What is he? He's a paradox. He's a sad man with a sense of humor, a dark man who spreads light, a sinister man with an adroit wit, a tragic figure with a comic face. Who is he? He's the court jester.
DB - The Vagabond
**************
Come in and lighten up.
___________________
"He who'd make his fellow creatures wise should always gild the philosophic pill." So says Jack Point, one of the famous fictional jesters. It isn't odd that people of the theatre should be interested in the phenomena of the court jesters, also called fools, because in among the self-important personages of the court, the jester was an entertainer.
Jack Point is the jester in Gilbert and Sullivan's "Yeoman Of The Guard." Giuseppe Verdi's opera "Rigoletto" is about a jester who ridicules the wrong man and gets a curse put on him. And probably the most famous fool of dramatic literature is the Fool in "King Lear."
The term "fool" did not have it's contemporary meaning. It had to do more with foolery than foolishness. The fool appeared to be an ignorant simpleton who made funny yet astute observations of the world around him. I don't think anyone knows how the institution of the court jester originated, but it goes way back into ancient history. Even the Aztec monarchs had court jesters.
The jester's job was to entertain the king or whatever leader was employing him and that frequently meant making fun of those around the king, particularly his enemies.
Over the years jesters became very important for many reasons and some even became quite wealthy. It was the right and duty of the jester to stomp through all the political mud and throw a verbal pie in the face of pretension and hypocrisy. That made him very popular with some and very unpopular with others. The closest thing we have to the court jester today is the stand up comic, particularly if his act is about the politics of the day.
One of the real, historical jester of the past was a man named Archibald Armstrong. He was the court jester to King James I of England. James was the monarch who succeeded Elizabeth I and the man partly responsible for the King James Bible. "Archy" was a great favorite of the King's and also of Charles, his successor. He was awarded a pension and some land in Ireland. Archy's life was often threatened. He had an acid tongue for people he didn't like but he was a loyal employee of his king. The two kings he worked for relied on him. Charles even took him along to Spain where he served well. Armstrong wrote and published a book called "A Banquet of Jests." He and his wife eventually retired to Scotland where he had come from. Some say Archibald Armstrong was the jester that Shakespeare fashioned the fool in Lear after.
Here's the point of today's entry. I think one of the problems in the world today is the demise of the court jester. I really do believe that. I believe there ought to be a fool on the payroll of every king, prince, president, prime minister and any one else with the badge of authority on a national or international level, in the same way there is a poet laureate, an astronomer royal or a body guard. Naturally, some of the more humorless and self-important people in this world will object to being made fun of, but think how many self appointed authorities on politics and ideologies in America could benefit us all by having their ridiculous mud puddles stomped through and having verbal pies thrown in their pretentious and hypocritical faces. If the big time unreasonable and divisive bullies knew there was someone in the room who was allowed to point out their dirty underwear they might be more careful of what they say and decide to do.
There is a lot of awful inane behavior happening and stupid speeches being made in this country these day and I don't hear anyone laughing.
Lighten up folks and see the joke.
DB - The Vagabond
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
May your old summer gracefully become your young autumn.
________________________
SUMMER QUIZ
This is not a contest.
A young man out west just took home 88 million dollars from the lottery.
Whether you play the lottery or not, if you suddenly had 88 million dollars, or the equivalent of whatever your currency is, what are the first three things you would do with it?
You have the summer to answer if you wish.
23 responses so far.
DB
Showing posts with label Court Jesters. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Court Jesters. Show all posts
Friday, September 18, 2009
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Caustic Care 6/25/09
Fools are more to be feared than the wicked.
Queen Christiana
********************************
Don't stand around outside. Come on in.
-----------------------------------------
There are many sorts of fools simple ones, old ones and great ones, and all of them are dangerous, in way or another.
We all know those who are capable of making some totally daft decision that adversely affects themselves, their families, their town or their country. The wise are hard to find. Fools are a dime a dozen. Foolishness is everywhere. You don't have to look very far. "What fools these mortal be" wrote Shakespeare.
This morning I was amused at the news item about the 2009 National Conference - Building The New Majority where the subject was making English the official national language. The large banner over their heads read 2009 National Conferenece, (Conferen[e]c). If they want English to be the national language in this multi-lingual nation the least they can do is learn to spell it correctly.
It reminds me of the time the Senate was trying President Clinton. The pens they all pompously signed in with read Untied States Senate and not tied together properly it certainly was.
Let's face it, we are all capable of foolishness sometimes, some of us most of the time. If I started listing examples of my own foolery there's no telling how long this entry would be. So i won't, thank you.
