Bawdy Balladeers!

From his visit to Italy in 1378 Chaucer brought back copies of Boccaccio's two great poems, Filostrato and Tesida, which he subsequently translated and paraphrased. Looking over the whole body of Chaucer's work it is possible to see just how profound Boccaccio's influence was. The themes used in Tesida appear in Anelida and Arcite, the Parlement of Foules, Troilus and Criseyde and The Knight's Tale. Filostrato also provides material for Troilus. The structure of the Canterbury Tales itself would seem to indicate that Boccaccio’s own Decameron cycle was also known to Chaucer. And the one is just as bawdy as the other!

The Divine Sappho

Sappho of Lesbos is one of the greatest of the Greek lyric poets and one of the few female artists whose voice has been carried from the ancient world.

I have not had one word from her

Frankly I wish I were dead
When she left, she wept
a great deal; she said to me, "This parting must be
endured, Sappho. I go unwillingly."
I said, "Go, and be happy
but remember (you know
well) whom you leave shackled by love
"If you forget me, think
of our gifts to Aphrodite
and all the loveliness that we shared
"all the violet tiaras,
braided rosebuds, dill and
crocus twined around your young neck
"myrrh poured on your head
and on soft mats girls with
all that they most wished for beside them
"while no voices chanted
choruses without ours,
no woodlot bloomed in spring without song...


Please

Come back to me, Gongyla, here tonight,
You, my rose, with your Lydian lyre.
There hovers forever around you delight:
A beauty desired.
Even your garment plunders my eyes.
I am enchanted: I who once
Complained to the Cyprus-born goddess,
Whom I now beseech
Never to let this lose me grace
But rather bring you back to me:
Amongst all mortal women the one
I most wish to see.

Fragment 52

The silver moon is set;
The Pleiades are gone;
Half the long night is spent, and yet
I lie alone.

Fragment 96

She honoured you like a goddess
And delighted in your choral dance.
Now she is pre-eminent among the ladies of Lydia
As the rose-rayed moon after the sinking of the Sun
Surpasses all the stars and spreads it's light upon the sea
And the flowers of the fields
To beautify the spreading dew, freshen roses
Soft chervil and the flowering melilot .....

Restless, she remembers gentle Atthis -
Perhaps her subtle judgement is burdened
By your [ fate ] .....

For us, it is not easy to approach
Goddesses in the beauty of their form
But you ....

Of Arses and Red-Hot Irons: the Miller's Tale

I recently touched the wonderfully hedonistic and ribald poetry of the superb John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester. But the bawdy tradition in English poetry predates him by many centuries, indeed it does. I’m thinking now of Chaucer and The Canterbury Tales, that stupendous compilation that shows so many paths into the Medieval mind. Have you read it? No, well you should; you will almost certainly be surprised by what you find. I first read it in Middle-English, though there are good modern translations.

Let me tell you about the Miller, one of the Pilgrims who accompanies Chaucer’s mixed company to the shrine of Thomas a Becket at Canterbury . To while away the time during the journey from London each is encouraged to tell a tale. The Knight comes first, with a high story of adventure and romance. The Miller immediately takes it upon himself to bring matters down to earth somewhat with the story of a student by the name of Nicholas who persuades Alison, the much younger wife of his elderly carpenter landlord, to go to bed with him. So far, so bad!

But Alison has another admirer, Absolon, the parish clerk. While Nicholas and Alison are in bed together he appears at the darkened window of her house, asking for a kiss. Refusing to go away, Alison finally agrees to his request, though not in the way he imagines, oh no. Remember, it’s dark:

The window she unbarred, and that in haste.

Have done, said she, come on, and do it fast,

Before we're seen by any neighbour's eye.

This Absalom did wipe his mouth all dry;

Dark was the night as pitch, aye dark as coal,

And through the window she put out her hole.

And Absalom no better felt nor worse,

But with his mouth he kissed her naked arse

Right greedily, before he knew of this.

Aback he leapt- it seemed somehow amiss,

For well he knew a woman has no beard;

He'd felt a thing all rough and longish haired,

And said, Oh fie, alas! What did I do?

Teehee! she laughed, and clapped the, window to;

And Absalom went forth a sorry pace.

So, off he goes, poor man, full of fury and hot for revenge. He borrows a red hot iron from the blacksmith, returning to where Alison lives. Once again, he asks for a kiss. This time Nicholas, who has risen for a piss, decides to join in the fun.

This Nicholas had risen for a piss,

And thought that it would carry on the jape

To have his arse kissed by this jack-a-nape.

And so he opened window hastily,

And put his arse out thereat, quietly,

Over the buttocks, showing the whole bum;

And thereto said this clerk, this Absalom,

O speak, sweet bird, I know not where thou art.

This Nicholas just then let fly a fart

As loud as it had been a thunder-clap,

And well-nigh blinded Absalom, poor chap;

But he was ready with his iron hot

And Nicholas right in the arse he got.

Off went the skin a hand's-breadth broad, about,

The coulter burned his bottom so, throughout,

That for the pain he thought that he should die.

And like one mad he started in to cry,

Help! Water! Water! For God's dear heart!

Alison’s husband, who is at home, though unaware what is going on, awakes; the neighbourhood awakes. All have a great laugh at the carpenter’s expense! :-))

Signor Dildo-You Ladies all of Merry England

I'm in a really super mood today, so I feel like upseting all the prigs of the world with a liittle discourse on John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester! He was a poet and a libertine, who lived and worked in my period of my special interest, late Stuart England. His poetry is of a particularly bawdy nature, about as far removed from Puritanism as it is possible to imagine.

More than that, he represents, it might be said, the Restoration's antithesis to the heavy and joyless hand that that had ruled England for over ten years. Wilmot was an atheist and a hedonist-No glory's vain which does from pleasure spring. His poetry is a celebration of pleasure in its many forms, especially sexual pleasure. He did not just practice debauchery, he advocated debauchery!

Her father gave her dildos six;
Her mother made 'em up a score,
But she loves nought but living pricks
And swears by God she'll frig no more.

During the Parliamentary session of 1673 objections were raised to the proposed marriage of James, Duke of York, brother of the King and heir to the throne, to Mary of Modena, an Italian Catholic Princess. An address was presented to King Charles on 3 November, foreseeing the dangerous consequences of marriage to a Catholic, and urging him to put a stop to any planned wedding '...to the unspeakable Joy and Comfort of all Your loyal Subjects." Wilmot's response was Signior Dildo (You ladies all of merry England), a mock address anticipating the 'solid' advantages of a Catholic marriage, namely the wholesale importation of Italian dildos, to the unspeakable joy and comfort of all the ladies of England!

You ladies all of merry England
Who have been to kiss the Duchess's hand,
Pray, did you not lately observe in the show
A noble Italian called Signior Dildo?...
A rabble of pricks who were welcomed before,
Now finding the porter denied them the door,
Maliciously waited his coming below
And inhumanly fell on Signior Dildo...

And so on and so forth! :-))