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The New Middle Ages

Series Editor
Bonnie Wheeler
English and Medieval Studies, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX,
USA

The New Middle Ages is a series dedicated to pluridisciplinary studies

of medieval cultures, with particular emphasis on recuperating
women’s history and on feminist and gender analyses. This peer-
reviewed series includes both scholarly monographs and essay
collections.
More information about this series at
http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14239
Linda Marie Rouillard

Medieval Considerations of Incest,

Marriage, and Penance
Linda Marie Rouillard
The University of Toledo, Toledo, OH, USA

The New Middle Ages

ISBN 978-3-030-35601-9 e-ISBN 978-3-030-35602-6
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-35602-6

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive

license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively
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absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the
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Cover credit: V&A Images/Alamy Stock Photo

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered
company Springer Nature Switzerland AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham,
Switzerland
Acknowledgements
During the course of my academic career, I have been fortunate to work
with generous teachers, mentors, and colleagues. The late Dr. Susan
Whitebook introduced me to Old French in a course at the University of
Vermont. I continue to be inspired by her knowledge and constant
curiosity in all things. I will always be grateful to Dr. Renate
Blumenfeld-Kosinski and to the late Dr. Daniel Russell of the University
of Pittsburgh for their constant kindness, support, and advice. At the
University of Toledo, I have been blessed to work with Dr. Ruth Hottell
who has modeled for me the kind of teacher-scholar I have always
aspired to be. Her guidance, care, and wisdom continue to sustain me.
I also thank my husband, Gary Rafe, for agreeing to become an
“accidental” medievalist: while his own professional interests tend
toward the scientific and the modern, he has happily visited many a
Gothic cathedral (relics included), studied medieval tapestries, and
attended medieval re-enactments with me. Always agreeable to a tour
of the remains of a medieval city wall, or to a trip to another medieval
art exhibit, his constant challenge to me to make the past relevant to
the present has been a motivation to keep it simple and germane. His
patience in helping me with all things technological has been stellar.
One of the central medieval romances using the incest motif that
informs this work,La Manekine , entered my intellectual sphere during
my graduate studies at the University of Pittsburgh, just before my
mother was diagnosed with Guillain-Barré Syndrome, an auto-immune
disease that damages the peripheral nervous system and causes
paralysis. She lived through months of hospitalization and
rehabilitation, struggling, and eventually succeeding in reclaiming her
body from that paralysis. Her recuperation was stunning, just as
spectacular as the miraculous recovery and graft of the amputated hand
of the protagonist inLa Manekine. StudyingLa Manekine during this time
made the moral of the story very clear to me: “Ne se doit on pas desperer
” (l. 8533); “one must not despair.” Watching my mother courageously
confront a devastating illness helped me believe in miracles and
understand the medieval willingness to suspend disbelief when
confronted with the unimaginable and unexplainable. One of the most
joyous moments of my life was standing in the physical therapy room,
watching my mother take her first independent steps after her illness. I
dedicate this work to her, my own “Manekine,” and thank her for the gift
of believing in the possibility of recovering from loss, and for her
demonstration of faith in the future.
Finally, I wish to express my gratitude to the reviewer of this
manuscript who made numerous helpful suggestions. And I thank the
editors of Palgrave Macmillan who facilitated the whole publication
process for me.
Contents
1 Introduction: Too Close for Comfort
References
2 Kinship Matters: An Immodest Proposal
2.1 Medieval Definitions and Examples of Incest
2.2 Incest from Antiquity to the Middle Ages
2.3 Anthropological Definitions of Incest
References
3 Heroines, Villains, and Barbarians in Other Medieval Incest
Narratives
3.1La Manekine and Medieval Hungary
References
4 Medieval Marriage, Misogamy, Misogyny
4.1 Elements of Marriage
4.2 Monstrous Marriage
4.3 Contaminated Rhetoric
4.4 Containing Desire: Ritual Abstinence
References
5 The Hand of Forgiveness
References
6 Regurgitation, Restitution, Resurrection, and Relics
References
7 Spirit and Letter: Speech Acts in Selected Medieval Texts
References
8 Conclusion: The Legacy of the Incest Motif
References
Index
© The Author(s) 2020
L. M. Rouillard, Medieval Considerations of Incest, Marriage, and Penance, The New Middle
Ages
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-35602-6_1

1. Introduction: Too Close for Comfort

Linda Marie Rouillard1
(1) The University of Toledo, Toledo, OH, USA

Linda Marie Rouillard

Why in the twenty-first century write a book about twelfth-and thirteenth-

century medieval French poems preoccupied with incest, marriage, and
penance? Can literary narratives from eight and nine centuries ago
possibly enlighten us about current issues related to sexual abuse in
particular, or to marriage and social relationships in general? For
centuries, we have turned to stories and metaphors from literature to
grapple with and understand the conflicts, suffering, and trauma of our
lives: the Oedipal story in particular has shaped our views of parent–child
relationships and of the destinies we feel doomed to live out. Biblical
stories (such as the incest story from the Old Testament about Lot and his
daughters) are common currency even in the world outside of religious
practice. Fairy tales and folktales amuse us and instruct us. Poetry in
particular consoles us and seduces us as it transforms reality at the most
basic level: the linguistic level in which ordinary speech and syntax are
“reformed” into an extra-ordinary language that allows us a new
perspective on our lives. Indeed, it is sometimes only in this poetic
language that we can address those experiences for which we have no
words in everyday language.
This book starts from the premise that medieval musings on social
institutions and medieval definitions of human relationships remain
pertinent to modern society, and can provide valuable insights into the
manner of categorizing and prescribing human interactions and
perceptions; insights into the anxiety related to contemporary changing
definitions of legally recognized relationships; and insights into modern
customs of reconciliation for fractured social connections.
In the modern era, we typically study incest to better understand the
trauma experienced by victims, to develop treatment and support systems,
and to find ways of preventing the abuse. For the twenty-first century,
incest is a devastating reality of greater frequency than previously
understood, but there is no reason to assume that incest did not occur with
great frequency as well in the Middle Ages. This book will reference a long
tradition of stories of incest, but a tradition that typically uses the motif as
a metaphor for broader discussions of social relationships. It is also
important to remember in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries when the
majority of our referenced works were written, incest had a much more
extensive definition, referring not only to interdicted consanguineous
relationships, but also to marriage between those with spiritual
connections—specifically, between godparent and godchild—and between
those with affine connections, meaning relatives of relatives by marriage,
or even relatives of a previous sexual partner. Because of these
interdictions, many potential marriage partners, even though distant
relatives by our standards, fell into the category of still “too close for
comfort.”
Chapters 2 and 3 of this book study numerous medieval examples of
this classical metaphor, that of an incestuous relationship. While a modern
reader is more likely accustomed to learn about incest in the form of
survivor narratives, psychological analyses, and newspaper articles, it is
unlikely that medieval readers interpreted medieval poems using the
incest motif as exposés of sexual abuse or of potential sexual abuse in the
Middle Ages. As twenty-first century readers, however, informed by
modern incest survivor narratives, we can interpret such stories on
multiple levels, from the psychological experience of trauma to a symbolic
parable about the potential positive or negative consequences of social
change.
As we study incest narratives against the ideological background of the
medieval Churchʼs evolving definition of marriage, the institution that
positioned itself to regulate sexual behavior, among other behaviors, often
in competition with familial material interests, we will connect the themes
of medieval texts to modern preoccupations and conflicts over the nature
of matrimony in Chapter 4. During the High Middle Ages, the institution of
marriage was being redefined by the Church, which now insisted that a
valid marriage required the individual consent of both spouses to the
union; a legitimate marriage, in theory then, could not be the result of
parental coercion, though arranged and forced marriages nonetheless
continued well beyond the Middle Ages. By the thirteenth century,
however, the Church had come to exercise much more control over marital
relationships that had historically been the purview of the male heads of
households. The pronouncements of the 1215 Fourth Lateran Council
