A cough for a fart: Accustomed to be said whenever someone in a sticky situation pretends that one thing is another. As if someone caught in the house of an adulteress were to pretend that he came there to buy or sell something. A metaphor from those who conceal a fart with a loud cough -- people of this type even now are often caught in the act, with much laughter.
Βὴξ ἀντὶ πορδῆς, tussis pro crepitu. Dici solitum, quoties aliquis perplexus, aliud pro alio simulat. Veluti, si quis, in adulterae domo deprehensus, fingeret se quippiam mercatum venisse. Translatum ab iis, qui crepitum clara tussi dissimulant, quod genus homines etiam hoc tempore non raro magno cum risu deprehenduntur.
"A peculiar anthologic maze, an amusing literary chaos, a farrago of quotations, a mere olla podrida of quaintness, a pot pourri of pleasant delites, a florilegium of elegant extracts, a tangled fardel of old-world flowers of thought, a faggot of odd fancies, quips, facetiae, loosely tied" (Holbrook Jackson, Anatomy of Bibliomania) by a "laudator temporis acti," a "praiser of time past" (Horace, Ars Poetica 173).
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Monday, January 23, 2006
An Old Trick
Erasmus, Adagia 1.6.63: