Clowns in Limbo

Christ in Limbo by a follower of Hieronymus Bosch (Netherlandish, ca. 1450–1516), Philadelphia Museum of Art

Sir, Colonus is an Inhabitant:

A Clown Original: as you’ld zay a Farmer, a Tiller o’th’ Earth,

E’re sin’ the Romans planted their Colony first . . .

—Ben Jonson, A Tale of a Tub (1633), act 1, scene 3

Migrants to Limbo, sense conveys,

are in many ways quite a lot like us.

They read the news just as we do,

eat, like us, what they choose, fancy

a little travel, do romantic research,

sing popular songs, write poetry.

But “three things ought always to be kept under: a mastiff dog, a stone horse*

and a clown; and really I think a snarling,

cross-grained clown to be the most unlucky

beast of [the] three,” says Timothy.†

Such migrants, too, no matter how many

generations they’ve been in a country,

are always considered to be settlers.

Still, isn't that likely true of us as well,

once, finally, we’ve nothing left to sell?

Envoi

“The language spoken by the tribes of Limbo

Has many words far subtler than our own

To indicate how much, how little, something

Is pretty closely or not quite the case,

But none you could translate by Yes or No,

Nor do its pronouns distinguish between Persons.Ӥ

* That is, a stallion with balls. "Clown" = farmer, countryman (1599), likely derived from Latin colonus. Cf. Swedish kluns "a hard knob; a clumsy fellow"; Afrikaans klonkie, "Of black or ‘coloured’ people: a patronizing name for a youth; an insulting name for a man" (https://dsae.co.za/entry/klonkie/e03912). The name Columbus is probably just another corruption of colonus; in Spanish, he is Cristóbal Colón. (The name may be an adopted one. Some allege him to have actually been a Marrano, or cypto-Jew.)

† Timothy Nourse, Gent., Campania Foelix (1700).

§ W. H. Auden, “Limbo Culture” (1957).

Tuesday, March 4, 2025