In his speech in praise of the number three, the four-hundred year-old French comedian known as Bruscambille notes:

doesn’t a man have seven times three fingers, i.e. ten on the hands, ten on the feet, and the big genital thumb, which even if lacking a nail, nevertheless does more duty than all the others put together, because in a single blow that he strikes on nature’s anvil, sometimes he makes a great captain, sometimes a coward, sometimes a Braggadochio, sometimes an attorney, sometimes a merchant, sometimes an officer of the court, sometimes a witness, or even less, sometimes a pimp, sometimes a kitchen boy, sometimes a footman, and so on and so forth, Nature in truth has been a little harsh as far as he’s concerned because not content with having made him without a nail, she has also made him one-eyed, albeit that in compensation she has doted him with such clarity of vision that when he wants to meditate and rifle through the secrets of nature, he has no need of glasses nor of a candle to find the chamber, the wily fellow like a good blood-hound knows where the hare is hiding, allowing him to complete his commission, and what makes him welcome among ladies is that he lives without pride and ambition, his flight is not too high, in fact all his aims  are only towards the mid and single point, he only ever wishes to lodge in a small, narrow and tight space.

(Exceptionally devoted readers of this blog may recall the expression ‘to strike on nature’s anvil’ – forger sur l’enclume de nature – as the subject of another print and accompanying post).

This remarkable big genital thumb without a nail (‘le gros pouce genital despouveu d’ongle’) has inspired one of Dominic Hills’s most recent prints.

Le gros pouce
© Dominic Hills

The big genital thumb without a nail is clearly so overwhelming that the comedian devotes almost as much attention to it as the number three, although he does eventually return to his purported theme. This was of course only ever a pretext for a whole series of comic conceits like these and indeed an umbilical pistol soon joins this pantheon of phallic imagery (this pistol incidentally requires three things: 1. to be well cocked and full of gunpowder; 2. to be charged with a couple of bullets; 3. to have a new holster, for if you put it in a old rotten holster covered in cobwebs, your pistol will be ruined), making an unholy trinity with the masculine peg (‘cheville masculine’), one of three things needed for procreation…

One of Dominic Hills’s most recent prints illustrates a self-explanatory Latin catchphrase, ‘Scholasticus loquens cum puella non praesumitur dicere Pater noster’ [A student talking with a girl doesn’t think of reciting ‘Our Father who art in heaven’].

The phrase apparently originated with the great fourteenth-century Italian jurist Baldo degli Ubaldi, who used it to convey what it is to be presumed guilty. As well as a student, different versions of the joke have a cleric, a scholar or simply a man talking with the girl.

As is the way with such witticisms, it took on a life of its own. In France, it occurs in one of the late sixteenth-century tales of Noël Du Fail, in which an apothecary gives his wife some medicine to sweeten her breath before a ball – yet conveniently when one of her dance partners starts whispering sweet nothings in her ear (cue the Latin phrase) it transpires the supposed breath freshener was in fact a laxative, leading her to make a rapid exit from the dance floor. The early seventeenth-century comedian known as Bruscambille (see previous posts) borrows the expression from Du Fail in a speech of his in the form of a mock court case. The comic sees his opponent whispering into the ear of a female friend, naturally presumes he isn’t saying the Lord’s prayer, yet wonders if his actions will match his words or whether he will end up being accused, like another man, of ringing his bells when the parishioners don’t want to come.

Given the way the Latin phrase itself inspired different versions, it is strangely appropriate that Dominic Hills’s version:

Scolasticus cum puella
© Dominic Hills

should itself be a close adaptation (with a religious twist) of a piece of Japanese shunga:

Kitagawa Utamaro (d. 1806), Lovers in the upstairs room of a teahouse, from Utamakura (Poem of the Pillow), c. 1788. Sheet from a colour-woodblock printed album. © The Trustees of the British Museum.

Legal terminology often features in French Renaissance comic and nonsense writing, which tells us something about its audience, which would have included students and practitioners of the law. The nonsensical case between Baisecul (Kissarse) and Humevene (Sniffshit) in Rabelais’s Pantagruel is one example – see Souffler au cul.

