LLCE, 2016 3(1), ISSN 2453-7101

DOI: 10.1515/llce-2016-0005

Brueghel’s Two Monkeys –

a Tiny Painting by Bruegel, a Very Short Poem by Szymborska
and the Biggest Problems of Mankind

Piotr Kołodziej
Pedagogical University of Cracow, Poland
[email protected]

Abstract
There is a great power in works of art. Art provides knowledge about human experience,
which is not available in another way. Art gives answers to the most important and eternal
questions about humanity, even though these answers are never final. Sometimes it happens that
works of some artists encourage or provoke a reaction of other artists. Thanks to this in history of
culture – across borders of time and space – there lasts a continuous dialogue, a continuous
reflection on the essence of human existence.
This text shows a fragment of such a dialogue, in which the interlocutors are a sixteenth-
century painter Pieter Bruegel the Elder and a twentieth-century poet and Nobel Prize winner
Wislawa Szymborska. Szymborska, proposing a masterful interpretation of a tiny painting by
Bruegel, poses dramatic questions about human freedom, formulates a poetic response and forces
a recipient to reflect on the most important topics.
This text also brings up a question of a word – picture relationship, a problem of translation
of visual signs to verbal signs, as well as a problem of translation of poetry from one language to
another.

Keywords
literature, painting, word – picture relationship, Wisława Szymborska, Pieter Bruegel the
Elder, freedom and enslavement

It is one of the smallest paintings by Peter Bruegel the Elder. Only twenty
centimetres by twenty-three, though the artist is more known for works of a bigger
format. No people, though very often the author of Massacre of the Innocents paints

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crowds. Instead of that, just two monkeys. A view of the port, which is quite dim. And
a few birds in the air out of whom only two can be actually clearly seen.
In the whole history of painting it is difficult to find a more inconspicuous painting,
which at the same time would be so hard to ignore. There is something about it that
draws one’s attention, tells us to take a look and even to wonder why it happens like
that. One experiences similar feelings when suddenly realises that they are intensively
observed by someone.
A friend of the painter, a famous Flemish geographer and an author of maps,
Abraham Ortelius, used to claim that Bruegel’s works contain “always something
beyond the painting that one has to understand” (Bruegel 10). In context of this
miniature work, the aforementioned remark seems to be especially accurate. The
depicted scene has more meaning, and this meaning can be seen only if one looks
beyond the picture. An access to this invisible, but embedded in the work, content is
possible though only by what we ultimately see in the picture. And this is a strategy
which we are going to follow: at first, as much as it is possible, let’s describe a realistic
“surface” of the work, and then let’s try “to go deeper.”

A tiny painting by Bruegel

Peter Bruegel the Elder, Two Monkeys, 1562, oil on panel, 20 cm × 23 cm, Gemäldegalerie,
Berlin.

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The work was painted with a great precision and a concern for details. The artist
framed the view in such a way that a recipient has an impression of being inside of some
enormous building, maybe a fortress situated near the port. We can see how thick and
massive the walls are, even though we look from the perspective of quite a dark interior
against the light. We can almost feel the cold of the wall, which is actually not much
thinner than a height of the window.
The whole space of the painting is clearly divided into two parts. In the foreground,
close to the onlooker, as if within a hand’s reach, there are the aforementioned two
monkeys, sitting on the windowsill. Even though the work is very small and old (1562),
it is easy to recognise that the animals belong to species called red colobus. Obviously
a windowsill of some building in a big city is not their natural habitat. Their presence
can be associated with the port seen through the window. Somebody must have captured
these creatures in Africa and brought them to Europe as an exotic attraction, maybe as
an original present for somebody important and rich. One might actually admit that the
gift, taking into consideration those times and place, was probably quite attractive. It is
not only the fact that they are monkeys, that is, animals coming from exotic countries
to which many people would like to travel but only a handful succeeds, but it is also the
fact that these species look very interesting as far as their colour is concerned. The
monkeys are also not so big. Adult male red colobus individuals reach 70 centimetres
at most. They do not look aggressive either.
Of course in Europe it is impossible to keep these animals at large. They would run
away very quickly and probably in this unfriendly environment they would also die very
quickly, or become victims of people or wild animals. Their situation is obvious then:
“for their own good” they are sentenced to enslavement and feeding. And this is what
happens in Bruegel’s painting. The monkeys have been chained to a thick, round handle
situated in the middle of the windowsill. The chains are very solid, maybe even too solid
for small animals like these. Next to the monkeys, there are food leftovers, probably
nutshells. The little animals sit and are cringed. One of them looks at “us”, and the other
one, sitting almost turned back to us, keeps its head down. They are motionless. Of
course they could make some moves, but only around the space of the small window.
This is the maximum the short chain makes possible for them to do. The window, half-
round at the top makes an impression of a tiny, concrete cell. This effect is achieved by
means of a clever compositional solution of this work as this space actually could be
graphically shown by means of two figures: a circle or a spiral.
The closed circle is a result of connecting the top arch of the window, which, through
the side lines of the walls, ends with an optical continuation at the bottom, where one
can see another arch, this time constructed by the monkeys’ tails (picture 1). The
compositional spiral is much clearer and suggestive, though. It could be drawn, starting
from the metal handle to which both chains are attached, and which is situated in the
centre of the windowsill. The spiral “unfolds” anticlockwise: starting from the handle,

