Chapter 2
1601. A Conversation as it was by the Social Fireside in the Time of the Tudors. By Mark Twain. The first printing. Verbatim reprint. DATE 1601. CONVERSATION as it was by the Social Fireside in the Time of the Tudors. MIM.
The following is supposed to be an extract from the diary of the peeps of that day, the same being Queen Elizabeth's cup-bearer. It is supposed that he is of ancient and noble lineage, that he despises these literary canal, that his soul consumes with wrath to see the queen stooping to talk with such, and that the old man feels that his nobility is defiled by contact with Shakespeare and company, and yet he has got to stay there till her majesty
chooses to dismiss him. Yesterday night took her maist, ye queen, a fantasy such as she sometimes hath, and had to her closet certain that do right plays, books, and such like, these being my lord Bacon, his worship sir Walter Raleigh, Mr. Ben Jonson, and ye child Francis Beaumont, which being but sixteen, hath yet turned his hand to ye doing of ye Latin masters
into our English Tongue, with great discretion and much applause. Also came with these ye famous Shakespeare, a right strange mixing truly of mighty blood with mean, ye more in is special since ye queen's grace was present, as likewise these following, to it ye Duchess of Bilgewater, twenty-six years of age, ye Countess of Granby, thirty, her daughter, ye Lady Helen, fifteen, as also these two maids of honour, to it ye Lady Marjorie Boothy,
sixty-five, and ye Lady Alice Dilbury, turned seventy, she being two years, ye queen's grace's elder. I being her mait's cup-bearer, had no choice but to remain, and behold rank forgot, and ye high hold converse with ye low as upon equal terms, a great scandal did ye world hear thereof. In ye heat of ye talk it befell, yet one did break wind, wielding an exceeding mighty and distressful stink, where at all did laugh, full sore, and then,
ye queen, verily in mine eight and sixty years have I not heard the fellow to this fart. Me seemeth, by ye great sound and clamour of it, it was male, yet ye belly it did lurk behind shoulder now, for lean and flat against ye spine of him, yet hath been delivered of so stately and so waste a bulk, whereas ye guts of them ye do quiff-splitters bear, stand calmly still and round. Prithee, let ye author confess ye offspring. Will my Lady Alice testify?
Lady Alice, good your grace, and I had womb for such a thunder-bust within mine ancient bowels, tis not in reason I could discharge ye same and live to thank God for it, he did choose handmaid so humble whereby to show his power, nay, tis not I yet have brought forth this rich overmastering fog, this fragment gloom, so pray ye you seek ye further. Ye queen, may app ye Lady Marjorie hath done ye company this favour? Lady Marjorie, so please, you madam,
my limbs are feeble, with the weight and draught of five and sixty winters, and it behoveth ye that I be tender unto them. In ye good providence of God, and I had contained this wonder, for sooth I have given ye whole evening of my sinking life to ye dribbling of its forth, with trembling and uneasy soul, not launched it sudden in its matchless might, taking mine own life with violence, rending my weak frame like rotten rags. It was not I, your maesty. Ye queen,
O God's dame, who hath favoured us? Hath it come to pass yet a fart shall fart itself? Not such a one as this, I trow, young Master Beaumont. But no, to have wafted him to heaven like down of a goose's body. T'was not ye little Lady Helen? Nay, nare blush, my child, thou tickle thy tender maiden head with many a mousy squeak before thou learns to blow a hurricane like this. Was thou, my learned and ingenious Johnson? Penn Johnson? So ferroblast hath
