A Lost Neo-Latin Poem

François Boyer and Antoine Vernière, edd., "Journal de voyage de Dom Jacques Boyer (1710-1714)," Mémoires de l'Académie des Sciences, Belles-Lettres et Arts de Clermont-Ferrand 26 (1886) 65-602 (at 230; January 3, 1712, at Chanteuges, my translation, with the help of a friend):

I was very unwell on that day, and unable to depart for La Chaise-Dieu. Someone showed me a poem, weighty and appropriate. It's the work of some member of the Society of Jes ...ters. One can judge of it by the first two lines (3):

At the shitty threshold of the smelly arse-hole there stood
A silent but raging fart, unmistakable harbinger of a foul turd.

That reminds me of an inscription which a citizen of Clermont put at the gate of the town of Montferrand, in place of the one which used to be read there. Here they are, the old and the new — compare the two!

I am a royal town, blooming with fields and flowering with meadows.
I am a country town, blooming with pigs and flowering with turds.

(3) I've searched in vain in specialized collections for this scatological poem, and I declare that I haven't been able to find its author. I leave to the charitable Benedictine responsibility for his claim.

The orginal French and Latin:

Je fus fort incommodé ce jour-là, et ne pus partir pour la Chaise-Dieu. On me fit voir un poëme pompeux et propre au dernier point. C'est l'ouvrage d'un Jés...., ou plutôt polisson. On peut en juger par les deux premiers vers (3):

Stabat odoriferi merdoso in limine culi
Vessa furens, putidae certissima nuntia merdae.

Cela me rappelle l'inscription qu'un Clermontois mit à la porte de la ville de Montferrand, au lieu de l'ancienne qu'on y lisait. Les voici l'une et l'autre, faites-en le parallèle:

Regia sum, campis florens et florida pratis.
Rustica sum, porcis florens et florida merdis.

(3) J'ai vainement cherché dans les recueils spéciaux ce poëme scalologique, et je déclare n'avoir pu en découvrir l'auteur. Je laisse au charitable Bénédictin la responsabilité de son assertion.

It is a sad loss to belles lettres that Dom Boyer did not transcribe more of this very interesting poem by an unknown Jesuit writer. For further discussion see Th. d'Angomont, "Un Bon Moine Scatologue," Revue du Moyen Age Latin 41 (1985) 262.