Faugh, the devil, how it stinks! Lazarus stank, by Martha’s account,1 but not so badly. The dunghill where patient Job sat stank,2 but not so badly as a stinking-lazy man stinks.3 And such a man, too, is counted among the fools by Holy Scripture: “I passed by the field of the slothful man, and by the vineyard of the foolish man.”4 Faugh, the devil! Faugh on the idler! They both deserve the “faugh,” and mostly they are found together.
That is why, in the country of the Gerasens, the Saviour drove 6,666 devils out of a possessed man.5 But before those damned bogeys quit their lodging, they begged leave at least to go into the nearest herd of swine, and leave was granted. But why into the swine? Why not into the asses? Asses are astrologers, after all: from the movement of their ears you can tell what weather is coming. Why not into the horses? A horse is even counted among the heavenly beasts, or constellations, and is called Pegasus. Why not into the oxen? An ox had the honour, after all, of sharing a dwelling with the Son of God.6 No: the devils would have the swine and nothing else! For no beast is so given to idling as the swine, whose whole life consists of nothing but guzzling, nibbling, lolling, snoring, grunting, and so on. Other vicious people have one devil or another; but the idler has a whole legion.
The bears in the time of Eliseus did great harm at Bethel, when they so cruelly tore the little boys of that town to pieces.7 But a bear’s skin, by which I mean sloth and idleness, does a man far greater harm.8
A man once said to a bald-head, “Faugh, fellow, your head isn’t worth a hair! Look what long hair I have.”
“That’s easily explained,” answered the bald-head. “Where the ground lies idle, more grass grows.”
But I say, on the contrary: where a man lies idle, more weeds grow.9 Besides all this, besides being the fruitful mother of all vices, sloth has this merit too, that she makes a good woodcutter. Only, all she ever cuts is staves: I mean, the beggar’s staff.10 For idleness mostly means the means are gone:11 “he that followeth idleness, shall be filled with poverty.”12
That is why a certain father once gave his son a sound drubbing with a cudgel. The son complained sorrowfully: why did he treat him so harshly, when he had done nothing?
“That is exactly why,” said the father, “I am giving you such a good hiding: because you have done nothing. You ought to have done something, and not lazed about like this.”
He was a praiseworthy father, for there is no better music than when the father beats time like that.
That mice come from dormice I have never heard in all my days; you have not heard it either; nobody else has heard it; and yet it is the truth. The man who sleeps all the time like a dormouse, and is forever given to idleness, will infallibly turn into a mouse: a “mouser,” most certainly, which is as much as to say a thief, for he has no other way to keep himself.13
The man in the Gospel, when he fell into need, said it himself: “To dig I am not able”: I can’t dig or work. (You could indeed, if only you would!) “To beg I am ashamed,”14 and so on. And what came of it in the end? He played his tricks and became a thief.15 And the whole reason was that he would not work, but only idle.
These lazy dreamers want no part in being children of Adam, though it was said to our first father Adam after his transgression: “With labour and toil shalt thou eat thereof”;16 with much toil shall you have your food from the earth. It follows that whoever does not work shall have nothing to eat.17
In this matter Cardinal Angelotto acted very wisely. He once had the usual signal given with the little bell for the servants to wait at table, and few of them appeared. So afterwards he had the bell for the midday meal struck with a fox’s tail, which of course hardly anyone heard, and so it came about that only one or two came to eat, and most of them went without.18 Work brings bread; idling brings need.19
Many a man laments: “So-and-so,” he says, “is doing so well. With him the moon is always waxing, and with me it is forever on the wane. He swills a good Nussdorfer, and I a fresh Brunner.20 He often gorges on Indians, and I can barely get Dumplindians.21 They set artichokes before him, and before me black noodles. He has a house of his own; so have I, but like a snail I carry it on my back wherever I go. He styles himself ‘von Weingarten,’ Lord of the Vineyard, and I ‘von Wasserburg,’ Lord of Water-Castle.”22
Lenzophilus,23 would you like to know the reason? In his youth he was very diligent, industrious, and hard-working, and that is why he stands so well now. But you have always been a lazy fool. You thought you were one of the wild pears, which only ripen lying down.24
Such a one was a man named Hieronymus Nothleyder, that is, Jerome Suffer-Want, born of rich parents otherwise, who through constant idleness and stinking-lazy ways got rid of everything he had. One night thieves broke into his house, and he heard them. Quite unafraid, he said to them, “You dreamers, what are you looking for in my house at night, when I can find nothing in it in broad daylight?”
So it is still true, and it remains true: “He that followeth idleness, shall be filled with poverty.”
John 11:39: “Lord, by this time he stinketh, for he is now of four days.”↩︎
Job 2:8.↩︎
Stinckfaul, “stinking lazy,” is ordinary German for bone-idle; faul also means “rotten,” which gives Abraham his stench.↩︎
Prov. 24:30. Abraham: per agrum pigri hominis transivi, et per vineam viri stulti.↩︎
Mark 5:1–13; Luke 8:26–33. The possessed man’s name is “Legion” (Mark 5:9), and 6,666 was the strength commonly assigned to a Roman legion.↩︎
The manger of Luke 2:7, where tradition, from Isaias 1:3, puts the ox and the ass.↩︎
4 Kings 2:23–24 (2 Kings in modern numbering): two bears tore forty-two boys who had mocked the prophet.↩︎
Auf der Bärenhaut liegen, “to lie on the bearskin,” is the German idiom for idling.↩︎
Wo ein fauler Grund ist: faul is both “rotten” (of ground) and “lazy” (of a man).↩︎
Einen an den Bettelstab bringen, “to bring someone to the beggar’s staff,” is to ruin him.↩︎
Der Müssiggang ist meistens der Mitteln Abgang, a jingle: “idle-going is mostly the going-off of one’s means.”↩︎
Prov. 28:19 (Abraham, “c. 28”). Abraham: qui sectatur otium, replebitur egestate.↩︎
Ratz, a dormouse, the proverbial sleeper; mausen, “to mouse,” is German slang for pilfering, and a Mauser is a thief.↩︎
Luke 16:3, the unjust steward. Abraham: fodere non valeo … mendicare erubesco.↩︎
Partiten, “tricks, swindles”: the falsified bills of Luke 16:5–7.↩︎
Gen. 3:17. Abraham: in laboribus comedes, etc.↩︎
Compare 2 Thess. 3:10: “If any man will not work, neither let him eat.”↩︎
Cited by Abraham as Volat. L. 23. Antroph., that is, Raffaele Maffei of Volterra (Volaterranus), Commentaria urbana, book 23, in the part called Anthropologia. Probably Angelotto Fosco (d. 1444), made cardinal by Eugenius IV, who had a name as a miser; the story may first have been told against him rather than in his praise.↩︎
Arbeiten bringt Brod, faullentzen bringt Noth: a rhyme in German.↩︎
Nussdorf, a wine village just outside Vienna. A Brunner is water from the well (Brunnen), though Brunn am Gebirge, south of Vienna, is also a wine village, so the joke probably cuts both ways.↩︎
Indianer, “Indian fowl,” is turkey; Knödlianer is Abraham’s coinage on Knödel, “dumpling.”↩︎
Both are real place names used as noble titles: Weingarten, “vineyard,” and Wasserburg, “water-castle.”↩︎
Lenzophile, a mock-Greek name: “friend of Lenz,” from faulenzen, “to idle.”↩︎
Holzbirnen, wild pears, are hard when picked and only become soft and edible after lying in store.↩︎