Tom Turdman

A Peasant Defecates

2012-03-15T08:43:00.000-07:00

Antonio Beccadelli, The Hermaphrodite. Edited and Translated by Holt Parker (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2010), pp. 49, 51 (I.xl = To Crispus; How the Author Broke Off Writing His Praises When a Peasant Took a Shit, footnotes omitted):

There is a tree most pleasing in the middle of a green field,
  On one side stands a clear stream, on the other a wood.
A bird came to it, and sang beneath the lovely tree,
  Both grove and wave were soothed by the sound.
Here came I as is my custom, I was getting ready to compose verses.
  Clio had been summoned and stood ready by my pen.
I began to write about your blameless morals, Crispus,
  how you excel in prose, how in verse you excel,
and how you are going to become the leading citizen in your town,
  and how your virtue will have its reward.
Meanwhile, a bloated peasant comes up to relieve himself
  on the grass. He places his cloak on the ground nearby,
then opens his pants and pulls out his cock and balls:
  and the breeze gently lashes his naked buttocks.
He bent his knees and curled up into a circle,
  placing his elbows on his thighs and his hands on his cheeks.
Seeming to rest his heels on the back of his thighs,
  he squeezes, loosens his bowels, and then shits.
At that from his talkative asshole windy thunders
  break forth; the whole field is stricken by the crack.
I was shaken, my pen fell, the goddess betook herself to the breezes,
  the bird fled terrified by the rumble of the fart.
I pray, evil peasant, that you first plant your vines,
  after, when you're very thirsty, that you not drink their wine.
Peasant, may you plant seeds in the furrowed earth,
  and have no bread to eat, wretch, when you're hungry.
Farewell, and when the tuneful bird returns,
  then I'll go on to write your praises, Crispus.

Intimate Details

2012-03-13T11:03:00.000-07:00

Shirley Nelson, Fair, Clear, and Terrible: The Story of Shiloh, Maine (Latham: British American Publishing, 1989), p. 361:

Even intimate details were sometimes shared, as when it was whispered about that a woman at Bethesda had her impacted feces removed with a silver teaspoon.

Man's Most Honorable Part

2012-02-27T11:17:00.000-08:00

Erasmus, The Fabulous Feast, translated by Craig R. Thompson:

Some boon companions, as they're called, whose main object in life is a laugh, were once having a party. Among them was Antony; also another man with the same sort of reputation and jealous of Antony. Now as philosophers, when they meet, are accustomed to propound some question about natural phenomena, so here the question quickly came up, which was man's most honorable part? One guessed the eyes, another the heart, another the brain, another something else, and each offered reasons for his surmise. Told to give his opinion, Antony said he thought the mouth the most honorable part of all; and he added a reason, I'm not sure what. Then that other fellow, to avoid agreement with Antony, retorted that in his opinion the part we sit on was most honorable. Ridiculous as this seemed to everyone, he argued that priority in seating is commonly allowed to belong to the part he had named. They applauded this notion and had a good laugh. Antony seemed to be beaten in that contest. He dissembled: he had awarded highest honors to the mouth only because he knew the other, from envy of his reputation, would name a different part. Some days later, when they were both guests at the same party again, Antony came across the envious chap talking with some others while they were waiting for dinner. Turning his back, Antony broke wind loudly in the other's face. "Get out, you clown," said the man angrily. "Where did you learn those manners?" "Angry, too, are you?" said Antony. "Had I greeted you by word of mouth, you'd have replied in the same way. Now I greet you with that part of the body which in your opinion is the most honorable of all and I'm called clown." Thus did Antony recover his lost reputation.

Merda Umbellifera

2012-02-23T07:05:00.000-08:00

Dr. S-----t, Human Ordure, Botanically Considered (London: F. Coggan, 1733), pp. 16-22:

[p. 16] The Fourth Tribe of Excrements are the Merdae umbelliferae, take the Description.

This kind are a broad round Faeces, lying spread upon the Ground, like an Umbrella or full blown Rose, the colour uncertain; they are of a tolerable consistency, but don't come nigh the solidity of any of the former, but yet are firm and uniform: It was this kind of Excrement that both Hippocrates and after him Celsus said indicated the best state of Health, and were always the most beneficial to young People, and always the consequence of a regular temperate method of Living; † Hel[p. 17]mont says, They who have those kind of Evacuations, have always a free use of their perspiratory Pores, and a fine thin Skin, but a constipated Belly makes a thick Skin,

'Tis upon this Species of Excrement that the innumerable minute grayish Fungi like Down, always grow, vulgarly called Mould. I have for some Hours wonderfully amus'd myself by looking at those tender Vibrissae, and have discovered by the help of Microscopes, the most regular Vegetation, that cou'd possibly be performed by a Chymist after the nicest process for the transmutation of Metals; nay, I have perceived the very motion of their rising, tho' by many degrees flower than the minute Hand of a Watch; for if we consider the quickness of their growth and the shortness of their duration, when grown, (for 'tis remarkable all Fungi grow and decay speedily) a Minute to them in proportion to their size and duration, is equivalent to a Year's growth with other larger Vegetables; and considering they are produced from their native hot Bed, and spring so suddenly, it ought not to seem improbable, that one may [p. 18]
perceive, by the help of Glasses, their Vegetative motion.

The ingenious Mr. ‡ Laurence in his Treatise of Horticulture, tells us of a method of raising Purflain from an hot Bed, that in an Hour's time should be fit to eat: and certainly the motion here must be perceivable to the naked Eye.

I have often with pleasure fancied I cou'd discern upon one of those Faeces over-grown with Fungi, the rude lineaments of Gardens, Wildernesses, Espaliers, Groves, Orchards, Flower-knots, Edgings, &c. and have frequently lent my Glasses to those of my Friends who would venture their Noses so nigh, who have viewed those Lusus Naturae, With as much pleasure and surprize as my self; I have frequently with a very nice Forceps, pluck'd up one of those fungous Fibres, and cou'd plainly perceive always a small atom annex'd to the lower extremity, which I take to be the Root of the Fungus; and I have frequently gathered Numbers of [p. 19] them, and endavoured to analize them for my own satisfaction, to know what they really were, but I never prospered in the Event; however, the most rational conjecture that can be made, is, That they certainly are the minute Seeds of some Fruit or Vegetable, that have been swallowed and passes off with the Excrement, and so have a momentary Vegetation afterwards: And here I can't but observe how often we are indebted to accidents of this nature, for several sorts of Fruit Trees, that are found wild, and supposed either by chance or design, to have been tossed out of Gardens, or Seeds scattered abroad by the Wind, or else to have had their first rudiments laid there since the Creation or the Flood, such Fruits as Cherries, Apples, Raspberries, Plumbs, &c. when perhaps they owe their birth to a T--d: 'Tis certainly a common Custom in England of eminent Gardeners who propose to propagate choice Stone Fruit, to give a quantity of them to Children to eat, provided they promise to swallow the Stones, and they constantly watch them till they go to Stool, to pick them out; and this they aver to be the most natural and nicest [p. 20] preparation, before they inter them; for they never fail, being treated in this manner, to come to the greatest perfection.

M. * Scharzini, an Italian, in his Account of the Isle of Cyprus, tells us there is a particular part in the West of the Island so overgrown with Cherry-Trees, that they take up nigh three hundred Acres of Land, and nothing can look more beautiful in the Season, than the innumerable variety or chequer Work Nature produces by the multiplicity of black and red Cherries, but the latter colour so predominates over the former, that Strangers, when at a distance, fancy they see the Mare Erythraeum, where Pharaoh and his Army perished: He farther says, this immense Wilderness of Cherry-Trees, is intirely owing to a kind of Bird called a † Matzer, of which there is a prodigious Number in this part of the Island, exactly resembling our Black-Bird, only they have but one Foot consisting of ten Claws, who live wholly upon Cher[p. 21]ries, and always swallow the Stones, and when they void them, it being a moist Soil, they easily by their Vegetative gravity sink and take Root, and are always vastly prolifick. I doubt not but the small black Cherry cultivated in Gardens, and called a Mazer takes its Etymology from hence.

I am told there is a Plumb-Tree, called a Green Gage, at Stow in England, the Seat of the Lord Cobham, that constantly bears twelve or fourteen dozen of large, luscious, green Plumbs, every Season, that was raised from a Stone taken out of a French Marquis's Excrement, who was a remarkable Epicure: Any Man that wou'd eat three or four of these Plumbs, in about an Hour after, wou'd be ib prone to Leaping, Skipping, Cutting Capers, and Coopees, and so apt to make Love to every Female that came in the way, that People wou'd think he was mad, and that the Plumbs had a particular intoxicating quality in their Juice like the * Mala insana, so that People only taste, but never swallow them. Indeed I am apt [p. 22] to believe, that the Stone in passing thro' the Ragoo's Guts, must have been impregnated with some of his alert Animal Juices. But this Account savours much of a Romance, if otherwise, How great a loss and misfortune was it to the Learned World in general, that * Anacreon had such a treacherous and ill-contrived Epiglottis? What a glorious poetick inspiring Grape have we lost: And to come nigher home, What a Law inspiring Cherry-Tree have we lost, by the fatal Maeandrings of J----
N----'s intestines? These hints I think ought to encourage our Botanists, and curious Gardeners, to search closely into this ingeniously odd way of propagating.

[p. 16] † Cap. de Dieta page 56.

[p. 19] ‡ Page 84.

[p. 20] * Page 96 of that Edition Printed at Rome Ann. 1702.

[p. 20] † Vid. Gesner hist. Animal.

[p. 21] * Vid. Ray hist. Plantar.

[p. 22] * He was an old Amorous Lyrick Poet, very fond of a young Man called Bathyllus. he was choaked with a Grape Stone. Vid. Plin.

Merda Variegata

2012-02-18T04:29:00.000-08:00

Dr. S-----t, Human Ordure, Botanically Considered (London: F. Coggan, 1733), pp. 11-16:

[p. 11] The Third Class or Tribe are the Merdae variegatae, sive marmoratae, the Marbl'd or Strip'd Excrement; 'tis really diverting to see how Nature sports in the production of this kind of Faeces, as to the shape they may participate of the two former, but have not half the solidity or consistency; I have seen some white, bluish, and brown, others yellow, orange, and gray, and all in the same Excretion; these are [p. 12] properly the variegatae, but the marmoratae, tho' of the same Tribe, yet their distinguishing Characteristicks are different, for their variations chiefly depend on sanguiferous streaks, and specks, and lines of a different colour'd Choler or Bile, marbling as it were the Faeces: The former Species of this Tribe proceed either from Meats of different kinds or consistency eaten the same Day, or from Drinks of different colours, taken after, which generally tinge some parts of the Excrement with a colour some way or other analagous to what was originally taken in. (Claret-Drinkers always have costive dark reddish stools, and as costiveness was looked upon to be beneficial to Men in Years, upon this account 'twas ordered to old Men by * two of the greatest Philosophers of the Faculty in their Days. But this by the by.)

The latter Species of this Tribe proceeds either from overstraining, which occasions perhaps a Rupture of some minute intestinal Vessel, which spills its contents upon this kind of Faeces [p. 13] in streaks, or perhaps from a tincture of the Gaul in the intestinum Duodenum, or it may be from an accidental mixture of an Atra bilis with the Faeces in the circuit of the Guts; but happen as it will, I have been strangely diverted with the variety of Figures that those Maeandrous variegated streaks have produc'd; I have often fancy'd I have seen as whimsical Landskips as the hand of Art could possibly depict; at other times I have actually and distinctly read unintelligible words formed by those irregular party-coloured streaks, which makes me believe, 'twas by the assistance of those Species of Faeces that † Zid Benzool the famous Persian Soothsayer used to prophesy, and not only foretel the death of particular Personages, but also the fate of Cities, Provinces, Kingdoms, &c. There is a very authentick Tradition that says, this Zid Benzool foretold the death of the Governor of Susa, (Anno 1662) by some extraordinary Hieroglyphick he saw in his Excrement, three Days before he was [p. 14] killed by the random shot of an Arrow: This way of Divination, I think, bears some Analogy to that of the Ancients, who used to. prophesy by the Viscera or Entrails of Beasts, Birds, and Men after Death; and indeed the Divination by ‡ Ob or Pithonissa was only by Answers given from the Viscera, when in their proper situation, and the subject alive.

But why this way of Fortune-telling by Faeces has not been handed down to Posterity, and been better known amongst us, certainly must proceed from the uncleanness and filthiness of the Subject by which we are to form our predictions, tho' there is a method of Fortune-telling even amongst us now, that bears some resemblance to that of the Persians, practised mostly by a Sect of People calling themselves Aegyptians, or Gypsies, and that is, by the Faeces of Coffee, from thence calling themselves Coffee-Toffers, but. as 'tis now practised 'tis a meer Cheat.

[p. 15] I remember to have been told an odd Story of one * T------ S------ Esq; a Justice of the Peace in Devonshire, a Man of great Wealth and Immorality, who was remarkable for voiding always those Faeces Striatae, one Morning having occasion to ease Nature in a Field, and having done, died of an Apoplectick Fit before he had time to pull up his Breeches; his Friends missing him, after some search found him lying by his Faeces, and the Word CaVe, writ in the manner express'd, upon his Excrement in sanguineous Characters, and they that were Scholars in Company said, 'twas an admonition from Ob or the Lares of his Excrement, to take care he should be decently buried, seeing he was a remarkable Man in his Country: But my Author fancies this was a misinterpretation of the meaning of the Word, for 'twas designed no doubt (said he) for a Warning to the Gentleman himself; and he believed had his Excrements been inspected into before, the same Phaenomenon might have happened, and the Man [p. 16] might have either escaped or have been better prepared, had he fortunately looked about him; but this is but a conjecture. And indeed that very action of turning about to see what's voided, which most People do, (that have not the opportunity of modest neceslary Conveniencies) which I used to take to be nothing more than a natural Mechanical motion, I believe intirely proceeds from some confus'd Ideas or hints of this nature, scattered amongst Mankind.

