of the poem, the opening line seems to take on more meaning and significance. In the opening line of "Nothing Can Happen Twice," my first reaction is, "Well, that's not true." But after I finished the poem, I realized that she is right. We can never really relive our past experiences. Nothing is exactly the same as it was before. A poet and a painter, what could these two people have in common? Bruegel's painting of two monkeys. Bruegel painted Two Chained Monkeys in 1562, and Wislawa Szymborska wrote a poem about the painting four hundred years later. The poem "Brueghel's Two Monkeys" reads as follows: This is what I see in my dream 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.(Stanford color plate #7)Bruegel's of Two Chained Monkeys was painted to portray the oppression of Flanders under Spanish rule "Bruegel, Family of Painters". The monkeys represent the people of Flanders. The chains holding the monkeys down are the strength of the Spanish rule. The monkeys looking out at the sky and sea symbolize the people watching the Spanish taking control of everything that they owned. The monkeys sit in the window sill, and are powerless to the terrible oppression that surrounds them. One monkey watches what is going on around him, while the other monkey looks away in disbelief and denial. The cracked nut shell was all that was left of good things in their lives. If you didn't know the history of the painting, it might look like two cute little monkeys, but, in reality, this picture depicts a drab and dreary scene. Wislawa Szymborska interprets the painting as not only the oppression of the Flemish people, but of all manki...
