_Ziet wat een fraei kasteel! wat heit het me gecost! Myn gelt is nyet verbrast aan keur van vremde cost. Voor paerden en gery en zeldzaeme sieraeden En gaf ik nyet een myt; geen bloem-fluweelgewaden Versieren ’t stinckend lyf, de logge madenzak. Myn huys is myn sieraet, myn huys myn beste pack. Daer voor is myn tresoor, daer voor myn koffer open, En wat myn huys behoeft, dat haest ick my te koopen._
(See what a beautiful castle! What a sum it costs! My money is not spent in choice of foreign viands. For horses and equipages and rare ornaments I did not spend a mite; no flowery velvet dresses Adorn the wasting body, the clumsy stomach: My home is my ornament, my house my best costume, Therefore my treasury and my coffer are open, And what my house needs I hasten to buy.)
And Godewijck puts these words into the mouth of a daughter of an alderman:—
_Myn stoffer is myn swaerd, myn bussem is myn wapen. Ick kenne geene rust, ick weete van geen slaepen. Ick denck aen geen salet, ick denck niet aen myn keel. Geen arbeyt my te swaer, geen zorge my te veel Om alles gladdekens en sonder smet te maken. Ik wil niet dat de maegd myn pronkstuck aan zal raken; Ick selve wrijf en boen, ick flodder en ick schrob, Ick aes op ’t kleinste stof, ik beef niet voor den tob Gelyck de pronckmadam._
(My brush is my sword, my besom is my weapon. I know no rest, I know no sleep. I don’t think of my room, I don’t think of my throat. No labour is too heavy, no care I think too much To make everything smooth and without blemish. I will not let the maid touch my pretty things; I, myself, will rub and polish, I will splash and scrub; I hunt the speck of dust, I do not fear the tub Like a fine lady.)
These are samples of many speeches in the old comedies, where the women constantly talk about housecleaning and scrubbing.
English travellers of this period unanimously praised the way the Dutch houses were kept. One wrote: “They are not large, but neat, beautiful outside and well furnished inside; and the furniture is so clean and in good order that it appears to be more an exhibition than for daily use.” The farms also attracted the attention of the stranger. Another traveller said: “The Dutch farmer keeps his land as neatly as a courtier trims his beard; and his house is as choice as a lady who comes out of her dressing-room. A well-dressed lady cannot look neater than the fine gable and the thatched roof of a Dutch farmhouse.”