[p. 12] * Hippocrates and Galen.

[p. 13] † Sid Benzool or Siddy, died at Ispahan Anno 1694. Some say be was burned at Amanzarifdin for Sorcery.

[p. 14] ‡ Vide Selden de diis Syris Symagmat. 2. Plutarch in Patin, &c.

[p. 15] * Vid. Verstegan de Terriculamentis, &c. page 102.

Merda Dolioloidea

2012-02-17T02:42:00.000-08:00

Dr. S-----t, Human Ordure, Botanically Considered (London: F. Coggan, 1733), pp. 9-11:

[p. 9] The next Tribe are, the Merdae * Dolioloides, or Tun-form'd Excrements, these are generally thick in the middle, and small at both extremities, like a Rolling-pin or Wooden Cat, these being exactly divided in the middle, are converted into a Species of the former Tribe.

These are of as firm a Consistency as the Campanulatae, but don't seem to be so naturally colour'd; but whether this be a fault in the first, second, or third Concoction, I leave to the decision of the Curious; these kinds are usually to be met with about Cities, and sometimes in the Country; they are much larger in England than here, and larger again in Holland: I remember about four Years ago, I was walking with an English Merchant, in a Field near the Town of Antwerp, where I spied one of these Tun-form'd Affairs [p. 10] lying by a Ditch-side, and I being a stranger in the Country, took it for a small Runlet of Brandy, and wou'd certainly have b----t my self with eagerness to seize it before my Friend, had he not undeceiv'd me, by laughing heartily, and asking, what the D--—l I was going to do with the Afgang or Stront of a Dutchman. I must own I never was more deceiv'd nor asham'd in my Life, but nothing certainly ever more resembled the thing I took it for, than it did; its shape and colour so regular, and its bulk equivalent to a Keg of about three Quarts measure, and the * Valvulae Conniventes of the intestinum Colon had made circular impressions on both extremities, that exactly resembled Hoops; and what was more particular, there was the Stone of some Fruit voided with the Excrement, which lay à propos in the center of the thicker part, and exactly resembled a Bung, so that really after all 'twas a very natural mistake; but what surpriz'd me more, was, considering the diameter of this monstrous Evacuation, how [p. 11] 'twas possible an human * Rectum cou'd contain it, but afterwards I saw larger, and the frequency in a great measure abated my surprize, and considering the Frame of tne Dutch in general about the Hipps, or Ossa inominata, Os Sacrum, Coxigis, &c. where the straight Gut terminates, 'tis no great wonder they shou'd have such gigantine Stools: I have often in dark Nights stumbl'd over some of them.

N.B. 'Twas upon this comely Species of Evacuation, that the munificent King James the First confirmed the Honour of Knighthood †.

[p. 9] * See farther into the Botanical Elements, p. 14.

[p. 10] * Vid. Dr. Willis, Bartholin. Verhyen, &c. de intestinis.

[p. 11] * The Arse-Gut or intestinum rectum.

† Vide Gabriel Benzoar's Remarkable Transactions of the Kings of England since W. the Conqueror, page 102.

Merda Campanulata

2012-02-16T13:56:00.000-08:00

Dr. S-----t, Human Ordure, Botanically Considered (London: F. Coggan, 1733), pp. 7-9:

There is no Man that ever was so humble as to observe Human Ordure, but must confess there is a wonderful variety in all productions of this nature. I intirely exclude the Faeces Colliquativae (called in English by the figure Onomatopoeia, Squitter,) being seldom the Sedes Sanorum, and therefore foreign to the Subject. For my part, I have found such a variety, that I have Trib'd and Class'd them, with as much pleasure and care as Botanists do Plants.

And the first of the Tribe that claims precedence, is the * Merda Campanulata sive Turbinata the Bell-form'd Excrements, or resembling a Boy's Top revers'd; the distinguishing Characteristick of this kind of Evacuation, is, that it rises with a broad Basis, and terminates with a nanow Apex; under this denomination is comprehended, those form'd like an Obelisk, Cheshire-Hat, Sugar-Loaf, inverted Pyramid, Portugal Pear, &c. These are always of a firm consistency, the product of a well concocted Aliment, and are always generated in a robust strong Body, and give us sure indications of a firm well-ton'd set of Intestines, with a salubrious attraction of the Lacteal Vessels; to be met with mostly in Plow'd Fields, High Roads, and sometimes in Meadows; I have seen some faint Icons of this Species about the suburbs of Cities; these generally belong to Farmers, Plowmen, Threshers, &c. I have hot had time to inquire into the Virtues or Vices of these, of any of the kinds I have met with; but that must be my next Work, according as this meets with Encouragement.

* Vid. Dr. Stephens's botanical Elements, pag. 13.

Excuses for Farts

2012-02-11T05:00:00.000-08:00

Ulrich Marzolph and Richard van Leeuwen, The Arabian Nights Encyclopedia, Vol. 1 (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2004), p. 150:

Jokes about untimely or unfortunate farts constitute a distinct category in classical Arabic jocular literature. Besides the phenomenon of the "adopted fart (Arabia ridens 2: nos. 151, 433), a frequently imagined situation has the petitioner fart while addressing the ruler with a request. Various responses follow: Each and every opening of my body praises you! (addressing the ruler); You be quiet while the mouth talks! (addressing his buttocks) (Arabia ridens 2: no. 616); And this is another unfortunate thing that happened to me lately! (addressing the ruler) (Arabia ridens 2: no. 918).

The references are to Ulrich Marzolph, Arabia Ridens, 2 vols. (Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann, 1992), which I haven't seen.

A Lost Neo-Latin Poem

2012-02-10T06:04:00.000-08:00

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.

Good Manners

2012-02-08T06:32:00.000-08:00

Erasmus, A Handbook on Good Manners for Children. Translated by Eleanor Merchant (London: Preface Publishing, 2008), pp. 25-26:

There are some who teach that a child should hold in digestive wind by clenching his buttocks. But it's not good manners to make yourself ill in your eagerness to appear polite. If you can go somewhere else, then do that on your own. But if not, as the oldest of proverbs goes, 'let him disguise the fart with a cough.' Anyway, why don't those people teach in the same way that children should refrain from moving their bowels, since it's far more damaging to refrain from breaking wind than to constrict the bowels?

Hat tip: A friend.

A Fart for Death

2012-02-07T02:42:00.000-08:00

A Collection of Epigrams (London: J. Walthoe, 1727), no. CCCV:

If Death doth come as soon 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.

A Tribute to British Royalty

2012-02-06T08:38:00.000-08:00

Queen Elizabeth II became Queen 60 years ago today. In honor of the day and as a tribute to British royalty, here is a work of art by Richard Newton (1777-1798), entitled Treason, first published on March 19, 1798 (William Pitt left, John Bull center, George III right):

Illustration from a Learned Attack on Erasmus

2012-02-02T04:21:00.000-08:00

M.A. Screech, Laughter at the Foot of the Cross (1997; rpt. Boulder: Westview Press, 1999), p. 250:

A learned attack on Erasmus by Lopis Stunica sports a printer's ornament with a mannequin-pisse on one side and, on the other, a woman copiously, vigorously and vividly breaking wind. Are such things so routine that compositors set them up without a second thought, or is there a conscious mixture of the grossly earthly and the highly spiritual?²¹

21. Lopis Stunica, Annotationes contra D. Erasmum Roterodamum, Conrad Resch, Paris, 1522.

Here is the title page, with "mannequin-pisse" at top left and "woman copiously, vigorously and vividly breaking wind" at top right:

What the Devil's This?

2012-02-01T06:49:00.000-08:00

Rabelais, Gargantua and Pantagruel, tr. J.M. Cohen (Penguin, 1955), p. 597:

Ha, ha, ha! But, ho! What the devil's this? Do you call it shit, turds, crots, ordure, deposit, fecal matter, excrement, droppings, fumets, motion, dung, stronts, scybale, or spyrathe? It's saffron from Ireland, that's what I think it is. Ho, ho, ho! Saffron from Ireland! It is indeed. Let's have a drink.

Love Is the Fart of Every Heart

2012-01-31T05:50:00.000-08:00

Sir John Suckling (1609-1642):

If when Don Cupids dart
Doth wound a heart,
    we hide our grief
    and shun relief;
The smart increaseth on that score;
For wounds unsearcht but ranckle more.

Then if we whine, look pale,
And tell our tale,
    men are in pain
    for us again;
So, neither speaking doth become
The Lovers state, nor being dumb.

When this I do descry,
Then thus think I,
    love is the fart
    of every heart:
It pains a man when 't is kept close,
And others doth offend, when 't is let loose.

A Pleasant Odour

2012-01-29T12:20:00.000-08:00

M.A. Screech, Laughter at the Foot of the Cross (1997; rpt. Boulder: Westview Press, 1999), p. 237:

In the West Country when I was a child, a boy who had hoped to have broken wind so discreetly that no one noticed it might be twitted (if his fellows were olfactorily alerted) for 'spreading abroad a pleasant odour'. Our religion was Bible-centred. We would not have laughed if we had not known that we were misapplying a mystical text from the Book which we venerated above all others.⁶

6. Ecclesiasticus, 24:15 (Wisdom is speaking): 'And as choice myrrh I spread abroad a pleasant odour.'

The Large Brown Ones

2012-01-28T07:05:00.001-08:00

Gary Snyder: "It's hard not to have a certain amount of devotional feeling for the Large Brown Ones..."

He's talking about bears, not turds, alas. The quotation comes from Regarding "Smokey the Bear Sutra".

Effects of the Tibetan Wild Onion

2012-01-26T03:42:00.000-08:00

Richard Burton, ed. and tr., Arabian Nights (Night 408):

The Wazir cried, "Verily this fellow is a-fizzling and he boweth his head toward his breast in order that he may savour his own farts."¹

¹ Alluding to the curious phenomenon pithily expressed in the Latin proverb, "Suus cuique crepitus benè olet," I know of no exception to the rule, except amongst travellers in Tibet, where the wild onion, the only procurable green-stuff, produces an odour so rank and fetid that men run away from their own crepitations. The subject is not savoury, yet it has been copiously illustrated: I once dined at a London house whose nameless owner, a noted bibliophile, especially of “facetiae,” had placed upon the drawing-room table a dozen books treating of the “Crepitus ventris.” When the guests came up and drew near the table, and opened the volumes, their faces were a study. For the Arab. "Faswah" = a silent break wind, see vol. ix. 11 and 291. It is opposed to "Zirt" = a loud fart and the vulgar term, see vol. ii. 88.

The Latin proverb means, "To each man his own fart smells good."

Anal Affront

2012-01-25T05:09:00.000-08:00

Beryl Rowland, Blind Beasts: Chaucer's Animal World (Kent State University Press, 1971), p. 72 (commenting on The Summoner's Tale):

The Devil is said to flee in dismay from human flatulence.²² A renowned remedy against him, claimed to be effective when all else failed, is to expose one's buttocks and expel flatus at him. Luther thought that the Devil feared anal affront most and when he could not get rid of him by jeering at him he would say: 'Teufel ich hab auch in die Hosen geschissen. Hastu es auch gerochen?' This homeopathic cure was one which Luther advocated all his life, and he relates the story of a young lady acquaintance who followed his advice with success — 'Sathanum crepitu ventris fugavit.' But if it could repulse the Devil, the same desperate method could also expel the imps of Satan. It is a curious fact that although Satan's abode was reputed to be a sulphurous dwelling, for centuries noxious fumes were believed to be efficacious in smoking the Devil out of the unhappy demoniac. The Holkham Bible Picture Book (fol. 30) shows Judas evacuating a devil ex ano and a friar in the baberies of the north side choir stalls in St. George's Chapel, Windsor, stoops down with bare buttocks to make a similar ejection.²³

Notes on p. 173:

²² Luther, Tischreden, II, no. 1557; E. Jones, Nightmare, p. 176; Bourke, Scat. Rites, pp. 163, 444. Braddy, SFQ, XXX, notes examples of scatological word-play, e.g. ferthyng/fert; odious meschief/arsmetrike.
²³ Druce, Notebooks, F101.

Hat tip: A friend.

An Essay Upon Wind

2012-01-23T08:29:00.000-08:00

From [Charles James Fox], An Essay Upon Wind; with curious anecdotes of eminent peteurs. Humbly dedicated to the Lord Chancellor. Printed on superfine pot-paper, at the office of Peter Puffendorf, Potsdam:

I have heard, from several of your brother peers, that your Lordship farts, without reserve, when seated on the woolsack, in a full assembly of nobles ... Fame, my Lord, with her shrill loud trumpet, reports that your Lordship's farts, are as STRONG, and as SOUND, as your arguments - as VIGOROUS as your intellects - as FORCIBLE as your language - as BRILLIANT as your wit - and as SONOROUS and MUSICAL as your Lordship's voice.

Excerpt above from Jarndyce Antiquarian Booksellers, Catalogue CXCVI (Winter 2011-12), no. 122.

