The Naughty Bits (10 page)

But of these crimes, perhaps the greatest will be the fading of Catullus, whose two-thousand-year-old bawdy and satiric lyrics are some of history’s wittiest barbs. If Latin is truly to die, much laughter will die with it.

XV

To you, Aurelius, I give you both my self and my young love,
and ask but one a small favor:
That if, in the depths of your heart, you have ever wished
The object of your desire to remain pure and unspoiled,
Then you’ll protect my boy from lechery;
I speak not of the public—I don’t fear those milling about the
squares,
Entirely occupied in their own affairs;
It’s you who scares me: you and your penis,
That menace to children both good and bad.
Use it wherever you wish, given whatever chance,
Excepting only my young friend. This, my modest request.
But should your wicked impulses or evil mind
Impel you, blackguard, to commit a crime
Of treachery against my person,
Ah, then you’ll rue your miserable fate;
You’ll have your legs bound
And your backdoor rammed with fish and radishes!

LXIX

Do not wonder, Rufus, why no woman
Wants to place her soft thighs under you,
Even when you give her rare fabrics
Or precious stones of perfect translucence.
Your problem is an unfortunate rumor
That you tend a mean goat in the armpit’s valley,
Who scares all the women away.
No mystery: It’s a nasty beast
No girl would want to sleep with.
So either kill off this scourge of the nostril,
Or stop wondering why they all run away.

XCVII

I had thought (so help me gods!) that it made no difference
Whether I smelled Amelius’ mouth or asshole;
The one being no cleaner, the other no filthier.
But, in fact, his asshole is cleaner, and much preferable:
It has no teeth. The mouth has teeth a foot and a half long
And gums like an old wagon car. When it opens
It’s like the cunt of a heatstruck donkey pissing.
And yet he fucks quite a bit and thinks himself a playboy—
Is he not afraid of any retribution?
But the women who touch him,
Would they not lick the asscrack of a hangman?

—translated by Jack Murnighan

from
Near to the Wild Heart

CLARICE LISPECTOR

I’ve met people who remember the moment they became sexually aware, some early trigger like a tickle or a special itch that, when scratched, evoked a new kind of pleasure, perhaps mingled with a touch of shame. Of course, I too can remember early sexual moments: being dragged under a blanket-covered picnic table for a game of show-and-show with a neighbor girl when I was five (she was enthusiastic and I shy as hell); years later sharing backyard kisses with a future ballerina; later still my repeated and occasionally successful attempts to convince a friend’s sister to striptease; and, finally, deep in junior high, finding my first true girlfriend, who was famous for palming guys from the front and whom I later lost to my best friend. But although these events represent symptoms of sexuality, they still don’t help me recover, in good Proustian fashion, the precise awakening of my sexual self. That sudden flicker or steady trickle remains obscured.

Some of my favorite writers, however, have succeeded in capturing these most elusive moments. In Günter Grass’s
The Tin Drum,
young Oscar first confronts the “hairy triangle”; in James Baldwin’s
Giovanni’s
Room,
David discovers he’s gay. The excerpt below, taken from Clarice Lispector’s
Near to the Wild Heart,
describes the moment when Joana, a young girl taking a bath, discovers both her sexual identity and place in the universe.
Near to the Wild Heart
was published in 1944, when Lispector was only nineteen, and is a marvel of expressiveness. In this scene, as elsewhere, the young Lispector seems unwilling or unable to filter the raw truth, and her uniquely tactile language strikes a probing, poetic chord: a girl’s recognition of her body and its isolation from the other bodies of the cosmos.

