Flea literature

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Filippo Bonanni : Flea (from: Micrographia Curiosa 1691)

The flea literature is a special genre of literature that the theme of the flea in a variety of seals, satires , fables , grotesque and humorous stories as its theme. After some French and Italian models, the flea literature appears especially in the German-speaking area of ​​the 16th and 17th centuries. She consciously contrasts the moralizing animal figures of the classical and medieval fable. Through moral counter-drafts, social criticism and satires on scientific works, flea literature became a typical literary genre of humanism . Mostly the flea appears as a personification or a humanized allegory of various attributes ascribed to it, such as speed, smallness, wit, intelligence, lust , promiscuity or eloquence . The examination of the flea as a parasite and constant companion of human life is also a topic of flea literature. In this context, the flea as an inhabitant of taboo parts of the body also becomes an erotic metaphor.

The main motifs of flea literature appear up to the literature of the late 19th century; with the disappearance of the ubiquity of the parasite from modern societies, the flea motif also loses its literary significance. In the literature of the 20th century, the motifs of classic flea literature reappear, they are merely transferred to other characters in the allegorical animal poses than the flea.

The flea as a literary motif of the early modern period

Johann Fischart (1546–1591)

In the animal poems and fables of antiquity and the late Middle Ages , mostly larger animals such as wolf, fox, lion and bear appear. With their narrowly defined characters, they determine the plot repertoire and the often recurring motifs of the classic fable, as with Aesop as the formative author of the genre. Insects appear in a few of these classic works (for example in Aesop's The Ant and the Grasshopper ), and the flea only very rarely. Individual poems from the late Middle Ages personify the flea, for example in the poem Von dem Ritten und von der vlô (around 1320) by Ulrich Boner . In the 16th century the literary animal repertoire experienced a noticeable change towards small animals and insects . Now mice, frogs, mosquitoes and fleas become carriers of the main story or the actual object of satirical consideration. With the flea as the new protagonist, in this early European flea literature no social moral concepts or character teachings are conveyed as with common mythical animals. While other animal motifs were often associated with exemplary properties, for example the diligence of ants and bees, the writers of the 16th and 17th centuries used the flea to represent moral and scientific counter-designs. Flea literature, with its motives and intentions, is originally a child of late humanism . Flea literature gains its humorous, satirical character from the tension between existence as an annoying parasite and an imaginary role as a messenger of love, scholar, politician. The attraction of the flea motif lies in large part in this ambivalence of the properties that are ascribed to it.

Most of these then novel works appeared in the publishing houses of Johann Carolus and Bernhard Jobin in Strasbourg . Examples are the Froschmeuseler (1595) by Georg Rollenhagen and the Floïa, cortum versicale (1593) by "Gripholdo Knickknackio". The literary models for this can be found in Italy and France. For example, in the Moschaea (war between mosquitoes and ants) by the Italian Teofilo Folengo (1519) and the Pulicis Encomium Physica Ratione Tractatum (Lyon 1550) by Petrus Gallisardus, again inspired by the Encomium pulicis (Ferrara? 1519) by Caelio Calcagnini (1479– 1541). A German translation of the Moschaea Folengos, which follows the example of a pseudo-Latin mixed language as macaronic poetry , appears around 1580 as a mosquito war by Hans Christoph Fuchs . At mosquito war or Moschaea fleas are involved, so here we find Cacaniel, the king of the fleas and Atricos, the castle of the fleas. Folengo's poetry appears again in a translation by Balthasar Schnurr in 1612 by Carolus in Strasbourg. The war between mosquitoes and ants imitates, in keeping with humanistic tradition, the ancient model of Homer in the " Batrachomyomachie " (frog mouse war). In Wolfhart Spangenberg From the flea bouquet with the Laus (Muckenlob) (1610) and in Galissardus' pulicis Encomium the literary form of Loblieds (will encomium ), for example, a Pindar caricatured and ironically the newly discovered just at this time authors of antiquity.

Title page of the edition of Flöh Haz \ Weiber Traz from 1577

Johann Fischart's Flöh Haz, Weiber Traz , which was published by his brother-in-law Jobin in Strasbourg in 1573 and expanded in 1577, is considered the first major work in flea literature . Species takes in the first version of the flea action by Mathias Holtzwart and 1530 as a leaflet published Flohlied on, which begins with the lines: "The women and the fleas, the han a Staeten war, enter Auss large fief, the one they all erschlieg . ”Based on the thesis of a special relationship between fleas and women, Fischart designs in his Flöh Haz a pun-rich ironic conglomeration of different types of text: dialogue, defense speech, recipe, song (to sing Flohlid \ when they swing the fur \ beautiful inn tact to jump) and epilogue (Friden and rue vor den Flöhen) with thematically comparable literary examples, v. a. Animal fables.

