Marie Grubbe - Jens Peter Jacobsen (best english novels for beginners .txt) 📗

class="calibre1">Erik Grubbe came of an old noble family and received a good education,

which included foreign travel. He inherited large holdings of land,

which his forbears had taken from the peasants by fair means or foul,

and he devoted his life to increasing his estates. As lensmand in

Aarhus, he gained an unsavory reputation for profligacy as well as for

harshness and avarice. In 1651 he retired from the service of the

Crown and went to spend the remainder of his long life at Tjele. His

wife, Marie Juul, had died four years earlier, leaving him the two

daughters, Anne Marie and Marie. At Tjele Erik Grubbe took as

concubine a peasant woman, Anne Jensdaughter, who bore him a daughter,

Anne. He lies buried at Tjele.

 

Page 18.

 

Gyldenlove was the name bestowed by four successive Danish kings on

their illegitimate children.

 

Rigitze Grubbe was a distant cousin of Erik Grubbe. She married Hans

Ulrik Gyldenlove, a natural son of Christian the Fourth, and after his

death lived many years as a widow in Copenhagen. It is thought that

Marie Grubbe may have visited her there. In 1678 she was banished for

life to the island of Bornholm for an attempt at poisoning a

noblewoman, Birgitte Skeel.

 

Page 24.

 

Ulrik Frederik. See note under page 41.

 

Page 40.

 

Ulrik Christian Gyldenlove was a member of the war party, made up

chiefly of the younger nobility. See note under page 55.

 

Page 4l.

 

Ulrik Frederik Gyldenlove was the son of Frederik the Third and

Margrethe Pappen. His marriage to Sofie Urne during the siege of

Copenhagen and his marriage to Marie Grubbe shortly afterwards without

dissolving the first contract are historical. It has been surmised

that the King, his father, may not have been aware that the first

marriage actually took place. Gyldenlove did not acknowledge Sofie

Urne’s two sons until more than twenty years later, and of Sofie

herself we hear no more except that she died in retirement, in 1714.

Ulrik Frederik divorced Marie Grubbe in 1670 for her alleged relations

with Sti Hogh, and afterwards married the Countess Antonette Augusta

of Aldenburg. He was a brave officer and a capable official. As

Viceroy of Norway he ruled well, defended the peasants against

extortion, and tried in every way to strengthen the autonomy of the

country. He is still mentioned with affection as the best friend the

common people in Norway had during the union with Denmark. He retired

upon the death of his half-brother, Christian the Fifth, and went to

spend the rest of his days in Hamburg, where he died in 1704,

sixty-three years old. His body was brought to Copenhagen in a warship

and buried in Vor Frue Church. The portrait of him at Frederiksborg

shows great physical and mental vigor marred by a certain grossness

and sensuality.

 

Page 49.

 

In a boat sat Phyllisfair. A pastoral song translated from the German

and very popular at the time.

 

Page 55.

 

Ulrik Christian Gyldcnlove was the son of Christian the Fourth and

Vibeke Kruse and hence the half-brother of Frederik the Third and the

uncle of Ulrik Frederik Gyldenlove, whose senior he was by eight

years. When only seventeen years old, he went abroad and served in

Spain under Conde. He was called home to take part in the war against

the Swedes and acquitted himself brilliantly. His entire fortune was

spent in the cause. During the siege of Copenhagen he seemed to embody

in himself all that youthful enthusiasm and patriotism which made

victory possible, and he naturally became a popular idol. He died

during the early months of the siege, only twenty-eight years old. The

deathbed repentance, which Jacobsen has used with such dramatic

effect, is historical. His portrait, painted by Abraham Wuchters,

hangs in Rosenborg Castle. It shows a pleasing, rather pensive

countenance, not at all what one would expect in the rough, profligate

soldier, and no doubt it suggested to Jacobsen the sympathetic

description of Ulrik Christian as he appeared to Marie Grubbe in

Mistress Rigitze’s parlor.

 

Page 75.

 

Corfitz. Ulfeldt was married to Christian the Fourth’s favorite

daughter, the beautiful and gifted Eleonore Christine, and was the

leader of the “son-in-law” party in the upper nobility. Frederik the

Third disliked him, and there is no doubt that he tried to deliver his

countrymen into the hands of the Swedes. He was sentenced for treason

in 1663 and was beheaded in effigy; his house in Copenhagen was

levelled with the ground and a shame-pillar erected on the site.