reduced the Church’s previous extensive consanguinity regulations that
had greatly limited potential marriage partners and had caused many
headaches for noble families longing to consolidate lands and power
through the arranged marriages of their children. The Church’s insistence
on verifying the individual consent of the marriage partners certainly
diluted some paternal authority in the matter of marriage, and thus could
frustrate to a certain degree the conglomeration of dynastic wealth.
The sacrament of penance had also undergone numerous changes by
the mid-thirteenth century, evolving from a “tariff” system of formulaic
punishments to an emphasis on the emotion of contrition, and to a
renewed emphasis on the efficacy of absolution by the priest.
The depiction of individualized repentance and public forgiveness in
medieval narratives also resonates with our need for a modern form of
public confession in order to reestablish faith and trust between the
general public and those in power who abuse that faith, the subject of
Chapter 5. One need only evoke the political careers of Bill Clinton or
Andrew Weiner to understand the general public’s need and the media’s
obsession for broadcasts of admission of personal failure by the famous
and the powerful. The calls for public accountability and a televised day of
reckoning make for good religious theater as well as for increased viewer
ratings, just as medieval public performances of penance provided
interesting occasions for the congregation to be reminded of God’s infinite
mercy.
In conjunction with the Churchʼs ever-increasing authority over human
relationships through its changes of perspective on marriage and penance,
Chapter 6 considers bodily fragmentation and miraculous grafts, in
particular as related to the tradition of relics, another way of maintaining
relationships severed by death, enabling the faithful to establish a
connection with the saintly and the divine. Once again, the Church insists it
has the ultimate authority to determine authentic relics and prevent abuse
of such sacred objects by both the clergy and the laity.
Because marriage and penance are sacramental traditions in which
words play an important role, we consider the relationship between
women and men with language itself in Chapter 7: rash boons, deceptive
obedience, and forged missives produce a tension between the letter of the
text and the spirit of the text. How are we to interpret “narratives” or
declarations: is a knight really obliged to kill his sister because he blindly
promised a rash boon to a seemingly innocent maiden? Is it disloyal for a
vassal to save a maidenʼs life by creating the appearance of obeying a
written royal order to execute her?
The early twentieth-century psychoanalyst Otto Rank studied a corpus
of incest narratives with the goal of better understanding the imprint of an
author’s psyche on his or her literary creation, insisting more specifically
that “the incest fantasy is of primary importance in the psychic life of the
author.”1 The purpose of this book, however, is not to better understand
the life of medieval poets who wrote about incest, authors for whom we
typically have limited knowledge; rather it is to use medieval narratives to
better understand social and cultural mentalities of some twelfth- and
thirteenth-century western European societies, as well as some of their
beliefs and attitudes toward religious practices. In addition, such a study
can help us to better understand our own twenty-first-century anxieties
about social change to accepted forms of marriage, and even new anxieties
about inadvertent incest resulting from technological advances such as
assisted reproductive procedures, some of the topics in our concluding
chapter. Just as in the Middle Ages, publicly redefining what constitutes
accepted and acceptable relationships in the twenty-first century has
important consequences and often triggers strong reactive stances in
religious and legal arenas. For instance, the modern debate over the
definition of marriage asks whether a valid marriage is limited only to a
man and a woman, or will we recognize same-sex unions? The modern
social fears and political conflict resulting from this question, along with
the consequences for such issues as shared property, medical decisions,
and adoption, are front-page news on a regular basis. While the June 2015
Supreme Court ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges made same-sex marriage
legal in the U.S., the topic remains a rhetorical battleground for debates on
state versus federal authority to define and “protect” the institution of
marriage. The process of asserting the authority to define a legal marriage
is just one of many issues that connect us to the medieval past.
We conclude this work with some modern uses of the incest motif in a