A French Expression

2012-01-11T09:00:00.000-08:00

Thanks to a friend for drawing my attention to a French expression, "péter dans la soie," literally "to fart into silk." Le Trésor de la langue française informatisé, s.v. péter, defines it as "porter des vêtements luxueux, vivre dans le luxe," i.e. "to wear luxurious clothes, to live in luxury," and the earliest citation is Lucien Rigaud, Dictionnaire du jargon parisien: l'argot ancien et l'argot moderne (Paris: Paul Ollendorff, 1878), p. 257.

This colorful expression reminded my friend, as it reminds me, of a certain candidate now running for the office of President of the United States, despite that candidate's claims of youthful poverty.

Vignette of the Poet Thomas Gray

2012-01-10T04:50:00.000-08:00

[Richard Gooch], Facetiae Cantabrigienses (London: William Cole, 1825), p. 45:

Those who remember Mr. Gray when at the University of Cambridge, where he resided the greater part of his life, will recollect that he was a little prim fastidious man, distinguished by a short shuffling step. He commonly held up his gown behind with one of his hands, at the same time cocking up his chin, and perkng up his nose. Christopher Smart, who was contemporary with him at Pembroke Hall, used to say that "Gray walked as if he had fouled his small-clothes, and looked as if he smelt it."

It Was Not a Tansy

2011-12-28T11:14:00.000-08:00

In a duel, Roderick Random disarmed his opponent:

That I might, however, mortify his vanity, which triumphed without bounds over my misfortune, I thrust his sword up to the hilt in something (it was not a tansy) that lay smoking on the plain, and joined the rest of the soldiers with an air of tranquillity and indifference.

Tobias Smollett, The Adventures of Roderick Random, Vol. II, Chap. VIII.

A tansy is an aromatic herb. The "something...that lay smoking on the plain" was a fresh turd.

Divine Afflatus

2011-12-27T07:01:00.000-08:00

Mary Reed Bobbitt, With Dearest Love to All: The Life and Letters of Lady Jebb (London, Faber and Faber, 1960), p.63 (Cara is Lady Jebb):

One of Cara's old Cambridge acquaintances, Mrs. Keynes, when ninety, recalled a story about Jeanette Potts, who took herself very seriously as a poetess. One day when she was taking a walk into the town (they had moved into a house on Parker's Piece) she was inspired to write a poem. Rushing into Peck's, the chemist's shop, she exclaimed, 'The divine afflatus! Give me some paper, quick!' Mr. Peck, much puzzled about her predicament, showed her into the lavatory.

Hat tip: A friend.

What Are Those Pieces of Paper?

2011-12-24T07:26:00.000-08:00

Gwen Raverat, Period Piece: A Cambridge Childhood (London: Faber and Faber Limited, 1952), p. 34:

And so it was; I can remember the smell very well, for all the sewage went into the river, till the town was at last properly drained, when I was about ten years old. There is a tale of Queen Victoria being shown over Trinity by the Master, Dr. Whewell, and saying, as she looked down over the bridge: 'What are those pieces of paper floating down the river?' To which, with great presence of mind, he replied: 'Those, ma'am, are notices that bathing is forbidden.'

Flaubert's Motto

2011-12-21T06:26:00.000-08:00

Gustave Flaubert, letter to Ernest Feydeau (August 1859, translated by Francis Steegmuller):

Shit, shit, shit: such is my motto.

The Crime of Edgar Marsalla

2011-12-18T06:03:00.000-08:00

J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, Chapter 3:

The only good part of his speech was right in the middle of it. He was telling us all about what a swell guy he was, what a hotshot and all, then all of a sudden this guy sitting in the row in front of me, Edgar Marsalla, laid this terrific fart. It was a very crude thing to do, in chapel and all, but it was also quite amusing. Old Marsalla. He damn near blew the roof off. Hardly anybody laughed out loud, and old Ossenburger made out like he didn't even hear it, but old Thurmer, the headmaster, was sitting right next to him on the rostrum and all, and you could tell he heard it. Boy, was he sore. He didn't say anything then, but the next night he made us have compulsory study hall in the academic building and he came up and made a speech. He said that the boy that had created the disturbance in chapel wasn't fit to go to Pencey. We tried to get old Marsalla to rip off another one, right while old Thurmer was making his speech, but he wasn't in the right mood.

Gluttony's Drinking Bout and Its Aftermath

2011-12-17T03:41:00.001-08:00

William Langland, Piers Plowman 5.344-351, translated by Terence Tiller:

So they laughed and they lowered and yelled, 'Let's have a drink,'
And sat there till Evensong, singing now and then,
Till Gluttony had golloped a gallon or more
And his guts now started to rumble like two greedy sows.
He pissed four pints in the space of a Pater-noster,
And blew the round bugle at his backbone's end
So that all who heard that horn held their noses,
And wished he had bunged it with a bunch of whins.

What to Say When Someone Farts

2011-12-16T03:20:00.001-08:00

"Heaven preserve me! I am suffocated! Fellow! fellow! away with thee. Curse thee, fellow! get thee gone: I shall be stunk to death!"

Tobias Smollett, The Adventures of Roderick Random, Vol. I, Chap. XXXIV.

"What lusty trumpet thus doth summon us?"

William Shakespeare, King John 5.2.117.

Lese-Majesty

2011-12-13T04:38:00.001-08:00

Martial 12.77, translated by D.R. Shackleton Bailey:

As Aethon on the Capitol addressed Jupiter with many a prayer, standing on tiptoe and bending backwards, he farted. People laughed, but the father of the gods himself was offended and punished our client with three nights of home dining. After this scandal, when poor little Aethon wants to go to the Capitol, he first visits Paterclus' latrines and farts ten times or twenty. But though he has covered himself by thus breaking wind, he addresses Jupiter buttocks clenched.

The Fartiest Seasons of All

2011-12-08T03:41:00.000-08:00

Robin D. Gill, Octopussy, Dry Kidney & Blue Spots: Dirty Themes from 18-19C Japanese Poems (Paraverse Press, 2007), p. 370 (speaking of Issa):

[H]e also recognized that Spring and Fall were probably the fartiest seasons of all, even if one was not so aware of one another's production as when shut in for the winter, and cut dozens of farts into them. When Spring came people were eating gas inducing daikon pickles and other salted greens that outlasted the winter and were metaphysically full of pep and ready to go.

Id., p. 371, translating verses by Issa:

just ten farts
is all i go out to dump
this long night

Hat tip: A friend.

A Compound of Villainous Smells

2011-12-02T11:19:00.000-08:00

Tobias Smollett, The Expedition of Humphry Clinker (Ware: Wordsworth, 1995), p. 59:

It was, indeed, a compound of villainous smells, in which the most violent stinks, and the most powerful perfumes, contended for the mastery. Imagine to yourself a high exalted essence of mingled odours, arising from putrid gums, imposthumated lungs, sour flatulencies, rank armpits, sweating feet, running sores and issues, plasters, ointments, and embrocations, hungary-water, spirit of lavender, assa foetida drops, musk, hartshorn, and sal volatile; besides a thousand frowzy steams, which I could not analyse.

The Nature of Stink

2011-11-30T06:36:00.000-08:00

Tobias Smollett, The Expedition of Humphry Clinker (Ware: Wordsworth, 1995), pp. 12-13:

Then hemming thrice, he assumed a most ridiculous solemnity of aspect, and entered into a learned investigation of the nature of stink. He observed, that stink, or stench, meant no more than a strong impression on the olfactory nerves, and might be applied to substances of the most opposite qualities; that in the Dutch language, stinken signified the most agreeable perfume, as well as the most fetid odour, as appears in Van Vloudel's translation of Horace, in that beautiful ode, Quis multa gracilis, &c. The words liquidis perfusus odoribus, he translates van civit et moschata gestinken; that individuals differed toto coelo in their opinion of smells, which, indeed, was altogether as arbitrary as the opinion of beauty; that the French were pleased with the putrid effluvia of animal food; and so were the Hottentots in Africa, and the savages in Greenland; and that the negroes on the coast of Senegal would not touch fish till it was rotten; strong presumptions in favour of what is generally called stink, as those nations are in a state of nature, undebauched by luxury, unseduced by whim and caprice; that he had reason to believe the stercoraceous flavour, condemned by prejudice as a stink, was, in fact, most agreeable to the organs of smelling; for that every person who pretended to nauseate the smell of another's excretions, snuffed up his own with particular complacency; for the truth of which he appealed to all the ladies and gentlemen then present: he said, the inhabitants of Madrid and Edinburgh found particular satisfaction in breathing their own atmosphere, which was always impregnated with stercoraceous effluvia; that the learned Dr. B—, in his treatise on 'The Four Digestions,' explains in what manner the volatile effluvia from the intestines stimulate and promote the operations of the animal economy: he affirmed, the last Grand Duke of Tuscany, of the Medicis family, who refined upon sensuality with the spirit of a philosopher, was so delighted with that odour, that he caused the essence of ordure to be extracted, and used it as the most delicious perfume: that he himself (the doctor), when he happened to be low-spirited, or fatigued with business, found immediate relief and uncommon satisfaction from hanging over the stale contents of a close-stool, while his servant stirred it about under his nose; nor was this effect to be wondered at, when we consider that this substance abounds with the self-same volatile salts that are so greedily smelled to by the most delicate invalids, after they have been extracted and sublimed by the chemists.

Tinker and Stinker

2011-11-22T03:50:00.000-08:00

The Life and Adventures of Job Nott, Buckle Maker, of Birmingham...As Written by Himself (Birmingham: E. Piercy, 1793), pp. 19-20:

The next place I stopt at was on the road were I meant to make my quarters for that night. A travelling Tinker and his Wench was all our company. She was a great He-looking draggle tailed creature, full 6 foot high, with eyes as big as oysters, and a mouth as Wide as three of mine. He called her Spanker. We ordered a dish of beef stakes for supper, and a famous dish it proved, but before I'd eat two mouthfuls on't, Spanker belch'd and broke Wind confoundedly, so that, hungry as I was, it quite turn'd my stomach, for that's a thing reckoned beastly even among the poorest of folks. However the dish was soon cleared. I've had a brave supper, said Spanker. So have I says the Tinker. And so haven't I, said I, for you turn'd me sick, Madam. Well, said she, What said the Dutchess, when she got a Liftenant made Captain for fathering a f—t as she let before the Queen, Its an ill Wind that blows Nobody good. There was the more for me and the Tinker.

Rectal Music

2011-11-21T03:36:00.000-08:00

From The benefit of farting explain'd: or, the fundament-all cause of the distempers incident to the fair-sex, enquired into. Proving à posteriori most of the dis-ordures in-tail'd upon them, are owning to flatulencies not seasonably vented. Written in Spanish by Don Fartinando Puff-indorst, professor of bombast in the University of Crackow. And translated into English at the request, and for the use, of the Lady Damp-fart of Her-fart-shire. By Obadiah Fizzle, Groom of the Stool to the Princess of Arsimini in Sardinia. Long-Fart: (Longford in Ireland), printed by Simon Bumbubbard, at the sign of the Wind-Mill opposite Twattling-Street, 1722:

Dr. Blow in his Treatise of the Fundiment-alls of Musick asserts, that the first Discovery of Harmony was owing to an Observation of Persons of different Sizes, sounding different Notes, in Musick, by Farting, for while one Farted in B fa bimi, another was observ'd to answer in F f aut, and make that agreeable Concord call'd a Fifth, whence that Musical Part had its Name of Bum-Fiddle, and the first Invention of the Double Curtel was owing to this Observation; by this Rule it wou'd be an easy Matter to Form a Farting Consort, by ranging Persons of different Sizes in Order, as you wou'd a Ring of Bells, or a Set of Organ Pipes, which Entertainment wou'd prove much more Diverting round a Tea Table, than the usual one, Scandal; since the sweetest Harmony is allow'd by most, to proceed from GUTS.

Where Do You Buy That Incense?

2011-11-07T08:48:00.000-08:00

Diodorus of Sinope, The Heiress, quoted by Athenaeus 6.239 e-f (translated by C.B. Gulick):

And so, in later times, certain rich men, imitating the example of Heracles, picked out parasites to support, and invited them in, selecting not the finest men, but those best able to play the flatterer and praise them in everything. Why! When a patron, after eating radishes or a stale sheat-fish, belches in their faces, the flatterers say that he must have lunched on violets and roses. And when the patron breaks wind as he lies next to one of these fellows, the latter applies his nose and begs him to tell him, "Where do you buy that incense?"

Air Freshener

2011-11-05T15:17:00.000-07:00

Ben Jonson, The Staple of Newes, Act III, Scene II, lines 98-102, from his Works, Vol. VI, edd. C.H. Herford et al. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1938), p. 331:

CLA. They write from Libtzig (reuerence to your eares)
The Art of drawing farts out of dead bodies,
Is by the Brotherhood of the Rosie Crosse,
Produc'd vnto perfection, in so sweet
And rich a tincture—— FIT. As there is no Princesse,
But may perfume her chamber with th'extraction.

Museum Flatulence

2011-10-30T07:09:00.000-07:00

Alec Guinness, A Commonplace Book (London: Hamish Hamilton, 2001), p.6:

A fleshy old man, moving from room to room, apparently pausing to admire pictures and objects, but in fact quietly easing out a little gas at each stop so as not to startle the hushed tapestried world around him with a resounding fart.

Hat tip: A friend, whose name I omit, lest his reputation suffer by connection with this blog.

