1601: Conversation as it was by the Social Fireside in the Time of the Tudors

by Mark Twain

  FOOTNOTES To Frivolity

  The historical consistency of 1601 indicates that Twain must have giventhe subject considerable thought. The author was careful to speak onlyof men who conceivably might have been in the Virgin Queen's closet andengaged in discourse with her.

  THE CHARACTERS

  At this time (1601) Queen Elizabeth was 68 years old. She speaks ofhaving talked to "old Rabelais" in her youth. This might have beenpossible 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, andhis first translations, those from Ovid, were first published in 1602.Therefore, if one were holding strictly to the year date, neither by agenor by fame would Beaumont have been eligible to attend such a gatheringof august personages in the year 1601; but the point is unimportant.

  THE ELIZABETHAN WRITERS

  In the Conversation Shakespeare speaks of Montaigne's Essays. These werefirst published in 1580 and successive editions were issued in theyears following, the third volume being published in 1588. "In EnglandMontaigne was early popular. It was long supposed that the autograph ofShakespeare in a copy of Florio's translation showed his study ofthe Essays. The autograph has been disputed, but divers passages, andespecially one in The Tempest, show that at first or second hand thepoet 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. Itis said to have influenced literary style for more than a quarter of acentury, and traces of its influence are found in Shakespeare. (ColumbiaEncyclopedia).

  The introduction of Ben Jonson into the party was wholly appropriate,if one may call to witness some of Jonson's writings. The subject underdiscussion 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 subtlyof the fart, whom I shall entertain still for that subject and again inBartholomew 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 intheir freedom toward breaking wind in public can be noticed in somecomparatively recent literature. Frank Harris in My Life, Vol. 2, Ch.XIII, tells of Lady Marriott, wife of a judge Advocate General, beingcompelled to leave her own table, at which she was entertaining SirRobert Fowler, then the Lord Mayor of London, because of the suffocatingand 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 fromthe Baronet. As soon as Fowler sat down Finch-Hatton sprang up holdinghis 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 bythe courteous custom of the House, 'I know why the Right HonourableMember from the City did not conclude his speech with a proposal.The only way to conclude such a speech appropriately would be with amotion!'"

  AEOLIAN CREPITATIONS

  But society had apparently degenerated sadly in modern times, and evenin 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 EmperorClaudius, hearing that one who had suppressed the urge while payinghim court had suffered greatly thereby, "intended to issue an edict,allowing to all people the liberty of giving vent at table to anydistension occasioned by flatulence:"

  Martial, too (Book XII, Epigram LXXVII), tells of the embarrassment ofone 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 withconstricted buttocks." Martial also (Book IV, Epigram LXXX), ridicules awoman who was subject to the habit, saying,

  "Your Bassa, Fabullus, has always a child at her side, calling it herdarling and her plaything; and yet--more wonder--she does not care forchildren. What is the reason then. Bassa is apt to fart. (For which shecould blame the unsuspecting infant.)"

  The tale is told, too, of a certain woman who performed an aeoliancrepitation at a dinner attended by the witty Monsignieur Dupanloup,Bishop of Orleans, and that when, to cover up her lapse, she began toscrape her feet upon the floor, and to make similar noises, the Bishopsaid, "Do not trouble to find a rhyme, Madam!"

  Nay, worthier names than those of any yet mentioned have discussed thematter. Herodotus tells of one such which was the precursor to the fallof an empire and a change of dynasty--that which Amasis discharges whileon horseback, and bids the envoy of Apries, King of Egypt, catch anddeliver to his royal master. Even the exact manner and posture ofAmasis, author of this insult, is described.

  St. Augustine (The City of God, XIV:24) cites the instance of a manwho could command his rear trumpet to sound at will, which his learnedcommentator fortifies with the example of one who could do so in tune!

  Benjamin Franklin, in his "Letter to the Royal Academy of Brussels" hascanvassed suggested remedies for alleviating the stench attendant uponthese discharges:

  "My Prize Question therefore should be: To discover some Drug, wholesomeand--not disagreeable, to be mixed with our common food, or sauces, thatshall render the natural discharges of Wind from our Bodies not onlyinoffensive, but agreeable as Perfumes.

  "That this is not a Chimerical Project & altogether impossible, mayappear from these considerations. That we already have some knowledgeof means capable of varying that smell. He that dines on stale Flesh,especially with much Addition of Onions, shall be able to afford a stinkthat no Company can tolerate; while he that has lived for some time onVegetables only, shall have that Breath so pure as to be insensible ofthe 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 aremany to whom an entire Vegetable Diet would be inconvenient, & as alittle quick Lime thrown into a Jakes will correct the amazing Quantityof fetid Air arising from the vast Mass of putrid Matter contained insuch Places, and render it pleasing to the Smell, who knows but that alittle Powder of Lime (or some other equivalent) taken in our Food, orperhaps a Glass of Lime Water drank at Dinner, may have the same Effecton the Air produced in and issuing from our Bowels?"

  One curious commentary on the text is that Elizabeth should be so fondof investigating into the authorship of the exhalation in question, whenshe was inordinately fond of strong and sweet perfumes; in fact, she wasresponsible for the tremendous increase in importations of scents intoEngland during her reign.

  "YE BOKE OF YE SIEUR MICHAEL DE MONTAINE"

  There is a curious admixture of error and misunderstanding in this partof the sketch. In the first place, the story is borrowed from Montai
gne,where it is told inaccurately, and then further corrupted in thetelling.

