Since I’m all moved in now, I’m going to be reducing these marginalia posts to the quickies they were intended to be all along. This week, I bring you another favorite medieval visual joke, the hunt of the hares:
My favorite part is the poor treed man in the middle, and the smug look on the face of the rabbit who treed him:
Images of hunting are a commonplace throughout illuminated manuscripts, leading to the inevitable role-reversal joke. As a bonus, here’s another version:
My Old French is spotty at best, but I’m almost certain that the text above the figure on the left reads, “Take your stinking paws off of me, you damn dirty hare” or possibly “You maniacs! You blew it all up! Damn you! Damn you all to hell!”