Flöh Haz is not an allegorical animal poem, but a mocking poem written in Knittel verse in the manner of ruffianism . Both human weaknesses and the court rhetoric and its absurd arguments are mocked with the help of an academic, cataloging and encyclopedic knowledge. In this way, Fischart's flea literature is an example of early skepticism towards the euphoric patterns of understanding the world of humanism. w.

With satirical exaggerations and long tirades , the first two texts, “Renewed Flea complaint against the women plague” and “Necessary Responsibility of Women”, present the complaint of a flea and the defense of women by the “Flöhkantzler”. In the dialogue between Muck (stinging fly) and the flea Räsimgsäs injured by a woman's blows (line 1913), both appear as brothers and complain as victims of the great people who exaggerate the harmless stings and are brought up as children to abuse animals. Both call for understanding for the small creatures of Jupiter and distribute swipes against the large and small of the social stratification: "Small people need klaine lucken \ large people are not soon overprinted" (Z 537-538) or "Niman is poorer than the rich "(Z 829). In the following monologue of the main part, the flea tells of the costly attack of his army and the brutal struggle of the women in the spinning rooms, sleeping rooms and kitchens, who even take off their clothes to fend off the attackers who have penetrated into the intimate areas, search them for the enemy and these then cruelly slaughter. These scenes are delicately detailed with sexual innuendos. The author uses the migration of fleas through markets and houses in search of new victims and their flight when they are discovered for the satirical revelation of human weaknesses. Rough burlesque swank scenes mix with seemingly learned references to literary examples (including Rabelais, Ovid, animal fables). The dialogue of the final part parodies the moralizing didactic poetry and calls on young people to be prudent and moderate, because the injury to the flea is the result of his cockiness, and he is criticized by Muck as too demanding and daring in the selection of his victims: he went Danger of being hunted and hunted because he was lusting for tender virgin meat and stabbing the intimate areas instead of feeding on dog blood. In the following text, the Flöhkanzler expands this aspect to a fundamental criticism of the fleas, which seriously impair people's lives, which justifies women's vigilante justice as self-defense. In the end, he threatens the cunning human blood robbers with all the harsh legal punishments customary at the time and offers the women recipes against fleas. Here Fischart imitates the scientific language of its time and makes it ridiculous. The obvious arbitrariness of the recipes feeds doubts about their effectiveness; Imitating the language of the medical prescriptions of the time, they open up skepticism towards the academic Ars medicina .

Biological basis and ascribed properties

A bather when "pleading" (getting rid of fleas). From the stand book by Jost Amman , Frankfurt am Main 1568

In flea literature, character traits are attributed to the flea which have been derived from observing the shape and behavior of the human flea. The existence of the flea, which is obviously troublesome for humans, is contrasted with positive character traits. His inescapable presence in beds and clothes of all walks of life, which persisted into the 19th century, initially made him appear as a representative of social justice and equality. The flea literature mostly mentions this motif with the blatant view that the blood of the higher classes is even tastier for the flea. The flea is therefore seen as the inevitable, all relevant "equalizer", as it otherwise only comes to death in the representations of the dances of death . A literary taboo on flea infestation or its connection with neglect and uncleanliness could not be established until the middle of the 19th century.

The size of the flea of ​​only 1.5 to 3 mm makes it the “smallest of the little ones”, a property that, in contrast to the large, often provides the humorous material in flea literature. Many works also play with this smallness in a grotesque way, when the flea grows to an unnatural size or even towers over people. If, on the other hand, political size and dignity are reduced to the size of the flea, the smallness serves as a caricature.

Due to the way of life as a bloodsucker , the character of the flea is assigned to the sanguine according to the humoral pathology . This categorization includes liveliness, cheerfulness, imagination and eloquence, at the same time a certain extrovertedness and an easily irritable, unsteady mind. The observation of the behavior of a flea when it jumps from person to person and cleverly escapes in the hunt for it may have supported this characterization. Giovanni Antonio Moschetti calls the flea 1625 "funny with a light mind, hopping through existence!" And the British entomologist William Kirby states anecdotally, "You have never seen a grumpy flea."

Nocturnal flea hunt: “The enemy power and the hour of the Parzen are already near” (from: De pulicibus 1866, p. 74).

