1601: Conversation as it was by the Social Fireside in the Time of the Tudors

FIGS FOR FIG LEAVES!

Of course, the writing of such a piece as 1601 raised the question of freedom of expression for the creative artist.

Although little discussed at that time, it was a question which intensely interested Mark, and for a fuller appreciation of Mark’s position one must keep in mind the year in which 1601 was written, 1876. There had been nothing like it before in American literature; there had appeared no Caldwells, no Faulkners, no Hemingways. Victorian England was gushing Tennyson. In the United States polite letters was a cult of the Brahmins of Boston, with William Dean Howells at the helm of the Atlantic. Louisa May Alcott published Little Women in 1868-69, and Little Men in 1871. In 1873 Mark Twain led the van of the debunkers, scraping the gilt off the lily in the Gilded Age.

In 1880 Mark took a few pot shots at license in Art and Literature in his Tramp Abroad, “I wonder why some things are? For instance, Art is allowed as much indecent license to-day as in earlier times – but the privileges of Literature in this respect have been sharply curtailed within the past eighty or ninety years. Fielding and Smollet could portray the beastliness of their day in the beastliest language; we have plenty of foul subjects to deal with in our day, but we are not allowed to approach them very near, even with nice and guarded forms of speech. But not so with Art. The brush may still deal freely with any subject; however revolting or indelicate. It makes a body ooze sarcasm at every pore, to go about Rome and Florence and see what this last generation has been doing with the statues. These works, which had stood in innocent nakedness for ages, are all fig-leaved now. Yes, every one of them. Nobody noticed their nakedness before, perhaps; nobody can help noticing it now, the fig-leaf makes it so conspicuous. But the comical thing about it all, is, that the fig-leaf is confined to cold and pallid marble, which would be still cold and unsuggestive without this sham and ostentatious symbol of modesty, whereas warm-blooded paintings which do really need it have in no case been furnished with it.

“At the door of the Ufizzi, in Florence, one is confronted by statues of a man and a woman, noseless, battered, black with accumulated grime – they hardly suggest human beings – yet these ridiculous creatures have been thoughtfully and conscientiously fig-leaved by this fastidious generation. You enter, and proceed to that most-visited little gallery that exists in the world… and there, against the wall, without obstructing rag or leaf, you may look your fill upon the foulest, the vilest, the obscenest picture the world possesses – Titian’s Venus. It isn’t that she is naked and stretched out on a bed – no, it is the attitude of one of her arms and hand. If I ventured to describe the attitude, there would be a fine howl – but there the Venus lies, for anybody to gloat over that wants to – and there she has a right to lie, for she is a work of art, and Art has its privileges. I saw young girls stealing furtive glances at her; I saw young men gaze long and absorbedly at her; I saw aged, infirm men hang upon her charms with a pathetic interest. How I should like to describe her – just to see what a holy indignation I could stir up in the world – just to hear the unreflecting average man deliver himself about my grossness and coarseness, and all that.

“In every gallery in Europe there are hideous pictures of blood, carnage, oozing brains, putrefaction – pictures portraying intolerable suffering – pictures alive with every conceivable horror, wrought out in dreadful detail – and similar pictures are being put on the canvas every day and publicly exhibited – without a growl from anybody – for they are innocent, they are inoffensive, being works of art. But suppose a literary artist ventured to go into a painstaking and elaborate description of one of these grisly things – the critics would skin him alive. Well, let it go, it cannot be helped; Art retains her privileges, Literature has lost hers. Somebody else may cipher out the whys and the wherefores and the consistencies of it – I haven’t got time.”

PROFESSOR SCENTS PORNOGRAPHY

Unfortunately, 1601 has recently been tagged by Professor Edward Wagenknecht as “the most famous piece of pornography in American literature.” Like many another uninformed, Prof. W. is like the little boy who is shocked to see “naughty” words chalked on the back fence, and thinks they are pornography. The initiated, after years of wading through the mire, will recognize instantly the significant difference between filthy filth and funny “filth.” Dirt for dirt’s sake is something else again. Pornography, an eminent American jurist has pointed out, is distinguished by the “leer of the sensualist.”

“The words which are criticised as dirty,” observed justice John M. Woolsey in the United States District Court of New York, lifting the ban on Ulysses by James Joyce, “are old Saxon words known to almost all men and, I venture, to many women, and are such words as would be naturally and habitually used, I believe, by the types of folk whose life, physical and mental, Joyce is seeking to describe.” Neither was there “pornographic intent,” according to justice Woolsey, nor was Ulysses obscene within the legal definition of that word.

“The meaning of the word ‘obscene,’” the Justice indicated, “as legally defined by the courts is: tending to stir the sex impulses or to lead to sexually impure and lustful thoughts.

“Whether a particular book would tend to excite such impulses and thoughts must be tested by the court’s opinion as to its effect on a person with average sex instincts – what the French would call ‘l’homme moyen sensuel’ – who plays, in this branch of legal inquiry, the same role of hypothetical reagent as does the ‘reasonable man’ in the law of torts and ‘the learned man in the art’ on questions of invention in patent law.”

Obviously, it is ridiculous to say that the “leer of the sensualist” lurks in the pages of Mark Twain’s 1601.

DROLL STORY

“In a way,” observed William Marion Reedy, “1601 is to Twain’s whole works what the ‘Droll Stories’ are to Balzac’s. It is better than the privately circulated ribaldry and vulgarity of Eugene Field; is, indeed, an essay in a sort of primordial humor such as we find in Rabelais, or in the plays of some of the lesser stars that drew their light from Shakespeare’s urn. It is humor or fun such as one expects, let us say, from the peasants of Thomas Hardy, outside of Hardy’s books. And, though it be filthy, it yet hath a splendor of mere animalism of good spirits… I would say it is scatalogical rather than erotic, save for one touch toward the end. Indeed, it seems more of Rabelais than of Boccaccio or Masuccio or Aretino – is brutally British rather than lasciviously latinate, as to the subjects, but sumptuous as regards the language.”

Immediately upon first reading, John Hay, later Secretary of State, had proclaimed 1601 a masterpiece. Albert Bigelow Paine, Mark Twain’s biographer, likewise acknowledged its greatness, when he said, “1601 is a genuine classic, as classics of that sort go. It is better than the gross obscenities of Rabelais, and perhaps in some day to come, the taste that justified Gargantua and the Decameron will give this literary refugee shelter and setting among the more conventional writing of Mark Twain. Human taste is a curious thing; delicacy is purely a matter of environment and point of view.”

“It depends on who writes a thing whether it is coarse or not,” wrote Clemens in his notebook in 1879. “I built a conversation which could have happened – I used words such as were used at that time – 1601. I sent it anonymously to a magazine, and how the editor abused it and the sender!”

“But that man was a praiser of Rabelais and had been saying, ‘O that we had a Rabelais!’ I judged that I could furnish him one.”

“Then I took it to one of the greatest, best and most learned of Divines [Rev. Joseph H. Twichell] and read it to him. He came within an ace of killing himself with laughter (for between you and me the thing was dreadfully funny. I don’t often write anything that I laugh at myself, but I can hardly think of that thing without laughing). That old Divine said it was a piece of the finest kind of literary art – and David Gray of the Buffalo Courier said it ought to be printed privately and left behind me when I died, and then my fame as a literary artist would last.”

FRANKLIN J. MEINE

THE FIRST PRINTING Verbatim Reprint

[Date, 1601.]

CONVERSATION, AS IT WAS BY THE SOCIAL FIRESIDE, IN THE TIME OF THE TUDORS.

[Mem. – The following is supposed to be an extract from the diary of the Pepys of that day, the same being Queen Elizabeth’s cup-bearer. He is supposed to be of ancient and noble lineage; that he despises these literary canaille; 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, etc., and yet he has got to stay there till her Majesty chooses to dismiss him.]

