am,how can I rest myself without tarnishing the living whiteness thatis you? God is in heaven, the king is on his throne, the sun ridestriumphing in the sky, but am I a god, or a king, or the sun himselfthat I may come so close to you? O tresses softer than silk! O Nele,I fear to touch your hair, so clumsy am I, lest I tear it, lest Ishred
it all to pieces. But have no fear, my love. Your foot, yoursweet foot! What makes it so white? Do you bathe it in milk?"

  Nele would have risen from his side, but,

  "What are you afraid of?" he asked her. "It is not the sun alone thatshines upon us now and paints you all gold. Do not cast down youreyes, but look straight into mine, and behold the pure fire thatflames there. And listen, my love, hearken to me, dearest. Now ismidday, the silent hour. The labourer is at home, eating his dinnerof soup. Shall we not also feed upon our love? Oh why, oh why have Inot yet a thousand years wherein to tell at your knees my rosary ofIndian pearls!"

  "Golden Tongue!" she said.

  But my Lord the Sun blazed down upon the white hood of the cart,and a lark sang high over the clover, and Nele leant her head uponthe shoulder of Ulenspiegel.

  III

  After a while Lamme came back to the cart, great drops of sweatpouring off him, and he, puffing and blowing like a dolphin.

  "Alas!" he cried, "I was born under an evil star. For no sooner hadI run and caught up with this woman than I found that she was not awoman at all, but an old hag rather, as indeed I could see at onceby her face--forty-five years old at the very least! And to judge byher head-gear she had never been married. For all that, she inquiredof me in a harsh voice what I was doing there, carrying my great fatbelly about in the clover! I told her as politely as I could that Iwas looking for my wife who had lately left me, and that I had runafter her by mistake.