The restlessness of the flea and especially its ability to shorten the human night's sleep by suckling blood at night and in the morning earned it the motif of the "enemy of the lazy" and a reminder to work early and not dormant industry. The Leipzig preacher Michael Lindner already mentioned these positive effects of the flea in 1558: (...) “So the dear fleas would also be created by God, that they plagued women, that they forget their useless chatter and bad thoughts, which they are full of , then the fleas, and especially that they woke up the lazy maids in the sermon, and reminded them and manured them that they should be more drained. "

In the hunt for fleas recognizes Grimmelshausen those employment of women who correspond to the "Tabacksaufen" of the soldiers: "Their idle maverick long because zuvertreiben so, auff that they etwann to hire a other misfortune or jhrer malice contemplate want not have peace." This Enmity between women and fleas, already hinted at in Fischart's Flöh Haz, Weiber Tratz , regularly leads to the rapid capture and killing of the flea. Although the flea literature often describes the danger of death in the flea, it also praises the search for the beautiful moment in the lust of blood-sucking; the flea here becomes an allegory of the “ carpe diem ”. The lustful blood-drinking of the fleas is associated with the excessive drinking of alcohol and the stinging with the penetration during sexual intercourse. The black color of the flea is usually compared with the resulting mourning clothing, since large parts of its relatives were murdered when they were caught indulging in blood; the flea is described as "black smock", "black dyer" or "black knight". A flea is usually killed by what is known as "kinking", ie. H. the audible crushing of the resistant chitin armor with your fingernails.

The restless jumping and skilful escape of the flea (the latter also explains the origin of the word floch , fled from the verb flee), mainly justifies the actual character of the flea in the animal pose. Although lice were ubiquitous in earlier centuries, just as small and blood-sucking, they are allegorically associated with indolence and stupidity because of their immobility on the human body, whereas the flea with wit, diligence, eroticism and intelligence.

Aspects of the flea in modern literature

The flea as an erotic fantasy

The flea as Cupid (from: De pulicibus 1866)
Georges de La Tour (1593–1652): Woman with the Flea
Autobiography of a flea (title page from 1901)

Johann Fischart describes in his Flöh Haz, Weiber Tratz from 1571 already a special relationship between fleas and women, but in the form of eternal enmity. Similarly, it also pointedly Friedrich Dedekind (1525-1598), when in its by Caspar Scheidt translated poetry " Grobianus. From coarse customs and rude gestures "(1551) can be read: " The Flöh and the female tribe, carry together great hatred, and hold both day and night, with one another many hard battles; (...) " . Grimmelshausen takes up this motive in his Simplicissimus , and lets the fleas complain to Jupiter, who is also plagued by flies, about their fateful murder and torment and claim a right to suck blood: (They) “would be badly treated, caught, and” by women not only murdered, but also previously tortured and crushed so miserably between her fingers that it would have mercy on a stone ”.

In fact, the residents of otherwise covered and taboo female parts of the body inspired the writers to erotic poetry. The flea is envied for all that it sees up close and uncovered. In an anonymous Mecklenburg poem it says: “He hops up on the white stocking and comes to the gate of paradise; What was hidden from many a man, That lies before him so brightly and clearly ” . Much of the flea literature of the 17th and 18th centuries is about a supposed erotic relationship between women and fleas. In particular, the revealing way of scratching and stripping flea hunting is described in detail. This is also reflected in the pictures that were created at the same time, in which women present naked bodies while hunting fleas or, from the 18th century, in special porcelain pipe tamper ( flea legs) that depict a flea on a woman's leg in stockings.

Fleas are also allegorized as Cupids or matchmakers, as is particularly evident in a poem by Jacob Cats (1577–1660), in which he describes two lovers sitting together who are surprised by a flea. First the flea stings the girl, then the young man. Both blood are now united in the flea and a pledge of their love: "In you we are mixed and intimately connected, We have found ourselves united in you for marriage, Yes, both blood is pulsing in you now, hers and mine, We are no longer two, from today on we are one! " Mostly, however, the motif of the longing lover appears in erotic flea literature, which can be found exemplarily in Joseph Scaliger (1540–1609): " O you lucky flea, You, the smallest of the little ones, you can kiss my girl's lips whenever you want, that is denied to me, although, oh, it is not the will ” . In his poem Der Sündenfloh, Christian Morgenstern finally suggests that a third flea in Noah's ark was responsible for the continued existence of complicated triangular relationships in human history even after the Flood .