  It was not the good widows of Perigord who wore the phallus upon theircoifs; it was the young married women, of the district near Montaigne'shome, who paraded it to view upon their foreheads, as a symbol, says ouressayist, "of the joy they derived therefrom." If they became widows,they reversed its position, and covered it up with the rest of theirhead-dress.

  The "emperor" mentioned was not an emperor; he was Procolus, a native ofAlbengue, on the Genoese coast, who, with Bonosus, led the unsuccessfulrebellion in Gaul against Emperor Probus. Even so keen a commentator asCotton 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 andfoster-father to Nero. Furthermore, in her case the charge is that shecopulated with twenty-five in a single night, and not twenty-two, asappears in the text. Montaigne is right in his statistics, if originalsources are correct, whereas the author erred in transcribing theincident.

  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 thatof Venus (Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire). The feat ofProculus 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 happeningssubsequent thereto.

  Concerning Messalina, there appears to be no question but that she was anymphomaniac, and that, while Empress of Rome, she participated in somefearful debaucheries. The question is what to believe, for much that wehave 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 becomesated with veneral pleasures; man hardly knows any satiety. Messalina,the wife of Claudius Caesar, thinking this a palm quite worthy of anempress, selected for the purpose of deciding the question, one of themost 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 retailerof stale gossip, and in like case was Aurelius Victor, another writerwho heaped much odium on her name. Again, there is a great hiatus in theAnnals of Tacitus, a true historian, at the period covering the earlierdays of the Empress; while Suetonius, bitter as he may be, is littlemore than an anecdotist. Juvenal, another of her detractors, is aprejudiced witness, for he started out to satirize female vice, andnaturally 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," andbased upon the superimposed testimony of the writers of the period,there appears little doubt but that Messalina was a nymphomaniac, thatshe prostituted herself in the public stews, naked, and with gildednipples, and that she did actually marry her chief adulterer, Silius,while Claudius was absent at Ostia, and that the wedding was consummatedin the presence of a concourse of witnesses. This was "the straw thatbroke the camel's back." Claudius hastened back to Rome, Silius wasdispatched, and Messalina, lacking the will-power to destroy herself,was killed when an officer ran a sword through her abdomen, just as itappeared that Claudius was about to relent.

  "THEN SPAKE YE DAMNED WINDMILL, SIR WALTER"

  Raleigh is thoroughly in character here; this observation is quitein keeping with the general veracity of his account of his travels inGuiana, one of the most mendacious accounts of adventure ever told.Naturally, the scholarly researches of Westermarck have failed todiscover this people; perhaps Lady Helen might best be protected amongthe Jibaros of Ecuador, where the men marry when approaching forty.

  Ben Jonson in his Conversations observed "That Sr. W. Raughlye esteemedmore of fame than of conscience."

  YE VIRGIN QUEENE

  Grave historians have debated for centuries the pretensions of Elizabethto the title, "The Virgin Queen," and it is utterly impossible todispose of the issue in a note. However, the weight of opinion appearsto be in the negative. Many and great were the difficulties attendingthe marriage of a Protestant princess in those troublous times, andElizabeth finally announced that she would become wedded to the Englishnation, 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 hostof lesser courtiers, her ardent temperament, and her imperious temper,are indications that cannot be denied in determining any estimate uponthe point in question.

  Ben Jonson in his Conversations with William Drummond of Hawthorndensays,

  "Queen Elizabeth never saw herself after she became old in a true glass;they painted her, and sometymes would vermillion her nose. She hadallwayes about Christmass evens set dice that threw sixes or five,and she knew not they were other, to make her win and esteame herselffortunate. That she had a membrana on her, which made her uncapableof man, though for her delight she tried many. At the coming over ofMonsieur, there was a French Chirurgion who took in hand to cut it, yettfear stayed her, and his death."

  It was a subject which again intrigued Clemens when he was abroad withW. H. Fisher, whom Mark employed to "nose up" everything pertaining toQueen 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 incidentforms the subject matter of Dineo's novel (the fourth) of the First dayof the Decameron.

  OLD SR. NICHOLAS THROGMORTON

  The incident referred to appears to be Sir Nicholas Throgmorton's trialfor complicity in the attempt to make Lady Jane Grey Queen of England,a charge of which he was acquitted. This so angered Queen Mary thatshe imprisoned him in the Tower, and fined the jurors from one to twothousand pounds each. Her action terrified succeeding juries, so thatSir Nicholas's brother was condemned on no stronger evidence than thatwhich had failed to prevail before. While Sir Nicholas's defense mayhave been brilliant, it must be admitted that the evidence was weak.He was later released from the Tower, and under Elizabeth was one of agroup of commissioners sent by that princess into Scotland, to fomenttrouble with Mary, Queen of Scots. When the attempt became known,Elizabeth repudiated the acts of her agents, but Sir Nicholas, havinganticipated this possibility, had sufficient foresight to secureendorsement of his plan by the Council, and so outwitted Elizabeth, whowas playing a two-faced role, and Cecil, one of the greatest statesmenwho ever held the post of principal minister. Perhaps it was thisincident to which the company referred, which might in part explainElizabeth's rejoinder. However, he had been restored to confidence erethis, and had served as ambassador to France.

  "TO SAVE HIS DOTER'S MAIDENHEDDE"

  Elizabeth Throckmorton (or Throgmorton), daughter of Sir Nicholas, wasone of Elizabeth's maids of honor. When it was learned that she had beendebauched by Raleigh, Sir Walter was recalled from his command at sea bythe Queen, and compelled to marry the girl. This was not "in that oldedaie," as the text has it, for it happened only eight years before thedate of this purported "conversation," when Elizabeth was sixty yearsold.