variety of genres, including films, novels, memoirs, and popular and
sensational media accounts. As a narrative motif and metaphor used to
discuss social changes, class conflict, and culture wars, the incest theme
has a place in modern reflections on broad social problems as well. Gillian
Harkins in her book Everybodyʼs Family Romance: Incest in Neoliberal
America, observes, for instance, that the epidemic of incest and sexual
abuse so prevalent in the popular media in the 1990s was racialized by the
popular media. “Black women were positioned once again as the
insignificant real of sexual violence, while white women were the
hyperreal of narcissistic sex panic and self-aggrandizement. Privileged
(coded as white) women took over the more legitimate stories of child
sexual abuse among the poor and populations of color (where it really
happens but doesnʼt really matter) and used them to theatricalize their
own middle-class angst on the stage of world historical suffering.”2 In
Harkinsʼs assessment, modern popular media in the U.S. have used the
incest motif to conduct their version of class and race warfare as they pit
white women against black women, and upper classes against lower
classes, portraying the latter as “the source of incestuous pathology,”
sometimes to distract us “[from] a culture turning in on itself, more willing
to hear stories of sexual scandal than social inequality.”3
Incest as a metaphor remains common currency in modern media that
use the image to characterize a wide range of competing issues, including
political and financial conflicts of interests, as evidenced by the following
sample of news article titles: “Incestuous County Boards Preside over
Rising Texas Tax Bills.” “The Incestuous Relationship Between Media and
Politics.” “Incestuous Relationship between MTR and the Government is at
Root of Hong Kong’s High-Speed Rail Woes.” “Liberal Media Continues
Incestuous Relationship with Obama, Washes over Scandals.” “Inside
Dallas’ Incestuous Mayoral Race.” “Rush Limbaugh: Sean Hannity is ʻThree
Timesʼ as Honest as ʻIncestuousʼ Washington Media.”4 Such examples
demonstrate the relevance of the incest metaphor to modern social
critiques, and also raise a troubling philosophic question about such
rhetoric: what does it mean to describe everyday politics by appropriating
as a metaphor such a traumatic experience? While creating eye-catching
headlines, do such uses trivialize psychological pain?
Television and the sensational press have often exploited incest
accounts for their shock value and potential profit. A quick internet search
with the entry “incest” results in hundreds of current or recent citations
from newspapers and the sensational press worldwide, suggesting modern
societyʼs concomitant prurient curiosity and horror: “ʻI love incestʼ: Sick
comments of accounting firm executive, 25, who lured children into
sexually assaulting their siblings via social media.” “Teens in Trouble over
Incest.” “Fired Alabama police chief indicted on rape, incest charges.”
“Widow, Son Sentenced for Incest.” “The State has a Place in this Bedroom;
Some Suggest Incest Between Consenting Adults is a Personal Choice.”
“Thatʼs Life; Had She Been a Man She Would Have Gone Down for Good -
but Because Sheʼs a Woman Evil Incest Mum gets just 7 Years.” “The Last
Taboo; Shocking Case Forces Britain to Confront the Reality of Incest.”5
Sensationalized titles only add to the tragedy of such stories; lest anyone
think that incest lives merely in the long-distant, shadowy past of humans,
these titles and thousands of others like them remind us otherwise. The
truth that lies behind the lurid titles reminds us that humans are as
capable of great, destructive behavior as they are of great, compassionate
acts. We are no less brutish than our ancestors who were also no less
human than their modern counterparts.
While literary works focused on incest do not constitute
documentation of systematic sexual abuse experienced by individuals, any
historical, social survey of the subject of incest should also include an
overview of the literary manifestations of incest as a narrative motif over
time, for those literary occurrences can depict and explain anxieties,
implications, and consequences for a given society at a given point in
history. Is incest considered a sin, a crime, or both? Is it a private issue to
be resolved within the family, or is it a public crisis requiring government
intervention? Who defines incest? Who grants exemptions from
interdictions? Anthropological and sociological research has cataloged
some of the variances according to culture and history; literary depictions
can help us to understand better the immediate implications of those
differences.
A useful point of reference and point of departure in this work is
Philippe de Rémiʼs thirteenth-century poem La Manekine. The protagonist