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then going through the tail and the contour of the monkey’s back (the one sitting on the
right side), and next through the contour of the back and tail of the monkey sitting on
the left side. Next, the line has a continuation on the outward edge of the window on the
right side and through the top arch of the window it closes on the left side, behind the
back of the monkey which looks at “us” (picture 2). Schematically, both compositional
figures could be presented in the following way:

picture 1 picture 2

Instead of a back wall of the “cell”, in which the monkeys are kept, we have a
wonderful panorama of the port city. And this is the second, possible to distinguish
space of the painting: an open, bright and sunny view. What we know is the fact that it
is a view over Antwerp, a one-hundred-thousand metropolis, the then European capital
of commerce. Bruegel knew this city very well because he lived there for a few years
and that was also the place where he painted Two Monkeys.
Ships of the whole Old and the New World were coming to the port of Antwerp.
“All of the major trading houses of Europe – the Gualterotti family in Florence, the
Fugger and Weiser families in Augsburg, the Spinoli, Bonuisi and many other families
had trading posts in Antwerp, “the city of wonders.” It must have been an incredible
and astounding view for the newcomers to see thousands of foreign wagons and vehicles
from nearby villages coming to Antwerp every day. And when sometimes a few
hundreds of huge freighters were dropping their anchors into the sea” (Menzel 13).
And that is actually the image of the “city of wonders” which we can see behind the
window of Bruegel’s painting: a huge port overlooking a broad water surface, dozens
of ships of various size approaching the shore or leaving for their voyage, a densely

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built-up shore, church towers, a windmill 1 … The space reaching up to the line of
horizon. Bright and sunny. Calm water, air, birds flying freely. It is difficult to resist an
impression that Bruegel did care about the contrast between the narrow, dark window
and the bright outside world. The difference becomes even clearer when the most
important components of both spaces get juxtaposed in the table:

the window space the space outside of the window

I. two monkeys in an unnatural two (clearly visible) birds in a

environment natural
environment
II. a small, narrow interior a huge, open space
III. stillness motion (birds flying, ships sailing)

IV. dark colours bright colours

V. cold of the wall sunny warmth
VI. precision of details representation, blurred view (air perspective)
clear lines
VII. here (the place of both monkeys and there
the recipient

The above juxtaposition naturally results in oppositions going beyond literal

meanings:

the window space the space outside of the window

I. closure openness

II. enslavement freedom

III. reality in which we function reality that is for us inaccessible

1
“Two basilicas, eight canals and seventy-four bridges which cross them, twenty-two plazas,
forty-two huge buildings made Antwerp some kind of a museum of architecture, where one could
find all the styles ever invented that were blooming with an unprecedented excess” (Francis 23).