nare mine ears saluted, nor yet a stench so all-pervading and immortal. T'was not a novice did it, good your maesty, but one of veteran experience, else had he failed of confidence. Insooth it was not I. Ye queen, my lord Bacon? Lord Bacon, not from my lean entrails hath this prodigy burst forth, so please your grace. Not doth so befit ye great as great performance, and haply shall you find it, tis not from mediocrity this miracle hath issued. Though ye subject be but a fart,
yet will this tedious sink of learning ponderously philosophize. Meantime did the foul and deadly stink pervade all places to that degree, it never smelt I ye like. Yet dare I not to leave ye presence, albeit I was like to suffocate. Ye queen, what saith ye worshipful master Shakespeare? Shakespeare, In the great hand of God I stand and so proclaim mine innocence. Though ye sinless hosts of heaven had foretold ye coming of this most desolating breath, proclaiming it a work of
uninspired man, its quaking thunders, its firmament-clogging rottenness, his own achievement in due course of nature, yet had not I believed it, but had said the pit itself hath furnished forth the stink, and heaven's artillery hath shook the globe in admiration of it, then was there a silence, and each did turn him toward the worshipful Sir Walter Raleigh, that browned, embattled, bloody swashbuckler, who rising up did smile and simpering say, Sir Walter, most gracious
maestee. Twas I that did it, but indeed it was so poor and frail a note compared with such as I am want to furnish, yet in sooth I was ashamed to call the weakling mine in so augusta presence. Twas not, and less than not, madam. I did it but to clear my nether throat, but had I come prepared, then had I delivered something worthy. Bear with me, please, your grace, till I can make amends. Then delivered he himself of such a godless and rock-shivering blast, that all were feigned to
stop their ears, and following it did come so dense and foul a stink, that that which went before did seem a poor and trifling thing beside it. Then saith he, feigning that he blushed and was confused, I perceive that I am weak to-day, and cannot justice do unto my powers, and sat him down as who should say, There it is not much, yet he that hath an arse to spare, let him fellow that, anything he can. By God, and I were ye queen, I would e'en tip this swaggering braggart out
of the court, and let him air his grandeurs, and break his intolerable wind, before ye daff, and such as suffocation pleaseth. Then feral they to talk about ye manners and customs of many peoples, and Master Shakespeare spake of ye boke of ye Sir Michael de Montaigne, wherein was mention of ye custom of widows of Piregord, to wear upon ye headdress, in sign of widowhood, a jewel in ye similitude of a man's member wilted and limber, whereat ye queen did laugh and say
widows in England do wear pricks too, but betwixt the thighs, and not wilted neither, till coition hath done that office for them. Master Shakespeare did likewise observe how yet ye Sir de Montaigne hath also spoken of a certain emperor of such mighty prowess, that he did take ten maidenheads in ye compass of a single night, ye while his empress did entertain two and twenty lusty nights between her sheets, yet was not satisfied, whereat ye merry countess Granby saith,
Ram is yet ye emperor superior, saith he wilt up a hundred yews, twix son and son, and after, if ye can have none more to shag, will masturbate until he hath enriched whole acres with his seed. Then spake ye damned windmill, Sir Walter, of a people in ye uttermost parts of America, ye decapulate not until they be five and thirty years of age, ye women being eight and twenty, and do it then but once in seven years. Ye queen, how dost that like my little lady Helen?
