> Robin what are you doing up at 2am?? Just a thot. P
As it turns out now, simply establishing that Pierre Motteux's translation
of the pseudo-Rabelaisian "Pantagruelian Prognostication", chapter 5,
published in 1693, demonstrates that Motteux had attended a performance of
Thomas Shadwell's _Squire of Alsatia_ in 1688.
Which I suppose is worth knowing, but less than I'd hoped for when I came on
the original passage that caught my attention, and promptly thought it had
been written in retro-cant by W.E.Henley.
So bugger *that for a joke, and not worth losing a night's sleep for.
:-(
Robin
(Though at least Motteux managed to get Shadwell right and use the older
form, "blowing", rather than George Saintsbury's anachronistic emendation
[in his New Mermaid edition of Shadwell in 1900] to "blowen".)
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PANTAGRUELIAN PROGNOSTICATION
Those whom Venus is said to rule, as Punks, Jilts, Flirts,
Queans, Morts, Doxies, Strumpets, Buttocks, Blowings, Tits,
Pure Ones, Concubines, Convenients, Cracks, Drabs, Trulls,
Light-skirts, Wrigglers, Misses, Cats, Riggs, Try'd Virgins,
Bona-robaes, Barbers Chairs, Hedge-whores, Wagtails, Cock-
atrices, Whipsters, Twiggers, Harlots, Kept-wenches, Kind-
hearted-things, Ladies of Pleasure, by what Titles or Names
soever dignified or distinguish'd ; Bawds, Pimps, Panders,
Procurers, and Mutton - breakers ; Wenchers, Lechers,
Shakers, Smockers, Cousins, Cullies, Stallions and Belli-
bumpers; Ganymedes, Bardachoes, Hufflers, Ingles, Frica-
trices, He- whores and Sodomites; swaggering Huff-snuffs,
bouncing Bullies, Braggadocio's, Tory-rory Rakes and Tan-
tivy-boys; peppered, clapt and pox'd Dabblers; shankered,
colliflower'd, carbuncled Martyrs and Confessors of Venus ;
Rovers, Ruffian-Rogues, and Hedge-creepers ; Female Cham-
berlains ; Nomina mulierum definienta in ess, ut, Laundress,
Sempstress, Hostess, etc., and in er, ut, Mantua-maker, Bed-
maker, Bar-keeper, Fruiterer, etc., all these will be famous
this Year. But when the Sun enters Cancer and other
Signs, let them beware of the Crinkums, and its Attendants ;
as Shankers, Claps, Virulent Gonorrheas, Cordees, Buboes,
or Running Nags, Pockroyals, Botches, Wens or Condyloms,
Tetters, Scabs, Nodes, Glands, Tumours, Carnosities, etc.
Nuns shall hardly conceive without Carnal Copulation ;
very few Virgins shall have milk at the Breasts.
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