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And here we step out of the level of “the content which was painted”, as previously
mentioned Abraham Ortelius wrote, to enter “the content which needs to be
understood.” And what we probably “need to understand” most of all is the fact that
Bruegel creates a work of allegorical character. He paints monkeys, but does not only
talk about the monkeys. The content “which was painted” makes a much more profound
sense. Let’s try to discover this sense.
The monkeys’ fate is foregone. They are enslaved and sentenced to a wretched
existence forever. They live in stillness, chained, literally and metaphorically, to the
window. They are dependent on their master, who wields absolute power over them and
who – from their perspective – is basically some kind of an absolute. The master feeds
them when he wants and with food that he chooses. And the monkeys need to reconcile
with that. What is more, they must be grateful for that. This is a condition to survive.
Rebellion does not make sense and actually it is even impossible. The only gesture
which the little animals can make is a desperate try to jump further than the chain makes
it possible for them to do. Towards one or the other direction: the outside or the inside.
Every time the effect would be similar. A little bit funny, a little bit grotesque, a little
bit pathetic. In an extreme case it would be death. But even this death would not mean
setting oneself free from the chain, but rather hanging in emptiness, void. So there is a
following alternative: you live enslaved, fully aware of your situation, or you do not
live at all.
Bruegel shows the desperate existential situation of the monkeys in many different
ways. One of these are already mentioned compositional solutions. What indicates the
enslavement and an inability to get out of the given space is a closed figure of circle.
The compositional spiral, thrust into the niche of the window, evokes an additional
tension, which even more exposes the tragedy of the prisoners’ fate. What also cannot
be ignored is the fact that the painting – if we can say something like this – does not
have a central plan. We can see the space of enslavement (the window) and the space
of freedom (the outside panorama), in which elements like, the bird flying, the ship
sailing, the sky, the water, take on a particular, symbolic meaning. Between the first and
the latter world a huge precipice appears. And this precipice is impossible to cross, even
if the monkeys were not chained to the window. The perspective used by the painter
suggests that the window is very high. Too high to make the desperate monkeys survive
a potential jump. It is cruel to seemingly make freedom within a reach of one’s hand,
but to make it so inaccessible. The invisible boundary (the back wall of the “cell”) is
impossible to cross. The prisoners can watch the freedom space which is so close to
them, but cannot get there. This awareness makes them suffer even more.
Freedom turns out to be only an illusion, something unreal, inaccessible. Maybe that
is actually why (not only because of the requirements of the air perspective) the world
outside of the window is blurred, deprived of clear contours, a little bit out of reality.
However, what is depicted with a great realism, it is the situation of a brutal enslavement

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in which the monkeys have to live. It is a well-known place, it is tamed. Here we can
see every single detail, even the smallest piece of the nutshell or piece of the damaged
wall. The appearance of the animals, their behaviour and the poses they make cannot be
surprising then.
It is difficult to say which of the little animals looks more pathetic. Monkeys, in a
normal environment, creatures very lively and energetic, here live in immobility, in a
total numbness. They surrendered, lost any hope. They are both cringed in such a way
that they evoke feelings of mercy and compassion. But each of them seems to “tell” the
observer something else. One of them sits turned back to us, keeping its head down,
totally defeated. It is not interested either in the outside or the inside world anymore.
The monkey is lost in itself. The other animal, on the other hand, looks at us very
intensively, but it is a type of look that we would probably prefer to avoid. The monkey
looks at us, but seems not to see. That is, as if it did not focus on our superficiality, but
rather infiltrated us with its eyes. Its gaze is very human, and it makes us feel anxious,
does not let us pass by indifferently. It is like remorse. In the animal’s eyes there is a
boundless despair, sadness, melancholy, but also grievance. The monkey seems to pose
the most dramatic questions about its lot, but also forces us to ask ourselves about our
own lives. Maybe a hopeless situation of the monkeys chained to the window could be
similar to the situation of human beings living in this world? If that painting were
Bruegel’s diagnosis on humanity, this diagnosis would be very bitter and ironic. All in
all, it is embedded in the eyes of animals that are despised by human beings. One is
certain: both monkeys, in their appearance and behaviour are very similar to a man…
It is also worth underlining that even though the “prisoners” experience the same
tragedy, they suffer in loneliness. “My suffering is only mine” claimed the main
character of The Sorrows of Young Werther. Bruegel’s characters, only if they could
talk, they could say the same thing, but with no satisfaction. Only with bitterness.
Chained to one handle, they are sentenced to slavery, and what is more, they are also
sentenced to each other, which apparently does not help them at all. They do not comfort
each other, do not hug, do not make any friendly gesture. Maybe they are sitting in this
way, turned away from each other, separately, because they have just fought over the
nut? In some comments on the painting people refer to the Dutch proverb: “to fight over
a hazelnut” , that is, to have a conflict about something trivial, insignificant. If one
interpreted the painting as a reference to this proverb, we could come to the conclusion
that the monkeys’ brutal lot is a consequence of their life attitude, their own foolish
behaviour. That it is an effect of being focused on the immediate profit, which “covers
the horizon of freedom to the inhabitants of the fortress forced to live there” (Bruegel
28). Actually it could refer not only to the ones forced to live in the fortress, but also to
the inhabitants of Antwerp. Let’s remind: it was a city “where merchants from all over
the world used to display perfumes and roots of the East, furs of the Urals and cloths
woven at the end of the world (Francis 23). Being after a quick profit, inhabitants of this

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world trade capital did not avoid dangerous financial speculations, in this way putting
themselves at risk of bankruptcy.
Interpretation like this, however, seems to be too narrow. That is why Bruegel’s
allegory had different interpretations as well. These are mentioned by Jacek
Brzozowski:
This picture has been understood in many different ways: as “one of the handful of
testimonies on the painter’s private life” in which “he seems to talk about (…) his own
misfortunes”; as a symbolic picture of Flemish “provinces subjected to Spain and
Rome”; as an allegory of evil that has been tamed, trammelled satan, or in the other way
round: a man – prisoner of sin; as a grotesque portrayal of “slaves who renounced
freedom” (Brzozowski 19).
All of these proposals of interpretation are sometimes more and sometimes less
convincing, but they all seem to make sense, especially when we take into consideration
an existential situation of a painter in 1562, and last but not least, if we think of a
political and social situation of the then Netherlands. It was a region of conflicts and
religious oppressions. “While Bruegel was painting, Flemish Protestants were being
slaughtered or tortured by forces loyal to their Catholic supervisors – that was a reality
outside of the artist’s workshop; his Massacre of the Innocents from 1563 […] is
somehow a reflection of the then events, a reflection full of horror and sympathy (Bell
209–210).
It could be stated that the earlier painting Two Monkeys relates to the same topic,
but in a more subtle and allegoric manner. Even though “outside of the artist’s
workshop” much less subtle things were taking place. Supported by Spanish army that
was looting Dutch provinces, the Inquisition was gaining more power: “when some
heretic was being dragged to the old part of town, to the dungeon of the convicts,
amongst the anxious, unfriendly crowd there was Bruegel as well. He was there when,
at the market square, at the end of des Claires Street or in Galgenveld, terribly mutilated
people were being thrown into the fire. He suffered and screamed along with the
murdered ones” (Francis 37).
It is difficult to clearly state whether the artist supported the Reformation, or he was
a Lutheran, Calvinist or Anabaptist, or even if he belonged to any “heretical”
organisations. It is believed that he was a member of a sect called “Schola Charitatis”
and one of the reasons why he left Antwerp (departure to Brussels in 1563) was the fact
that he wanted to avoid persecution (Rose Marie and Reiner Hagen 160). What is certain
though, it is the fact that “his artistic input is a part of the nonconformist trend of that
century, aimed at the abuse of both the Church and the government. [Bruegel] Defends
the human right to debate, right to the freedom of thought. Even if it takes place within
Christianity, whose contours blur more and more, it is all about an independent thought”
(Francis 12).

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In the painting Two Monkeys we can see not only whole “provinces subjected to
Spain and Rome” (Francis 57), but also a single man subjected to a religious and
political system, a man who is being or was deprived of the right to an independent
thought, an independent point of view. It is a man enslaved, experiencing an existential
tragedy. And it is a man fully aware of their lot. At the same time, though, it is a person
who does not want to reconcile with this state of affairs and that is why, with such an
enormous bitterness and rebuke this man looks at us through the eyes of an enslaved
monkey. If we consider this gaze also as a form of rebellion, certainly it is a rebellion
deprived of hope for any change.
Interpretation of the painting Two Monkeys as some kind of Bruegel’s bitter auto-
reflection, certainly making sense if one takes the artist’s personal experiences into
consideration2, might make even more sense if one thinks of a detail that has not been
mentioned yet 3. Of course if it is right to assume that this detail is an effect the artist
wanted to achieve, and it is not only an accidental optical illusion. When the
reproduction gets magnified (again it is worth underlining that the painting is of a very
small format) the stern of one of the ships entering the Antwerpian port (between the
monkeys’ heads) looks like… a hidden portrait of a man.

2
Besides the ideological context, there are also marriage issues. It is believed that Bruegel
left a woman in Antwerp with whom he was in a relationship for a few years. Requested by his
future mother-in-law, he moved to Brussels, where he married Maria van Aelst, a daughter of his
master-painter, Pirter Coeck van Aelst.
3
This plot was discovered by one of my students, Jakub Korpusiński, during our private
conversation about the painting.

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Is it the painter’s self-portrait? Bruegel’s images, which we know today, could

indicate that this hypothesis might make sense.
In the context of deliberations on Bruegel’s personal tragedy, whose freedom of
thought is so limited, and also in the context of a tragedy of occupied Dutch provinces
one could risk a thesis that the hidden portrait represents a face of hated king Philip II
of Spain. That fervent slayer of “heretics” by Protestants in the Netherlands was called
“The Devil of the South.” His symbolic presence in Bruegel’s painting could be
justifiable then.

1. 2.

1. Titian, (Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio), Portrait of Philip II of Spain

(1527-1598), 1551, oil on canvas, 193 cm × 111 cm, Prado Museum, Spain.
2. After Bruegel's death published portrait. Engraving from originally: I. Bullart,
Academie des Sciences et des Arts, Volume 2, 6th Division, Amsterdam, 1682.

The alleged hidden portrait is so faint though, that other suppositions are possible as
well. Maybe Bruegel in this unusual way depicted his master Pirter Coeck van Aelst

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who was teaching him the art of painting for so many years? Or maybe it is somebody
who was supposed to receive the painting as a present. Or maybe all of it is just an
accidental overinterpretation, because in the picture there is no hidden portrait, but only
a random layout of shades… However, the longer I gaze at the work, the more
convinced I become that there is something about it.
Let it be another secret of a tiny painting by a great Dutch master.

A Very Short Poem by Szymborska…

In 1957, at first in press, and then in a volume of poetry Calling out to Yeti, a very
short poem by Wisława Szymborska called Brueghel’s Two Monkeys was published.
There is no doubt: the future Nobel prize winner certainly refers to the tiny work of the
Dutch painter. The title suggests that a subject of reflection will be either the painting
itself or the monkeys depicted in it. Let’s take a look at it, making use of a translation
by Stanisław Barańczak and Clare Cavaanagh (Szymborska Nothing twice… 145):

Brueghel's Two Monkeys

This is what I see in my dreams about final exams:
two monkeys, chained to the floor, sit on the windowsill,
the sky behind them flutters,
the sea is taking its bath.

The exam is History of Mankind.

I stammer and hedge.

One monkey stares and listens with mocking disdain,

the other seems to be dreaming away —
but when it's clear I don't know what to say
he prompts me with a gentle
clinking of his chain.

The first sentence already suggests that Szymborska’s poem, similarly to Bruegel’s
painting, describes something more than a lot of the two little monkeys. Paraphrasing
Abraham Ortelius’s statement that we mentioned before, one could conclude that in
Szymborska’s poem, besides “things that are written” there is also “the thing one has to
understand.”
As far as a literal meaning is concerned, the poet just describes one of her dreams.
Describing the setting of the dream, Szymborska performs a brilliant ekphrasis of
Bruegel’s work. Maybe even the most brilliant ekphrasis in whole literature. It is as tiny
as the painting and equally rich in content. The poet shows what the real art of a poetic