YESTERNIGHT toke her maiste ye queene a fantasie such as she sometimes hath, and had to her closet certain that doe write playes, bokes, and such like, these being my lord Bacon, his worship Sir Walter Ralegh, Mr. Ben Jonson, and ye child Francis Beaumonte, which being but sixteen, hath yet turned his hand to ye doing of ye Lattin masters into our Englishe tong, with grete discretion and much applaus. Also came with these ye famous Shaxpur. A righte straunge mixing truly of mighty blode with mean, ye more in especial since ye queenes grace was present, as likewise these following, to wit: Ye Duchess of Bilgewater, twenty-six yeres of age; ye Countesse of Granby, thirty; her doter, ye Lady Helen, fifteen; as also these two maides of honor, to-wit, ye Lady Margery Boothy, sixty-five, and ye Lady Alice Dilberry, turned seventy, she being two yeres ye queenes graces elder.

I being her maites cup-bearer, had no choice but to remaine and beholde rank forgot, and ye high holde converse wh ye low as uppon equal termes, a grete scandal did ye world heare thereof.

In ye heat of ye talk it befel yt one did breake wind, yielding an exceding mightie and distresfull stink, whereat all did laugh full sore, and then —

Ye Queene. – Verily in mine eight and sixty yeres have I not heard the fellow to this fart. Meseemeth, by ye grete sound and clamour of it, it was male; yet ye belly it did lurk behinde shoulde now fall lean and flat against ye spine of him yt hath bene delivered of so stately and so waste a bulk, where as ye guts of them yt doe quiff-splitters bear, stand comely still and rounde. Prithee let ye author confess ye offspring. Will my Lady Alice testify?

Lady Alice. – Good your grace, an’ I had room for such a thunderbust within mine ancient bowels, ‘tis not in reason I coulde discharge ye same and live to thank God for yt He did choose handmaid so humble whereby to shew his power. Nay, ‘tis not I yt have broughte forth this rich o’ermastering fog, this fragrant gloom, so pray you seeke ye further.

Ye Queene. – Mayhap ye Lady Margery hath done ye companie this favor?

Lady Margery. – So please you madam, my limbs are feeble wh ye weighte and drouth of five and sixty winters, and it behoveth yt I be tender unto them. In ye good providence of God, an’ I had contained this wonder, forsoothe wolde I have gi’en ‘ye whole evening of my sinking life to ye dribbling of it 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 maisty.

Ye Queene. – O’ God’s name, who hath favored us? Hath it come to pass yt a fart shall fart itself? Not such a one as this, I trow. Young Master Beaumont – but no; ‘twould have wafted him to heaven like down of goose’s boddy. ‘Twas not ye little Lady Helen – nay, ne’er blush, my child; thoul’t tickle thy tender maidenhedde with many a mousie-squeak before thou learnest to blow a harricane like this. Wasn’t you, my learned and ingenious Jonson?

Jonson. – So fell a blast hath ne’er mine ears saluted, nor yet a stench so all-pervading and immortal. ‘Twas not a novice did it, good your maisty, but one of veteran experience – else hadde he failed of confidence. In sooth it was not I.

Ye Queene. – My lord Bacon?

Lord Bacon. – Not from my leane entrailes hath this prodigy burst forth, so please your grace. Naught doth so befit ye grete as grete performance; and haply shall ye finde yt ‘tis not from mediocrity this miracle hath issued.

[Tho’ ye subjct be but a fart, yet will this tedious sink of learning pondrously phillosophize. Meantime did the foul and deadly stink pervade all places to that degree, yt never smelt I ye like, yet dare I not to leave ye presence, albeit I was like to suffocate.]

Ye Queene. – What saith ye worshipful Master Shaxpur?

Shaxpur. – 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 Sr Walter Ralegh, that browned, embattled, bloody swashbuckler, who rising up did smile, and simpering say,]

Sr W. – Most gracious maisty, ‘twas I that did it, but indeed it was so poor and frail a note, compared with such as I am wont to furnish, yt in sooth I was ashamed to call the weakling mine in so august a presence. It was nothing – less than nothing, 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 fain 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, an’ he think he can. By God, an’ I were ye queene, I would e’en tip this swaggering braggart out o’ the court, and let him air his grandeurs and break his intolerable wind before ye deaf and such as suffocation pleaseth.]

