THE PAGEANTS

177

Marckt, gesturmet worden/." Surrounding the ship is canvas on
which silvered blue water is painted, and floating in the waves
are a blue dolphin, a mermaid with a blue tail, and a long green
fish.243 The ship has a heavy mast and a good deal of rigging, a
cross-arm on which a sail is furled, and a large basket-like crow's-
nest with a long red pennant flying from the flagstaff. A fool's
head on this banner symbolizes the colors under which our ship
is sailing. A fool, in a costume colored blue, yellow, and red, is also
the gondolier of the boat, standing in the prow and wielding a long
paddle in the "water"; at the stern the anchor is up. The fore-
castle is decorated with a red vane, and projecting above the
doorway is a pole on which is hung a large silver-blue key. Here
another fool, in the same colors as the first, is looking provocatively
at the crowd, while, with his fingers in his mouth, he seems to be
whistling at them. The central figure among the mummers is the
doctor standing in the middle of the boat, a preacher clad in his
black gown and cap and white surplice. His hands are spread across
his chest in an oratorical gesture as he glares at a backgammon
board (colored red, green, and yellow) which a wolfish demon
beside him is holding open.244 On the other side of the preacher
another furry creature with a rooster head is clawing at him and
screaming through his beak. In the crow's-nest are three more
maskers: a fool, again in red, blue, and yellow, blowing a long
trumpet, and two bearded scholars in robes of red and black, and
purple and black. These wizards are holding up the symbols of
their learning, one a measuring instrument like a sextant, the
other a flask, which appears to be a urine glass.245

243 Such creatures were also painted around a ship in the sixteenth-century Chester
plays, cf. Spencer, p. 96.

244 MS No. 51 (f. 157) notes: "und ein Priester mit einem Bret Spiel."

245 The number of figures in the boat varies. Some MSS also show fire shooting
from the crow's nest, cf. MS No. 10 (f. 219). Both the doctor with his urine glass
and a figure representing astronomy or astrology with compass and globe were
familiar figures in medieval and Renaissance iconography; for the former cf.
Schramm, XII, Abb. 50 (illustration from Arzneibuch d. 15. Jh.); XIX, Abb. 628
("Der Doten Dantz"); A. S. Warthin, The Physician of the Dance of Death (New
York: P. B. Hoeber, 1931), Figs. 5, 6, 11, 13, 14, etc. (p. 223: the "urine-gazer");
for the astrologer cf. Brant, Narrenschiff, No. 65, "Von achtung des gestirns"; Marle,
II, Figs. 260, 268. "Aerzte" and "Urinmanner" appeared in the Nuremberg carnival of
1588, cf. Vulpius, X, 393.