 |
| Gemäldegalerie, National Museums in Berlin |
Bruegel's Two Monkeys
This is what I see in my dreams about final exams:
two monkeys, chained to the floor, sit on the windowsill,
the sky behind them flutters,
the sea is taking its bath.
The exam is the history of Mankind.
I stammer and hedge.
One monkey stares and listens with mocking disdain,
the other seems to be dreaming away --
but when it's clear I don't know what to say
he prompts me with a gentle
clinking of his chain.
Wislawa Szymborska (1923-2012)
translated from Polish by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh
in Szymborska: View with a Grain of Sand: Selected Poems (1995)
Bruegel’s Two Monkeys is set in sixteenth century Antwerp. A powerful trading port, its very possible monkeys were brought to the city by traders, but in all likelihood they would have been a rarity. Sitting in chains, the monkeys are perched on a window sill overlooking the city. Before them is the remnants of a hazel nut, only it's broken shell left. Do they represent slaves bought from Africa?
As for the monkeys, one seems annoyed while the other shows little interest. There is an old Netherlandish proverb : Go to court for a hazel nut. Was their freedom sold for a hazelnut?
Is Bruegel mocking the absurdity of human action? To deprive the freedom of an animal for no purpose. A remark on man’s inhumanity - to enslave his fellow man?
