Trans Req: The Dutch Housewife

Subject: Trans Req: The Dutch Housewife
From: keberoxu
Date: 14 Nov 19 - 06:34 PM

I don't know that this has music, but it is a verse,
and is quoted frequently over the centuries.
It's antiquated enough to have a spelling
that is not modern Dutch, even, but sort of renaissance Old-Masters Dutch. Good luck ...

(doesn't look like a complex vocabulary though)


Myn stoffer is myn swaerd, myn bussem is myn wapen,
Ick kenne geene rust, ick weete van geen slaepen.

Ick denck aen geen salet, ick denck niet aen myn keel,
Geen arbeyt my te swaer, geen zorge my te veel

Om alles gladdekens en sonder smet te maken.
Ick will niet dat de maegd myn pronckstuck aan zal raken,

Ick selve wrijf en boen, ick flodder en ick schrob,
Ick aes op 't kleinste stof, ick beef niet voor den tob
Gelyck de pronckmadam.


The author is identified as
Pieter van Godewijck, 1593 - 1669.

I can't locate the original Godewijck work
from which this quote is extracted.

His hometown was Dordrecht, where he rose from modest circumstances
by dint of ability and sheer hard work to be
a 'praeceptor' at the town's Latin school.
And his daughter, Margareta van Godewijck, was the beneficiary
of his hard-won education;
for he tutored her in the home, and
she went on to make history as one of the earliest published women authors.
She was fluent in both Dutch and Latin, could write in French,
and retained a little Greek from the classical education
in which her father tutored her.

Subject: RE: Trans Req: The Dutch Housewife
From: keberoxu
Date: 14 Nov 19 - 06:44 PM

This version of the same text
was printed in 1942, and the spelling has been modernized.


Mijn stoffer is mijn zwaard, mijn bezem is mijn wapen.
Ik weet er van geen rust, en ik weet van geen slapen.

Ik denk aan geen salet, ik denk niet aan mijn keel.
Geen arbeid mij te zwaar, geen zorg is mij te veel

Om alles gladdekens en zonder smet te maken.
Ik will niet, dat de meid mijn pronkstuk aan zal raken,

Ik zelve wrijf en boen, ik flodder en ik schrob,
Ik aas op 't kleinste stof, ik beef niet voor en tob
Gelijk de pronkmadam.

Subject: RE: Trans Req: The Dutch Housewife
From: GUEST,keberoxu
Date: 15 Nov 19 - 02:09 PM

The word that gives me the most trouble in this poem is
"salet."   


Here's the best that I could scrape up:

it was a piece of body armor, possibly on or near the head.
Within the context of that one line of the stanza,
this has some sense,
for the housewife speaks, in that line, in the negative,
stating what she scorns or disdains in her cleaning strategies:
"I give no thought to salet [protecting my head],
I think not about my throat [keel] ..."

Subject: RE: Trans Req: The Dutch Housewife
From: GUEST,John Bowden
Date: 15 Nov 19 - 05:29 PM

Salet means helmet (from French salette)

Subject: RE: Trans Req: The Dutch Housewife
From: mg
Date: 15 Nov 19 - 08:08 PM

here is from google translate

My dustpan is my sword, my broom is my weapon.
I don't know about rest, and I don't know about sleeping.

I don't think about a salet, I don't think about my throat.
No work is too heavy for me, no worry is too much for me

To make everything smooth blankets and without blemish.
I don't want the girl to touch my showpiece

I rub and scrub myself, I mess and I scrub,
I take care of the smallest material, I don't tremble and worry
Immediately the pronkmadam.

Subject: RE: Trans Req: The Dutch Housewife
From: keberoxu
Date: 16 Nov 19 - 02:51 PM

Okay:

Pronckmadam or Pronkmadam
is something like
a trophy wife,
or a lady of the latest fashion,
who shudders to think of doing any cleaning herself.

The dutch Pronk is something like the german Pracht,
showy, showing off, glorious.

I say 'something like' because, as usual,
I am out of my depth here ...


My apologies, I made a typo in the second modernized version.
It ought to read at the end:
"... ik beef niet vor den tob Gelijk de pronkmadam."

Which I would roughly translate:
"I do not tremble [at the thought] of a washtub ['de tob']
Like the showy Madame."