in this work is so horrified by her father’s incestuous proposal that she
cuts off her own hand in an attempt to make herself ineligible for a royal
marriage. Her virtue is affirmed in the dénouement by the miraculous
reattachment of her hand, which had been protected in a container
described as a reliquary, a particularity not found in other medieval incest
stories. While La Manekine may contain some classic motifs such as the
sorely tried, ever loyal wife, and a happily-ever-after ending, its fantastic
plot weaves a narrative focused on incest, marriage, and penance with: a
proposed father–daughter marriage, self-amputation, death sentences,
unbelievable sea voyages, a fairy-tale marriage, a wicked mother-in-law, a
helpful sturgeon, a miraculous graft of a severed hand, the reunion of a
long-separated husband and wife, and public forgiveness of a kingʼs sins by
his victim. Behind the fantasy of this medieval poem are reflections on
basic human emotions: anger, fear, courage, compassion, love, jealousy,
fidelity, and hope. Its plot is motivated by family conflicts, destructive
desires, institutional power struggles, and social anxiety over changing
norms and institutions.
While the actions and reactions of Philippe de Rémi’s protagonist, for
instance, to potential incest are entirely believable to modern readers, we
note that the incest motif as developed in this poem also functions as a
metaphor for competing societal interests: that is, the Churchʼs apparent
efforts to prioritize the individualʼs desires or needs over the familyʼs
collective interests ultimately pits Church authority against paternal
authority.
In La Manekine it is resistance to incest that leads to examples of
virtuous laity, validated by the appearance of a living relic, an amputated
hand, reattached to our heroine in the form of a miraculous graft.
Epics, chronicles, histories, poems, prose, hagiography, founding myths,
drama, romance, lais, whatever the genre or era, there abound numerous
examples of stories of incest initiated, implied, assumed, or even
unknowing. A bibliographic search of monographs will result in thousands
of items related to this topic. Modern survivor narratives have rightly
sensitized readers to the trauma and pain resulting from incest threatened
and experienced, but medieval writers were no less able to depict the
horror, the emotional, and physical consequences of such relationships, as
exemplified in Philippe de Rémiʼs protagonist who chops off her left hand
to avoid someone else’s sin of incestuous desire.
Medieval writers advised the use of shocking images as memory
devices.6 The use of the most shocking example of a forbidden
relationship, parent–child incest, would certainly have hooked listeners
and readers in the Middle Ages, even as that example would subsequently
later illustrate a particular dogma, for instance, Godʼs willingness to forgive
even the most heinous of sins, as Jean-Charles Payen and Elizabeth
Archibald have previously so well explained.7 In addition, medieval literary
depictions of forbidden consanguineous relationships lead to larger
discussions and explanations of how a society is organized and how it
defines itself. Which relationships are deemed appropriate for bearing and
rearing children; for inheriting property and wealth, and for ruling realms?
What constitutes a family; a nation? And as we shall see, incest can be used
as the rhetorical dividing line between virtue and evil, between humanity
and divinity, between clerical culture and lay culture, or between
civilization and barbary.
In addition to medievalists in general, students of such topics as images
of woman and gender issues, sacramental history, Church history, and the
history of family structures will find much of interest in the medieval
literary narratives cited here as we study them alongside historical
documents, ecclesiastical pronouncements, and modern fiction, memoirs,
and current events. The challenge for the twenty-first-century reader is to
construct interpretations of medieval texts about incest, texts grounded in
foundational classical works, without applying anachronistic analysis, and
yet still appreciate the poetsʼ psychological insights, and recognize the
relevance of these tales to our modern society. While the Middle Ages are
generally assumed to be a period that typically marginalizes women and
uses offspring as political pawns in strategic marriages, many of the texts
considered here will provide us with episodes that challenge our beliefs
about medieval customs, beliefs, strictures, and politics. In our survey, we
will see that some of the laity can be more virtuous than ecclesiastics;
children sometimes know better than their parents; servants can outwit
their lords, and a woman can even pre-empt the pope.

