But society had apparently degenerated sadly in modern times, and even
in the era of Elizabeth, for at an earlier date it was a serious--nay,
capital--offense to break wind in the presence of majesty. The Emperor
Claudius, hearing that one who had suppressed the urge while paying
him court had suffered greatly thereby, “intended to issue an edict,
allowing to all people the liberty of giving vent at table to any
distension occasioned by flatulence:”
Martial, too (Book XII, Epigram LXXVII), tells of the embarrassment of
one who broke wind while praying in the Capitol,
“One day, while standing upright, addressing his prayers to Jupiter,
Aethon farted in the Capitol. Men laughed, but the Father of the Gods,
offended, condemned the guilty one to dine at home for three nights.
Since that time, miserable Aethon, when he wishes to enter the Capitol,
goes first to Paterclius' privies and farts ten or twenty times. Yet,
in spite of this precautionary crepitation, he salutes Jove with
constricted buttocks.” Martial also (Book IV, Epigram LXXX), ridicules a
woman who was subject to the habit, saying,
“Your Bassa, Fabullus, has always a child at her side, calling it her
darling and her plaything; and yet--more wonder--she does not care for
children. What is the reason then. Bassa is apt to fart. (For which she
could blame the unsuspecting infant.)”
The tale is told, too, of a certain woman who performed an aeolian
crepitation at a dinner attended by the witty Monsignieur Dupanloup,
Bishop of Orleans, and that when, to cover up her lapse, she began to
scrape her feet upon the floor, and to make similar noises, the Bishop
said, “Do not trouble to find a rhyme, Madam!”
Nay, worthier names than those of any yet mentioned have discussed the
matter. Herodotus tells of one such which was the precursor to the fall
of an empire and a change of dynasty--that which Amasis discharges while
on horseback, and bids the envoy of Apries, King of Egypt, catch and
deliver to his royal master. Even the exact manner and posture of
Amasis, author of this insult, is described.
St. Augustine (The City of God, XIV:24) cites the instance of a man
who could command his rear trumpet to sound at will, which his learned
commentator fortifies with the example of one who could do so in tune!
Benjamin Franklin, in his “Letter to the Royal Academy of Brussels” has
canvassed suggested remedies for alleviating the stench attendant upon
these discharges:
“My Prize Question therefore should be: To discover some Drug, wholesome
and--not disagreeable, to be mixed with our common food, or sauces, that
shall render the natural discharges of Wind from our Bodies not only
inoffensive, but agreeable as Perfumes.
“That this is not a Chimerical Project & altogether impossible, may
appear from these considerations. That we already have some knowledge
of means capable of varying that smell. He that dines on stale Flesh,
especially with much Addition of Onions, shall be able to afford a stink
that no Company can tolerate; while he that has lived for some time on
Vegetables only, shall have that Breath so pure as to be insensible of
the most delicate Noses; and if he can manage so as to avoid the Report,
he may anywhere give vent to his Griefs, unnoticed. But as there are
many to whom an entire Vegetable Diet would be inconvenient, & as a
little quick Lime thrown into a Jakes will correct the amazing Quantity
of fetid Air arising from the vast Mass of putrid Matter contained in
such Places, and render it pleasing to the Smell, who knows but that a
little Powder of Lime (or some other equivalent) taken in our Food, or
perhaps a Glass of Lime Water drank at Dinner, may have the same Effect
on the Air produced in and issuing from our Bowels?”
One curious commentary on the text is that Elizabeth should be so fond
of investigating into the authorship of the exhalation in question, when
she was inordinately fond of strong and sweet perfumes; in fact, she was
responsible for the tremendous increase in importations of scents into
England during her reign.
“YE BOKE OF YE SIEUR MICHAEL DE MONTAINE”
There is a curious admixture of error and misunderstanding in this part
of the sketch. In the first place, the story is borrowed from Montaigne,
where it is told inaccurately, and then further corrupted in the
telling.
It was not the good widows of Perigord who wore the phallus upon their
coifs; it was the young married women, of the district near Montaigne's
home, who paraded it to view upon their foreheads, as a symbol, says our
essayist, “of the joy they derived therefrom.” If they became widows,
they reversed its position, and covered it up with the rest of their
head-dress.
The “emperor” mentioned was not an emperor; he was Procolus, a native of
Albengue, on the Genoese coast, who, with Bonosus, led the unsuccessful
rebellion in Gaul against Emperor Probus. Even so keen a commentator as
Cotton has failed to note the error.
The empress (Montaigne does not say “his empress”) was Messalina,
third wife of the Emperor Claudius, who was uncle of Caligula and
foster-father to Nero. Furthermore, in her case the charge is that she
copulated with twenty-five in a single night, and not twenty-two, as
appears in the text. Montaigne is right in his statistics, if original
sources are correct, whereas the author erred in transcribing the
incident.
As for Proculus, it has been noted that he was associated with Bonosus,
who was as renowned in the field of Bacchus as was Proculus in that
of Venus (Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire). The feat of
Proculus is told in his own words, in Vopiscus, (Hist. Augustine, p.
246) where he recounts having captured one hundred Sarmatian virgins,
and unmaidened ten of them in one night, together with the happenings
subsequent thereto.
Concerning Messalina, there appears to be no question but that she was a
nymphomaniac, and that, while Empress of Rome, she participated in some
fearful debaucheries. The question is what to believe, for much that we
have heard about her is almost certainly apocryphal.
The author from whom Montaigne took his facts is the elder Pliny, who,
in his Natural History, Book X, Chapter 83, says, “Other animals become
sated with veneral pleasures; man hardly knows any satiety. Messalina,
the wife of Claudius Caesar, thinking this a palm quite worthy of an
empress, selected for the purpose of deciding the question, one of the
most notorious women who followed the profession of a hired prostitute;
and the empress outdid her, after continuous intercourse, night and day,
at the twenty-fifth embrace.”
But Pliny, notwithstanding his great attainments, was often a retailer
of stale gossip, and in like case was Aurelius Victor, another writer
who heaped much odium on her name. Again, there is a great hiatus in the
Annals of Tacitus, a true historian, at the period covering the earlier
days of the Empress; while Suetonius, bitter as he may be, is little
more than an anecdotist. Juvenal, another of her detractors, is a
prejudiced witness, for he started out to satirize female vice, and
naturally aimed at high places. Dio also tells of Messalina's misdeeds,
but his work is under the same limitations as that of Suetonius.
Furthermore, none but Pliny mentions the excess under consideration.
However, “where there is much smoke there must be a little fire,” and
based upon the superimposed testimony of the writers of the period,
there appears little doubt but that Messalina was a nymphomaniac, that
she prostituted herself in the public stews, naked, and with gilded
nipples, and that she did actually marry her chief adulterer, Silius,
while Claudius was absent at Ostia, and that the wedding was consummated
in the presence of a concourse of witnesses. This was “the straw that
broke the camel's back.” Claudius hastened back to Rome, Silius was
dispatched, and Messalina, lacking the will-power to destroy herself,
was killed when an officer ran a sword through her abdomen, just as it
appeared that Claudius was about to relent.
“THEN SPAKE YE DAMNED WINDMILL, SIR WALTER”
Raleigh is thoroughly in character here; this observation is quite
in keeping with the general veracity of his account of his travels in
Guiana, one of the most mendacious accounts of adventure ever told.
Naturally, the scholarly researches of Westermarck have failed to
discover this people; perhaps Lady Helen might best be protected among
the Jibaros of Ecuador, where the men marry when approaching forty.
Ben Jonson in his Conversations observed “That Sr. W. Raughlye esteemed
more of fame than of conscience.”