Chris Beggy wrote:
>
> I'm happy to give some credit to Dante, in canto 21 of the Inferno:
>
> "...ed egli avea del cul fatto trombetta."
>
> Scatalogically,
Splendid.
For those who know no more Italian than I do, the passage ending with this line is translated as follows by Binyon. Dante fears that an offer by some devils to show them an unbroken bridge is a false one, and speaks to his guide, Virgil:
Said I. "Ah, without escort let us start,
If thou the way know'st, for I seek it not.
If thou be beest wary, as wontedly thou wert,
Dost thou not see them, how their teeth they grind
And with bent brows threaten us to our hurt?"
And he: "I'd have thee of a firmer mind.
Let them grind on, and frown and do their worst.
'Tis for those wretches to the pitch consigned."
By the left bank they turned to go; but first
Each with his tongue between his teeth a-stretch
Made his signal to his captain; he, reversed,
Made suddenly a trumpet of his breech.
(Inf. XXI, 128-39)
Binyon apparently had to stretch for a rhyme in lines 133-35, for Singleton in 135 has "boiled wretches" in 135 (they are immersed in river of pitch) and his note glosses, "the stewed ones," rather more vivid than "to the pitch consigned." The last line Singleton translates, "and he had made a trumpet of his arse."
Carrol
>
> Chris