1601 Read online

  not rise again.

  FOOTNOTES

  To Frivolity

  The historical consistency of 1601 indicates that Twain must have given

  the subject considerable thought. The author was careful to speak only

  of men who conceivably might have been in the Virgin Queen's closet and

  engaged in discourse with her.

  THE CHARACTERS

  At this time (1601) Queen Elizabeth was 68 years old. She speaks of

  having talked to "old Rabelais" in her youth. This might have been

  possible as Rabelais died in 1552, when the Queen was 19 years old.

  Among those in the party were Shakespeare, at that time 37 years old; Ben

  Jonson, 27; and Sir Walter Raleigh, 49. Beaumont at the time was 17, not

  16. He was admitted as a member of the Inner Temple in 1600, and his

  first translations, those from Ovid, were first published in 1602.

  Therefore, if one were holding strictly to the year date, neither by age

  nor by fame would Beaumont have been eligible to attend such a gathering

  of august personages in the year 1601; but the point is unimportant.

  THE ELIZABETHAN WRITERS

  In the Conversation Shakespeare speaks of Montaigne's Essays. These were

  first published in 1580 and successive editions were issued in the years

  following, the third volume being published in 1588. "In England

  Montaigne was early popular. It was long supposed that the autograph of

  Shakespeare in a copy of Florio's translation showed his study of the

  Essays. The autograph has been disputed, but divers passages, and

  especially one in The Tempest, show that at first or second hand the poet

  was acquainted with the essayist." (Encyclopedia Brittanica.)

  The company at the Queen's fireside discoursed of Lilly (or Lyly),

  English dramatist and novelist of the Elizabethan era, whose novel,

  Euphues, published in two parts, 'Euphues', or the 'Anatomy of Wit'

  (1579) and 'Euphues and His England' (1580) was a literary sensation.

  It is said to have influenced literary style for more than a quarter of a

  century, and traces of its influence are found in Shakespeare. (Columbia

  Encyclopedia).

  The introduction of Ben Jonson into the party was wholly appropriate,

  if one may call to witness some of Jonson's writings. The subject under

  discussion was one that Jonson was acquainted with, in The Alchemist:

  Act. I, Scene I,

  FACE: Believe't I will.

  SUBTLE: Thy worst. I fart at thee.

  DOL COMMON: Have you your wits? Why, gentlemen, for love----

  Act. 2, Scene I,

  SIR EPICURE MAMMON: ....and then my poets, the same that writ so subtly

  of the fart, whom I shall entertain still for that subject and again in

  Bartholomew Fair

  NIGHTENGALE: (sings a ballad)

  Hear for your love, and buy for your money.

  A delicate ballad o' the ferret and the coney.

  A preservative again' the punk's evil.

  Another goose-green starch, and the devil.

  A dozen of divine points, and the godly garter

  The fairing of good counsel, of an ell and three-quarters.

  What is't you buy?

  The windmill blown down by the witche's fart,

  Or Saint George, that, O! did break the dragon's heart.

  GOOD OLD ENGLISH CUSTOM

  That certain types of English society have not changed materially in

  their freedom toward breaking wind in public can be noticed in some

  comparatively recent literature. Frank Harris in My Life, Vol. 2,

  Ch. XIII, tells of Lady Marriott, wife of a judge Advocate General,

  being compelled to leave her own table, at which she was entertaining Sir

  Robert Fowler, then the Lord Mayor of London, because of the suffocating

  and nauseating odors there. He also tells of an instance in parliament,

  and of a rather brilliant bon mot spoken upon that occasion.

  "While Fowler was speaking Finch-Hatton had shewn signs of restlessness;

  towards the end of the speech he had moved some three yards away from the

  Baronet. As soon as Fowler sat down Finch-Hatton sprang up holding his

  handkerchief to his nose:

  "'Mr. Speaker,' he began, and was at once acknowledged by the Speaker,

  for it was a maiden speech, and as such was entitled to precedence by the

  courteous custom of the House, 'I know why the Right Honourable Member

  from the City did not conclude his speech with a proposal. The only way

  to conclude such a speech appropriately would be with a motion!'"

  AEOLIAN CREPITATIONS

  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."

  YE VIRGIN QUEENE

  Grave historians have debated for centuries the pretensions of Elizabeth

  to the title, "The Virgin Queen," and it is utterly impossible to dispose

  of the issue in a note. However, the weight of opinion appears to be in

  the negative. Many and great were the difficulties attending the

  marriage of a Protestant princess in those troublous times, and Elizabeth

  finally announced that she would become wedded to the English nation,

  and she wore a ring in token thereof until her death. However, more or

  less open liaisons with Essex and Leicester, as well as a host of lesser

  courtiers, her ardent temperament, and her imperious temper, are

  indications that cannot be denied in determining any estimate upon the

  point in question.

  Ben Jonson in his Conversations with William Drummond of Hawthornden

  says,

  "Queen Elizabeth never saw herself after she became old in a true glass;

  they painted her, and sometymes would vermillion her nose. She had

  allwayes about Christmass evens set dice that threw sixes o
r five, and

  she knew not they were other, to make her win and esteame herself

  fortunate. That she had a membrana on her, which made her uncapable of

  man, though for her delight she tried many. At the comming over of

  Monsieur, there was a French Chirurgion who took in hand to cut it, yett

  fear stayed her, and his death."

  It was a subject which again intrigued Clemens when he was abroad with

  W. H. Fisher, whom Mark employed to "nose up" everything pertaining to

  Queen Elizabeth's manly character.

  "'BOCCACCIO HATH A STORY"

  The author does not pay any great compliment to Raleigh's memory here.

  There is no such tale in all Boccaccio. The nearest related incident

  forms the subject matter of Dineo's novel (the fourth) of the First day

  of the Decameron.

  OLD SR. NICHOLAS THROGMORTON

  The incident referred to appears to be Sir Nicholas Throgmorton's trial

  for complicity in the attempt to make Lady Jane Grey Queen of England,

  a charge of which he was acquitted. This so angered Queen Mary that she

  imprisoned him in the Tower, and fined the jurors from one to two

  thousand pounds each. Her action terrified succeeding juries, so that

  Sir Nicholas's brother was condemned on no stronger evidence than that

  which had failed to prevail before. While Sir Nicholas's defense may

  have been brilliant, it must be admitted that the evidence was weak.

  He was later released from the Tower, and under Elizabeth was one of a

  group of commissioners sent by that princess into Scotland, to foment

  trouble with Mary, Queen of Scots. When the attempt became known,

  Elizabeth repudiated the acts of her agents, but Sir Nicholas, having