Oh, He Never Returned, No, He Never Returned

2011-10-28T07:54:00.000-07:00

Carsten Niebuhr, Travels through Arabia and Other Countries in the East, tr. Robert Heron, Vol. II (Edinburgh: R. Morrison and Son [et al.], 1792), p. 252:

The Arabians are greatly shocked when that accident happens to a man, which is the natural consequence of the fulness of the intestines after too copious a meal, and of the indigestion of windy articles of diet. The Chevalier D'Arvieux has been blamed as guilty of exaggeration in what he says concerning the delicacy of the Arabs upon this score; but I have found all that he says of the manners and usages of this nation to be strictly true. I am therefore inclined to believe equally what he relates concerning things which I could not observe or verify myself. It would seem that the Arabs are not all equally shocked at such an involuntary accident. Yet, a Bedouin, guilty of such a piece of indecency, would be despised by his countrymen. The instance of an Arab of the tribe of Belludsje was mentioned to me, who, for a reason of this sort, was obliged to leave his country, and never durst return.

Niebuhr refers to Laurent d'Arvieux, Voyage fait par ordre du roy Louis XIV, dans la Palestine... (Paris: André Cailleau, 1717), p. 172 (my translation):

What is more shameful among them is to break wind, which is a sort of crime if done on purpose. When a fart unfortunately does escape them in public, they are regarded as disgraced individuals, with whom no one wants any more to do, and it has often happened that those who have had this misfortune have been obliged to go into exile and live among other peoples, lest they be exposed to jeers and to all the consequences of a bad reputation.

Ce qu'il y a de plus malhonnête parmi eux, c'est de lâcher des vents, c'est une espece de crime que d'en faire volontairement. Lors qu'il leur en échappe par malheur dans quelque compagnie, ils sont regardés comme des gens infames, avec qui l'on ne veut plus avoir de commerce, & il est souvent arrivé que ceux qui avoient eu ce malheur, ont été obligés de s'absenter et de passer chés d'autres peuples, pour n'êtres pas exposés aux huées, & à toutes les suites d'une méchante reputation.

Unruly Wind Within her Womb

2011-10-27T05:51:00.000-07:00

Ian C. Storey, ed., Fragments of Old Comedy, Vol. I: Alcaeus to Diocles (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2011), p. 173 (translating Athenaeus 454a, with translator's footnote):

Callias was the first to reveal a word through iambic lines, a rather vulgar word, but phrased in the following manner:

Dear ladies, I am pregnant, but for modesty's sake I will spell out the name of my child for you in letters. A great upright stroke, and from its middle stands a little slanting stroke on its side. Then a circle with two little feet.³

³ The letters described are psi and omega ("ō"), yielding pso, perhaps related to psoa (foul smell). The speaker is not pregnant, then, but suffering from gas.

Hold Your Nose

2011-10-26T16:52:00.000-07:00

Mary Jones (1707-1778), "Epistle, from Fern-Hill," in her Miscellanies in Prose and Verse (Oxford: Dodsley, 1750), pp. 133-138 (lines 47-56 on p. 136):

As when (to speak in phrase more humble)
The Gen'ral's guts begin to grumble,
Whate'er the cause that inward stirs,
Or pork, or pease, or wind, or worse;
He wisely thinks the more 'tis pent,
The more 'twill struggle for a vent:
So only begs you'll hold your nose,
And gently lifting up his clothes,
Away th' imprison'd vapour flies,
And mounts a zephyr to the skies.

Oh, What a Relief It Is!

2011-10-24T07:30:00.000-07:00

Edward Guilpin, Skialetheia. Or, A shadow of Truth, in certaine Epigrams and Satyres (London: Printed by I.R. for Nicholas Ling, 1598), Epigram number 7, lines 4-6:

As when the cholicke in the gutts doth straine,
With ciuill conflicts in the same embrac't,
But let a fart, and then the worst is past.

Though I Speak with the Tongue of Angels

2011-07-23T08:10:00.000-07:00

James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, chapter 5:

The stout student who stood below them on the steps farted briefly. Dixon turned towards him, saying in a soft voice:

—Did an angel speak?

You Know All the Tricks

2011-07-23T04:46:00.000-07:00

Rohinton Mistry, A Fine Balance (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1995), pp.194-196:

Past the crouching men, the three found a suitable spot. "The steel rail is very useful," said their neighbour. "Works just like a platform. Puts you higher than the ground, and the shit doesn't tickle your behind when it piles up."

"You know all the tricks, for sure," said Om, as they undid their pants and assumed their positions on the rail.

"Takes very little time to learn." He indicated the men in the scrub. "Now squatting here can be dangerous. Poisonous centipedes crawl about in there. I wouldn't expose my tender parts to them. Also, if you lose your balance in those bushes, you end up with an arseful of thorns."

...

"Tell me, O great Goo Guruji, do you recommend that we buy a railway timetable, if we are to squat on the tracks every morning?"

"No need for that, my obedient disciple. In a few days your gut will learn the train timings better than the stationmaster."

...

Along the line, men and women abandoned the tracks and waited by the ditch for the locomotive interruption to pass; the ones in the bushes stayed put. Rajaram pointed at a train compartment as it glided slowly in front of them.

"Look at those bastards," he shouted. "Staring at people shitting, as if they themselves are without bowels. As if a turd emerging from an arse-hole is a circus performance." He flung obscene gestures at the passengers, making some of them turn away.

...

" I wish I could bend over, point, and shoot it like a rocket in their faces," said Rajaram. "Make them eat it, since they are so interested in it." He shook his head as they walked back to their shacks. "That kind of shameless behaviour makes me very angry."

"My grandfather's friend, Dayaram," said Om, "he was force to eat a landlord's shit once, because he was late ploughing his field."

Rajaram emptied the last drops of water from his can into his palm and slicked back his hair. "Did that Dayaram develop any magic power afterwards?"

"No, why?"

"I've heard of a caste of sorcerers. They eat human shit, it gives them their black powers."

"Really?" said Om. "Then we could start a business—collect all these lumps from the track, package them and sell to that caste. Ready-made lunches, teatime snacks, hot and steaming."

Hat tip: A friend.

The New Doctrine of Odorific Effluvia

2011-07-12T17:02:00.000-07:00

Miscellaneous Works of Dr. William Wagstaffe, 2nd ed. (London: Jonah Bowyer, 1726), pp. 89-92:

I cannot but take Notice of one Circumstance before I conclude, which may serve to shew to what an Height of Folly, Ambition or Success may raise a Man. Bob, it seems, was mightily addicted to breaking Wind backwards, and nothing could offend him more, than to see the Uneasiness it gave his Adversaries. Accordingly he took Occasion, the next time the Convention met, to acquaint them, That notwithstanding he often broke Wind, yet he never perceived any Smell attended it. This immediately was admitted into their Belief, and propagated throughout the whole Kingdom, with all the Industry imaginable. It was the Discourse of the Ladies over their Tea, and debated everywhere; all the Party attesting the Truth of it, with their usual Modesty. A Chymist, who wrote in his Defence, affirmed publickly, That breaking Wind, being nothing else but a Volatile Spirit, extracted from the Vital Sulphur of the Zibethum Occidentale, wherein consisted the Essence of Life, and the Virtual Powers of all Being, a Mystery not to be comprehended by Lower Intelligences, it was impossible the Olfactories should be attacked by any foetid or putrid Effluvia.

The Majority of the Nation, who for a long Time together had tamely submitted to the Usurpations of Bob Hush, were now no longer to be deluded by the Cant of Chymistry and Enthusiasm, but resolved to assert the Prerogative of their Senses; and several who had been led Blindfold by him, had their Eyes opened. The new Doctrine of Odorific Effluvia was every where exploded and condemned, to the great Mortification of declining Bob, who either because he could not gain his Point, or because the Testimonies about that Time exhibited against him, might endanger either his Life or his Estate, or for some other Reasons best known to himself, left the Kingdom of Fairy-Land. Thus sneaked off that Champion of his Cause, who for so many Years together, had been the Discourse of the whole World, into a sort of voluntary Banishment, to the Ruin of his Party, and the Joy of all good Men, declaring publickly, He left left his Country, because he was not treated according to his Merit; when in reality it was because he could not prevail upon them to believe, he smelt sweet.

An Epitaph

2011-06-25T08:01:00.000-07:00

Archie Armstrong's Banquet of Jests (1641; rpt. Edinburgh: William Paterson, 1872), p. 6:

An Epitaph.

One Mr. Dombelow died of the winde Collicke, on whom was writ this Epitaph.

Dead is Dicke Dum below.
Would you the reason know:
Could his taile have but spoken,
His stout-heart had not broken.

Grounds for Appeal?

2011-06-24T07:19:00.000-07:00

Peter V. MacDonald, Return of the Court Jesters: Back to the Bar for More of the Funniest Stories from Canada's Courts (Toronto: Stoddard, 1990), p. 6:

[H]e was launching an appeal because of Assistant District Attorney Ned Lowenbach's excessive flatulence. "It was disgusting," Head declared after the four-week jury trial. "He [the prosecutor] farted about a hundred times. He even lifted his leg several times."

An Odd Blessing

2011-06-21T07:33:00.000-07:00

John Jortin, Discourses Concerning the Truth of the Christian Religion, Vol. III (London: John White, 1805), p. 209:

At another time, the emperor Michael sent to his mother Theodora to come and receive the benediction of the patriarch. She, imagining that it was Ignatius, came and prostrated herself with great respect before him, to receive the blessing. But it was Gryllus, who took care to conceal his face. He then brake wind backwards, and in a profane manner said, Such as I have, give I unto thee. The empress, thus insulted, cursed the false patriarch, and her son, and told the latter that God, whom he despised, would certainly forsake him.

Absolutely and Unconditionally Funny

2011-06-18T08:39:00.000-07:00

K.J. Dover, Aristophanic Comedy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972), p. 41:

We might have imagined that the Greeks, living as they did in conditions which we should regard as intolerably insanitary, would not have welcomed such frequent reminders in comedy of dirt and discomfort. But the humour of excretion seems to belong to all cultures; indeed, the noisy expulsion of gas from the bowels has as good a claim as anything in our experience to be absolutely and unconditionally funny. That is presumably due to the fact that the small child, having begun with a natural sensual enjoyment of defecation, is then restrained from making a mess or a bad smell where adults do not want it, and is thus provided with a channel through which he can later retaliate on society, even if only vicariously, by identifying himself with characters shouting vulgar words in comedy.

Soiled Doublets

2011-06-07T05:44:00.000-07:00

Lewis Carroll:

I enclose some Doublets, with which you may like to occupy your free minutes (if you have any). To solve a Doublet, you must change one letter only, in the first word, making a real word; then change one letter only in the new word, and so on till you get to the second word. The intermediate words are called "Links," and the whole thing a "Chain."

An example, from rice to poop, from BigHominid's Hairy Chasms:

RICE
RACE
PACE
PALE
POLE
POLL
POOL
POOP

A further example by my son (Turdman Junior, a chip off the old block), transforming bean to fart:

BEAN
BRAN
BRAT
BOAT
BOOT
FOOT
FORT
FART

Free Alois Mabhunu

2011-06-07T05:26:00.000-07:00

David Smith, "Zimbabwe detective gets 10 days in jail for using Mugabe's private toilet," The Guardian (June 2, 2011):

A Zimbabwean police officer arrested for using president Robert Mugabe's private toilet has been jailed for 10 days, it was reported on Thursday.

A court found that detective sergeant Alois Mabhunu yielded to the call of nature and forced his way past guards to a loo reserved for 87-year-old Mugabe at a recent trade show.

Mabhunu was arrested the following day and detained at police barracks for three weeks. On Tuesday he was convicted by an internal police court and sentenced to 10 days in prison, Zimbabwe's VOP radio reported.

But Mabhunu has appealed to the national police commissioner, Augustine Chihuri, to overturn the verdict, the station added.

"He has been convicted and sentenced to 10 days in prison by the police court but has since made an appeal to the police commissioner soon after conviction," said a source quoted by VOP.

Mabhunu, a murder detective, has also been demoted and transferred to a different police station, though he will remain in the city of Bulawayo. He is no longer allowed to wear plain clothes and expected to report for duty in full uniform.

The incident happened at the Zimbabwe International Trade Fair (ZITF) early last month. According to VOP, Bulawayo police would only say that Mabhunu's case was "an internal matter".

At least he wasn't shot for choosing the wrong place to evacuate. See Valley Forge Orderly Book of General George Weedon of the Continental Army (New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1903), p. 255:

Major Clairborne will in future mount a Brigade Guard to afford three Sentinals with orders to Fire on any man who shall be found easing himself elsewhere than in y^e Vaults.

Agreeable Associations

2011-04-28T09:51:00.000-07:00

Henry David Thoreau, Journals (November 3, 1857):

I notice some old cow-droppings in a pasture, which are decidedly pink. Even these trivial objects awaken agreeable associations in my mind...

The Odour of Farts

2011-04-11T10:38:00.000-07:00

Graham Greene, A Sort of Life (London: The Bodley Head, 1971), p. 78:

I cannot remember what particular item in the routine of a boarding-school roused this first act of rebellion—loneliness, the struggle of conflicting loyalties, the sense of continuous grime, of unlocked lavatory doors, the odour of farts (it was sexually a very pure house, there was no hint of homosexuality, but scatology was another matter, and I have disliked the lavatory joke from that age on).

Something That Never Was Before

2011-03-25T05:29:00.000-07:00

Bendt Alster, Sumerian Proverbs in the Schøyen Collection = Cornell University Studies in Assyriology and Sumerology, 2 (Bethesda: CDL Press, 2007), p. 8:

Something that never was before: A young girl (who) does not fart in the lap of her husband.