Notes
1. Otto Rank, The Incest Theme in Literature and Legend:
Fundamentals of a Psychology of Literary Creation, trans. Gregory C.
Richter (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press,
1992), 12.

2. Gillian Harkins, Everybodyʼs Family Romance: Reading Incest in

Neoliberal America (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press,
2009), 91.

3. Harkins, Everybodyʼs Family Romance, 3; 57.

4. Kenric Ward, “Incestuous County Boards Preside over Rising Texas

Tax Bills,” Foxnews, December 12, 2016,
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/incestuous-county-boards-
preside-over-rising-texas-tax-bills, accessed February 21, 2019.
Ginevra Marengo, “The Incestuous Relationship Between Media
 and Politics,” The Global Critical Media Literacy Project, October 20,
2016, /http://gcml.org/incestuous-relationship-media-politics-
ginevra-marengo, accessed May 26, 2017. Alex Lo, “Incestuous
Relationship Between MTR and the Government Is at Root of Hong
Kong’s High-Speed Rail Woes,” South China Morning Post,
December 1, 2015, https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-
opinion/article/1885582/incestuous-relationship-between-mtr-
and-government-root-hong, accessed May 26, 2017. Andrea
Grimes, “Inside Dallas’s Incestuous Mayoral Race,” D Magazine,
May 2011, https://www.dmagazine.com/publications/d-
magazine/2011/may/inside-dallas-incestuous-mayoral-race/,
accessed May 26, 2017. Douglas Ernst, “Rush Limbaugh: Sean
Hannity Is ʻThree Timesʼ as Honest as ʻIncestuousʼ Washington
Media,” Washington Times, April 17, 2018,
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/apr/17/rush-
limbaugh-sean-hannity-is-three-times-as-hones/, accessed
February 21, 2019.
5. Alex Chapman, “ʻI Love Incestʼ: Sick Comments of Accounting Firm
Executive, 25, Who Lured Children into Sexually Assaulting Their
Siblings via Social Media,” Daily Mail (Australia), February 9, 2019,
https://advance-lexis-
com.proxy.ohiolink.edu:9100/api/document?
collection=news&id=urn:contentItem:5VCR-W9D1-JCJY-G46G-
00000-00&context=1516831, accessed March 7, 2019. Bridgette
Moyo, “Teens in Trouble for Incest,” The Chronicle, February 14,
2019, https://advance-lexis-
com.proxy.ohiolink.edu:9100/api/document?
collection=news&id=urn:contentItem:5VF1-W9D1-JCH9-G1DF-
00000-00&context=1516831, accessed March 7, 2019. Associated
Press, “Fired Alabama Police Chief Indicted on Rape, Incest
Charges,” APNews, January 2, 2019,
https://www.apnews.com/b3467cbf41d6426fad26423cf0936110,
accessed March 7, 2019. Editorial, “Widow, Son Sentenced for
Incest,” The Herald-Harare, December 1, 2016,
https://allafrica.com/stories/201612010150.html, accessed
February 21, 2019. Margaret Somerville, “The State Has a Place in
this Bedroom,” The Globe and Mail, April 20, 2009,
https://advance-lexis-
com.proxy.ohiolink.edu:9100/api/document?
 collection=news&id=urn:contentItem:7VGY-B0P1-2RKY-72JF-
00000-00&context=1516831, accessed March 7, 2019. Laura
Lynott, “Thatʼs Life; Had She Been a Man She Would Have Gone
Down for Good—But Because Sheʼs a Woman Evil Incest Mum Gets
Just 7 Years,” The Sun, January 23, 2009, https://advance-lexis-
com.proxy.ohiolink.edu:9100/api/document?
collection=news&id=urn:contentItem:4VFC-C640-TX5B-90N9-
00000-00&context=1516831, accessed March 7, 2019. Ross Clark,
“The Last Taboo; Shocking Case Forces Britain to Confront the
Reality of Incest,” The Express, November 27, 2008,
https://advance-lexis-
com.proxy.ohiolink.edu:9100/api/document?
collection=news&id=urn:contentItem:4V17-51J0-TX33-B10D-
00000-00&context=1516831, accessed March 7, 2019.

6. See for instance, Mary Carruthers, The Book of Memory: A Study of

Memory in Medieval Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1990), 130–137, and her comments on a fourteenth-century
ars memorativa by Thomas Bradwardine. In this text, Bradwardine
provides a sample narrative for the memorization of the zodiac
signs, using a sequence of violent interactions among the figures.

7. Jean-Charles Payen, Le Motif du repentir dans la littérature

française médiévale (des origines à 1230) (Genève: Librairie Droz,
1968), 522. Elizabeth Archibald, Incest and the Medieval
Imagination (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2001), 6–7.

