THE FOLLY OF THE WORLD.
This is a farce by the same Nicole de la Chesnaye. It was acted in 1524, and one of his chief personages in the play depicted a doctor of the period. The following is a short analysis of this really curious piece:
Grandmother Sottie leads to the World several persons whom she desires the latter to watch while plying their avocations; the shoemaker makes his boots too tight always; the dressmaker’s dresses are ever too large; the priest’s masses are said too long or too short. This bad showing on the part of the World’s workers make his mundane majesty sick. He sends a specimen of his urine to the doctor, who, after a scientific examination, declares the World’s brain is affected, and also that his new-found client must be visited in person. On meeting the World he interrogates him as to his health, and asks questions which might serve to make a diagnosis. The World tells the doctor he is no longer afraid of water on the brain, but of being consumed in a deluge of fire. The doctor then utters the following wise and rather satirical observations:
“World! be not troubled in thinking of fire,
Let your mind on that score be at peace.
Know that each monk, and low, rascally friar
Sells and buys a good, fat benefice;
Why, even the children, your subjects in arms,
Are born to be Abbots, Bishops, and Priors,
While church-bells keep ringing false fire alarms.
But, great World, all the clergy are liars!
Their flattering’s truly their sweetest incense,
Yet the parasites fawn for your treasures;
Ah! church love for war was ever intense,
And their doctrines mar all earthly pleasures.”
The World is so impressed by the doctor’s remarks that he immediately weds Folly. Ever since, it is needless to remark, the World has enjoyed pleasure without as much dread of fire. It is an easy matter to seize the apologue sought by the author.
Here we see, as early as the sixteenth century, the social reforms begun by medicine and continued up to the eighteenth century. The abbots, priors and other gentry of the Church, who lived in idleness and luxury, holding sinecures for which the masses were taxed; the flatterers of bastard princes, the agents of the rich and aristocratic, ruled the country and made wars costing thousands of lives for the glory of the Church—i.e., themselves. These are the parasites that epidemically attack the World.