The erotic literature also makes use of the flea to describe the actual sexual act and possibly the lost virginity in the stinging act of sucking by the insect . This interpretation can be demonstrated , for example, in John Donnes (1572–1631) poem The Flea or in Friedrich von Logaus (under the pseudonym Salomon von Bolau) Verlohrne Jungfernschaft durch Flöhe (1702). An anonymous author of a cloister mirror from 1841 denounced the vows of chastity of convent women with this then well-known motif : "Few nuns achieve that they, as Christ's brides, are no longer stung by a flea, like the holy Rosa of Lima ".

A late work of flea literature that appeared in New York and London in 1901 under the title Autobiography of a flea (and in a small edition outside England as early as 1888) was banned as supposedly pornographic literature in England. The story is told from the perspective of a flea who has to witness how the ignorance of a young girl is exploited and abused by men with double standards for their sexual purposes. Since the book denounces the bigotry and immorality of the Anglican clergy, it is also considered an anti-clerical work of the late Victorian era . In her novel Rosita's Skin (1990) , Esther Vilar takes up the motif of the flea falling in love with a girl and jealously witnessing her other lovers . Since the flea as a parasite is no longer present in the late 20th century, Vilar replaces the flea with a mosquito , but all variants of erotic flea literature are tried again in the transferred form.

Flea literature as a political and social allegory

ETA Hoffmanns Meister Floh (illustration on the back of the book of the 2nd edition 1826)

In order to exercise social and political criticism in a fable or a parable, writers let the flea appear as the protagonist; either its negative traits are highlighted as an example of maladministration or the flea itself appears as an eloquent critic or as suffering from the circumstances. For the former, a font under the pseudonym “P. [Father] Ambrosius N. ”, which probably appeared in Brno in 1620 . Ambrosius, who says he is a former member of the Jesuit order , describes the clergy as greedy, shameless, annoying, devious, cunning and bloodsucking as a comparison between fleas and Jesuits. Both also reproduced uncontrollably in the same way and liked to be with women.

A well-known example of the literary use of the flea to describe political conditions is the “flea song” in Goethe's Faust . In the drinking scene in Auerbach's cellar , which alludes in many details to the literature of brutality and the student customs of the 17th and 18th centuries, Mephisto sings the song of a flea who was appointed minister: “Once upon a time there was a king who had one big flea ” (text from Flea song (Mussorgsky) ). The flea as a state bogeyman and expression of the courtroom is immediately commented by the drinking brothers: “This is how every flea should feel! / Point your fingers and grab them nicely! / Long live freedom! Long live the wine! "

In his Meister Flea, ETA Hoffmann uses the flea motif to expose political oppression and social injustice. The story, which arose as a reaction to Hoffmann's experiences in the Prussian “Immediatkommission for the investigation of treasonable connections and other dangerous activities” , can only appear in censored form in 1822 because of its open criticism of the state power; the full text version was only available in 1908. A flea of ​​varying sizes appears as one of the two main characters. He comes from a fantasy realm dominated by demonic-destructive and egocentric characters, in which everyone fights against everyone and wants to own the beautiful princess for himself. Through a microscopic projection he flew into the real world and got into the hands of a flea tamer, who at the same time gains power over his people and lets them perform tricks. But the freedom-loving master flees the circus with his little acrobats and wants to live in freedom with his reckless jumping-happy people, as it corresponds to his republican nature. On his escape he meets the naive merchant's son Peregrinus Tyß and helps him to break free from his children's world. To demonstrate, he inserts a lens into his pupil, which allows him to look into people's thought processes and thus recognize the intentions that are hidden behind their friendly or insidious words (3rd and 4th adventure). Through the thought lens he is able to thwart the strategy of the court councilor in the Knarrpanti episode (4th and 5th adventures), who wants to blame him for an invented princess kidnapping and murder in order to get to his prince profile.