Some unknown author wrote "Fools rush in where fools have been before." One of the purposes of regrets, as nasty as they can be, is to remind us of the stupid things we did so that we will remember and not do them again. So then why do we keep fooling ourselves, flopping and stacking up regrets? Maybe it's because we don't trust our own foolishness, don't believe that we were really wrong. Go ahead and touch the iron to see if it's hot. It won't burn you this time like it did before.
Ah, but what if you have to confront a fool, especially one in authority? That's a sticky problem. If you're a loyal worker you go around picking up the pieces that your boss leaves behind and agree to ignore his foolish fiats. If you're not a loyal worker you might point out his nonsense to him and then visit the unemployment office. I worked for one of those once, who shall not be named. I finally quit the job and moved on, just to get away from his idiotic bungling.
And what if the fool gets into the position of running the country. It happens. It's a potential disaster. One can only hope there are enough levelheaded people in the government who can say "How clever" and then work their way around and out of the danger. We have no way of knowing how many anonymous civil servants of many nations have quietly slipped past the brainless barriers imposed by some simple minded monarch.
But there's another sort of fool. I have long believed that one of the things wrong with this dangerous world is the demise of the court jester, the "allowed fool" hired by the king to keep him honest.
In olden times if a simple jester stepped over the line he could be whipped or hung. But an Allowed Fool was free to utter anything that was relevant to the situation, in the court or out of it. Rulers depended upon them to point out their and other people's foolishness, which they did with wit and comical sarcasm. The court jester was often smarter than anyone else around. The court fool was dangerous to pretentiousness, dishonesty, artificiality, and cant.
Now just imagine what the world would be like if there were such a humorist on the payroll and in the presence of every monarch, premiere, prime minister, president dictator, field marshal, CEO and chairman. We very well might be laughing instead of bombing.
DB - Vagabond Journeys.
___________________________
May there be bubbles of joy in your day.
*******************************
Queen Christiana
********************************
Don't stand around outside. Come on in.
-----------------------------------------
There are many sorts of fools simple ones, old ones and great ones, and all of them are dangerous, in way or another.
We all know those who are capable of making some totally daft decision that adversely affects themselves, their families, their town or their country. The wise are hard to find. Fools are a dime a dozen. Foolishness is everywhere. You don't have to look very far. "What fools these mortal be" wrote Shakespeare.
This morning I was amused at the news item about the 2009 National Conference - Building The New Majority where the subject was making English the official national language. The large banner over their heads read 2009 National Conferenece, (Conferen[e]c). If they want English to be the national language in this multi-lingual nation the least they can do is learn to spell it correctly.
It reminds me of the time the Senate was trying President Clinton. The pens they all pompously signed in with read Untied States Senate and not tied together properly it certainly was.
Let's face it, we are all capable of foolishness sometimes, some of us most of the time. If I started listing examples of my own foolery there's no telling how long this entry would be. So i won't, thank you.
Some unknown author wrote "Fools rush in where fools have been before." One of the purposes of regrets, as nasty as they can be, is to remind us of the stupid things we did so that we will remember and not do them again. So then why do we keep fooling ourselves, flopping and stacking up regrets? Maybe it's because we don't trust our own foolishness, don't believe that we were really wrong. Go ahead and touch the iron to see if it's hot. It won't burn you this time like it did before.
Ah, but what if you have to confront a fool, especially one in authority? That's a sticky problem. If you're a loyal worker you go around picking up the pieces that your boss leaves behind and agree to ignore his foolish fiats. If you're not a loyal worker you might point out his nonsense to him and then visit the unemployment office. I worked for one of those once, who shall not be named. I finally quit the job and moved on, just to get away from his idiotic bungling.
And what if the fool gets into the position of running the country. It happens. It's a potential disaster. One can only hope there are enough levelheaded people in the government who can say "How clever" and then work their way around and out of the danger. We have no way of knowing how many anonymous civil servants of many nations have quietly slipped past the brainless barriers imposed by some simple minded monarch.
But there's another sort of fool. I have long believed that one of the things wrong with this dangerous world is the demise of the court jester, the "allowed fool" hired by the king to keep him honest.
In olden times if a simple jester stepped over the line he could be whipped or hung. But an Allowed Fool was free to utter anything that was relevant to the situation, in the court or out of it. Rulers depended upon them to point out their and other people's foolishness, which they did with wit and comical sarcasm. The court jester was often smarter than anyone else around. The court fool was dangerous to pretentiousness, dishonesty, artificiality, and cant.
Now just imagine what the world would be like if there were such a humorist on the payroll and in the presence of every monarch, premiere, prime minister, president dictator, field marshal, CEO and chairman. We very well might be laughing instead of bombing.
DB - Vagabond Journeys.
___________________________
May there be bubbles of joy in your day.
*******************************
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