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summary is about. I needed a few pages to express something for which she needed just
three short verses…
The first verse of the ekphrasis (“two monkeys, chained to the floor, sit on the
windowsill”) relates to Bruegel’s “space of enslavement”, so static and gloomy. The
poet describes it in a very down-to-earth and literal manner, which corresponds with
Bruegel’s realism. On the other hand, next two verses (“the sky behind them flutters, /
the sea is taking its bath”) describe a dynamic and cheerful “space of freedom.” This
time Szymborska enlivens it by means of clever metaphors (in the picture the view is
blurred), thanks to which she managed to condense the content of Bruegel’s painting to
the maximum. What we should bear in mind as well is the fact that this trick corresponds
with a poetry of dreams, in which, as we know, everything can happen.
Despite the inevitable imperfection, which occurs while translating poetry from one
language to another, in this case the translators almost completely managed to maintain
the “contrast of versification” corresponding with the contrast of Bruegel’s two spaces.
That is, the first verse of the ekphrasis is long and calm, and the next two verses are
short and dynamic, but if one joined them together, they would perfectly match the
construct of the first verse (as in the original version).
The rest of the verses of the poem are not a description of the painting anymore, but
they are a description of events which take place in it. And actually – if it is appropriate
to say something like this – it is a description of something which happens between the
painting and a recipient, who somehow becomes another character. The painting had to
“revive”, and the recipient had to “enter” the depicted scene, which as a result stopped
being only a scene, a still frame, but changed into a place of action. This type of
transformations is obviously impossible in a real life. In a dream, as we already
mentioned, everything can happen, though.
A character from the dream and the poem at the same time talks about a traumatic
experience through which they go at present (that is why a lyric subject uses the present
tense). Final exams are obviously very stressful for a young person, but in this particular
case there must be something more about it.
First of all, let’s underline that Szymborska talks about taking an exam on a subject
that is not taught in any of high schools: “History of Mankind.” The one that sits the
exam does not handle it well (“I stammer and hedge.”) Writing about it, the poet
specifies a separate part of the poem, which consists of two short verses and two
categorical sentences at the same time. In the original version both of the verses, if
joined together, they would be an analogical verse to the first verse of the poem
(additionally, joined with it by a rhyme). The poet; however, divides (like in the case of
the previously mentioned ekphrasis) these regular structures, thanks to which she
achieves a strong dramaturgic effect and reinforces the message.
The one who is being examined, cannot absolutely cope with it and at some point
he/she even stops “to stammer and hedge.” The person does not know what to say. In

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the original version Szymborska writes that “silence sets in” and then a quiet, but
terrifying sound is heard. One of the monkeys prompts the lost man “with a gentle
clinking of his chain.” It is the best prompt both for the person who takes this exam and
any single reader. Thanks to this it suddenly becomes clear what “History of Mankind”
is about… The way this “history” is shown can be summarised in one short and silent
“clinking of a chain.” If so, we should not be surprised to see that the examination board
consists of real professionals, true experts in their field, that is the enslaved, desperate
and terribly sad monkeys from Bruegel’s painting. Thanks to the brilliant reference to
the work of the Dutch master, the diagnosis on humanity given by Szymborska becomes
very ironic and because of it even more disturbing. What an irony: a monkey, an animal
despised by a man, just a little bit human-like, takes pity on us and prompts us as much
as it can. The poet even strengthens this already strong punch line by means of a rhyme
(the translator managed to use an analogical rhyme: “disdain” – “chain”) and also uses
an appropriate segmentation of the work. In the original version all the verses which
appear in the third part of the poem have the same structure already known from the
two previous parts. Besides the last verse, which is unusual as far as a number of
syllables is concerned.
It is a strange experience when two monkeys try to rescue an ashamed and oppressed
human being. It only intensifies our trauma. It is a strange examination board, which
consists of chained animals. It is a strange exam, which is nowhere to be taken, in none
of the schools in this world: “History of Mankind.” But let’s not forget that everything
what is happening, it is a dream. The fact that Szymborska decided to talk through the
description of a dream, of course cannot be an accident, though.
A Swiss psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung underlined that dream is “a spontaneous and
symbolic self-portrait of a current situation in subconsciousness” and a commentary on
individual complexes of the one who dreams (Samuels, Shorter, Plaut 110). Dreams,
according to the creator of analytical psychology, are of a compensatory function;
however, what is compensated through a dream is usually not so obvious straightaway.
Reaching the truth that might take the form of a dream requires a patient interpretation.
Jung also underlines that “there are dreams whose aim is to disintegrate and destroy
(these are nightmares). They perform their compensatory task in an especially
unpleasant manner. Such dreams, which bring so many strong emotions, very often
become so called “powerful dreams” and they even might have an influence on the way
a man’s life changes” (Samuels, Shorter, Plaut 110).
Szymborska, writing about the final exams, does use a phrase “powerful dream”
(which is not present in the English translation). That is why one could say that the
character of the poem experiences a “nightmare”, which performs its “compensatory
task in an especially unpleasant manner.” It is some kind of a “self-portrait” of an
internal state of a man who dreams, “a self-portrait” in which individual complexes rise
to the surface. “A powerful dream” is a difficult and terrifying experience, but –