Again Fischart's Flöh Haz inspired Kurt Tucholsky in a book review for Die Weltbühne in 1919 to caricature the disorder of the political flea circus and its protagonists. He compares the low efficiency of the democratic decision-making process with the emergence of the Weimar Republic with the hopelessness of a flea hunt to get rid of the old nuisances : But it hops as if crawling. What was the subtitle? The political heads of Germany? The people scratched themselves because they itched too much, the insects jumped, and there was: a flea hunt .

literature

Secondary literature

  • VJ (d. I. Vittorio Imbriani): La pulce, saggio di zoologia letteraria. dell'Orfanotrofio, Catanzaro 1875.
  • WAL Philopsyllus (d. I. William Marshall ): The flea is the black spiritus familiaris of the female sex, illuminated from a literary and scientific perspective. Huschke, Weimar 1880.
  • Carl Blümlein: The Flea in Literature. In: Frankfurter Zeitung . No. 233, 1900.
  • Hugo Hayn, Alfred N. Gotendorf: Flea literature (de pulicibus) at home and abroad from the 16th century to modern times. oN, o.O. 1913.
  • Leo Koszella (ed.): The literary flea circus. Hesperos Verlag Grünwald, Munich 1922 (anthology).
  • Enno Littmann : From the oriental flea. Poetry and truth about the flea among Hebrews, Syrians, Arabs, Abyssinians and Turks. Insel-Verlag, Leipzig 1925 (facsimile edition: Insel-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1972 ( Insel-Bücherei 966)).
  • David B. Wilson: La puce de Madame Desroches and John Donne's "The Flea". In: Neuphilologische Mitteilungen. 72, 1971, ISSN  0028-3754 , pp. 297-301.
  • Rainer Schmitz (Ed.): Flea Waltz, Flea Traps and Fleas in the Ear. A reader. Reclam, Leipzig 1997, ISBN 3-379-01588-1 ( Reclam library 1588).
  • R. Schmäschke: The flea in cultural history and first attempts to combat it. In: Berlin and Munich veterinary weekly. 113, 2000, ISSN  0005-9366 , pp. 152-160.
  • Hans-Jürgen Bachorski: Of fleas and women. On the construction of a gender dichotomy in Johan Fischart's Floeh Haz / Weiber Traz. In: Ulrike Gaebel, Erika Kartoschke (Ed.): Böse Frauen - Gute Frauen. Representation conventions in texts and images from the early modern period. WVT Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, Trier 2001, ISBN 3-88476-479-9 , pp. 253-272 ( literature, imagination, reality 28).
  • Gerda Riedl : ... the example of which one should do. The satirical animal pos as an instructive example of history. The mosquito war of Hans Christoph Fuchs (1600). In: Bernhard Jahn et al. (Hrsg.): Tierepik and Tierallegorese. Studies in the poetology and historical anthropology of premodern literature. Lang, Frankfurt am Main et al. 2004, ISBN 3-631-51366-6 , pp. 279-298 ( Mikrokosmos 71).
  • Crissy Bergeron: Georges de la Tour's flea-catcher and the iconography of the flea-hunt in seventeenth-century baroque art. Dissertation. Louisiana State University 2007 (PDF; 1.2 MB)

Major works of flea literature

  • Petrus Gallissardus (Pierre Gallisart): Pulicis Encomium Physica Ratione Tractatum , Lyon (Tornaesius) 1550, printed in Caspar Dornavius ​​(Dornau): Amphitheatrum Sapientiae Socraticae Joco-Seriae. Scene of joking and serious wisdom , Hanau 1619 (reprint published by Robert Seidel (Texts of the Early Modern Age 9), Frankfurt / M. 1995 ISBN 3-8051-0816-8 )
  • Johann Fischart : Flöh Haz / Weiber Tratz. The miraculous wrong and ridiculously important legal trade of the Flöh with de [n] weybern: A new geläß / auff das uber kurtzweiligst zubelachen / wa different the Flöh with sting when the kurtzweil don't make long , Strasbourg ( Jobin ) 1571 (extended edition 1573), Reprinted by Alois Haas, Stuttgart (Reclam) 1982, ISBN 3-15-001656-8
  • KCEBM: Laus Pulicis In Vino se suffocaturi, Versiculis Anacreonticis inclusa , Leipzig (Schürer, Götz, Steinmann) 1631 (collection of poems)
  • Isaiah Rompler von Löwenhalt: Klag Uber the Panonyme Fleas , Strasbourg 1640
  • Opizius Jocoserius (d. I. Otto Philipp Zaunschliffer ): Dissertatio Iuridica, De Eo Quod Iustum Est Circa Spiritus Familiares Foeminarum: Hoc est, Pulices. Quaestionibus Theoretico-practicis rarioribus adornata (...), Liberovadi (d. I. Marburg) 1684 and Marburg 1688. From this edition several editions were made, some of them greatly changed, with different author names:
    • Otto Philipp Zaunschliffer: The gallant woman's Curieuse Flöh-Jagt (...) Flochia Greiffoldi Knick Knackii ex Flolandia Cortum Versicale (editor and translator: "Simplicismo Spring ins Feld"), "Black Forest" (Rauchbaart) approx. 1691
    • NN: Tractatus Varii De Pulicibus: Quorum Primus exhibet Dissertationem Iuridicam Opizii Iocoserii (..) Secundus Laudem & defensionem Pulicum, ex Masenii Exercitat. Oratoriis desumptam, Tertius Vituperium & Damnationem illorum, eiusdem Autoris. Et Quartus Flochiam Greiffoldi Knickknakkii (d. I. Janus Caecilius Frey) ex Floilandia Cortum Versicale de Flois, Swartibus illis Thiericulis, quae omnes fere Menschos Mannos, Weibras, Jungfras & c. Behupffere, & Spitzibus Schnablis stechere & beissere solent. Utopiae Literis Alphabeticis (d. I. Nuremberg) 1694
  • ETA Hoffmann : Meister Floh - A fairy tale in seven adventures of two friends , Frankfurt 1822 (work edition: Gerhard Allroggen et al. (Ed.): Hoffmann, ETA: Complete works in six volumes , Volume 6, Frankfurt 2004 ISBN 978-3-618 -60900-1 )
  • Anonymus: The Autobiography of a Flea , London 1888 (new edition 1901 for the “Erotica Biblion Society of London and New York”) Erotic novella, made into a film in 1976

