Court jester going "Woe!"

[breakinglight11]

There was this funny thing my mother used to do-- I suppose this joke or reference she'd make sometimes --when she thought somebody was being overdramatic about a situation. It's a little tricky to describe, but basically she'd hold up her hand, palm facing front with fingers spread, and shake it, while saying in a kind of wobbly voice, "Woe!" It was meant to indicate that the situation wasn't that big a deal, and she felt somebody was being a little silly being so miffed about it. While the meaning of the gesture is clear without a ton of explanation, I somehow also got an impression of where the gesture came from, so to speak, and I can't recall where I got it from.

I have always been under the impression that the bit was meant to represent a court jester holding a little head-on-a-stick version of himself-- Google tells me this is called a marotte --acting as a Greek chorus to whatever the king said. So, like, if the king is lamenting some terrible thing, the jester backs him up by shaking the head-on-a-stick and crying "Woe!" In my mom's impression, the wiggling raised hand is meant to represent the jingling marotte, and the "Woe!" becomes sarcastic.

Thing is, I don't know where this understanding of the gesture came from. I can't remember if Mom ever explained to me that that was what she was doing, or if I actually saw it somewhere and put two and two together. Wish I could ask her. Has anybody ever seen something like this? Or did I complete hallucinate this explanation and graft it onto that weird little thing my mom did?

I don't know why I was thinking about this today, but it came into my head.

Comments

[kitchen_kink]

This sounds really familiar to me too, and for whatever reason, Danny Kaye immediately came to mind. (Perhaps because of his wonderful movie The Court Jester?)

[desireearmfeldt]

Jester with head-on-stick puppet, definitely. Saying "woe"....I think so but possibly only from an actor in Yeomen of the Guard in an MIT production I was in, who would have been referencing something else? But of course we're all just passing these cultural references down the generations. :)