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according to Jung – it can also “have an influence on the way a man’s life changes.” It
can also be a change for something better.
In the Polish language a synonym to a word “matura”, used in the poem Brueghel’s
Two Monkeys, it is a formula “the exam of maturity.” Passing this exam in a way can
be acknowledged as a symbolic “change”, a transition from childhood to adulthood,
from naivety to maturity itself. Szymborska takes her poetic exam very late. When she
writes Brueghel’s Two Monkeys she is already 34 years old… To understand what this
specific and belated transgression in Wisława Szymborska’s case is about, one has to
listen to some confession that the poet made many years later. Not until 1991 in a speech
given on the occasion of receiving a prestigious Goethe Prize, for the first time in public
(Bikont, Szczęsna 107) the poet commented on a very troublesome and painful issue.
An issue that many Polish people could not forgive her, that is, the engagement in
communism. In Frankfurt, while giving the speech, Szymborska was saying:
“Reality sometimes can be so chaotic and frighteningly incomprehensible that one
would like to find some more durable order, to divide this reality into something what
is important and not important, what is dated and new, disruptive and helpful. It is a
dangerous temptation, because very often at that point, between the world and progress
some kind of ideology appears. An ideology that promises to segregate and explain
everything. There are writers who resisted that temptation and preferred to trust their
own instinct and conscience rather than confide in any mediators. Unfortunately I
yielded to this temptation, which my first two volumes of poetry give evidence to. It has
been many years since that time, but I remember very well all the phases connected with
that experience: from happiness and belief that thanks to the doctrine I can see the world
clearer and wider – to the discovery that what I see so clearly and widely is not the real
world anymore, but an artificial construction, which covers it” (“Cenię wątpliwość”)
As we can see, while receiving such prestigious award, Szymborska felt the need to
talk in public about a problem of enslavement by a communistic ideology. In a poetic
manner though, she did that many years before in her third volume of poetry, Calling
out to Yeti. At that time, when a deep mental and psychiatric breakthrough entered the
poet’s life, the problem disclosed “by itself” in a shape of “a powerful dream about the
final exams”, a nightmare which – as Jung would say – was a sign of “a change in man’s
life.” When one analyses the whole lot of Szymborska’s artistic input, one could say
that this painful exam taken in front of Bruegel’s monkeys had a profound meaning.
That was the moment when Szymborska’s poetic maturity began, and its crowning
achievement was the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Szymborska, when talking about herself, never hid her naive faith in a communistic
ideology. Memories from that period, though, were always accompanied by a feeling of
profound sadness. “I was completing my <<verse-formed tasks>> with a belief that I
was doing the right thing. It is the worst experience of my life” – she said in 1991.
(Michajów) However, this “the worst experience” was not denied by the poet, it was

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not forgotten, but, becoming a subject of a profound reflection, it brought a positive

“change in man’s life”, it turned out to be a painful, but useful lesson for the future. In
another conversation from 1991 Szymborska admitted:
“but for that sorrow, that feeling of guilt, I might even never regret the experiences
from those years. Without them I would never know what it is like to believe in some
one and only equity. And then it is so easy not to know about something that you do not
want to know about. (…) I also understood that love for the mankind is a very dangerous
feeling, because the most often it leads to making people happy by force. And finally
one more conclusion: that it is possible to shake off this blindness, that it is possible to
recover, though…” (“Przepustowość owiec”)
Stanisław Balbus, a literary critic, summarising Szymborska’s artistic input in 1996,
wrote that publishing the third volume of poetry, Calling out to Yeti, was actually an
appropriate, “the second debut” of the poet. But it was also, Balbus writes, one “of the
most important factors for Polish poetry after the October 1956 to resurrect” at all
(Balbus). It is true – Szymborska’s personal transformation should also be seen in a
wider, political context. Talking about the October 1956, Balbus meant so called
October breakthrough, that is a process of changes in Polish culture, taking place in
years 1954-1956. Everything started from Stalin’s death (1953), and its climax it
reached in October 1956 (this is where the name comes from), when changes in Polish
communistic party occurred and a programme on the liberalisation of the country was
announced. At that time in Hungary a bloody anti-communistic uprising broke out.
In such context a personal and deeply auto-ironic poem by Szymborska Two
Monkeys takes on wider meanings. In some way she also becomes a voice of the
generation. In a poem To my Friends, which found its place in the same volume of
poetry, Szymborska is very direct about the process: “On a route from the lie to the truth
you stop being young” (Szymborska Wiersze wybrane 42). It is time to grow up. The
dream is about to be over, it is high time to shake off the naivety and clearly look at the
brutal reality. It is time to report back to yourself, like Szymborska did in Two Monkeys,
being earnest and auto-ironic. It is also time to settle with “the long night of history”
(Brzozowski 1996). The Powerful History as well.