References
Archibald, Elizabeth. Incest and the Medieval Imagination. Oxford: Clarendon Press,
2001.

Associated Press. “Fired Alabama Police Chief Indicted on Rape, Incest Charges.”
APNews, January 2, 2019, https://advance-lexis-
com.proxy.ohiolink.edu:9100/api/document?
collection=news&id=urn:contentItem:5V3N-WRT1-DY9S-T09H-00000-
00&context=1516831. Accessed March 7, 2019.

Carruthers, Mary. The Book of Memory: A Study of Memory in Medieval Culture.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.
Chapman, Alex. “ʻI Love Incestʼ: Sick Comments of Accounting Firm Executive, 25,
Who Lured Children into Sexually Assaulting Their Siblings via Social Media.” Daily
Mail (Australia), February 9, 2019, https://advance-lexis-
com.proxy.ohiolink.edu:9100/api/document?
collection=news&id=urn:contentItem:5VCR-W9D1-JCJY-G46G-00000-
00&context=1516831. Accessed March 7, 2019.

Clark, Ross. “The Last Taboo; Shocking Case Forces Britain to Confront the Reality
of Incest.” The Express, November 27, 2008, https://advance-lexis-
com.proxy.ohiolink.edu:9100/api/document?
collection=news&id=urn:contentItem:4V17-51J0-TX33-B10D-00000-
00&context=1516831. Accessed March 7, 2019.

Ernst, Douglas. “Rush Limbaugh: Sean Hannity Is ʻThree Timesʼ as Honest as

ʻIncestuousʼ Washington Media.” Washington Post, April 17, 2018,
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/apr/17/rush-limbaugh-sean-
hannity-is-three-times-as-hones/. Accessed February 21, 2019.

Grimes, Andrea. “Inside Dallas’s Incestuous Mayoral Race.” D Magazine, May 2011,
https://www.dmagazine.com/publications/d-magazine/2011/may/inside-dallas-
incestuous-mayoral-race/. Accessed May 26, 2017.

Harkins, Gillian. Everybodyʼs Family Romance: Reading Incest in Neoliberal America.

Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2009.

Lo, Alex. “Incestuous Relationship Between MTR and the Government Is at Root of
Hong Kong’s High-Speed Rail Woes.” South China Morning Post, December 1, 2015,
https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1885582/incestuous-
relationship-between-mtr-and-government-root-hong. Accessed May 26, 2017.

Lynott, Laura. “Thatʼs Life; Had She Been a Man She Would Have Gone Down for
Good—But Because Sheʼs a Woman Evil Incest Mum Gets Just 7 Years.” The Sun,
January 23, 2009, https://advance-lexis-
com.proxy.ohiolink.edu:9100/api/document?
collection=news&id=urn:contentItem:4VFC-C640-TX5B-90N9-00000-
00&context=1516831. Accessed March 7, 2019.

Marengo, Ginevra. “The Incestuous Relationship Between Media and Politics.” The
Global Critical Media Literacy Project, October 20, 2016,
/http://gcml.org/incestuous-relationship-media-politics-ginevra-marengo.
Accessed May 26, 2017.

Moyo, Bridgette. “Teens in Trouble for Incest.” The Chronicle, February 14, 2019,
https://advance-lexis-com.proxy.ohiolink.edu:9100/api/document?
collection=news&id=urn:contentItem:5VF1-W9D1-JCH9-G1DF-00000-
00&context=1516831. Accessed March 7, 2019.

Payen, Jean-Charles. Le Motif du repentir dans la littérature française médiévale (des

origines à 1230). Genève: Librairie Droz, 1968.

Philippe de Rémi. Le Roman de la Manekine. Edited and translated by Barbara

Sargent-Baur. Amsterdam & Atlanta: Rodopi, 1999.

Rank, Otto. The Incest Theme in Literature and Legend: Fundamentals of a Psychology
of Literary Creation. Translated by Gregory C. Richter. Baltimore, MD: The Johns
Hopkins University Press, 1992.