The girl laughs softly, rejoicing in her own body. Her smooth, slender legs, her tiny breasts emerge from the water. She scarcely knows herself, still not fully grown, still almost a child. She stretches out one leg, looks at her foot from a distance, moves it tenderly, slowly, like a fragile wing. She lifts her arms above her head, stretches them out towards the ceiling lost in the shadows, her eyes closed, without any feeling, only movement. Her body stretches and spreads out, the moisture on her skin glistening in the semi-darkness—her body tracing a tense, quivering line. When she drops her arms once more, she becomes compact, white and secure. She chuckles to herself, moves her long neck from one side to another, tilts her head backwards—the grass is always fresh, someone is about to kiss her, soft, tiny rabbits snuggle up against each other with their eyes shut. She starts laughing again, gentle murmurings like those of water. She strokes her waist, her hips, her life. She sinks into the bathtub as if it were the sea. A tepid world closes over her silently, quietly. Small bubbles slip away gently and vanish once they touch the enamel. The young girl feels the water weighing on her body, she pauses for a moment as if someone had tapped her lightly on the shoulder. Paying attention to what she is feeling, the invading tide. What has happened? She becomes a serious creature, with wide, deep eyes. She can scarcely breathe. What has happened? The open, silent eyes of things went on shining amidst the vapors. Over the same body that has divined happiness there is water—water. No, no . . .

I’ve discovered a miracle in the rain—Joana thought—a miracle splintered into dense, solemn, glittering stars, like a suspended warning: like a lighthouse. What are they trying to tell me? In those stars I can foretell the secret, their brilliance is the impassive mystery I can hear flowing inside me, weeping at length in tones of romantic despair. Dear God, at least bring me into contact with them, satisfy my longing to kiss them. To feel their light on my lips, to feel it glow inside my body, leaving it shining and transparent, fresh and moist like the minutes that come before dawn. Why do these strange longings possess me? Raindrops and stars, this dense and chilling fusion has roused me, opened the gates of my green and somber forest, of this forest smelling of an abyss where water flows. And harnessed it to night . . . Because no rain falls inside me, I wish to be a star. Purify me a little and I shall acquire the dimensions of those beings who take refuge behind the rain . . . And I am in the world, as free and lithe as a colt on the plain. I rise as gently as a puff of air . . . I sink only to emerge . . .

—translated by Giovanni Pontiero

from
The Decameron

GIOVANNI BOCCACCIO

The intelligence of Plato, the humanity of Dante, the imagination of Shakespeare, the virtuosity of Donne, and the wit of Boccaccio: a decent set of wishes for an aspiring writer lucky enough to stumble on a pair of genie lamps. But to pick only one—and any one is certainly enough—that’s a tough call. Unless, of course, it’s not fame but fun that you’re after, in which case Boccaccio is the only way to go. Boccaccio was the most spirited writer of the Middle Ages—and among the most spirited of any age—and he’s still the unrivaled master of saucy plots and mischievous characters, guaranteed to please.

Boccaccio’s most famous work, the
Decameron,
is a fourteenth-century collection of one hundred short tales, told by a group of nobles taking refuge in a villa. The stories are a panorama of medieval culture and wit, and they are, in turn, raucous, sinister, clever, and often, as in the excerpt that follows, quite racy (the Middle Ages were more fun than you’d think!). The
Decameron
is one of the great works of Italian literature and one of the first to tell stories about real people in real situations (often having real sex). But what ties the tales together is not so much this realism as Boccaccio’s fabulous sense of the world: in virtually every story some clever trickster takes advantage of his thick or naïve dupes. Boccaccio’s world is a meritocracy of ingenuity where the creative win at everyone else’s expense. This is why I’d rather live in Boccaccio’s world than any other, for intelligence works in the service of play, and morality means that the quick thinking get their just desserts. Take the following tale, for example, and see what a little imagination can do with an otherwise unpromising situation.

Dear Ladies, the deceits used by men towards your sex, but especially husbands, have been so great and many as when it hath sometime happened, or yet may, that husbands are repaid in the self-same manner, you need not find fault . . . but rather you should refer it to general publication so that immodest men may know . . . that women are in no way inferior to them. . . . Mine intent therefore is to tell you, what a woman (though but of mean quality) did to her husband all of a sudden, and in a moment for her own safety.

Not long ago, there lived in Naples an honest mean man, who did take to wife a fair and lusty young woman, being named Peronella. It came to pass that a certain young man, well observing the beauty and good parts of Peronella, became much addicted in affection towards her: and by his often and secret solicitations, which he found not to be unkindly entertained, his success proved answerable to his hope. . . .

Now, for their securer meeting, to stand clear from all matter of scandal or detection, they concluded in this order between themselves. Lazaro, for so was Peronella’s husband named, was an early riser every morning. Poor Lazaro was no sooner gone, but [Peronella’s lover] presently enters the house, which stood in a very solitary street. Many mornings had they thus met together, to their no small delight and contention, till one particular morning among the rest, when Lazaro was gone forth to work, and Striguario (so was the amorous young man named) visiting Peronella in the house. Upon a very urgent errand, Lazaro returned back again, quite contrary to his former wont, keeping forth all day, and never coming home till night.

Finding his door to be fast locked, and he having knocked softly once or twice, he spoke in this manner to himself: “Fortune I thank thee, for albeit thou hast made me poor, yet thou hast bestowed a better blessing on me, in matching me with so good, honest, and loving a wife. Behold, though I went early out of my house, her self hath risen in the cold to shut the door, to prevent the entrance of thieves, or any other that might offend us.” Peronella having heard what her husband said, and knowing the manner of his knock, said fearfully to Striguario: “Alas, dear friend, what shall we do? I am a dead woman. For Lazaro my husband is come back again, and I know not what to do or say. He never returned in this manner before now, doubtless he saw when you entered the door. For the safety of your honor and mine, creep under this brewing pot, till I have opened the door and know the reason of his so soon returning.”

Striguario made no delaying of the matter, but got himself closely under the pot, and Peronella opening the door for her husband’s entrance, with a frowning countenance, spoke thus unto him: “What meaneth this so early returning home again this morning? It seemeth thou intends to do nothing today, having brought back thy tools in thy hands? If such be thine intent, how shall we live? Where shall we have bread to fill our bellies? Dost thou think that I will allow thee to pawn my gown and other poor garments, as heretofore thou hast done? I that card and spin both night and day till I have worn the flesh from my fingers will hardly find oil to maintain our lamp. Husband, husband, there is not one neighbor dwelling by us but makes a mockery of me, and tells me plainly, that I may be ashamed to drudge and toil as I do, wondering not a little how I am able to endure it; and thou returnest home with thy hands in thy hose, as if thou hadst no work at all to do this day.”

Having thus spoken, she fell to weeping, and then thus began again: “Poor wretched woman as I am, in an unfortunate hour was I born, and in a much worse when I was made thy wife. I could have had a proper, handsome young man—one that would have maintained me brave and gallantly, but, beast as I was, to forgo my good and cast myself away on such a beggar as thou art, and whom none would have had, but such an ass as I. Other women live at heart’s ease and in jollity, have their amorous friends and loving paramours, yea, one, two, three at once, making their husbands look like a moon crescent whereon they shine sun-like with amiable looks because they know not how to help it, when I, poor fool, live here at home a miserable life, not daring once to dream of such follies, an innocent soul, heartless and harmless.”

“Many times, sitting and sighing to my self, ‘Lord,’ think I, ‘of what metal am I made? Why should not I have a friend in a corner, as well as others have? I am flesh and blood as they are, not made of brass or iron, and therefore subject to women’s frailty.’ Would thou should know it husband, and I tell it thee in good earnest, that if I would do ill, I could quickly find a friend at a need. Gallants there are in good store, who, of my knowledge, love me dearly, and have made me very large and liberal promises, of gold, silver, jewels, and gay garments, if I would extend them the least favor. But my heart will not suffer me, I never was the daughter of such a mother, as had so much as a thought of such matters. No, I thank our blessed Lady, and Saint Friswid for it. And yet thou returnest home again, when thou shouldst be at work.”

Lazaro, who stood all this while like a well-believing logger-head, demurely thus answered: “Alas good wife! I pray you be not so angry, I never had so much as an ill thought of you, but know well enough what you are, and have made good proof thereof this morning. Understand therefore patiently, sweet wife, that I went forth to my work as daily I use to do, little dreaming (as I think you do not) that it had been a holiday. Wife, this is the feast day of Saint Gale-one whereon we may in no ways work, and this is the reason of my so soon returning. Nevertheless, dear wife, I was not careless of our household provision, for, though we work not, yet we must have food, which I have provided for more than a month. Wife, I remembered the brewing pot, whereof we have little or no use at all, but rather it is a trouble to the house. I met with an honest friend, who is standing outside the door; to him I have sold the pot for five gigliatoes, and he is waiting to take it away with him.