During the period of festivities known as carnival, lawyers in Paris and elsewhere would plead ’causes grasses’, translated by Randle Cotgrave as ‘Bawdie suits, immodest actions’, absurd cases ‘proving’ things like 11-month pregnancies, which might be handy when proving the legitimacy of a widow’s child (it is also something Rabelais’s narrator, Alcofribas Nasier, attempts to demonstrate of the eponymous giant hero of Gargantua).

Bruscambille similarly has several speeches that are mock legal cases, which must have delighted the law students in his audience. In one such speech he wishes, but ultimately fails, to make a case against a variety of disreputable characters including one who, using the wall as a handkerchief, claimed:

‘not to be to be blame for having really and actually drenched everyone present from the very depths of his underpants, and maintained that he should keep all expenses, damages, and interest, upon which he concluded and, expanding his case, noted that he had bent his equinoctial line, by which he meant his natural crossbow, by way of his dear wife’s bottom, without any other type of legal palaver.’

Devoted readers of the blog may remember the phrase, bend back nature’s crossbow, which has already been the subject of one of Dominic Hills’s prints. The curiously scientific phrase ‘bander sa ligne equinoctiale’ (‘bend the equinoctial line’, technically the line around the earth’s circumference from north to south pole), is part of this more or less nonsensical parody of legal terminology and has inspired another print:

Ligne equinoctiale
© Dominic Hills

Incidentally, the French term Bruscambille uses for the wife’s bottom is ‘ponant’, literally the west, but also used to refer to the ‘arse, tayle, bumme’, according to Randle Cotgrave. There is clearly something about hemispheres and equinoctial lines that is richly suggestive of other things, something Hills’s print also captures.

In a remarkable speech in praise of lying, the comedian known as Bruscambille proves that deceit is better than truth. For instance, the beautiful widow Judith saved her nation through her lies when she seduced Holofernes, the Assyrian general, before beheading him. Similarly,

if someone had killed his enemy in a secret place, and he was arrested by the authorities, would he wish to confess his crime? In just the same way, if someone were accused of having made some droning music from the depths of his trousers, would he also wish to confess it for his honour? Would he not take the highway to Denial Town?

[si quelqu’un avoit tué son ennemy en lieu secret, & qu’il fust apprehendé de la Justice, le voudroit-il confesser? Tout de mesme si quelqu’un estoit accusé d’avoir fait quelque Musique en faux bourdon au fonds de ses chausses, le voudroit-il confesser aussi pour son honneur? Ne prendroit-il pas le grand chemin de Nyort?]

The great lexicographer Randle Cotgrave translates ‘faux bourdon’ as ‘the drone of a bagpipe’. In case we were in any doubt about the meaning of the expression ‘faux bourdon au fonds de ses chausses’, the royal interpreter Antoine Oudin, who in 1640 published a dictionary of French ‘curiosities’, many of which he drew from his careful reading of Bruscambille, defines it as a ‘big old fart’ (‘un bon gros pet’).

The bagpipe-droning fart has reappeared in one of Dominic Hills’s recent prints:

Faux bourdon
© Dominic Hills

The techniques of Japanese print-making practised by Dominic Hills are more complex than they might appear at first sight. Similarly, it might be tempting to dismiss Bruscambille’s humour as puerile, but that would miss the point of how he puts together his speech to set up all kinds of comic contrasts, equating denying a murder charge with pretending not to have farted, alongside precise references to Plato and Aristotle, among others. The seventeenth-century audience would have loved all this, and the persuasive ingenuity involved in naughtily demonstrating that lying is preferable to the truth. But just in case we were tempted to take any of this too seriously, Bruscambille immediately follows his speech praising lying with one eulogizing truth. Whether it is better or not to admit to making the sound of a droning bagpipe in the depths of one’s trousers remains, therefore, an open question.

One of the functions of a blog such as this is to record the synergy between academic research and artistic practice by documenting the process of knowledge exchange. One such exchange recently took place when the artist Dominic Hills produced another print of the old French proverb ‘Whoever farts valiantly and with courage extends his life’ (‘Quiconque pette bravement et avec courage prolonge sa vie’).