Conclusion
Similarly to the case of Two Monkeys by Bruegel, Two Monkeys by Szymborska can
be interpreted at least through three dimensions. Firstly, in relation to the poet’s personal
experiences and also experiences of the whole generation of people forced after the
World War II to function in communistic Poland. Secondly, in relation to the Powerful
History – as a reflection on the “subjected provinces”, that is, Poland and other countries
of so called Eastern Bloc, enslaved by communistic forces, terrorised and censored. If
Bruegel painted his Two Monkeys in times of Stalinism, “the hidden portrait” in his
work probably would not depict the face of “the Devil of the South”, that is, Philip II of

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Spain, but the face of “the Devil of the East” – a dictator of the Soviet Union, Joseph
Stalin.
And thirdly, finally, maybe the most important dimension – Szymborska’s poem can
be interpreted as a universal diagnosis of man’s situation in this world. This is what
“History of Mankind” is about. The monkey “prompts me”, the poet writes, and this
“me” obviously relates to the character from the poem, talking about their dream, but it
can also relate to us, to every single reader. The merciless prompt “with a gentle clinking
of his chain” is heard very loudly above the time and space. All of us, including the
monkeys, we are stuck in Bruegel’s “space of enslavement.” But not all of us have to
agree with this state of being.
Bruegel and Szymborska are soulmates. There is something which connects them,
as Jacek Brzozowski writes, something “which sooner or later tells independent and
wisely sceptical minds to meet and inducts them into, of course changing due to time
lapse, but also lasting above the time, an eternal republic of free and wise spirits – artists,
thinkers, poets” (Brzozowski 21).
Let’s hope that ordinary people from time to time can also be inducted into this
“republic of free spirits…”

References
„Cenię wątpliwość.” Dekada Literacka, 30 (1991). p. 4.
„Przepustowość owiec.” Teksty Drugie, 4 (1991). pp.151-154.
Balbus, S. (1996). “Szkic do portretu”. Dekada Literacka, 10, 10-11.
Bell, J. (2009). Lustro świata. Nowa historia sztuki. Trans. Grządek, E. Warszawa:
Arkady
Bikont, A., and Szczęsna, J. (2012). Pamiątkowe rupiecie. Biografia Wisławy
Szymborskiej. Kraków: Znak
Bruegel. Trans. Dorota Łąkowska. Warszawa: HPS, 2006
Brzozowski, J. (1996). O wierszach Wisławy Szymborskiej. Szkice i interpretacje, Ed.
Brzozowski, J. Łódź: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego
Francis, J. (1976). Bruegel. Przeciwko władzy, Trans. Radziwiłłowa, E. Warszawa: PIW
Marie, R., and Hagen, R. (2003). What Great Paintings Say, Vol. 1. Köln: TASHEN
Menzel, G. W. (1969). Piotr Bruegel Starszy. Warszawa: Arkady
Michajłów, A. (1991). „Ja wierzyłam, rozmowa z Wisławą Szymborską”. Tygodnik
Literacki 28 Apr. 1991.
Samuels, A., Shorter, B. and Plaut, F. (1994). Krytyczny słownik analizy jungowskiej,
Trans. W. Bobecki and Zielińska, L. Warszawa: Oficyna Wydawnicza UNUS
Szymborska W. (1997). Nothing twice: selected poems, Sel. and trans. by Barańczak,
S. and Cavanag, C. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie
– – –. Wiersze wybrane. Kraków: Wydawnictwo a5, 2000. Print.

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Contact
Piotr Kołodziej PhD
Pedagogical University of Cracow, Poland
[email protected]

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