Silva Rerum | 29.01.2013 The famous Rococo painting by Jean-Honore Fragonard – A girl playing with a dog, shows a perverse game with a dog in the maiden's bed. It is as famous as the fashion of keeping a dog by ladies from the Enlightenment. The fact that this fashion began a few centuries earlier is less known. Iconographic records prove, that ladies fancied dogs of small breeds in the first half of the 15th century (usually they are depicted in paintings as symbols of matrimonial fidelity, like in the Portrait of Arnolfini couple by Jan van Eyck 1434. This motive reached Polish literature at the beginning of the 17th century.
Bolognese dogs were usually preferred by maids (referred to as Bonognese) and sometimes Maltese dogs – like Perlisia, whose poetic epitaph was written by Jan Andrzej Morsztyn. In the summer at his lady's feet, in winter in a muff to keep her hands warm, white dogs kept company of their owners night and day. This caused envy of their admirers, also the authors of written texts. In Polish Baroque Lyrics, this issue was most often raised by Hieronim Morsztyn. Little dog was a prevailing motive of his poems written to his lady for good morning and good night:
He dies of jealousy half mad
The dog in your bed makes him sad
Petting your beautiful skin
Not being him is a sin
A separate trifle was written for 2 dogs named Lewuś and Kurt. The trifle was punch lined by a dramatic appeal:
Girls why take dogs to sleep with now and then
I am much better should you wish a man
Such complaints could be heard in Polish poetry for at least 2 centuries. Still in 1787 Ignacy Jaksa Bykowski wrote a poem on giving away a Bolognese dog, and did not hide his envy:
Doggy, you’re much luckier compared to your master
Having your shelter in her hands, her skin alabaster
Will be your bed when you lie on her knees
She’ll often touch you while petting and tease
And it may so happen should you do your best
That she’ll put you on her pure white breast
There was a need for a new epigram, whose style allowed for indiscriminate jokes, to disclose the fact that the reasons of popularity of dog friends, were not always as platonic as it seemed. When Lampart Sierakowski, Poznań sword-bearer and counsellor of Kopanica, a friend and devoted fan of Morsztyn's artistic creation, was getting married to Katarzyna Jaromierska, the poet wrote such indecent trifle:
Leopard used to mark the backs of brave knights
Makes less value for me since sometimes at nights
Nowadays it is also worn on a pussy at will
Other girls kept Pussy-cats for that skill
But Kachna Jaromierska was a girl like hell
So she liked the leopard to lick her wild shell
The maiden's 'alabaster' licked by the dog in the poem means pussy (initially it was the name of imported fox fur with brighter accents on dark background). The popularity of such practices can be proved a trifle by Wacław Potocki, Bolognese Doggy, in which the dogs are equalled to new-fangled gentlemen:
You may find in Poland dog - like gallant’s type
With hairy heads and faces well ripe
And fair ladies so ready to keep them too close
Like a Sissy or Pearly with a skilful nose
Looking out from the sleeve’s end or the edge of skirt
At times given the chance to lick pubic dirt
Aleksander Fredro in his Art of Fondling describes similar practices, when he mentions virgins so innocent that: They don't know how dexterous, can be the tongue of little Azorus. In Old Poland, buying a little Maltese to the chosen one, should be thoroughly considered. In the light of the aforementioned testimonies, maiden caprice of Klara: “buy me a crocodile, my love” seems much safer. The crocodile would definitely not be a competition.