Then fell they to talk about ye manners and customs of many peoples, and Master Shaxpur spake of ye boke of ye sieur Michael de Montaine, wherein was mention of ye custom of widows of Perigord to wear uppon ye headdress, in sign of widowhood, a jewel in ye similitude of a man’s member wilted and limber, whereat ye queene did laugh and say widows in England doe wear prickes too, but betwixt the thighs, and not wilted neither, till coition hath done that office for them. Master Shaxpur did likewise observe how yt ye sieur de Montaine hath also spoken of a certain emperor of such mighty prowess that he did take ten maidenheddes in ye compass of a single night, ye while his empress did entertain two and twenty lusty knights between her sheetes, yet was not satisfied; whereat ye merrie Countess Granby saith a ram is yet ye emperor’s superior, sith he wil tup above a hundred yewes ‘twixt sun and sun; and after, if he can have none more to shag, will masturbate until he hath enrich’d whole acres with his seed.

Then spake ye damned windmill, Sr Walter, of a people in ye uttermost parts of America, yt capulate not until they be five and thirty yeres of age, ye women being eight and twenty, and do it then but once in seven yeres.

Ye Queene. – How doth that like my little Lady Helen? Shall we send thee thither and preserve thy belly?

Lady Helen. – Please your highnesses 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 yt way too, sith your highnesses grace hath set ye ensample.

Ye Queene. – God’ wowndes a good answer, childe.

Lady Alice. – Mayhap ‘twill weaken when ye hair sprouts below ye navel.

Lady Helen. – Nay, it sprouted two yeres syne; I can scarce more than cover it with my hand now.

Ye Queene. – Hear Ye that, my little Beaumonte? Have ye not a little birde about ye that stirs at hearing tell of so sweete a neste?

Beaumonte. – ‘Tis 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 birdes of Paradise.

Ye Queene. – By ye gullet of God, ‘tis a neat-turned compliment. With such a tongue as thine, lad, thou’lt spread the ivory thighs of many a willing maide in thy good time, an’ thy cod-piece be as handy as thy speeche.

Then spake ye queene 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 Jonson, until at last ye old Lady Margery, wearying of it all, saith, ‘Gentles, 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 learnt that them that would explore a cunt stop’d not to consider the spelling o’t.’

Sr W. – In sooth, when a shift’s turned up, delay is meet for naught but dalliance. Boccaccio hath 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 key-hole, did see a tuft of brownish hair with fair white flesh about it, wherefore when ye priest’s prayer was done, his chance was gone, forasmuch as ye little maid had but ye one cunt, and that was already occupied to her content.

Then conversed they of religion, and ye mightie work ye old dead Luther did doe by ye grace of God. Then next about poetry, and Master Shaxpur did rede a part of his King Henry IV., ye which, it seemeth unto me, is not of ye value of an arsefull of ashes, yet they praised it bravely, one and all.

Ye same did rede a portion of his “Venus and Adonis,” to their prodigious admiration, whereas I, being sleepy and fatigued withal, did deme it but paltry stuff, and was the more discomforted in that ye blody bucanier 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 wolde that hell mighte get him.

They talked about ye wonderful defense which old Sr. Nicholas Throgmorton did make for himself before ye judges in ye time of Mary; which was unlucky matter to broach, sith it fetched out ye quene with a ‘Pity yt he, having so much wit, had yet not enough to save his doter’s maidenhedde sound for her marriage-bed.’ And ye quene did give ye damn’d Sr. Walter a look yt made hym wince – for she hath not forgot he was her own lover it yt olde day. There was silent uncomfortableness now; ‘twas not a good turn for talk to take, sith if ye queene must find offense in a little harmless debauching, when pricks were stiff and cunts not loathe to take ye stiffness out of them, who of this company was sinless; behold, was not ye wife of Master Shaxpur four months gone with child when she stood uppe before ye altar? Was not her Grace of Bilgewater roger’d by four lords before she had a husband? Was not ye little Lady Helen born on her mother’s wedding-day? And, beholde, were not ye Lady Alice and ye Lady Margery 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 Jonson and Shaxpur did fidget to discharge some venom of sarcasm, yet dared they not in the presence, the queene’s grace being ye very flower of ye Euphuists herself. But behold, these be they yt, having a specialty, and admiring it in themselves, be jealous when a neighbor doth essaye it, nor can abide it in them long. Wherefore ‘twas observable yt ye quene waxed uncontent; and in time labor’d grandiose speeche out of ye mouth of Lady Alice, who manifestly did mightily pride herself thereon, did quite exhauste ye quene’s endurance, who listened till ye gaudy speeche was done, then lifted up her brows, and with vaste irony, mincing saith ‘O shit!’ Whereat they alle did laffe, but not ye Lady Alice, yt olde foolish bitche.