Thanks to a friend for drawing this to my attention.

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's Commode

2011-03-16T05:36:00.000-07:00

Robert Halsband, "New Anecdotes of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu," in René Wellek and Alvaro Ribeiro, edd., Evidence in Literary scholarship: Essays in Memory of James Marshall Owen (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979), pp. 241-246 (at 245):

She shew'd him her Commode, with false backs of books, the works of Pope, Swift, and Bolinbroke: she said she knew them well. They were the greatest Rascals, but she had the satisfaction of shitting on them every day.

Do Not Poison Thyself

2011-02-28T05:40:00.000-08:00

From Don Juan Lamberto; or, a Comical History of the Late Times. By Montelion, Knight of the Oracle, in Walter Scott, ed., A Collection of Scarce and Valuable Tracts, Vol. VII (London: T. Cadell et al., 1812), p. 140:

Neptune seeing his wife so much concern'd, thought it no time to dally; therefore out of the charriot he comes; which, when the gyant Husonio beheld, and saw also by the looks of him that he was plaguy mad, he resolved to take what advantage he could, and therefore squeezing his hypochondrions, he let such a fart as blew out all the torches; then taking his cloak-bag in his right hand, and his club in his left, he put himself into a posture of defence. The fart as it was great, so it was strong, and the scent thereof so much offended the nose of Thetis, that she was not able to endure it; 'O come away Neptune,' quoth she. 'and do not poyson thyself and me too: let my bason and ewer go to the devil, so as I may but get out of this stink I care not.'

The Island of Ruach

2011-02-23T04:59:00.000-08:00

François Rabelais, Gargantua and Pantagruel IV.43 (tr. J.M. Cohen):

They do not shit, piss, or spit on this island. But, on the other hand, they poop, fart, and belch most copiously. They suffer from all sorts and varieties of diseases. For every malady originates and develops from flatulence, as Hippocrates proves in his book, On Wind. But the worst epidemic they know is the windy colic, as a remedy for which they use large cupping-glasses, and so draw off much wind. They all die of dropsy or tympanites; they all fart as they die, the men loudly, the women soundlessly, and in this way their souls depart by the back passage.

OIT

2011-02-22T07:47:00.000-08:00

Jeffrey Steingarten, The Man Who Ate Everything (New York: Vintage Books, 1998), p. 231:

Why did they formulate Olestra this way? Because the early, more liquid versions caused gastrointestinal problems. One of these—"anal seepage," or, in my preference, "passive oil loss"—occurs when fully liquid Olestra separates from the food with which it was cooked and slips along the inner walls of people's intestines, bypassing everything else in its way. Drops of Olestra show up on their underwear or floating in their toilets. (The FDA actually abbreviates this as OIT, "oil in toilet.")

Well Done, Margaret

2011-02-17T04:57:00.000-08:00

Dougal Graham, Collected Writings, Vol. II (Glasgow: Thomas D. Morison, 1883), p. 117:

Leper and his master went to a gentleman's house to work, where there was a saucy house-keeper, who had more ignorance and pride, than good sense and manners; she domineered over her fellow-servants in a tyrannical manner; Leper resolved to mortify her pride; so he finds an ant's nest, and takes their white eggs, grinds them to a powder, and puts them into the dish her supper-sowens was to be put in. After she had taken her supper, as she was covering the table, the imock-powder began to operate, and she let a great fart, well done Margaret, says the laird, she runs away for shame, but before she turned herself round, she gives another raird. My faith, says the Laird, Margaret, your arse would take a cautioner; before she got out of the chamber-door, she lets fly another crack; then she goes to order her fellow-servant to give the laird his supper, but before she could give the necessary directions, she gave fire again, which set them all a laughing; she runs into a room by herself, and there she played away her one gun battery so fast, as she had been sieging the Havannah. The laird and lady came to hear the fun, they were like to split their sides at proud Maggy, so next morning she left the place, to the great joy of her fellow servants.

On a Fart

2011-02-10T03:06:00.000-08:00

Matthew Prior, On a Fart, Let in the House of Commons:

Reader I was born, and cry'd;
I crack'd, I smelt, and so I dy'd.
Like Julius Caesar's was My death,
Who in the senate lost his breath.
Much alike entomb'd does lie
The noble Romulus and I;
And when I dy'd, like Flora fair,
I left the Common-Wealth my heir.

Not I

2011-02-07T01:57:00.000-08:00

The Sack Full of Newes. An Old Jest-Book, ed. J.O. Halliwell (London: For the Editor, 1861), pp. 38-39:

There was a Lady dwelt in the Countrey which had a foole that did use to go with her to church: and on a time as his lady sat in the church she let a great fart escape so that all the people heard it, and they looked on the foole that stood by her, thinking that it was he: Which when the fool perceived, he said truely it was not I that let the fart, it was my Lady. Whereat she was ashamed, and went out of the church, and chid the foole because he said it was not himselfe. Then the foole ran into the church againe and said aloud, masters, the fart which my Lady let I will take it upon me for she commanded me to say so. Whereat all the people laughed more then they did before, and the Lady was much more ashamed.

Caution

2011-02-06T10:50:00.000-08:00

Lord Chesterfield, letter to his son (November 12, O.S. 1750):

I must add another caution, which is, that upon no account whatever you put your fingers, as too many people are apt to do, in your nose or ears. It is the most shocking, nasty, vulgar rudeness that can be offered to company; it disgusts one, it turns one's stomach; and, for my own part, I would much rather know that a man's finger were actually in his breech, than see them in his nose. Wash your ears well every morning, and blow your nose in your handkerchief whenever you have occasion: but, by the way, without looking at it afterwards.

A Kind of Rapture

2011-01-23T08:05:00.001-08:00

Thomas Lynch, The Undertaking: Life Studies from the Dismal Trade (New York: Penguin Books, 1997), p. 33:

The thing about the new toilet is that it removes the evidence in such a hurry. The flush toilet, more than any single invention, has "civilized" us in a way that religion and law could never accomplish. No more the morning office of the chamber pot or outhouse, where sights and sounds and odors reminded us of the corruptibility of flesh. Since Crapper's marvelous invention, we need only pull the lever behind us and the evidence disappears, a kind of rapture that removes the nuisance.

The Soothsayer

2010-12-31T05:53:00.000-08:00

Poggio Bracciolini, Facetiae CLXIV (In Which Gonella, the Jester, Wins a Wager; tr. Anonymous):

It is told of Gonella, the clever jester, that he wagered with a man from Ferrara that he would make a soothsayer of him.

He took his companion to bed with him and, breaking wind softly, instructed him to stick his head under the covers. The other obeyed, but immediately withdrew, offended by the foul odor.

“It appears to me that you have farted,” he said. Upon which Gonella cried: “Correct! I win the bet, for you are already a soothsayer!”

Thoughts While Emptying the Cistern of Nature

2010-12-27T11:11:00.000-08:00

Cotton Mather, Diary (July 1700):

I was once emptying the Cistern of Nature, and making Water at the Wall. At the same Time, there came a Dog, who did so too, before me. Thought I; "What mean, and vile Things are the Children of Men, in this mortal State! How much do our natural Necessities abase us, and place us in some regard, on the same Level with the very Dogs!"

My Thought proceeded. "Yett I will be a more noble Creature; and at the very Time, when my natural Necessities debase me into the Condition of the Beast, my Spirit shall (I say, at that very Time!) rise and soar, and fly up, towards the Employment of the Angel."

Accordingly, I resolved, that it should be my ordinary Practice, whenever I step to answer the one or other Necessity of Nature, to make it an Opportunity of shaping in my Mind, some holy, noble, divine Thought; usually, by way of occasional Reflection on some sensible Object which I either then have before me, or have lately had so: a Thought that may leave upon my Spirit, some further Tincture of Piety!

And I have done according to this Resolution!

I Honor Shit

2010-12-24T05:07:00.000-08:00

Maxine Kumin, The Excrement Poem:

It is done by us all, as God disposes, from
the least cast of worm to what must have been
in the case of the brontosaur, say, spoor
of considerable heft, something awesome.

We eat, we evacuate, survivors that we are.
I think these things each morning with shovel
and rake, drawing the risen brown buns
toward me, fresh from the horse oven, as it were,

or culling the alfalfa-green ones, expelled
in a state of ooze, through the sawdust bed
to take a serviceable form, as putty does,
so as to lift out entire from the stall.

And wheeling to it, storming up the slope,
I think of the angle of repose the manure
pile assumes, how sparrows come to pick
the redelivered grain, how inky-cap

coprinous mushrooms spring up in a downpour.
I think of what drops from us and must then
be moved to make way for the next and next.
However much we stain the world, spatter

it with our leavings, make stenches, defile
the great formal oceans with what leaks down,
trundling off today's last barrowful,
I honor shit for saying: We go on.

Home Is Where the Fart Is

2010-12-23T05:01:00.000-08:00

Ernest Hemingway, The Soul of Spain with McAlmon and Bird the Publishers:

In the rain in the rain in the rain in the rain in Spain.
Does it rain in Spain?
Oh yes my dear on the contrary and there are no bull fights.
The dancers dance in long white pants
It isn't right to yence your aunts
Come Uncle, let's go home.
Home is where the heart is, home is where the fart is.
Come let us fart in the home.
There is no art in a fart.
Still a fart may not be artless.
Let us fart an artless fart in the home.
Democracy.
Democracy.
Bill says democracy must go.
Go democracy.
Go
Go
Go.
Bill's father would never knowingly sit down at table with a Democrat.
Now Bill says democracy must go.
Go on democracy.
Democracy is the shit.
Relativity is the shit.
Dictators are the shit.
Menken is the shit.
Waldo Frank is the shit.
The Broom is the shit.
Dada is the shit.
Dempsey is the shit.
This is not a complete list.
They say Ezra is the shit.
But Ezra is nice.
Come let us build a monument to Ezra.
Good a very nice monument.
You did that nicely
Can you do another?
Let me try and do one.
Let us all try and do one.
Let the little girl over there on the corner try and do one.
Come on little girl.
Do one for Ezra.
Good.
You have all been successful children.
Now let us clean the mess up.
The Dial does a monument to Proust.
We have done a monument to Ezra.
A monument is a monument.
After all it is the spirit of the thing that counts.

Behaving Like a Beast

2010-12-13T04:46:00.001-08:00

Lord Chesterfield, Letters to His Son, CC (London, November 3, O.S. 1749):

Suppose you and me alone together; I believe you will allow that I have as good a right to unlimited freedom in your company, as either you or I can possibly have in any other; and I am apt to believe too, that you would indulge me in that freedom, as far as anybody would. But notwithstanding this, do you imagine that I should think there were no bounds to that freedom? I assure you, I should not think so; and I take myself to be as much tied down by a certain degree of good manners to you, as by other degrees of them to other people. Were I to show you, by a manifest inattention to what you said to me, that I was thinking of something else the whole time; were I to yawn extremely, snore, or break wind in your company, I should think that I behaved myself to you like a beast, and should not expect that you would care to frequent me.

We may safely conclude, then, that Lord Chesterfield never said to his son, "Pull my finger, dear boy."

An Old French Proverb

2010-12-11T07:17:00.000-08:00

"Tart main a cul, quant pet est hors." I take this to mean "Too late is a hand over the arse hole, once the fart is out." A German version — "Zu spät bedeckt man den Arsch nach dem Furz."

These seem to me more earthy and vigorous than the English "It is too late to shutte the stable doore when the steed is stolne."

Let Us Exchange Our Buttocks

2010-12-04T06:07:00.000-08:00

Franz Boas, Kathlamet Texts (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1901), pp. 84-87:

Now they were hungry. Coyote mended his arrows. They went to shoot birds. Early in the morning they went. At night they came home. Badger had killed many, Coyote had killed one duck. Next morning they went again to shoot birds. At night they came home. Coyote had killed two, Badger had killed many. On the following day they went again and came back at night. Coyote had nothing. Badger had shot many. Thus it was every day. One night Coyote thought: "Let us exchange our buttocks," and he said: "What do you think? Let us exchange our buttocks." Badger replied: "I like my own buttocks. I know them: you do not know them."

The next day they went again and came back in the evening. Badger had caught many, and Coyote had two. Badger had no arrows. He just broke wind at those birds. Coyote had arrows, and behold, he got nothing. On the following morning it was just the same. Badger got many. He merely broke wind, and they were dead. Coyote sometimes got one, sometimes none. At night he said again: "Let us exchange our buttocks." Badger said: "No." Every evening Coyote said the same thing and made his brother tired.

Then Badger said: "You make me tired. Let us exchange them." Then they exchanged their buttocks. Now Coyote was glad. He was awake, and thought: "Now I have fooled you. Badger. Now I shall get many." He rose early and quickly. Then he broke wind. He arose and went out. He went with long strides and broke wind: pō, pō, pō, pō. He made slow steps and broke wind: pu, pu, pu, pu. When he stepped with long strides, he broke wind loudly; when he went slowly, he broke wind slowly. Now they went to hunt birds. They came home in the evening. Coyote had nothing, hut Badger had caught many. Coyote tried to go up to the birds with long steps, but every time he stepped he broke wind: pō, pō, pō. On the following day they went again and came back in the evening. Coyote had nothing, and Badger had killed many.