Whereas his earlier print featured two men and a medium emission of flatulence, the latest version was of a woman and a giant gas cloud:

Quiconque pette II
© Dominic Hills

This immediately brought to my mind the gendered nature of farts for, in the very speech which contains the first known recording of this proverb, the comedian known as Bruscambille also remarks, ‘Isn’t it amusing that just carrying a little dog gives ladies leave to fart around the clock, and they are excused by a “Get that dog out of here, he farted!”?’ [N’est-il pas plaisant quand pour le port d’un petit chien il dispence les dames de peter à toutes heures, & les quitte pour un chassez ce chien, il a vessy?]

Knowledge duly exchanged, the academic-artistic process came full circle as Dominic Hills sharpened his tools to carve a little dog, hidden behind a flap, into the gas cloud:

Quiconque pette II (avec chien)
© Dominic Hills

In his speech on cuckolds and the usefulness of horns, the French comedian known as Bruscambille (see previous posts) observes that cuckolds embody generosity and are showered with honours by those who visit them and especially their wives.

He continues to justify his view of the happy lot of the cuckold by referring to a proverb:

I only need the common proverb to justify my statement, that all men are cousins to whoever has a beautiful wife: how much doffing of caps, how many recommendations and humblings, hugs and bows: for the gifts of fortune, the horn of Amalthea never overflowed like that of a man of good judgement who knows how to manage his household affairs, his horns produce for him, it’s a dairy cow that never runs dry, a meadow that always makes hay, that he can cut a hundred times a day, it’s a mine that he has at home, the more you dig it, the less you empty it, a garden that brings forth new flowers every day, what more shall I say? an infinite seed plot, an inestimable treasure.

[Je ne veux que le proverbe commun pour verifier mon dire, que quiconque a belle femme tout le monde est son cousin, combien aura-il tous les jours de coups de chapeau, de recommendations & submissions, de caresses & de reverences : pour les biens de fortune, jamais la corne d’Amalthée n’en repandit tant que celle d’un homme de bon jugement & qui sçayt bien mesnager, les siennes luy en produisent, c’est une vache à laict qui ne tarit point, c’est un pré de perpetuelle fenaison, qu’il peut tondre cent fois le jour, c’est une miniere qu’il tient en sa maison, que plus on fouit & moins on vuide, c’est un jardin qui chaque jour esclost de nouvelles fleurs, que diray-je plus ? une pepiniere infinie, un thresor inestimable.]

The proverb, ‘quiconque a belle femme tout le monde est son cousin’ (literally ‘whoever has a beautiful wife, everyone is his cousin’) encapsulates the happy fate of the cuckold and his horns of plenty, gifts that keep on giving, rather like Bruscambille himself, who seems to have been the first to have recorded this piece of wisdom in print, and which has now inspired Dominic Hills’s latest two-stage print:

Belle femme
© Dominic Hills

Belle femme
© Dominic Hills

In the early seventeenth century, a highly successful comic anthology written in Latin appeared for the delight of students and other citizens of the Republic of Letters who would have known their classics: the Nugæ Venales, Thesaurus ridendi & jocandi ad gravissimos serverissimosque viros […] (Prostant apud Neminem: sed tamen Uibque, 1642), that is to say Trifles for sale, or thesaurus of laughter and jolliness, addressed to the most serious and severe men […] (To be sold at nobody’s address yet everywhere, 1642).

Among other things, as Annette Tomarken discovered, this collection features numerous passages translating bits of the French comedian known as Bruscambille into Latin, which means that his jokes, including mock learned discussions of farts and how these are good and spiritual, had an unexpected afterlife.

As followers of this blog will know, Bruscambille’s jokes have continued to resonate in the form of Dominic Hills’s prints, and these nugae are themselves for sale through Robert Eagle Fine Art (an online gallery, so truly Prostant apud Neminem: sed tamen Uibque).

