For what reason Grimmelshausen wrote the Continuatio, a dull medley of allegories, visions, and stories of knavery, brightened only by the “Robinsonade” at the end, it is hard to say; probably at the urgent request of his publisher, when the striking success of the original work became assured. It appeared at Möpelgard (Montéliard) in the very same year, viz. , as the first known edition, or more probably editions, of the first five books, and is sometimes quoted as a sixth book. Two years later there were issued three more Continuations, even more unworthy of their author, and laying stress chiefly on the least estimable side of the hero’s character—the roguery by which he paid his way on his journey back from France. The worthlessness of these sequels is the more remarkable when we consider the excellence of the other books which make up what may be called the Simplicissimus-cycle. These are Trutzsimplex, Springinsfeld, the two parts of the Enchanted Bird’s-Nest, and the Everlasting Almanac. They are all deserving of attention.
The first, which is also known as the Life of the Adventuress “Courage,” appeared immediately after Simplicissimus, with which it is connected by the fact that the heroine is none other than the light-minded lady of the Spa at Griesbach, the alleged mother of Simplicissimus’s bastard son; she is also at one time the wife or companion of “Springinsfeld” or “Jump i’ th’ Field,” Simplicissimus’s old servant. Her history, which is narrated with extraordinary vivacity, covers nearly the whole period of the war, and is interwoven with the remaining books of the cycle in a sufficiently ingenious manner. A secretary out of employ is driven by the cold into the warm guestroom of an inn in a provincial town. Here he finds a huge old man armed with a cudgel “that with one blow could have administered extreme unction to any man.” This is Simplicissimus, with the famous club that had so terrified the resin-gatherers of the Black Forest (Simplicissimus, bk. V, chap. 17). Either the episode of the Desert Island is left out of account altogether—possibly not yet invented—or he has not yet started on his final journey. The latter is unlikely, for the date is indicated as or . To these two enters an old wooden-legged fiddler who turns out to be Simplicissimus’s faithful knave, “Jump i’ th’ Field.” Of the former hero the secretary had read; of the latter he himself had written; for meeting, as a poor wandering scholar, with a gang of gipsies in the Schwarzwald, he had been engaged by their queen, an aged but still handsome woman, to write her history, on the promise of a pretty wife and good pay. He is cheated of both, and the gipsies disappear with their queen, who is in fact the famous “Courage” or “Kurrasche.”
The daughter of unknown parents, this heroine was living in a small Bohemian town with an old nurse when the Imperialists, under Bucquoy, conquered the country in . She was then thirteen years old, and thus fifteen years senior to Simplicissimus. The nurse, to protect her chastity, disguises her as a boy, and in this garb she becomes page to a young Rittmeister, to whom, her secret having been all but discovered in a scuffle, she reveals her sex and becomes his mistress. The name Courage is, for amusing but quite unmentionable reasons, given to her in consequence of this episode. To her first lover she is actually married on his deathbed, and now begins her career nominally as an honourable widow, but in reality as an accomplished courtesan. She still follows the army, for which she has an invincible love, and being, of course, “frozen” or invulnerable, takes part in various fights, in one of which she captures a major, who, when she in turn is taken prisoner, revenges himself on her in the vilest fashion. He is preparing to hand her over, according to custom (Simplicissimus, bk. II, chap. 26), “to the horseboys,” when she is rescued by a young Danish nobleman, who proposes to make her his wife. The terrible story is told with an exactness of detail, which plainly can only be the work of the witness of similar scenes, and it is to be feared represents only too faithfully the truth as to the treatment of women in the war. It is remarkable, however, that few officers of high rank on either side are accused of wanton offences against public morals. Holk and Königsmark are the only two who are charged with publicly keeping their mistresses; and they were the two most brutal commanders of their time. As a rule superior officers took their wives with them (Simplicissimus, bk. II, chap. 25) even to the field of battle, and if such ladies fell into the enemy’s hands, as did many after Nördlingen, they were treated with all possible respect.
But to return to “Courage.” Her Danish lover is about to marry her when he too dies, and after this disappointment she sinks lower and lower in the social scale, forming temporary connections successively with a captain, a lieutenant, a corporal and finally with a musketeer, who is no other than our old friend “Jump i’ th’ Field,” for whose name she gives us