Now was Sr. Walter minded of a tale he once did hear ye ingenious Margrette of Navarre relate, about a maid, which being like to suffer rape by an olde archbishoppe, did smartly contrive a device to save her maidenhedde, and said to him, First, my lord, I prithee, take out thy holy tool and piss before me; which doing, lo his member felle, and would not rise again.

FOOTNOTES To Frivolity

The historical consistency of 1601 indicates that Twain must have given the subject considerable thought. The author was careful to speak only of men who conceivably might have been in the Virgin Queen’s closet and engaged in discourse with her.

THE CHARACTERS

At this time (1601) Queen Elizabeth was 68 years old. She speaks of having talked to “old Rabelais” in her youth. This might have been possible as Rabelais died in 1552, when the Queen was 19 years old.

Among those in the party were Shakespeare, at that time 37 years old; Ben Jonson, 27; and Sir Walter Raleigh, 49. Beaumont at the time was 17, not 16. He was admitted as a member of the Inner Temple in 1600, and his first translations, those from Ovid, were first published in 1602. Therefore, if one were holding strictly to the year date, neither by age nor by fame would Beaumont have been eligible to attend such a gathering of august personages in the year 1601; but the point is unimportant.

THE ELIZABETHAN WRITERS

In the Conversation Shakespeare speaks of Montaigne’s Essays. These were first published in 1580 and successive editions were issued in the years following, the third volume being published in 1588. “In England Montaigne was early popular. It was long supposed that the autograph of Shakespeare in a copy of Florio’s translation showed his study of the Essays. The autograph has been disputed, but divers passages, and especially one in The Tempest, show that at first or second hand the poet was acquainted with the essayist.” (Encyclopedia Brittanica.)

The company at the Queen’s fireside discoursed of Lilly (or Lyly), English dramatist and novelist of the Elizabethan era, whose novel, Euphues, published in two parts, ‘Euphues’, or the ‘Anatomy of Wit’ (1579) and ‘Euphues and His England’ (1580) was a literary sensation. It is said to have influenced literary style for more than a quarter of a century, and traces of its influence are found in Shakespeare. (Columbia Encyclopedia).

The introduction of Ben Jonson into the party was wholly appropriate, if one may call to witness some of Jonson’s writings. The subject under discussion was one that Jonson was acquainted with, in The Alchemist:

Act. I, Scene I,

FACE: Believe’t I will.

SUBTLE: Thy worst. I fart at thee.

DOL COMMON: Have you your wits? Why, gentlemen, for love —

Act. 2, Scene I,

SIR EPICURE MAMMON:…and then my poets, the same that writ so subtly of the fart, whom I shall entertain still for that subject and again in Bartholomew Fair

NIGHTENGALE: (sings a ballad)

Hear for your love, and buy for your money.A delicate ballad o’ the ferret and the coney.A preservative again’ the punk’s evil.Another goose-green starch, and the devil.A dozen of divine points, and the godly garterThe fairing of good counsel, of an ell and three-quarters.What is’t you buy?The windmill blown down by the witche’s fart,Or Saint George, that, O! did break the dragon’s heart.

GOOD OLD ENGLISH CUSTOM

That certain types of English society have not changed materially in their freedom toward breaking wind in public can be noticed in some comparatively recent literature. Frank Harris in My Life, Vol. 2, Ch. XIII, tells of Lady Marriott, wife of a judge Advocate General, being compelled to leave her own table, at which she was entertaining Sir Robert Fowler, then the Lord Mayor of London, because of the suffocating and nauseating odors there. He also tells of an instance in parliament, and of a rather brilliant bon mot spoken upon that occasion.