Songs

Individual evidence

  1. from Middle High German ritte , " Fever ". Cf. for example Jürgen Martin: The 'Ulmer Wundarznei'. Introduction - Text - Glossary on a monument to German specialist prose from the 15th century. Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 1991 (= Würzburg medical-historical research. Volume 52), ISBN 3-88479-801-4 (also medical dissertation Würzburg 1990), p. 163.
  2. Gripholdo Knickknackio: Floia, Cortum versicale de Flois schwartibus, illis deiriculis, quae omnes fere Minschos, Mannos, Vveibras, Iungfras, & c. behùppere, & spitzibus suis schnaflis steckere & bitere solent . Floilandia (Strasbourg) 1593. In: Hedwig Heger (Hrsg.): Late Middle Ages, Humanism, Reformation. Texts and testimonials , 2nd volume: The heyday of humanism and the Reformation , Munich 1978, pp. 491–497
  3. ^ Hans (Johannes) Christoph Fuchs: The mosquito war . According to the edition of 1600 (publisher Genthe), Eisleben 1833 ( text of the edition from 1833 ) (edition from around 1580 is lost, but listed in Johann Christoph Gottsched's dictionary in 1760)
  4. Anonymous: Old common Flöhlied . Flyer (Strasbourg?) 1530, quoted from Rainer Schmitz (1997) p. 18
  5. ^ Giovanni Antonio Moschetti: il pulice , Venice (Evangelista Deuchino) 1625 (quoted from Philopsyllus, 1880) p. 21
  6. ^ William Kirby, William Spence: Introduction to Entomology, or, Elements of the natural history of insects . London 1815–1826, foreword to first volume
  7. Michael Lindner: Rastbüchlein, o. O. 1558. Quoted from Philopsyllus (1880) p. 29f
  8. Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen : From the everlasting calendar. Läus / fleas / tobacco / evil and beautiful women are one thing in the Gutenberg-DE project
  9. quoted from Leo Koszella (1922) p. 39
  10. Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen: The adventurous Simplicissimus , 3rd book, 6th chapter, edition from 1956 on zeno.org
  11. ^ Anonymus (Mecklenburgisch), quoted from: Leo Koszella (1922) p. 373
  12. Jacob Cats: Poem about the marriage foundation . German translation quoted from Philopsyllus (1880) p. 30f
  13. Joseph Scaliger (1540-1609), quoted from Philopsyllus (1880)
  14. Anonymus: Klosterspiegel in proverbs, anecdotes and pulpit pieces . Bern (Jenni) 1841, p. 56
  15. Ambrosius N. (Pater): A dozen kind of parable / with the Jesuit and flea / how they come from / speed and cunning / growing and increasing / kind and nature / [et] c. come to an agreement with each other / by P. Ambrosium N. to be done before this Jesuit order / to now but Kauffman's servant in a noble place in Frankl. Before this I was a spiritual man, now I am worldly , (Brno?) 1620
  16. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: Faust. The tragedy first part , verses 2208-2240
  17. ibid. Verses 2242–2244
  18. Peter Panter (d. I. Kurt Tucholsky): Die Flöhhaz, in: Die Weltbühne, May 8, 1919, No. 20, p. 536 [1]

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