Das Schlauraffen Landt; Land of Milk and Honey

[This page by Madeleine Brook]

Das Schlauraffen Landt; Land of Milk and Honey (1530)

Sachs’s comic poem – comprising 110 lines of Knittelvers – of a fantasy land in which everything is topsy-turvy is, like much of his other work, also a moralising text.

The first half of the poem – exactly 55 lines – paints a deceptively positive picture of a land in which everything is easy. Here, houses are edible, bread grows in the fields, milk flows in the streams, and animals are ready cooked. Those too lazy to catch the roast chicken, goose, or pigeon need only open their mouth – the bird will simply fly into it. Moreover, there is a fountain of youth (ll. 52-53) in which everyone can reverse their physical ageing.

The second half, however, gradually reveals the true nature of Schlauraffenland. This section starts with a list of things that are done in Schlauraffenland that in the real world would be considered at best undesirable and at worst sinful: laziness, gambling, bad manners, debt, drunkenness, and telling falsehoods (ll. 55-75). The worst in everything is rewarded: sloth is paid by the hour, not work (ll. 62-64), and lies are rewarded with a crown (ll. 75-76). People of sense and reason, those who work hard, are unwelcome here and will be run out of the land. Instead, Schlauraffenland’s ‘nobility’ is comprised of fools (ll. 85-98).

The closing lines (ll.100-110) reveal the didactic nature of the poem: