Sebastian Brant

Sebastian Brant Poems

Sebastian Brant Biography

Sebastian Brant (also Brandt) was an Alsatian humanist and satirist. He is best known for his satire Das Narrenschiff (The Ship of Fools). Biography He was born in Strasbourg. He studied at Basel, took the degree of doctor of law in 1489, and for some time held a professorship of jurisprudence there. Returning to Strasbourg, he was made syndic of the town, remaining there for the rest of his life. In 1485 he married Elisabeth Bürgis from Basel, the daughter of a cutler. Elisabeth bore him seven children. Keen for his eldest son Onophrius to become a humanist, he taught him Latin in the cradle and enrolled him in university at the age of seven. He first attracted attention in humanistic circles by his Latin poetry, and edited many ecclesiastical and legal works; but he is now only known by his famous satire, Das Narrenschiff, published by Bergmann in 1494, the popularity and influence of which were not limited to Germany. Under the form of an allegory, a ship laden with fools and steered by fools goes to the fools' paradise of Narragonia. Brant here lashes with unsparing vigour the weaknesses and vices of his time. Here he conceives Saint Grobian, whom he imagines to be the patron saint of vulgar and coarse people. Returning to Strasbourg in 1500, Brant made several petitions to the Emperor Maximilian to drive back the Turks in order to save the West. But when he realises that the Emperor is not up to the task, he writes to his fellow humanist Konrad Peutinger in Augsburg in 1504 that the role of Emperor could equally well be carried out by another people if the Germans were incapable of fulfilling the role that history had given them. In the same spirit, in 1492 he had sung the praises of Ferdinand II of Aragon, for having conquered the Moors and unified Spain. A staunch proponent of German cultural nationalism, he believed that moral reform was necessary for the security of the Empire against the threat of the Turkish hordes. Although, like most of the German humanists, essentially conservative in his religious views, Brant's eyes were open to the abuses in the church, and the Narrenschiff was a most effective preparation for the Protestant Reformation. Alexander Barclay's Ship of Fools (1509) is a free imitation of the German poem, and a Latin version by Jacobus Locher (1497) was hardly less popular than the German original. There is also a large quantity of other "fool literature." Nigel, called Wireker (fl. 1190), a monk of Christ Church Priory, Canterbury, wrote a satirical Speculum stultorum, in which the ambitious and discontented monk figured as the ass Brunellus, who wanted a longer tail. Brunellus, who was educated in Paris, decides to found an order of fools, which shall combine the good points of all the existing monastic orders. Cock Lovell's Bate (printed by Wynkyn de Worde, c. 1510) is another imitation of the Narrenschiff. Cock Lovell is a fraudulent currier who gathers round him a rascally collection of tradesmen. They sail off in a riotous fashion up hill and down dale throughout England. Brant's other works, of which the chief was a version of Freidank's Bescheidenheit (1508), are of inferior interest and importance. The letters that have survived show that he was in correspondence with Peter Schott, Johann Bergmann von Olpe, Emperor Maximilian, Thomas Murner, Konrad Peutinger, Willibald Pirckheimer, Johannes Reuchlin, Beatus Rhenanus, Jakob Wimpfeling and Ulrich Zasius.)

The Best Poem Of Sebastian Brant

Of Hym That Togyder Wyll Serve Two Masters

A fole he is and voyde of reason
Whiche with one hounde tendyth to take
Two harys in one instant and season;
Rightso is he that wolde undertake
Hym to two lordes a servaunt to make;
For whether that he be lefe or lothe,
The one he shall displease, or els bothe.

A fole also he is withouten doute,
And in his porpose sothly blyndyd sore,
Which doth entende labour or go aboute
To serve god, and also his wretchyd store
Of worldly ryches: for as I sayde before,
He that togyder will two maysters serve
Shall one displease and nat his love deserve.

For he that with one hounde wol take also
Two harys togyther in one instant
For the moste parte doth the both two forgo,
And if he one have: harde it is and skant
And that blynd fole mad and ignorant
That draweth thre boltis atons in one bowe
At one marke shall shote too high or too lowe....

He that his mynde settyth god truly to serve
And his sayntes: this worlde settynge at nought
Shall for rewarde everlastynge joy deserve,
But in this worlde he that settyth his thought
All men to please, and in favour to be brought
Must lout and lurke, flater, laude, and lye:
And cloke in knavys counseyll, though it fals be.

If any do hym wronge or injury
He must it suffer and pacyently endure
A double tunge with wordes like hony;
And of his offycis if he wyll be sure
He must be sober and colde of his langage,
More to a knave, than to one of hye lynage.

Oft must he stoupe his bonet in his honde,
His maysters back he must oft shrape and clawe,
His brest anoyntynge, his mynde to understonde,
But be it gode or bad therafter must he drawe.
Without he can Jest he is nat worth a strawe,
But in the mean tyme beware that he none checke;
For than layth malyce a mylstone in his necke.

He that in court wyll love and favour have
A fole must hym fayne, if he were none afore,
And be as felow to every boy and knave,
And to please his lorde he must styll laboure sore.
His many folde charge maketh hym coveyt more
That he had lever serve a man in myserye
Than serve his maker in tranquylyte.

But yet when he hath done his dylygence
His lorde to serve, as I before have sayde,
For one small faute or neglygent offence
Suche a displeasoure agaynst hym may be layde
That out is he cast bare and unpurvayde,
Whether he be gentyll, yeman grome or page;
Thus worldly servyse is no sure herytage.

Wherfore I may prove by these examples playne
That it is better more godly and plesant
To leve this mondayne casualte and payne
And to thy maker one god to be servaunt,
Which whyle thou lyvest shall nat let the want
That thou desyrest justly, for thy syrvyce,
And than after gyve the, the joyes of Paradyse.

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