An Admirable English Custom
Dutch scholar Desiderius Erasmus urged Fausto Andrelini not to miss out on England’s enchanting contribution to good manners.
1499
King Henry VII 1485-1509
Dutch scholar Desiderius Erasmus urged Fausto Andrelini not to miss out on England’s enchanting contribution to good manners.
1499
King Henry VII 1485-1509
Desiderius Erasmus, the Dutch scholar, first came to England in 1499, a guest of the English court thanks to William Blount, Lord Mountjoy, and of John Colet at Oxford. During this time he paid a visit to a country house and learnt to enjoy some quaint English customs, as he told his Parisian friend Fausto Andrelini, poet to Queen Anne of France.
IF you are a wise man you will cross the Channel yourself.* If you knew the charms of this country your ankles would be winged, or if the gout was in your feet, you would wish yourself Daedalus.*
To mention but a single attraction, the English girls are divinely pretty. Soft, pleasant, gentle, and charming as the Muses. They have one custom which cannot be too much admired. When you go anywhere on a visit the girls all kiss you. They kiss you when you arrive. They kiss you when you go away; and they kiss you again when you return. Go where you will, it is all kisses; and, my dear Faustus, if you had once tasted how soft and fragrant those lips are, you would wish to spend your life here.
* Froude’s translation catches Erasmus’s playful tone nicely. For a more literal translation, see ‘The Epistles of Erasmus’ Vol. 1 (1901) translated by Francis Morgan Nichols, on page 203.
* That is, he would wish he had wings strapped to his arms. Daedalus, according to Greek mythology, was the craftsman who made wings for his son Icarus so they could escape Crete. See The Fall of Icarus. In this letter, Erasmus had already anticipated that his friend would use gout as justification for not leaving Paris.
1. What is the author aiming to achieve in writing this?
2. Note any words, devices or turns of phrase that strike you. How do they help the author communicate his ideas more effectively?
3. What impression does this passage make on you? How might you put that impression into words?
Based on The English Critic (1939) by NL Clay, drawing on The New Criticism: A Lecture Delivered at Columbia University, March 9, 1910, by J. E. Spingarn, Professor of Comparative Literature in Columbia University, USA.