Shall we send thee thither and preserve thy belly? Lady Helen, please your highness's grace, mine old nurse hath told me there are more ways of serving God than by locking the thighs together, yet am I willing to serve him yet way too, sith your highness's grace hath set ye himself. Ye queen, God wills a good answer, child. Lady Alice, mayhap, twere weken, when ye hear sprouts below ye navel. Lady Helen, nay, it sprouted two years,
sing, I can scarce more than cover it with my hand now. Ye queen, hear ye that, my little Beaumont, have ye not little birried about ye that stirs at hearing tell of so sweet a nest? Beaumont, it is not insensible, illustrious madam, but mousing owls and bats of low degree may not aspire to bliss so whelming and ecstatic as is found in ye downy nests of birds of paradise. Ye queen, by ye gullet of God, it is a neat turned compliment, with such a tongue as thine, lad,
thou'lt spread the ivory thighs of many a willing maid in thy good time, and thy codpiece be as handy as thy speech. Then spake ye queen of how she met old Rabelais, when she was turned of fifteen, and he did tell her of a man his father knew, that had a double pair of bollocks, whereon a controversy followed as concerning the most just way to spell the word. Ye contention running high betwixt ye learned Bacon and ye ingenious Johnson,
until at last ye old Lady Marjorie, wearing of it all, saith, Gentiles, what mattereth it how ye shall spell the word. I warrant ye, when ye use your bollocks ye shall not think of it, and, my Lady Granby, be ye content. Let the spelling be. Ye shall enjoy the beating of them on your buttocks just the same, I trow. Before I had gained my fourteenth year, I had learned that them that would explore a cunt stopped not to consider the spelling ought. Sir Walter,
insilth, when a shift's turned up, delay is meet for naught but dalliance. Boccaccio had a story of a priest that did beguile a maid into his cell, then knelt him in a corner to pray for grace to be rightly thankful for this tender maidenhead ye Lord had sent him. But ye abbot, spying through ye keyhole, did see a tuft of brownish hair with fair white flesh about it, wherefore when ye priests' prayer was done, his chance was gone, for as much as ye little maid
had but ye won cunt, and that was already occupied to her content. Then conversed they of religion, and ye mighty work ye old dead Luther did do by the grace of God. Then next about poetry. And Master Shakespeare did read a part of his King Henry IV, ye which, it seemeth unto me, is not of ye value of an arseful of ashes, yet they praised it bravely, one and all. He same did read a portion of his Venus and Adonis to their prodigious admiration,
whereas I, being sleepy and fatigued with all, did deem it but paltry stuff, and was the more discomfited in that ye bloody buccaneer had got his wind again, and did turn his mind to farting with such villain zeal that presently I was like to choke once more. God damn this windy ruffian and all his breed! I would that hell might get him! They talked about ye wonderful defence, which old Sir Nicholas Strogmorton
did make for himself before ye judges in ye time of Mary, which was unlucky matter to broach, sith it fetched out ye queen with a pity bee, having so much wit, had yet not enough to save his daughter's maidenhead sound for her marriage-bed, and ye queen did give to damned Sir Walter a look ye'd made him wince, for she hath not forgot he was her own lover at yet old day. There was silent uncomfortableness now. It was not a good turn for talk to take, sith if ye queen
must find offence in a little harmless debauching, when pricks were stiff and cunts not loathed to take ye'd stiffness out of them, who of this company was sinless? Behold, was not ye wife of Master Shakespeare, four months gone, with child, when she stood up before ye altar? Was not her grace of Bilgewater rogered by four lords before she had a husband? Was not ye little Lady Helen, born on her mother's wedding day?
And, behold, were not ye Lady Alice and ye Lady Marjorie there, mouthing religion, whores from Ye cradle? In time came they to discourse of Cervantes, and of the new painter Rubens, that is beginning to be heard of. Fine words and dainty wrought phrases from the ladies now, one or two of them being, in other days, pupils of that poor ass Lille himself. And I marked how that Johnson and Shakespeare did fidget to discharge some venom of sarcasm, yet dared they not in the
presence, the Queen's grace being ye very flower of ye euphuists herself. But behold these, be they yet having a specialty and admiring it in themselves, be jealous when a neighbour doth say it, nor can abide it in them long. Wherefore, it was observable, yet a Queen waxed uncontent, and in time laboured grandiose speech out of ye mouth of Lady Alice, who manifestly did mightily pride herself thereon, did quite exhaust ye Queen's endurance, who listened till ye gaudy speech was done, then lifted
up her brows, and with vast irony, mincing saith, Oh shit! Rat, they all did laugh. But not ye Lady Alice, ye old foolish bitch. Now was Sir Walter minded of a tale he once did hear ye ingenious Margaret of Navarre relate, about a maid, which being like to suffer rape by an old archbishop, did smartly contrive a device to save her maidenhead, and said to him, First, my lord, I prithee, take out thy holy tool and piss before me. Which doing, though his member fell, and would not rise
again. End of 1601 and end of Section 2.