Whether his wife shared his guilt or was merely the victim of the

Queen’s jealousy may never be known. Certain it is that she was kept

in harsh captivity for twenty-two years and only released after the

death of Sofie Amalie, then dowager queen.

 

Page 91.

 

Hans Nansen was chief mayor of Copenhagen and a leader of the citizen

party. The other persons mentioned are likewise historical: Axel Urup,

Councillor of the Realm; Joachim Gersdorf, High Steward of the Realm;

Hans Schack, Governor and defender of the city; Frederik Thuresen,

commander of the citizens’ militia; Peder Retz, Chancellor and chief

pillar of royalty.

 

Page 113.

 

Burrhi. The Italian physician and alchemist Francesco Borri or Burrhi

afterwards came to Denmark and gained much influence over Frederik the

Third.

 

Page 145.

 

Sti Hogh, known also as Stycho or Stygge Hoegh, was the son of the

famous Just Hogh, Chancellor of the Realm. He was an accomplished

linguist and an eloquent speaker, but in ill repute for his somewhat

hysterical nature and his atheistical opinions. He married Erik

Grubbe’s eldest daughter, Anne Marie, but neglected both his family

and his office as magistrate of Laaland. He was always in debt and

borrowing money. A contemporary, Matthias Skaanlund, whose chronicle

has been published under the title Gyldenloves Lakaj, writes of him:

“Guldenlew and Sti Hogh they were very fine friends, but it was said

that Sti Hogh had a little more inclination toward Guldenlew’s consort

[Marie Grubbe] than was proper, and when his High Excellency found

this out, he at once divorced her, and Sti Hogh had to leave his wife

and immediately depart out of the King’s land and dominions.” Anne

Marie divorced Sti Hogh in 1674. We hear of him later in the staff of

his brother, Just Hogh, ambassador to Nimeguen, then a very important

post. Sti was incorrigible, however, and his scandalous conduct made

him always a thorn in the side of his respectable brother.

 

Page 154.

 

Mademoiselle La Barre was a French singer who appeared at the Danish

court in the fifties.

 

NOTES

 

E di persona. The verses Sti quotes to himself are from Guarini’s

famous pastoral play in which Myrtill wants to give his life for the

beloved Amaryllis although he believes himself spurned by her.

 

Page 158.

 

Aggershus. The modern spelling is Akershus.

 

Page 167.

 

Between St. John and Paulinus. From June 24 to June 23 of the

following year.

 

The Day of the Assumption of Our Lady. August 15.

 

Page 181.

 

Erlk Grubbe’s letters to the King are historical. The other letters in

the book are Jacobsen’s own creation.

 

Page 186.

 

The plucked fowl. The word Hog in Danish signifies a falcon.

 

Page 215.

 

Petits oiseaux des bois. Marie is reading to herself a passage from

Racan’s pastoral play, Les Bergeries, in which the heroine Artenice

is destined for the hand of the wealthy Lucidas, but is in love with

the poor young shepherd Alcidor.

 

Page 234.

 

Divorced by a decree of the court. The trial was held in Viborg by a

Commission consisting of the bishop, the dean, and the civil governor

of the diocese. Many witnesses were called, and others flocked in

voluntarily. The records of the Commission are preserved in Dansk

Musifum, and from them Jacobsen has gleaned such details as Soren’s

attempt upon the life of Anne Trinderup and the incident of the

candle-making. Among the presents Marie gave Soren were not only the

red cap, but one of green satin with gold lace and many other articles

of personal adornment, as well as household goods, besides an ivory

comb a tooth-brush and ivory tooth-picks in a little case, the

“compliment book” about which the maids tease Soren, and a book of

devotion called “A Godly Voice for each of the Twelve Months,” which

Jacobsen uses in the earlier part of the book as one of the volumes

conned by Marie in her girlhood.

 

Page 248.

 

Ludvig Holberg really visited Marie Grubbe. He writes in his

Eighty-ninth Epistle: “An example from the history of our own time is

a lady of the high nobility who had an invincible loathing for her

first husband, although he was first among all subjects and moreover

the most gallant gentleman of the realm, and this went on until it

resulted in a divorce, and after a second marriage, which was likewise

unhappy, she entered the married estate for the third time with a

common tar, with whom, though he abused her daily, she herself said

that she lived in much greater content than in her first marriage. I

have this from her own mouth, for I visited her house at the Falster

ferry at a time when her husband was arrested for a crime.”