Vanish, Foyst!

John Marston (1576–1634), The Dutch Courtezan 3.3.50-51, in The Works of John Marston, ed. A.H. Bullen, Vol. II (London: John C. Nimmo, 1887), p. 61:

Every man's turd smells well in's own
nose. Vanish, foyst!

Foyst = foist = fist. See Oxford English Dictionary, under fist, n.²: "A breaking wind, a foul smell, stink."

"Vanish, foyst!" is a useful exclamation to utter when someone breaks wind.

Manly Thunder

Paul Poissel, The Facts of Winter, tr. Paul La Farge (San Francisco: McSweeney's Books, 2005), p. 51:

                                        MANLY THUNDER

The next night, Mme F—— dreams that she's on the 367 bus from the Louvre to Belleville. A well-dressed gentleman gets up and offers her his fortune, which adds up to two million francs, he says. He grabs Mme F—— by the waist and says he wants to kiss her. "Oh no," says Mme F—— "Not again!" At that moment the gentleman farts loudly. Sorely embarrassed by this contretemps, he gets off the bus, and disappears into a crowd of old people and soldiers.

Mme F—— wakes up sad and sleepy: another of those damn dreams. "The 367 bus doesn't even go to Belleville," she tells herself.

Note: Paul Poissel is actually an invention of Paul La Farge.

Hat tip: A friend.

All I Want To Do

Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes, edd. Clifton Fadiman and André Bernard, rev. ed. (2000), p. 47 (on Samuel Beckett):

Beckett was listening while his friend Walter Lowenfels expounded at length his views on the relationship of art and the desolate condition of society. Beckett nodded but said nothing, until his friend burst out, "You sit there saying nothing while the world is going to pieces! What do you want! What do you want to do?" Beckett crossed his long legs and drawled, "Walter, all I want to do is sit on my ass and fart and think of Dante."

An Ill Wind

John Heywood (1497-1580), "Of Blowing," in The Proverbs, Epigrams, and Miscellanies of John Heywood, ed. John S. Farmer (London: Early English Drama Society, 1906), p. 144:

What wind can there blow that doth not some man please?
A fart in the blowing doth the blower ease.

A Prudish Translation

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

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

Hat tip: A friend.

Doctrinal Nourishment

James Ensor (1860-1949), Alimentation doctrinaire:


In color:

A Medieval Latin Proverb

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

Twelve farts are equivalent to one turd.

Duodecim bombi faciunt unum strontum.