A Medieval Latin Proverb

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

Twelve farts are equivalent to one turd.

Duodecim bombi faciunt unum strontum.

Riddle

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

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

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

Hat tip: A friend.

Classification of Animals

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

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

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

Hat tip: A friend.

Granny Misbehaves

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

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

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

Hat tip: A friend.

Death and Farting

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

Death made easy.

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

Shifting Blame

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

Upon a Lady, who finding her Pocket wet, pretended she had broke her Hartshorn Bottle in it.

Ye sons of verse, transmit to fame,
    How blest the life of miss is;
When she breaks wind, Shock bears the blame;
    And hartshorn, when she pisses.

Hartshorn (the aqueous solution of ammonia) was used in smelling salts. Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. shock, n.⁴: "A dog having long shaggy hair, spec. a poodle."

Schoolboy Fun

David Garnett is thanking Sylvia Townsend Warner (letter of 1st November, 1971) for the gift of a copy of her latest book of short stories, The Innocent and the Guilty (Chatto & Windus, 1971) and commenting on them:

'Bruno' is very moving but perhaps a shade too much of a moral tale. As for 'Oxenhope', I keep going back there myself — although I never lit the marsh gas. T.S. Eliot or Frank Morley told me he had been at school with a boy who could set light to his farts — I was with them both and can't remember which one told the story.

Sylvia and David: the Townsend Warner/Garnett Letters, selected and edited by Richard Garnett (London: Sinclair-Stevenson, 1994), pp. 161-162.

Hat tip: A friend.