Then Coyote thought: "I made a mistake: I will return his buttocks to him." He said: "What do you think? I will return your buttocks to you." Badger did not say anything. Coyote tried to keep his buttocks closed, but he could not do it. He almost reached the ducks; then they smelled him and flew away. Again they came home, and he said: "I will return your buttocks to you." But Badger was angry. "You make me tired." he said. "I gave them to you. Now you are making me tired again. Take out yours first." Coyote took out the buttocks of Badger. Then Badger took out those of Coyote and threw them into the water, while he put his own buttocks into himself. Now Coyote's buttocks drifted down the rapid creek. Coyote pursued them. Badger went away.

Pepys Poops

2010-12-01T11:55:00.000-08:00

Samuel Pepys, Diary (Saturday, October 10, 1663):

Up; and not in any good ease yet, but had pain in making water, and some course I see I must take, besides keeping myself warm, to make myself break wind and go freely to stool before I can be well—neither of which I can do yet, though I have drank the other bottle of Mr. Hollyards against my stomach this morning.

I did however make shift to go to the office, where we sat; and there Sir J. Mennes and Sir W. Batten did advise me to take some Juniper water, and Sir W. Batten sent to his Lady for some for me, strong water made of Juniper. Whether that, or anything else of my draught this morning did it, I cannot tell, but I had a couple of stools forced after it and did break a fart or two; but whether I shall grow better upon it I cannot tell.

A Rather Girlish Noise

2010-11-30T08:36:00.000-08:00

James Joyce, letter to Nora Barnacle (December 8, 1909):

I think I would know Nora's fart anywhere. I think I could pick hers out in a roomful of farting women. It is a rather girlish noise not like the wet windy fart which I imagine fat wives have. It is sudden and dry and dirty like what a bold girl would let off in fun in a school dormitory at night.

A Scatological Anagram

2010-11-28T04:18:00.000-08:00

Sir Thomas Browne, Works, ed. Geoffrey Keynes, vol. 3 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964), p. 274:

There were in my time two proctors of the same yeare in Oxford John Smith a man not well beloved and William Oldis a purblind dimme sighted, on whome these Anagrams were made:
William Oldis
silly dimme owl
John Smith
shyt on him

The Slave of Vulgar Needs

2010-11-27T12:34:00.000-08:00

Joris-Karl Huysmans, "Ecstacy," from The Box of Spices (1874), my translation:

Night had come, the moon was emerging from the horizon, spreading on the blue background of the sky her sulfur-colored gown. I was seated next to my beloved, oh! very close! I clasped her hands, I inhaled the warm scent of her neck, the intoxicating breath of her mouth, I pressed against her shoulder, I wanted to weep; ecstasy kept me throbbing, desperate, my soul took wing on the sea of infinity. Suddenly she rose, freed her hand, disappeared into the hornbeam grove, and I heard a pitter-patter of rain on the leaves. The delicious dream vanished ...; I fell back to earth, to vile earth. O my God! So it was true, she, the divine beloved, she was, like the others, the slave of vulgar needs!

La nuit était venue, la lune émergeait de l'horizon, étalant sur le pavé bleu du ciel sa robe couleur soufre. J'étais assis près de ma bien-aimée, oh! bien près! Je serrais ses mains, j'aspirais la tiède senteur de son cou, le souffle enivrant de sa bouche, je me serrais contre son épaule, j'avais envie de pleurer; l'extase me tenait palpitant, éperdu, mon âme volait à tire d'aile sur la mer de l'infini. Tout à coup elle se leva, dégagea sa main, disparut dans la charmoie, et j'entendis comme un crépitement de pluie dans la feuillée. Le rêve délicieux s'évanouit...; je retombais sur la terre, sur l'ignoble terre. O mon Dieu! c'était donc vrai, elle, la divine aimée, elle était, comme les autres, l'esclave de vulgaires besoins!

A friend (to whom I am indebted for pointing out this passage) commented, "Poor girl. The hornbeam grove was obviously a pis-aller."

Farts: A Fragment

2010-11-26T06:40:00.000-08:00

Unfortunately this is all that I can reconstruct from Google Books' snippet view of the beginning of a poem by George Macbeth entitled "Farts," which appeared in Poetry Review 77 (1987) 35:

Farts! The last outrage of the bum
Whose lumpish contours, ordered to succumb
To forceful briefs or britches, feel their triumph come.

Farts! In their vengeful odour, still
They range as outlaws, pungent as pig-swill
And deafening the nose-drums like a noisome drill.

Lingering dregs! A dog's loosed knell
Which nothing but a good hosing can dispel
Or cat's thin, whiskery chink no disinfectant quell.

Worst is the human. Outcast air
That no disruptive perfume can repair
Or aerosoled excuses nullify or snare.

Bumbolts

2010-11-17T06:21:00.001-08:00

John Barth, The Sot-Weed Factor (Garden City: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1960), p. 322:

While thus he lay debating, his valet, though asleep, was by no means at rest His innards commenced to growl and snarl like beagles at a grounded fox; the hominy and cider in him foamed and effervesced; anon there came salutes to the rising moon, and the bedchamber filled with the perfume of ferment. The author of these delights snored roundly, but his master was not so fortunate; indeed, he had at length to flee the room, ears ringing, head a-spin, and the smart of bumbolts in his eyes.

A Sacred Place

2010-11-16T04:11:00.000-08:00

Alan Weisman, The World Without Us (New York: St. Martin's Press, 2007), pp. 57-58:

Soon after he arrived in Tucson, his new boss at the Desert Lab had handed him an earthen gray lump the approximate size and shape of a softball. It was at least 10,000 years old, but unmistakably a turd.

....

Inside Rampart Cave was a mound of dung deposited, he and his colleagues concluded, by untold generations of female sloths who took shelter there to give birth. The manure pile was five feet high, 10 feet across, and more than 100 feet long. Martin felt like he'd entered a sacred place.

An Insult

2010-11-12T03:10:00.001-08:00

Beaumont and Fletcher, The Knight of the Burning Pestle, Act III, Scene V:

Now a churl's fart in your teeth, sir!

Insouciance

2010-11-09T02:50:00.000-08:00

Jonathan Swift, Mad Mullinix and Timothy, lines 151-152:

I fart with twenty ladies by;
They call me beast, and what care I?

A Rouzer

2010-11-08T01:36:00.000-08:00

Jonathan Swift, Strephon and Chloe (1734), lines 191-192:

And as he fill'd the reeking Vase,
Let fly a Rouzer in her Face.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines rouser, sense 3, as "A loud noise; a noisy person, song, etc." and cites Swift. But, in plain English, a rouzer here is a fart.

Kenneth Haynes, English Literature and Ancient Languages (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), p. 58 (with note on p. 182), comments:

The force of those lines depends not only on the scatology but also on the surprising word 'Rouzer'; Geoffrey Hill has observed, 'It would be difficult to find a word that blends the outrageous and the festive more effectively than this.'⁴⁵

⁴⁵Geoffrey Hill, The Lords of Limit (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984), 78.

Cacatio Matutina Est Tamquam Medicina

2010-11-01T04:32:00.000-07:00

Confessions of a Barbarian: Selections from the Journals of Edward Abbey, 1951-1989 (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1996), p. 292:

Nothing like the deep satisfaction of a good defecation in the morning; why carry two or three pounds of shit around all day?

Stages of a Relationship

2010-10-31T05:29:00.000-07:00

From the movie Love and Other Disasters (2006):

Therapist: Relationships are best measured by farting.

Peter Simon: Excuse me?

Therapist: The stages of a relationship can be defined by farting. Stage one is the conspiracy of silence. This is a fantasy period where both parties pretend that they have no bodily waste. This illusion is very quickly shattered by that first shy, "Ooh, did you fart," followed by the sheepish admission of truth. This heralds a period of deeper intimacy. A period I like to call the "Fart Honeymoon", where both parties find each other's gas just the cutest thing in the world. But, of course, no honeymoon can last forever. And so we reach the critical fork in the fart. Either the fart loses its power to amuse and embarrass thereby signifying true love, or else it begins to annoy and disgust, thereby symbolizing all that is blocked and rancid in the formerly beloved. Do you see what I'm getting at?

Hat tip: My brother's wife, who took it down in shorthand while watching the movie.

The Dog Did It

2010-10-26T13:42:00.001-07:00

Carol Drinkwater, The Olive Farm: A Memoir of Life, Love and Olive Oil in the South of France (Woodstock: Overlook Press, 2001), p. 39:

"What about Pamela?" asks Clarisse.

I turn my head in surprise. Who is Pamela?

Clarisse points to the gate, and there, panting and waddling toward us, is a startlingly obese German shepherd. The addition of Pamela unbalances the carefully considered equilibrium of my already dangerously overloaded Golf, and worse, elle fait les petits pets all the way from Paris to Cannes. And they are lethal! Embracing a new family is one thing, but by the time we reach Aix-en-Provence, I am seriously asking myself, can I love this smelly dog?

An Admirable Faculty in Farting

2010-10-25T09:32:00.000-07:00

Sir Roger L'Estrange, Fables Of Aesop And other Eminent Mythologists, 7th ed. (London: D. Brown, 1724), p. 321 (no. 306, entitled An Ass puts in for an Office):

There was a Bantering Droll got himself into a very good Equipage and Employment, by an admirable Faculty he had in Farting. The Success of this Buffon encourag'd an Ass to put in for a Place too; for, says he, I'll Fart with that Puppy for his Commission, and leave it to the Judgment of those that preferred him, which has the Clearer, and Better scented Pipe of the Two.

The Moral.

Where Publique Ministers encourage Buffonery, 'tis no wonder if Buffons set up for Publique Ministers.

I Sing the Praises of a Fart

2010-10-24T09:29:00.000-07:00

A Member of the Athenian Society, Athenian Sport: or, Two Thousand Paradoxes Merrily Argued, to Amuse and Divert the Age (London: B. Bragg, 1707), pp. 114-115 = Paradox XXVI (The Best Perfume, or a Paradox in Praise of Farting):

I sing the Praises of a Fart;
That I may do't by Rules of Art,
I will invoke no Deity,
But butter'd Pease and Furmity,
And think their Help sufficient
To fit and furnish my Intent.
For sure I must not use high Strains,
For fear it bluster out in Grains:
When Virgil's Gnat, and Ovid's Flea,
And Homer's Frogs strive for the day,
There is no reason in my mind,
That a brave Fart should come behind;
Since that you may it parallel
With any thing that doth excel:
Musick is but a Fart, that's sent
From the Guts of an Instrument:
The Scholar but farts, when he gains
Learning with cracking of his Brains,
And when he 'as spent much pain and toil,
Thomas and Dun to reconcile;
And to learn the abstracting Art,
What does he get by't? Not a Fart.
The Soldier makes his Foes to run,
With but the Farting of a Gun;
That's if he make the Bullet whistle,
Else 'tis no better than a Fizle:
And if withal the Wind do stir up
Rain, 'tis but a Fart in Syrrup.
They are but Farts, the Words we say,
Words are but Wind, and so are they.
Applause is but a Fart, the crude
Blast of the fickle Multitude.
Fine Boats that lie the Thames about,
Be but Farts several Docks let out.
Some of our Projects were, I think,
But Politick Farts; foh, how they stink!
As soon as born, they by and by,
Fart-like, but only breathe and die,
Farts are as good as Land, for both
We hold in Tail, and let them both:
Only the difference here is, that
Farts are let at a lower rate.
I'll say no more, for this is right,
That for my Guts I cannot write,
Tho I should study all my days,
Rhimes that are worth the thing I praise.
What I have said, take in good part,
If not, I do not care a FART.

A Strange Remedy

2010-10-21T14:18:00.000-07:00

Robert Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy, Part. 2, Sec. 5, Mem. 3, Subs. 2:

Amatus Lusitanus, cent. 4. curat. 54, for a hypochondriacal person, that was extremely tormented with wind, prescribes a strange remedy. Put a pair of bellows' end into a clyster pipe, and applying it into the fundament, open the bowels, so draw forth the wind, natura non admittit vacuum. He vaunts he was the first invented this remedy, and by means of it speedily eased a melancholy man. Of the cure of this flatuous melancholy, read more in Fienus de Flatibus, cap. 26. et passim alias.

Prayer in the Privy

2010-10-15T03:53:00.000-07:00

John Harrington A Dish of Daynties for the Devill:

A godlie father sitting on a draught
to do as need and nature hath us taught,
        Mumbled as was his manner certayn prayers,
        And unto him the Devill straight repayres,
And boldly to revile him he begins,
Alledging that such prayres were deadly sins
        And that yt proov'd he was devoyde of grace
        to speake to God from so unfitt a place.

        The reverent man, though at the first dismayd,
Yet stronge in faith, thus to the Devill he sayd.
Thou damned Spirite, wicked false and lying,
dispayring thine own good, and ours envying
each take his dew, and me thou canst not hurt
to god my prayr I meant, to thee the durt.

        Pure prayer ascends to him that high doth sitt,
        Down falls the filth for fields of hell more fitt.

