Title Page
of a Great
NEST OF FOOLS,
which Gaudentius Hilarion, against all expectation,
found and took out.
who do not refuse a moral lesson together with a profitable pastime,
of the Order of Discalced Augustinians,
Imperial Preacher, and Definitor of the Province.
With the permission of superiors.
in the year of Christ 1705.
To the Kind and Well-Disposed Reader
Let no one be alarmed by the title of this tiny book; a shabby scabbard often enough holds a good blade. The fools are dragged pretty thoroughly through the flax-comb here,1 yet no one in particular is touched, whether by name or by station; everything is drawn toward a moral lesson. Nor should a man of riper judgment wrinkle his nose at it too much because Holy Scripture is brought in more than once; for Scripture itself, and the books of the Doctors, aim in every way at just this: to knock such follies out of the heads of the heedless children of Adam. These few leaves, then, are meant not only for an agreeable pastime but first and foremost as a mirror, in which many a man may see whether he belongs among this company of fools or not. And so I comfort myself that this little New Year’s offering of mine will not be thrown out altogether.
A Register of the Fools
The Lovesick Fool.
The Covetous Fool.
The Angry Fool.
The Drunken Fool.
The Lazy Fool.
The Lying Fool.
The Fearful Fool.
The Proud Fool.
The Boorish Fool.
The Jealous Fool.
The Praiseworthy Fool.
The Dream
I, Gaudentius Hilarion, noble lord of Joyful Vale,2 had a most wonderful and strange dream some months ago. I dreamed that I was travelling through various countries, in which a great many memorable things came before my eyes. Among others I came to France, to the city of Narbonne, where Julius Caesar once kept his legions and his troops of soldiers. In this city of Narbonne I went walking in the garden of a gentleman of rank, and there, high in a thick oak, I noticed an enormous nest. I heard a good deal of twittering from it, too, but I could not judge or make out what sort of nest it might be. So curiosity pricked me: I looked about for a ladder and climbed up. And there I found wonder upon wonder, for it was no bird’s nest but a nest of fools, and twelve fools were sitting in it. So, against all hope, I had to take out a whole dozen fools. The very first was
Durch die Hächel gezogen: the hackle is the toothed comb that tears the coarse fibres out of flax. To be “drawn through the hackle” is to be roughly criticised.↩︎
Gaudentius Hilarion, edler Herr von Freuden-Thal: a comic pen-name, “Rejoicing Cheerful, Lord of the Vale of Joy.” The book is a Neu-Jahrs-Schanckung, a New Year’s gift, and its narrator is made of good humour.↩︎