From Children's Games to the Lake of Fire: Fun and Hell by Mr. Bruegel (Alpha & Omega, Part II)

JF Ptak Science Books  Post 2834b

Being quite filled up with Bruegel's orderly disaster of death's chaos control, I went to the other end of his work, to the Alpha of his death Omega: Children's Games (1560). It is the opposite of The Triumph of Death painting (the preceding post), showing some 200 kids at play, involved in at least 80 different games—it is a visual dictionary of fun and hope. The viewer goes from one game or kid cluster to the next, experiencing a fun slow climb to the mountaintop—and in the other, with death being death and all that, it leads the other way along a road of broken glass.

for a good and expandable view of the painting, see: https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/children%E2%80%99s-games-pieter-bruegel-the-elder/CQEeZWQPOI2Yjg?hl=en

I'm sure these kids at play were thinking “ars longa, vita brevis” as they lost themselves in the easy complexity of whatever it was they were doing—well, no, they didn't think that because they didn't need to, as they were alive in it.

The game clusters seem to be distributed evenly, and in spite of all of the divergent action, everything seems to be orderly in spite of the sweaty irregularities of the kids. The composition reminds me of the ultra careful construction of engraved illustrations in 18^th and 19^th century encyclopedias—like those of Abraham Rees Cyclopedia... and J.G. Heck's Iconographic Encyclopedia—where the pages are filled to the edges with related and unrelated objects though by their arrangement there seems to be plenty of unused space.

I can only recognize a game here and there—there are a number of experts who have gone through the painting and identified every aspect of every game, as the painting really is a social geology as much as it is anything else.

For interesting reading see:

• Amy Orrock's excellent  "Homo ludens: Pieter Bruegel’s Children’s Games and the Humanist Educators"  https://jhna.org/articles/homo-ludens-pieter-bruegels-childrens-games-humanist-educators/#bibliography

In closing this short share I'd like to mention another fantastic Renaissance work featuring children's games: the games played by Gargantua in Rabelais' 1534 work Gargantua and Pantagruel, as there are at least 145 of them (217 in the revised edition), and they appear in a list! Again, there's only a few here that I recognize straightaway, though they all can be found and explained.

From the text (being nearly all of chapter 22):

"Then blockishly mumbling with a set on countenance a piece of scurvy grace, he washed his hands in fresh wine, picked his teeth with the foot of a hog,
and talked jovially with his attendants. Then the carpet being spread, they brought plenty of cards, many dice, with great store and abundance of
chequers and chessboards..."

"There he played.
At flush.

At love.
At primero.

At the chess.
At the beast.

At Reynard the fox.
At the rifle.

At the squares.
At trump.

At the cows.
At the prick and spare not.

At the lottery.
At the hundred.

At the chance or mumchance.
At the peeny.

At three dice or maniest bleaks.
At the unfortunate woman.

At the tables.
At the fib.

At nivinivinack.
At the pass ten.

At the lurch.
At one-and-thirty.

At doublets or queen's game.
At post and pair, or even and

At the faily.sequence.

At the French trictrac.
At three hundred.

At the long tables or ferkeering.
At the unlucky man.

At feldown.
At the last couple in hell.

At tod's body.
At the hock.

At needs must.
At the surly.

At the dames or draughts.
At the lansquenet.

At bob and mow.
At the cuckoo.

At primus secundus.
At puff, or let him speak that

At mark-knife.
At the keys.
At take nothing and throw out.

At span-counter.
At the marriage.

At even or odd.
At the frolic or jackdaw.

At cross or pile.
At the opinion.

At ball and huckle-bones.
At who doth the one, doth the other.

At ivory balls.

At the billiards.
At the sequences.

At bob and hit.
At the ivory bundles.

At the owl.
At the tarots.

At the charming of the hare.
At losing load him.

At pull yet a little.
At he's gulled and esto.

At trudgepig.
At the torture.

At the magatapies.
At the handruff.

At the horn.
At the click.

At the flowered or Shrovetide ox.
At honours.

At the madge-owlet.
At pinch without laughing.

At tilt at weeky.
At prickle me tickle me.

At ninepins.
At the unshoeing of the ass.

At the cock quintin.
At the cocksess.

At tip and hurl.
At hari hohi.

At the flat bowls.
At I set me down.

At the veer and turn.
At earl beardy.

At rogue and ruffian.
At the old mode.

At bumbatch touch.
At draw the spit.

At the mysterious trough.
At put out. At the short bowls.
At gossip lend me your sack.

At the dapple-grey.
At the ramcod ball.

At cock and crank it.
At thrust out the harlot.

At break-pot.
At Marseilles figs.

At my desire.
At nicknamry.

At twirly whirlytrill.
At stick and hole.

At the rush bundles.
At boke or him, or flaying the fox.

At the short staff.
At the branching it.

At the whirling gig.
At trill madam, or grapple my lady.

At hide and seek, or are you all
At the cat selling. hid?
At blow the coal.

At the picket.
At the re-wedding.

At the blank.
At the quick and dead judge.

At the pilferers.
At unoven the iron.

At the caveson.
At the false clown.

At prison bars.
At the flints, or at the nine stones.

At have at the nuts.
At to the crutch hulch back.

At cherry-pit.
At the Sanct is found.

At rub and rice.
At hinch, pinch and laugh not.

At whiptop.
At the leek.

At the casting top.
At bumdockdousse.

At the hobgoblins.
At the loose gig.

At the O wonderful.
At the hoop.

At the soily smutchy.
At the sow.

At fast and loose.
At belly to belly.

At scutchbreech.
At the dales or straths.

At the broom-besom.
At the twigs.

At St. Cosme, I come to adore thee
At the quoits.
At I'm for that.

At the lusty brown boy.
At I take you napping.

At greedy glutton.
At fair and softly passeth Lent.

At the morris dance.
At the forked oak.

At feeby.
At truss.

At the whole frisk and gambol.
At the wolf's tail.

At battabum, or riding of the wild mare.
At bum to buss, or nose in breech.
At Geordie, give me my lance.

At Hind the ploughman.
At swaggy, waggy or shoggyshou.

At the good mawkin.
At stook and rook, shear and hreave.

At the dead beast.
At climb the ladder, Billy.
At the birch.

At the dying hog.
At the muss.

At the salt doup.
At the dilly dilly darling.

At the pretty pigeon.
At ox moudy.

At barley break.
At purpose in purpose.

At the bavine.
At nine less.

At the bush leap.
At blind-man-buff.

At crossing.
At the fallen bridges.

At bo-peep.
At bridled nick. A

t the hardit arsepursy.
At the white at butts.

At the harrower's nest.
At thwack swinge him.

At forward hey.
At apple, pear, plum.

At the fig.
At mumgi.

At gunshot crack.
At the toad.

At mustard peel.
At cricket.

At the gome.
At the pounding stick.

At the relapse.
At jack and the box.

At jog breech, or prick him forward.
At the queens.
At the trades.

At knockpate.
At heads and points.

At the Cornish c(h)ough.
At the vine-tree hug.

At the crane-dance.
At black be thy fall.

At slash and cut.
At ho the distaff.

At bobbing, or flirt on the
At Joan Thomson. nose.
At the bolting cloth.

At the larks.
At the oat's seed.

At fillipping.