Boys' Night Out

2010-10-09T05:14:00.000-07:00

[Edward Ward], A Compleat and Humorous Account of all the Remarkable Clubs and Societies in the Cities of London and Westminster..., 7th ed. (London: J. Wren, 1756), pp. 31-36 = Of the FARTING Club:

[31] Of all the fantastical Clubs that ever took Pains to make themselves stink in the Nostrils of the Public, sure no ridiculous Community ever came up to this windy Society, which was certainly establish'd by a Parcel of empty Sparks, about Thirty Years since, at a Public House in Cripplegate Parish, where they used to meet once a Week to poison the neighbouring Air with their unsavory Crepitations, and were so vain in their Ambition to out Fart one another, that they used to diet themselves against their Club Nights with Cabbage, Onions, and Pease-Porridge, that every one's Bumfiddle might be the better qualify'd to sound forth its Emulation. The Stewards, who were chosen once a Quarter, [32] being the Auricular Judges of all Fundamental Disputes that should arise between the Buttocks of the odoriferous Assembly. The Liquors that they drank, in order to tune their Arses, were new Ale and Juniper Water, till every one was swell'd like a blown Bag Pipe, and then they began to Thunder out whole Vollies, like a Regiment of Trainbands in a vigorous Attack upon Bunhill-Fields Dunghill, till the Room they sat in stunk ten Times stronger than a Tom-Turd's Lay-stall: Yet, in their windy Eruptions, they had so nice a Regard to Lapet-Cleanliness, that an old Alms-Woman had a better Pension from the Club, than she had from the Parish, to give her constant Attendance in the next Room, and if any Member was suspected of a Brewers Miscarriage, he was presently sent in to be examined by the Matron, who, after searching his Breeches, and narrowly inspecting the hind Lappet of his Shirt, thro' her crack'd Spectacles, made her Report accordingly; if unsoil'd, then a Spank on the Bum was given to the Looby, as a Token of his Cleanliness; but if the nasty Bird had befoul'd his Nest, then, Beshit upon Honour, was her return to the Board, and the laxative Offender was amerc'd for his Default. When ever any Health was begun in the Society, it was always honour'd with the windy Compliment of a Gun from the Stern, and drank with as much Formality, as Commmanders push about the Royal Health, on board their wooden Citadels, every Member's Affection to the Person nam'd, being measured by the Strength and Loudness of the stinking Report with which he crown'd his Bumper, Thus whoever wanted a Fart for a Great Man's Health, was enjoyn'd the Pennance of a Brimmer extraordinary; also look'd upon by the whole Company as an unmannerly Fellow. They were all profitable Customers to the Grey-Pea-Woman, who used to double her Quantity upon the Club Night, for the Benefit of the Society, and attend them as constantly as the Dame with her Firmity does the Hospital Gate every Smithfield Market, each charging his Guts with the Fartative Pills, by [33] shoveling down whole Handfuls, that what went in like Bullets, might come out like Gunpowder. Tho' their Weekly Meeting was held in Honour to the Rump, yet every Club Night they drank the King's Health, and then there was such Trumping about to signalize their Loyalty, that the Victualler was forced to burn Rosemary in his Kitchen, for fear the Expansion of the nauseous Fumes should poison his other Customers: So that though the Society was begun and carried on for some Time with abundance of Secrecy, yet they were soon smelt out, insomuch that the Sound of their Bumfiddles reach'd the Ears of the Neighbourhood, where, in an Alley adjacent, there happened to dwell an arch Fellow, who by long Study and Experience, had acquir'd an admirable Perfection in the new Art of Farting, by clapping his right Hand under his left Arm-pit, where he would gather Wind, and discharge it so surprizingly, that he would give you a Lady's Fart, a Brewer's Fart, a Bumkin's Fart, an old Woman's Slur, or a Maiden Fizzle, &c. so very tunably and natural, that they should entertain the Ears without offending the Nostrils, and provoke Laughter by the Sound, without the Punishment of a Stink: And this windy Operator having heard of the Fame of this expert Concert of Wind Music, made Interest to be admitted into the Trumpeting Society, that he might manifest his Excellence among the cracking Performers, still concealing to himself the Mystery he was Master of, that what he did by Art, might pass for the Works of Nature; and though it was his daily Practice to offer his Farts at Taverns, as Fiddlers at a Fair do their Scrapes and Sonnets, yet he did not care they should know his Calling, for fear they should except against so mercenary a Factor as should make Farts a Commodity. No sooner had they received him into their foisting Assembly, and, according to Custom, welcom'd their new Brother with a thundering Peal of Buttock Ordinance, but, in Respect to the Company, he faces them with his Arse, and returns their Compliment with such a succession of [34] Trumps, that he gave them more Diversity of Sounds in one cleanly Volley, than their whole Concert of Fundaments were able to imitate; upon which he was as kindly embrac'd, with all the Marks of Favour, as if they took him to be a God of the Winds, and his Arse to be a Miracle, allowing him at once to be an absolute Master of the Science of Ventosity, and respected him as much as a School of young Fencers do the Gladiator that teaches them: Every crepitant Member straining his Backside to come up to the Excellency of their worthy Example, till the old Woman was forc'd to run home for fresh Dishclouts, to wipe away the Dregs of their over-fruitful Endeavours, till at last some of the Members, through their penetrating Judgment, discovering the Fallacy, and finding the croaking Harmony they so much admir'd to be perform'd by Art instead of Nature, in a mighty Passion, they stunk him out of the Society, for an Emperic and a Counterfeit, though, upon humble Submission, they afterwards admitted him into a servile Post, and allow'd him Sixpence a Night to be Musician in Ordinary to their Farting Club.
Since he who by deceitful Arts,
With Arms instead of Arse lets Farts,
Shall be despis'd, because his Fun,
Can't fairly call the Sound its own.
Then what must he deserves who steals
His Wit, and treads on others Heels?
Whose busy Tongue makes public Use
Of what his Brains could ne'er produce.
Thus the stinking Society continued their Farting Concert for some Years with abundance of Decorum, till they had brought their Arses, by the Help of their Musician, into such excellent Tune, that they could command their Fundaments with as much Dexterity, as the best of the City Waits can a double Curtill; insomuch, that when any of the Members were so merrily disposed, as to entertain the rest with a Song or [35] Madrigal, the whole Choir of Bumfiddles struck into the Chorus, in such admirable Order, that a Stranger might have thought the whole Society had fed upon Scotch Bagpipes, and that the Drones had struck in their Arses, not that I can say they made a sweet Harmony, because the Breath of their Instruments came from such rotten Lungs, that every now and then would follow the Sound, In spite of all Retention, In these sort of Windy Recreations, they used to pass away their Club Evenings, till at length they grew so famous through the whole Parish, that their Neighbours and Passengers used to stop under the Window, and lend an Ear to their Arses, as if their Farts had been as musical as a Noise of Trumpets; and the very Boys and Girls in Imitation of their Harmony, went trumping with their Mouths along the Streets to School, till their Masters were forced to whip them till they stunk, to make them leave off Farting. No sooner were they thus arrived to the Zenith of their Glory, insomuch that their Repute began to reach the Ears, if not the Nostrils, of the Public, but some of the leading Members of the Crack-Fart Community, by extravagantly eating of Cabbage-Porridge, to put their Instruments in Tune, flung themselves, some into the Cholic, and others into a Diarrhaea, that several of the best Performers went Farting out of the World, and left nothing to Posterity, but an odious Stink behind them, it being positively asserted, by the Physicians that attended them, that the windy Diets they had eaten to Excess, had begot a Hurricane in their Guts, which had blown the whole Frame of Nature off the Hinges, and for want of a free Discharge through the Intestinum Rectum, had extended the Lactes into perfect Organ-Pipes, made Bellows of their Lungs, and puffed up the Vessels into such Turgent Vesicles, that had quite stagnated the Diastole Motion upon the Arteries, and consequently stopped the Pulsation of the Heart, to the Death of the Patients; and though the Wind found Vent just upon their Expiration, yet Nature was then too far spent to be relieved thereby. This Opinion of the Consult [36] of Physicians, taking Wind among the surviving Society, who attended several of their Brethren to the Grave, to honour their defunct Members with a Volley of Farts, as the military Heroes discharge a Round of Musquets, at the noble Interment of a Brother Soldier, and finding some Reafons to suspect that the same Food would bring them to the same End, they had the Wit to dissolve their Club, change their Cabbage Diet into substantial Beef, and to tie up their Fundaments by Degrees, from their accustomary Crepitation.
We read that Tubal Cain first found
In Cockle-Shells, sweet Musicks Sound;
And that the rural Nymphs and Swains,
Tun'd Reeds and Oat Straws on their Plains:
But sure no mortal Flesh aud Blood,
E'er heard before, since Noah's Flood,
Of Musick fizzl'd from a Gut,
Extended to the windy Scut.
Well may so many Birds excreet
The Dregs and Fesis of their Wit,
In beasty Songs, and bawdy Verses,
Since Men play Tunes upon their Arses.
E'n let such Heads and Tails unite,
That one may sing what th'others Write;
For swelling Rhimes are often found,
Like nauseous Farts, meer empty Sound.

Not Terribly Elegant

2010-10-08T09:23:00.000-07:00

Lawrence Block, The Burglar Who Traded Ted Williams, chapter 2:

She laid a hand on top of mine. “Bern,” she said gently, “I think we should think about getting something to eat.”

“Here? At the Bum Rap?”

“No, of course not. I thought—”

“Good, because we tried that once, remember? Maxine popped a couple of burritos in the microwave for us. It took forever before they were cool enough to eat, and by then they were stale.”

“I remember.”

“For days,” I said, “all I did was fart.” I frowned. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize now, Bern. That was a year and a half ago.”

“I’m not sorry I farted. I’m sorry I mentioned it. It’s not terribly elegant, is it? Talking about farting. Damn, I just did it again.”

“Bern.”

“I don’t mean I farted again. I mentioned it again, that’s all. Isn’t it amazing that I’ll ordinarily go weeks on end without using the word ‘fart,’ and all of a sudden I can’t seem to get through a sentence without it?”

Hat tip: Mrs. Turdman.

Excerpts from The Benefit of Farting

2010-10-07T06:35:00.000-07:00

Excerpts from The benefit of farting explain'd: or, the fundament-all cause of the distempers incident to the fair-sex, enquired into. Proving à posteriori most of the dis-ordures in-tail'd upon them, are owning to flatulencies not seasonably vented. Written in Spanish by Don Fartinando Puff-indorst, professor of bombast in the University of Crackow. And translated into English at the request, and for the use, of the Lady Damp-fart of Her-fart-shire. By Obadiah Fizzle, Groom of the Stool to the Princess of Arsimini in Sardinia. Long-Fart: (Longford in Ireland), printed by Simon Bumbubbard, at the sign of the Wind-Mill opposite Twattling-Street, 1722 (reprint 1735):

I therefore define a Fart, to be, A Nitro-Aerial Vapour, exhal'd from an adjacent Pond of Stagnant Water of a Saline Nature, and rarify'd and sublim'd into the Nose of a Microcosmical Alembic, by the gentle Heat of a STERCORARIOUS Balneum, with a strong Empyreuma, and forc'd thro' the Posteriours by the Compressive Power of the expulsive Faculty.

....

'Tis also a great Promoter of Mirth, for I've known one single Fart, that made an Escape, raise a Laugh of half an Hour, and the Celebrated Author of a Book called Laugh, and be Fat, proves Laughing to be a very wholesome exercise. Dr. Blow in his Treatise of the Fundiment-alls of Musick asserts, that the first Discovery of Harmony was owing to an Observation of Persons of different Sizes, sounding different Notes, in Musick, by Farting, for while one Farted in B fa bimi, another was observ'd to answer in F faut, and make that agreeable Concord call'd a Fifth, whence that Musical Part had its Name of Bum-Fiddle, and the first Invention of the Double Curtel was owing to this Observation; by this Rule it wou'd be an easy Matter to Form a Farting Consort, by ranging Persons of different Sizes in Order, as you wou'd a Ring of Bells, or a Set of Organ Pipes, which Entertainment wou'd prove much more Diverting round a Tea Table, than the usual one, Scandal; since the sweetest Harmony is allow'd by most, to proceed from GUTS. Then, that Lady wou'd be reckon'd the most agreeable in Company, who was readiest at Reportee; and to have a good Report behind her Back wou'd be allow'd a strong Argument of her Merit.

...

We've often heard, how the imprison'd Wind,
When in the Bowels of the Earth Confined,
And wanting vent, whate'er resists, it tears,
And overturns, what th' Earth above it bears,
Whole Towns, and People, in the wide rupture, fall,
Tho' one small vent at first, had sav'd them all.
So, in the Microcosm of Man, we find,
The like ill fate, attends a Fart confin'd,
For Cholick, Vapours, Spleen, and Melancholly,
Do wreck those, whs suppress it, for their folly.
Hence learn, what great Effects, small things produce!
The Capitol was sav'd from taking by a Goose.
Then, don't admire, that one small whiffling Fart,
Can guard from Spleen, the Citadel, your Heart.
And, tho' a Goose, let me in time persuade you,
To mind the Foes, that do Behind invade you;
That being, of such Appriz'd, you may prepare,
With speed, to plant your roaring Canons there.

Coleridge's Bowels

2010-10-06T08:31:00.000-07:00

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, letter to his wife (June 5, 1804):

Whoever makes a sea voyage, should above all things provide themselves with aloetic pills, castor oil, & several other purgatives—as sometimes one will answer when others disagree—& everything depends on keeping the Body regularly open.

