Silva Rerum | 28.01.2013 If authors of Old Polish serenades asking their chosen one to appear in the window, were to be believed, it should assumed that ordinary look from the window uncovered the great beauty of the looking woman. Reality depicted in texts describing this procedure, is much more complex. The coquettish game from the window is far from being a passive object of accidental glances from accidental watchers. Tight window frames only seemingly did not allow the freedom of movements where the window seal was usually the stage of well directed monodrama.
Baroque satirists realized this all to well, criticising coquettish behaviour of maids. The window is consequently quoted as the place where they displayed their charms, valuing the charm of young gentlemen. In Satires by Krzysztof Opaliński a maid is criticised for looking out the window: Looking at one and another from the window - /this one I like, that one not, this one is polite, that one is handsome.' Similarly, the author of the poem On tricks and habits of Women, popular in the 17th century:
Rubbing the paint into the pale cheeks
These are the girls’ window showcase tricks
They stand there or in front of the house
With sparkling eyes of a cat in search of a mouse
Asking the others if the men are near
Or would come later when they fight the fear
Maidens' efforts happened to be much more refined than ordinary pokes. In Roksolanki by Szymon Zimorowic a Tymos reminds his chosen one: 'the alcove with a favourable window, from which you winked at me, and my courtship sneaked through it to you'
Zimorowic shows that in Baroque lyrics, the window becomes an arena where equal partners meet, and the result of the duel is not decided. In old literature the window exposition is shown as real art. For example in a short story about graceful Paskwalina we can read about the actions of this Lisbon beauty: It happened on one summer day, that she disbanded her hair she was sitting on a doorstep [...] And used shrewdness natural to all women, and seemingly hiding, she chose such place that everybody could watch her easily. And She could hear very well who said what about her. There were always lots of those who stared at her'. Samuel Twardowski put this story in rhymes in 1655 and put the scene into Polish reality: Paskwalina presents his charm not on the doorstep but in a window.
An undone plait was not the heaviest weapon in a maiden's arsenal. The luring techniques could reach much further. Adam Korczyński located the handsome Pole and voluptuous Italian – the main characters of the romance The Portrait Philandery Gilded with Friendship from the end of 17th century, in buildings on opposite sides of the street. Such location was at once used by the desperate Italian to lure her neighbour not just by combing her golden plait:
Early at mornings, catching the pubic fleas
She stood in her window to show her secret piece
And alabaster body through translucent veils
All the hidden sweetness ready to embrace
The gallant or attract him to the very place.
Knowing of a dog sleeping in your bed
Cannot help jealousy which like blood is shed
In my heart; why, the unworthy beast
So intimate with you, like pleasures’ mist
Picking pubic fleas under transparent shirt, the Italians does it by hook or by crook. Korczyński summarizes the inventiveness of his heroine by saying: 'Trying to trap his neighbour, she sets snares of her beauty before him' The beauty hunter looking at the window turned out to be the hunted, more often than he could imagine...