Fight with Cudgels called The Strangers or Cowherds in the inventories, is the name given to a painting by Spanish artist Francisco Goya

Francisco Goya

Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes was a Spanish romantic painter and printmaker regarded both as the last of the Old Masters and the first of the moderns. Goya was a court painter to the Spanish Crown, and through his works was both a commentator on and chronicler of his era...

, now in the Museo del Prado

Museo del Prado

The Museo del Prado is the main Spanish national art museum, located in central Madrid. It features one of the world's finest collections of European art, from the 12th century to the early 19th century, based on the former Spanish Royal Collection, and unquestionably the best single collection of...

, Madrid. One of the series of Black Paintings

Black Paintings

The Black Paintings is the name given to a group of paintings by Francisco Goya from the later years of his life, likely between 1819–1823. They portray intense, haunting themes, reflective of both his fear of insanity and by then, his bleak outlook on humanity...

 Goya painted directly onto the walls of his house sometime between 1820 and 1823, it depicts two men fighting one another with cudgels, as they seem to be trapped knee-deep in a quagmire of mud or sand.

According to Francisco-Xavier de Salas Bosch, Goya may have been referencing an allegory (number 75) that appears in the work by Diego de Saavedra Fajardo

Diego de Saavedra Fajardo

Diego de Saavedra Fajardo was a Spanish diplomat and man of letters.- Biography :He was born in Algezares, in what is now the province of Murcia....

, the emblem book

Emblem book

Emblem books are a category of mainly didactic illustrated book printed in Europe during the 16th and 17th centuries, typically containing a number of emblematic images with explanatory text....

 Empresas Políticos [Political Maxims], Idea de un príncipe político cristiano, which contained a hundred short essays on the education of a prince. The allegory referred to the Greek myth of Cadmus

Cadmus

Cadmus or Kadmos , in Greek mythology was a Phoenician prince, the son of king Agenor and queen Telephassa of Tyre and the brother of Phoenix, Cilix and Europa. He was originally sent by his royal parents to seek out and escort his sister Europa back to Tyre after she was abducted from the shores...

 and the dragon's teeth

Dragon's teeth (mythology)

In Greek myth, dragon's teeth feature prominently in the legends of the Phoenician prince Cadmus and Jason's quest for the Golden Fleece. In each case, the dragon's teeth, once planted, would grow into fully armed warriors....

. By the instructions of Athena

Athena

In Greek mythology, Athena, Athenê, or Athene , also referred to as Pallas Athena/Athene , is the goddess of wisdom, courage, inspiration, civilization, warfare, strength, strategy, the arts, crafts, justice, and skill. Minerva, Athena's Roman incarnation, embodies similar attributes. Athena is...

, Cadmus sowed the dragon's teeth in the ground, from which there sprang a race of fierce armed men, called Spartes

Spartes

In Greek mythology, Spartoí are a mythical people who were held to be Ares' children.-Spartoi in Thebes:Cadmus arrived in Thebes, Greece after following a cow at the urging of the oracle at Delphi, who instructed him to found a city wherever the cow should stop. Cadmus, wishing to sacrifice the...

 ("sown"). By throwing a stone among them, Cadmus caused them to fall upon one another until only five survived, who assisted him to build the Cadmea or citadel of Thebes

Ancient Thebes (Boeotia)

See Thebes, Greece for the modern city built on the ancient ruins.Ancient Thebes was a Boeotian city-state , situated to the north of the Cithaeron range, which divides Boeotia from Attica, and on the southern edge of the Boeotian plain...

.

Saavedra used this imagery to discuss how some rulers stir up discord in order to ultimately establish peace in their kingdoms. Goya's use of this allegory may have referred to the policies and politics of Ferdinand VII.

In 1819, Goya purchased a house on the banks of the Manzanares near Madrid named Quinta del Sordo ("Villa of the Deaf Man"). It was a small two-story house which was named after a previous occupant who had been deaf, although Goya had also been left deaf after contracting a fever in 1792. Between 1819 and 1823, when he moved to Bordeaux

Bordeaux

Bordeaux is a port city on the Garonne River in the Gironde department in southwestern France.The Bordeaux-Arcachon-Libourne metropolitan area, has a population of 1,010,000 and constitutes the sixth-largest urban area in France. It is the capital of the Aquitaine region, as well as the prefecture...

, Goya produced a series of 14 works, which he painted with oils directly onto the walls of the house. Fight with Cudgels had been situated in the upper room of Quinta del Sordo.