William Wordsworth, letter to Sir George Beaumont (August 31, 1804, on Coleridge):

He then gives a most melancholy account of an illness which held him during the whole of his voyage from Gibraltar to Malta except the last four or five days, a languor and oppression, and rejection of food, accompanied with a dangerous constipation, which compelled the Captain to hang out signals of distress to the Commodore for a surgeon to come on board. He was relieved from this at last after undergoing the most excruciating agonies, with the utmost danger of an inflammation in the bowels. All this appears to have been owing to his not having been furnished with proper opening medicines. The first week after his landing he was uncommonly well, but was afterwards seized with a fever which left him very low. He ends what relates to his health with saying that he is better on the whole, and that the only thing alarming in his case is a constant oppression in his breathing, the immediate cause of which is flatulence. He adds that the heat intense as it is does not oppress him, and that he is going to Sicily in a fortnight.—This account I consider on the whole as favourable as it is manifest that the obstruction in the Bowels, which would, as it seems, have cost him his life but for the timely aid of the Surgeon was entirely owing to a want of proper opening medicines, and the fever on his arrival is nothing more than what few I believe escape on their first arrival, in such a hot place at that season of the year. The difficulty in breathing I trust will soon disappear.

Excerpt from the first chapter of Richard Holmes, Coleridge: Darker Reflections, 1804-1834 (Pantheon Books, 1999):

On 4 May, a wind got up, and Coleridge composed a grateful sea-shanty for Captain Findlay, "who foretold a fair wind/ Of a constant mind", though "neither Poet, nor Sheep" could yet eat. But the wind turned into a squall, and then a storm, which carried away their foremost yard-arm on 6 May. He sank further into opium, besieged by "these Sleeps, these Horrors, these Frightful Dreams of Despair". He could no longer get up on deck, and was now seriously ill, with violent stomach pains and humiliating flatulence. A flowered curtain was rigged round his bunk, and he began to hallucinate, seeing "yellow faces" in the cloth. The ship was again becalmed, and he thought the flapping sails were fish dying on the deck. Mr Hardy, the surgeon of the Maidstone, was alerted and the rumour went round the convoy that one of the Speedwell's passengers was dying. Coleridge knew he had become the Jonas of the fleet.

The opium doses had completely blocked his bowels. The shame, guilt and horrid symbolism of this seized upon him. His body had closed upon itself, just as his mind had become fruitless and unproductive. He was a vessel full of mephitic horror. His journal becomes extraordinarily explicit, and details his sufferings with weird, unsparing exactitude. "Tuesday Night, a dreadful Labour, & fruitless throes, of costiveness — individual faeces, and constricted orifices. Went to bed & dozed & started in great distress."

Wednesday, 9 May was "a day of Horror". He spent the morning sitting over a bucket of hot water, "face convulsed, & the sweat streaming from me like Rain". Captain Findlay brought the Speedwell alongside the Maidstone, and sent for Mr Hardy. "The Surgeon instantly came, went back for Pipe & Syringe & returned & with extreme difficulty & the exertion of his utmost strength injected the latter. Good God!—What a sensation when the obstruction suddenly shot up!" Coleridge lay with a hot water bottle on his belly, "with pains & sore uneasiness, & indescribable desires", instructed to retain himself as long as possible. "At length went: O what a time! — equal in pain to any before. Anguish took away all disgust, & I picked out the hardened matter & after awhile was completely relieved. The poor mate who stood by me all this while had the tears running down his face."

The humiliation of this experience never left Coleridge. He knew it was caused by opium, and he reverted to it frequently in his Notebooks, and even in his later letters. From now on he dreaded the enema, as the secret sign and punishment for his addiction. The pain of "frightful constipation when the dead filth impales the lower Gut", was unlike any other illness, because it was shameful and could not be talked about "openly to all" like rheumatism, or other chronic complaints. It crept into his dreams, and haunted him with its grotesque symbolism of false birth and unproductivity. "To weep & sweat & moan & scream for parturience of an excrement with such pangs & such convulsions as a woman with an Infant heir of Immortality: for Sleep a pandemonium of all the shames and miseries of the past Life from earliest childhood all huddled together, and bronzed with one stormy Light of Terror & Self-torture. O this is hard, hard, hard."

Rhapsody on Farts

2010-10-05T03:15:00.000-07:00

Edward Abbey, Confessions of a Barbarian: Selections from the Journals, ed. David Petersen (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1994), pp. 139-140:

Rhapsody on Farts: plaintive farts, resounding farts, explosive farts, reverberating farts, timid muffled farts, fluid farts, farts vigorous and robust, farts masculine, farts feminine, beastly farts, grim farts, lethal farts, poisonous farts, crushing farts, deadly farts, vicious and cruel farts.

There are the honest and manly unabashed farts of plumbers and locomotive engineers, the candid farts of farmers, the masculine and solitary farts of cowboys and sheepherders and rangers, the bold united farts of factory workers. There are the talented aerobatic farts of schoolboys, the bemused abstracted farts of college students, the soft mellow farts of old professors of philosophy. There are the farts protracted and sullen of infantry soldiers, the farts peremptory of sergeants, a la militaire of captains, pompous and brassy of colonels; the stern, powerful and prolonged artillery of generals.

There are the plaintive wistful farts of clerks, the suffocated farts of secretaries and stenographers, the nervous farts of switchboard operators, the farts pallid and timid of office receptionists and airline hostesses. There are the casual, indifferent farts of ward bosses and precinct captains, the ingratiating well-meant farts of candidates, the loud cheerful farts of governors, the forensic and embattled farts of congressmen, the magnificent thundering farts of senators, the proud stately farts of ambassadors and cabinet officers, the grave and politic farts of presidents and prime ministers.

There is the deliberate insolent fart of the pimp, the bitter fart of the whore, the aggressive fart of the car dealer and realtor, the stealthy fart of the burglar and the smug, satisfied fart of the money-lender, the insidious fart of the pornographer, the cruel fart of the model, the vulgar and brazen fart of the huckster, the vile sly fart of the mortician and swindler, the startled fart of the pickpocket. There are the farts dull and sorrowful of policemen, harsh of desk sergeants and detectives, crude and brutal of screws, wary and apprehensive of police commissioners.

There is the diffident fart of the seminarian, the gritty fart of the Bible student, the fart loud and exhortatory of the fundamentalist preacher, the incriminating and revealing fart of the evangelist, the mellifluous fart of the TV theologian, the impromptu fart of the organist and the fart sotto voce a la tempo of the choirmaster. There is the discreet and sanctimonious fart of the priest, the consecrated fart of the nun, the inadvertent fart of the altar boy, the irritable fart of the bishop, the painful and self-conscious fart of the cardinal, the solemn apostolic liturgical and infallible fart of the Pope himself. There will be finally the final divine omnipotent pretentious imperial fart of God. After that, nothing fartable will remain to be farted; for the mystery beyond God—the All-Source, the Brahman—does not fart.

Such a Concert of Music Within

2010-10-03T14:49:00.000-07:00

William Cowper, letter to Lady Hesketh (November 17, 1785):

You must know that some years since, not many, when we began to feel ourselves a little pinched in our finances, I made an heroic resolution that I would drink no more. Accordingly I substituted half a pint of a certain Malt liquor called Ale instead of it, much against Mrs. Unwin's will, who opposed the innovation with all her might. But I was obstinate and had my own way as I generally have. The consequences were such a concert of Music within, such squeaking, croaking and scolding of stomach and bowels denied their wonted comfort, and such perpetual indigestions withal, that I was constrained to return again to the bottle.

I Lose No Time

2010-10-03T14:47:00.000-07:00

William Cowper, letter to William Unwin (November 10, 1784):

The Critics will never know that four lines of it were composed while I had a dose of Ippecchecuana on my stomach, and a wooden vessel called a pail between my knees, and that in the very Article of—in short that I was delivered of the Emetic and the verses in the same moment. Knew they This, they would at least allow me to be a poet of singular industry, and confess that I lose no time.

I'm Farting Like a Little Pig

2010-09-26T05:58:00.000-07:00

Charles Bukowski, "gas," from The Flash of Lightning Behind the Mountain: New Poems (New York: HarperCollins, 2004), pp. 13-14:

my grandmother had a serious gas
problem.
we only saw her on Sunday.
she'd sit down to dinner
and she'd have gas.
she was very heavy,
80 years old.
wore this large glass brooch,
that's what you noticed most
in addition to the gas.
she'd let it go just as food was being served.
she'd let it go loud in bursts
spaced about a minute apart.
she'd let it go
4 or 5 times
as we reached for the potatoes
poured the gravy
cut into the meat.

nobody ever said anything;
especially me.
I was 6 years old.
only my grandmother spoke.
after 4 or 5 blasts
she would say in an offhand way,
"I will bury you all!"

I didn't much like that:
first farting
then saying that.

it happened every Sunday.
she was my father's mother.
every Sunday it was death and gas
and mashed potatoes and gravy
and that big glass brooch.

those Sunday dinners would
always end with apple pie and
ice cream
and a big argument
about something or other,
my grandmother finally running out the door
and taking the red train back to
Pasadena
the place stinking for an hour
and my father walking about
fanning a newspaper in the air and
saying, "it's all that damned sauerkraut
she eats!"

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Confessions (tr. J.M. Cohen), Book II (on Madame de Vercellis):

She only kept her bed for the last two days, and continued to converse quietly with everyone to the last. Finally when she could no longer talk and was already in her death agony, she broke wind loudly. "Good," she said, turning over, "a woman who can fart is not dead." Those were the last words she spoke.

Albert Camus, Lyrical and Critical Essays (tr. Ellen Conroy Kennedy), essay Irony:

But people who play at being ill can succeed: the grandmother carried simulation to the point of death. On her last day, her children around her, she began freeing herself of the fermentations in her intestines. She turned and spoke with simplicity to her grandson: "You see," she said, "I'm farting like a little pig." She died an hour later.

Manneia and His Dog

2010-09-19T04:26:00.000-07:00

Martial, Epigrams 1.83 (tr. D.R. Shackleton Bailey):

Manneia, your little dog licks your face and lips. Small wonder that a dog likes eating dung.

By Whatever Vent It Escaped Him

2010-09-13T02:16:00.000-07:00

William Cowper, letter to John Newton (August 27, 1785):

I remember a good man at Huntingdon, who, I doubt not, is now with God, and he also kept a Diary. After his death, through the neglect or foolish wantonness of his executors, it came abroad for the amusement of his neighbours. All the town saw it, and all the town found it highly diverting. It contained much more valuable matter than the poor Doctor's Journal seems to do; but it contained also a faithful record of all his deliverances from wind (for he was much troubled with flatulence), by whatever vent it escaped him; together with pious acknowledgments of the mercy.

The "good man at Huntingdon" is a Mr. Jedderel; the "poor Doctor" is Samuel Johnson.

Shame

2010-09-12T07:54:00.000-07:00

Robert Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy, Part. I, Sec. 2, Mem. 3, Subs. 6:

A grave and learned minister, and an ordinary preacher at Alcmar in Holland, was (one day as he walked in the fields for his recreation) suddenly taken with a lax or looseness, and thereupon compelled to retire to the next ditch; but being surprised at unawares, by some gentlewomen of his parish wandering that way, was so abashed, that he did never after show his head in public, or come into the pulpit, but pined away with melancholy: (Pet. Forestus med. observat. lib. 10, observat. 12.)

John Aubrey, Brief Lives (Life of Edward De Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, 1550-1604):

This Earle of Oxford, making of his low obeisance to Queen Elizabeth, happened to let a Fart, at which he was so abashed and ashamed that he went to Travell, 7 yeares. On his return the Queen welcomed him home, and sayd, My Lord, I had forgott the Fart.

Noble Bowels

2010-09-10T12:10:00.000-07:00

Yuki Sawa and Edith Marcombe Shiffert, Haiku Master Buson. Translations from the Writings of Yosa Buson — Poet and Artist — With Related Materials (Union City: Heian, 1978), p. 141:

The high priest
relieves his noble bowels
in a desolate field.

Pandora's Box

2010-09-09T07:42:00.000-07:00

Jonathan Swift, The Lady's Dressing Room, lines 69-118:

Why Strephon will you tell the rest?
And must you needs describe the Chest? 70
That careless Wench! no Creature warn her
To move it out from yonder Corner;
But leave it standing full in Sight
For you to exercise your Spight.
In vain, the Workman shew'd his Wit 75
With Rings and Hinges counterfeit
To make it seem in this Disguise,
A Cabinet to vulgar Eyes;
For Strephon ventur'd to look in,
Resolv'd to go thro' thick and thin; 80
He lifts the Lid, there needs no more,
He smelt it all the Time before.
As from within Pandora's Box,
When Epimetheus op'd the Locks,
A sudden universal Crew 85
Of humane Evils upwards flew;
He still was comforted to find
That Hope at last remain'd behind;
So Strephon lifting up the Lid,
To view what in the Chest was hid. 90
The Vapours flew from out the Vent,
But Strephon cautious never meant
The Bottom of the Pan to grope,
And fowl his Hands in Search of Hope.
O never may such vile Machine 95
Be once in Celia's Chamber seen!
O may she better learn to keep
"Those Secrets of the hoary deep!"

As Mutton Cutlets, Prime of Meat,
Which tho' with Art you salt and beat, 100
As Laws of Cookery require,
And toast them at the clearest Fire;
If from adown the hopful Chops
The Fat upon a Cinder drops,
To stinking Smoak it turns the Flame 105
Pois'ning the Flesh from whence it came;
And up exhales a greasy Stench,
For which you curse the careless Wench;
So Things, which must not be exprest,
When plumpt into the reeking Chest; 110
Send up an excremental Smell
To taint the Parts from whence they fell.
The Pettycoats and Gown perfume,
Which waft a Stink round every Room.

Thus finishing his grand Survey, 115
Disgusted Strephon stole away
Repeating in his amorous Fits,
Oh! Celia, Celia, Celia shits!