Hospitable Woman and Wet nurse
Hospitable Woman and Wet nurse
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Hospitable woman or whore?
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| ¶La mort
Femme daccueil et amiable
A festier gens a plante:
Acquis auez amis de table
Pour parler de ioyeusete:
Le temps nest tel quil a este
Rien ne vault icy vacabont
Parler: qui nest que vanite
Ceulx qui ont le bruit ont le bont
¶La femme daccueil
Auiourduy parens et amis
Promettent et mons et merueilles
Mais quant voient quon est bas mis
Ilz baissent trestous les oreilles
Et sont aussi sours comme fueilles
Que le vent fait voler par couples
Et que vallent promesses telles
Vrais ne sont pas les amis doubles
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The hospitable woman is rather ambiguous. In la Danse Macabre (quoted to the left) Death calls her a friendly woman
(»amiable«) kvinde, who has many friends at the table (»amis de table«).
The woman replies with some general thoughts about how quickly one may be deserted by family and friends.
In the books of hours, her hospitality gets another, more negative, meaning.
In Dutch she is called
"De Hoere" (the whore)
or
"De Bolerin" (picture to the right), which means the same.
In Latin she is called
"Lasciva", "the lascivious woman".
In Dutch her speech goes,
»Ic plach ander luit bedrighen / nochtan en can ic de doet ontfligen« -
"I used to cheat other people, however I cannot escape Death".
This difference in treatment between la Danse macabre and the books of hours
is the opposite of that of the suitoress.
| ¶La mort
Apres nourrice: vostre beau filz
Nonobstant son couuertouer
Et son beau bonnet a trois filz
Vous ne le menrez plus iouer
Deslogez vous sans delaier
Car tous deux vous mourrez ensemble
Vous ne poues plus cy targer
La mort prent tout quant bon luy semble
¶La nourrice
A ceste danse fault aler
Comme font les prestres au seyne
Ie voulsisse bien reculer
Mais ie me sens la boce en laine
Entre les bras: de mon alaine
Cest enfant meurt depidimie.
Cest grant pitie de mort soudaine
Il nest qui ait heure ne demie
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The picture shows that she's wearing a dress cut low enough to enable her to function as a wet nurse.
It is relatively rare that the dances of death mention diseases, but in this case both the nurse and child
have the plague.
Death commands the nurse to follow after her beautiful boy
(»Apres […] vostre beau filz«),
while she complains that she can feel swellings ("la boce", releated to Medical English "boss")
under her clothes and between her arms when she breathes.
The child is dying from the epidemic /plague (»d'epidimie«).
Various Artists
Dances of death
Danse macabre
Women
Hospitable woman and wetnurse
