Theatre
The Boot beneath the Crown
De gecroonde leersse
Michiel de Swaen · 1688
Opening lines
Teunis
Spou uyt gij rotsak!... wat... het soume wel verdrieten...
Mijn longepijpen sijn gelijk versluysde rieten...
Ick rocchel, en ick spouw, en daer en comt niet uyt...
Spit it out, you bag of phlegm!... what... it would be enough to wear one down...
My windpipes are like clogged reeds...
I hawk, I spit, and nothing comes out...
Translation by Erostrate
Text quoted from dbnl.org
Synopsis
Brussels, on a carnival day. Teunis, a cobbler, wants to marry his daughter Jaquelijne to the wealthy Kosen; the mother and daughter favour Joren. At the market, the mother buys a capon that a stranger had been eyeing: he is the Emperor Charles V, who has her followed by his servant Ambroos, appears that evening at the meal dressed as a traveller, earns his place at the table by offering ten pots of wine and leaves without giving his name. The next day, a summons to appear at the palace falls upon the house; Kosen slips away, Joren stays.
Context
The play was written for the carnival of 1688 and performed on that occasion by the rhetoricians of Dunkirk, of whom its author had just been elected prince. The anecdote of the emperor seated at a cobbler's table was already circulating in a Brussels collection of 1675 on the merry deeds of Charles V; the rivalry of the two suitors is his own invention. Nothing appeared in the author's lifetime: the play was printed in Ghent after his death. Its structure and its verse bring it close to the French comedy of its time.
Who it is for
Five acts in rhymed alexandrines, in Dutch; a French translation and adaptation of it have been published.
Prizes and reception
Regarded as one of the high points of Flemish Baroque literature and as the best-known work of French Flanders; it is the only surviving farce by the author.
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