“Then if he does,” said Lopez, “I will scratch out your name and put his in its place.”
The above joke was used in various forms, till it grew old, and fools of quality would no longer plagiarize it. It is told of at least one jester at every court. Many fools would have been above such a jest at all; for there were some who, though jesters, joked with instruction in view.
Michael Aitzinger was one of these. I do not know that he can be strictly called a Spanish fool, being a Belgian, but he held the office at the court of Philip II. of Spain, though he became better known for various heavy historical essays than for light jests quickly spoken.
In one case we have an instance of a Spanish court fool also belonging to Philip II., exercising the high profession of prophecy. Flögel thus tells the story, which he borrows from Richter’s Spectaculum Mundi.
“A court fool of Philip’s once saw the following persons sitting at the Royal table:—Hugo Boncampius of Bologna, Papal Nuncio in Spain; Perettus, a Franciscan monk of Ancona, who in his youth had been a swineherd; and the Protonotary Sfondrati, of Milan. ‘Dost thou know,’ said the jester to the King, ‘that you have three Popes at table?’ Thereupon, he touched each upon the shoulder according to the future order of their succession; first, Hugo, afterwards Gregory XIII.; then Perretus, subsequently Sixtus V.; and lastly Sfondrati, who became Gregory XIV.”
Flögel considers this as a rather fabulous story, although he admits that the Eastern idea of the sayings of fools being sometimes inspired by divinity, prevailed occasionally in Europe. He cites Claudius Agrippa as ascribing the gift of prophecy to Klaus Narr, of whom I have already spoken; and he maintains the alleged fact that Klaus, at the royal table, aroused the guests by exclaiming that one of the Elector’s castles, twelve leagues off, was in flames. According to tradition, this proved to be the case, and if so, Klaus may claim the possession of that not very desirable gift in this world,—the gift of second-sight.
Of the Spanish jesters in noblemen’s households there is not much to be said. Perico de Ayala, the paid buffoon of the Marquis of Villena, was among the most celebrated. The Marquis, says Floresta (Española), “once ordered his wardrobe-keeper to give the fool un sayo de brocado; the man only gave him the mangas and faldamentos. Away went Perico to the court brotherhood, and requested them to bury one who had died at the Marquis’s, and then away went the funeral procession, with the little death-bell tinkling before them. The Marquis, seeing them at his door, asked them why they came. ‘For the body,’ said the fool, ‘as the Chamberlain only gave me the trimmings.’”
Perico distinguished himself more wittily in his reply to a knight who once asked him the properties of turquoise. “Why,” said the fool, “if you have a turquoise about you, and should fall from the top of a tower and be dashed to pieces, the stone would not break!”
I have already spoken of the Spanish jester who was in the household of the Marquis del Guasto. The latter, a vaunting General, was opposed to the Count François de Bourbon, at the battle of Cerizoles. He had previously made himself so sure of defeating the Count that he took his fool with him, attired in a splendid suit of armour, that the jester might witness his triumph. He had, moreover, promised the jester several hundred ducats if he succeeded in being first to carry to the wife of the Marquis, the news of her husband’s victory. Things, however, fell out just contrary to the Marquis’s expectations. Instead of defeating the Count, the Count defeated him, slaying thousands, capturing cannon, and taking 4,000 prisoners,—not half the number of the slain. Among the prisoners was a noble-looking gentleman in a gorgeous suit of armour, of which he appeared to have taken very peculiar care, for there was no sign of battle about it. It seemed, however, to promise heavy ransom, and the dignified-looking warrior who wore it was conducted with much courteous ceremony to the tent of François de Bourbon. When the Count inquired of his captive as to the rank he bore, the merry fellow at once burst into a laugh, and confessed that he was only house fool to the Marquis del Guasto. “And where is the Marquis?” asked the Count. “Oh!” replied Sir Fool, with a merrier laugh than before, “he has ridden home to his wife, to cheat me of my reward by carrying her the earliest news of the battle.”
If we may judge from the little that is to be collected in books, concerning the Spanish jesters, they were mentally superior to their Italian colleagues. Some of the former achieved a literary reputation. At the head of these was Estevanillo Gonzales, who held office successively in the households of Count Piccolomini and the Duke of Amalfi; both these noblemen were commanders in the King of Spain’s army, in the Netherlands. In 1646, when Gonzales was with the Duke, he wrote his autobiography, describing himself as “hombre de buen humor.” This book was partly translated, partly rewritten by Lesage, and is doubtless known to most of my readers.