In his third and final speech on farts, ‘That a fart is a good thing’, the comedian known as Bruscambille cites Cicero, for whom goodness consisted in what was ‘useful, pleasant and honest’ (On Duties, II, 10). The usefulness of the fart, which in turn naturally contributes to its essential goodness, is seen in the widespread proverb, ‘Whoever farts valiantly and with courage extends his life’ (‘Quiconque pette bravement et avec courage prolonge sa vie’). There were indeed proverbs of this type in the air at the time, a variant being ‘Whoever wishes to have a long life should let his arse break wind’ (‘Qui veut vivre longuement il faut donner à son cul vent’). Such proverbs also have their English equivalents, including the (apocryphal?) tombstone bearing the legend, ‘Where’er ye be, let your wind break free, for holding it in was the death of me’, which has its own variant reading, ‘Where’er ye be, let you wind break free. In church and chapel, let it rattle!’

Bruscambille’s piece of age-old proverbial lore has inspired Dominic Hills’s latest print:

Quiconque pette
© Dominic Hills

Not everyone would agree with this proverb, of course. The great Dutch humanist, Erasmus, would have been among them. In his massive and hugely successful collection of proverbs, the Adages, he cites the ancient saying ‘Suus cuique crepitus bene olet’ (‘Everyone thinks his own fart smells sweet’), but concludes that it doubtlessly originated from the very dregs of society and that he has yet to meet anyone who thinks this way (Adages, III, 4, 2/2302). Yet, from another point of view, the persistence of such sentiments about flatulence across the centuries points to a fundamental continuity in the human condition. Stephen Greenblatt famously opens his Shakespearean Negotiations with the comment that ‘I began with a desire to speak with the dead’ – these proverbs suggest that the answer to fulfilling that desire is blowing in the wind.

In one of his two speeches on castrati (controversial figures, apparently ideal lovers for women who did not want to get pregnant, and the subject of an injunction of 1619 issued by the Parisian law-courts as a result…), the comedian known as Bruscambille makes the following observation about Spring:

‘In this pleasing season, the pilgrim starts planting his staff while the shepherd starts playing on nature’s flute and the mute bagpipe in the shade of the shepherdess’s mossy mound. In short, at this time, everything lives, everything dances, and breathes only orbicular conjunction.’

[En ceste agreeable saison, le Pelerin commence à planter son bourdon, le berger à jouer du flageolet de nature, et de la cornemuse sourde à l’ombre du tertre moussu de la bergere. Bref, en ce temps tout vit, tout dance, et ne respire que la conjunction orbiculaire.]

He goes on to comment how sad it is that castrati cannot ‘chime and ring their bells’ to celebrate the arrival of sweet Spring.

The ornately Latinate phrase ‘orbicular conjunction’ / ‘conjonction orbiculaire’ has inspired Dominic Hills’s latest and similarly ornate print:

Conjonction orbiculaire
© Dominic Hills

In his speech on the rare and remarkable objects he has brought from Mexico, which he intends to gift to the French nation so it may be seen as the greatest for the sumptuousness of the dresses ladies wear to ballets, the comedian known as Bruscambille (see previous posts, passim) lists, among other things:

• a pair of underpants of the Roman Stoic philosopher Seneca that are full of moral sayings worthy of profound consideration;
• Jupas’s lute, which produces such harmonies that whoever hears them isn’t deaf;
• a pair of marvellous glasses that allowed Saturn to choose a white cloth with which to wipe his bottom.

For his latest print, Dominic Hills was naturally inspired by one of these Mexican objets d’art, namely:

The chamber pot used by Mars and Venus, to Vulcan’s great displeasure, of such size and perfect proportion that it inflames the hearts of its viewers with unbearable lust, and makes nature’s crossbow bend back, to fire at the deer with no nose.

[L’urinal duquel se servoient Mars et Venus, avec un grand desplaisir de Vulcan, de telle mesure et juste proportion qu’il enflamme les cœurs des regardans de luxure insupportable, et faict bander l’arbalestre de nature, pour tirer après la beste fauve qui n’a point de nez.]

Bander l’arbalestre de nature
© Dominic Hills

Anyone in any doubt as to what the ‘deer with no nose’ refers only needs to consult one of Bruscambille’s speeches on noses, where he establishes in Latin that while men have two noses ‘primum capiti, secundus jacet in braguibus’ [‘this first on the head, the second in the codpiece’], women on the other hand only have one nose ‘ad est capitale, sed abest bragale’ [‘one on the head, but the one in the codpiece is missing’].