Leading newspapers have reported that a huge number of husbands have raped their wives. Allegations of inappropriate words or touching of a sexual nature are enough to have a man fired from his job and to ruin his reputation for life. Men seducing women has long been criminalized. Now university officials are earnestly teaching students and faculty that they must get affirmative consent for each step in a sexual interaction and that consent can be withdrawn at any time without prior notice. Not surprisingly, many husbands are now fearful of sexually accosting their wives. That’s raising public concern because wives are becoming unhappy. Some wives are even showing signs of madness. Fortunately, medieval Latin literature offers a solution.
While a young couple was walking through a meadow, they saw a flock of sheep. The wife had an active mind:
seeing that the rams mounted only certain ewes, she questioned why certain ones rather than others were copulating.
{ conspectis nonnullis ovibus quas arietes subigebant, quaesivit cur potius cum illis quam cum aliis coirent. }
Her husband jokingly explained:
When a ewe makes a fart, a ram presses into her.
{ Quae crepitum facit ovis, statim comprimitur ab ariete. }
The wife picked up on the figuring and turned to punning:
She burst forth to know if this were also the case with men.
{ Petiit illa numquid et viris id moris esset. }
The husband affirmed that it was. The sexually deprived wife then took explosive action:
She immediately cut loose a fart; the husband, having been caught by his own joke, had sex with his wife. After they had proceeded along St. Paul’s path a little way, the wife farted again. The husband was once again employed in the matrimonial practice. When they had nearly reached the end of the meadow, the woman, delighted with the game, emitted a third fart.
{ illa statim crepitum edidit; vir joco suo deprehensus uxorem cognovit. Cum deinde paulum viae processissent, iterum mulier pepedit. Vir denuo matrimonio usus est. Cum jam ad finem nemoris pervenissent, foemina, tali ludo gaudens, terio petum emisit. }
Medieval culture regarded with utmost seriousness men’s sexual obligation to their wives. This husband, however, wasn’t well-prepared for strenuous erection labor:
Then the husband, exhausted from copulation and walking, said, “Even if you were to shit out your heart itself, I wouldn’t again shake you under me. }
{ Tunc vir, coeundo et ambulando fessus: “Non si cor cacares,” ait, “te amplius subagitarem.” }
In vigorously servicing their wives sexually, husbands must endure whatever they shake out. Only a husband exhausted to the point of peevishness would complain of his wife giving out her heart as a result of sex.
Most husbands deeply love their wives. Yet in today’s circumstances of demonizing men’s sexuality, men are rightly fearful of showing sexual interest toward their wives or any other women. However, in the case of explosions and serious risks to bodily integrity, men will heroically press in to protect women from harm. Wives desperately seeking sex from their husbands should try farting. But not too often, because men not accustomed to heavy sexual labor will soon get exhausted and peevish.
Notes:
The above story and quotes are from “The humorous tale of a young woman who farted {Facetia cujusdam adolescentulae quae emittebat petum},” Latin text from Poggio (1879) vol. 2, pp. 138-9, my English translation. That Latin text has witty wordplay that I’ve made some effort to translate.
Reference:
Poggio. 1879. Gian Francesco Poggio Bracciolini. The facetiae or jocose tales of Poggio, now first translated into English with the Latin text. Paris: Isidore Liseux (vol. 1, vol. 2).
