Gerard van Honthorst, Dutch
“You’re Right. If I’m Going To Have Body Lice, I Might As Well Name Them. That One Looks Like a ‘Chuck’ To Me,” Date Unknown
Oil on canvas
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Artist info is pointed to in my comment at another blog entry.
/// These two women, all smiles and at ease,
are, believe it or not, hunting fleas!
There were paintings galore
of this odd nightly chore,
not then linked with the plague or disease.
/// A flea might take his meal anywhere,
though they’re sometimes found hiding in hair.
But the Phthirius pubis,
like the curse of Anubis,
makes itself at home feeding “down there.”
/// It seems weird now, if not idiotic,
but back then folks thought fleas were erotic.
They took tiny “love” bites
from most intimate sites.
(Nowadays we’d want antibiotic.)
/// The odd Seventeenth Century brain!
We try thinking like them, but in vain.
Picking bugs off your skin
is a pleasant night in?
No, I’m sorry, that thought is insane!
/// Many poems and paintings attest
to their love/hate regard for this pest.
Lovers wished they could be
just as close as a flea,
and to hunt them you must get undressed.
/// I wrote “poems,” but singled out none,
(though one source that I thought of was Donne).
Blood from lovers commingling
in “The Flea” left skin tingling.
Now I’m done, (if you’ll pardon the pun).
/// At night, aged maid Maud, with bright candle,
is entrusted by Brechtje to handle
all bloodsucker removal.
She has earned this approval
by remaining mum, not causing scandal.
/// Today’s image about fleas and lice
was depicted by van Honthorst twice.
One adds to the left side,
in the shade, men who spied
on the nude— linking flea hunts with vice.