Monday, March 27, 2006
Evil Smells
Sebastien-Roch Nicolas de Chamfort, Products of the Perfected Civilization. Selected Writings, tr. W.S. Merwin (New York: Macmillian, 1969), p. 192:
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One could apply to Paris St. Theresa's definition of Hell: "The place that stinks and where no one loves."There are apparently smells in hell other than the odor of fire and brimstone, if we can judge from Dante, Inferno 21.136-139 (tr. John D. Sinclair):
On pourrait appliquer à la ville de Paris les propres termes de sainte Thérèse, pour définir l'enfer: "l'endroit où il pue et où l'on n'aime point."
They wheeled round by the dike on the left; but first each pressed his tongue between his teeth at their leader for a signal and he made a trumpet of his rear.See also Dante, Inferno 28.21-24 (tr. John D. Sinclair):
Per l'argine sinistro volta dienno;
ma prima avea ciascun la lingua stretta
coi denti, verso lor duca, per cenno;
ed elli avea del cul fatto trombetta.
No cask ever gapes by loss of end-board or stave like him I saw who was ripped from the chin to the part that breaks wind.Dorothy Sayers translated "dove si trulla" as "fart-hole".
Già veggia, per mezzul perdere o lulla,
com'io vidi un, così non si pertugia,
rotto dal mento infin dove si trulla.
