A Prudish Translation

Barbara C Bowen, Enter Rabelais, Laughing (Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 1998), p. 91 (on the Epistolae Obscurorum Virorum, or EOV):

Unfortunately, non-Latinists are unable to appreciate the full comedy of the EOV. The only English translation was done by Francis Stokes in 1925 and will strike most readers as disconcertingly old-fashioned British English. It is also regrettably prudish, toning down the earthy language of the original until it is almost unrecognizable. For instance, would you guess that the following sentence: "Then was I sore afraid, and fell into such a pickle that I savored ill in the nostrils of those who stood by" (II.63) is a translation of "Tunc fui ita perterritus quod perminxi et permerdavi me, quod omnes nasum praetenebant" ("Then I was so terrified that I pissed and shitted all over myself, so that they all held their noses")?

Hat tip: A friend.

Doctrinal Nourishment

James Ensor (1860-1949), Alimentation doctrinaire:


In color:

A Medieval Latin Proverb

Thesaurus Proverbiorum Medii Aevi, ed. Samuel Singer, Vol. 4 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1997), p. 131 (my translation):

Twelve farts are equivalent to one turd.

Duodecim bombi faciunt unum strontum.

Riddle

Recueil General des Rencontres, Demandes et Responses Tabariniques, Vol. I (1622), p. 32, summarized by Barbara C. Bowen in "Tabarin the (Scato-)logician," EMF: Studies in Early Modern France 14 (2010) 32-40 (at 34):

Which is more worthy of reverence, a turd or musk?

A turd, because passers-by make a respectful detour in order to avoid it.

Hat tip: A friend.

Classification of Animals

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742-1799), Philosophical Writings, tr. Steven Tester (Albany: SUNY Press, 2012), p. 95 (Sudelbücher, G 161):

The man was working on a system of natural history in which he ordered animals according to the form of their excrement. For this he created three classes: cylindrical, spherical, and cake-like.

Dieser Mann arbeitete an einem System der Naturgeschichte, worin er die Tiere nach der Form der Exkremente geordnet hatte. Er hatte drei Klassen gemacht: die zylindrischen, sphärischen und kuchenförmigen.

Hat tip: A friend.

Granny Misbehaves

Paul Morand, Journal inutile, Vol. 2 (Paris: Gallimard, 2001), p. 343 (7 octobre 1974; my translation):

Curious, this belligerence of very old sick people: Raymond tells me, in this regard, that his old grandmother, in the hospital, saved up her feces, which she hid under her blankets, so she could throw them at nurses (female and male), when they entered her room.

Curieuse cette agressivité des malades très âgés: Raymond me raconte, à ce propos, que sa vieille grand-mère, à l'hôpital, faisait provision de ses excréments, qu'elle cachait sous ses draps, pour pouvoir les jeter à la figure des infirmières ou infirmiers, quand ils entraient dans sa chambre.

Hat tip: A friend.

Death and Farting

A Collection of Epigrams, 2nd ed. (London: J. Walthoe, 1735), No. CCCIII:

Death made easy.

If death must come, as oft as breath departs,
    Then he must often die, who often farts;
And if to die, be but to lose one's breath,
    Then death's a fart; and so a fart for death.