Somerville, Margaret. “The State Has a Place in this Bedroom.” The Globe and Mail,
April 20, 2009, https://advance-lexis-com.proxy.ohiolink.edu:9100/api/document?
collection=news&id=urn:contentItem:7VGY-B0P1-2RKY-72JF-00000-
00&context=1516831. Accessed March 7, 2019.

Ward, Kenric. “Incestuous County Boards Preside over Rising Texas Tax Bills.”
December 12, 2016, https://www.foxnews.com/politics/incestuous-county-
boards-preside-over-rising-texas-tax-bills. Accessed February 21, 2019.

“Widow, Son Sentenced for Incest.” The Herald-Harare, December 1, 2016,

https://allafrica.com/stories/201612010150.html. Accessed February 21, 2019.
© The Author(s) 2020
L. M. Rouillard, Medieval Considerations of Incest, Marriage, and Penance, The New
Middle Ages
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-35602-6_2

2. Kinship Matters: An Immodest

Proposal
Linda Marie Rouillard1
(1) The University of Toledo, Toledo, OH, USA

Linda Marie Rouillard

Email: [email protected]

In Philippe de Rémiʼs thirteenth-century verse romance entitled La

Manekine, the main character Joïe (later named Manekine), the only
child of the King of Hungary, is confronted with the incestuous
advances of her widowed father. The father is constrained by an oath he
has sworn to his dying wife, that he will remarry only with a woman
who resembles her exactly. A long, worldwide search for such a woman
is futile. Nervous barons, anxious for a male heir, first pressure
cowardly clerics to validate a marriage with the only candidate who fits
that description: the king’s own daughter. The King of Hungary, in his
turn, is convinced by his retinue that only by taking his own child in
marriage can he be faithful to his late wife and to the needs of his
kingdom. Joïe expresses her horror of this marriage proposal in an act
of self-mutilation and chops off her left hand rather than commit the sin
of incest. Her refusal to obey leads the king to condemn her to death,
although she is secretly put out to sea by the kingʼs seneschal and
arrives upon the shores of Scotland. Here she marries the king of that
country, against the wishes of his mother who plots against Joïe. During
the King of Scotlandʼs absence, Joïe gives birth to a son and, through
two falsified letters, the mother-in-law has Joïe condemned to death.
Once again she is saved by another seneschal who consigns her yet
again to the perils of the sea along with her infant son Jehan. This time
she arrives in Rome and remains in the home of a kindly senator until
fate reunites her with her husband and with her father who has come
to Rome to confess his sin to the Pope. These reconciliations are
followed by a miracle in which Joïeʼs severed hand, regurgitated by a
fish, is reattached to her arm by the pontiff. No less miraculous is the
King of Hungaryʼs recognition of Joïeʼs right to her inheritance: she
finally receives the Kingdom of Armenia through her late mother, and
Hungary through her father. At the conclusion of the romance, Joïe
arranges the marriages of the senatorʼs two daughters with the two
kindly seneschals, and she gives birth to more children, all of whom go
on to contract royal marriages.
In La Manekine, incest, or more precisely attempted incest by means
of a marriage proposal clearly within forbidden degrees of
consanguinity, functions as the fulcrum of the romance, allowing for
both philosophical and practical discussions of marriage and penance
as social, political, and spiritual institutions. Both marriage and
penance are recognized as religious sacraments by this time, and both
function as rituals for the restoration and maintenance of social
stability in general. La Manekine belongs to a long history of incest
stories that teach about the power of God to forgive one of the most
horrible sins: incest.1 Philippeʼs narrative in particular depicts a
sacrament of penance capable of reconciling man with God and with his
human family through the compassion of a virtuous woman, and
through a sacrament of marriage capable of producing social stability
and virtuous spouses. Marriage and penance as envisaged by Philippe
are able to resolve some of the eternal power struggles between clerics
and the laity, between men and women, as well as some of the
generational conflicts between young royals and established dynasties
that seek ever more power, or at least seek to remain in power.
Philippe de Rémi (or Remy) who lived from approximately 1205–
1210 to 1265 or 1266, was a bailiff in Gâ tinais for Count Robert of
Artois (brother of King Louis IX), and most likely composed his poem
La Manekine between 1225 and 1250.2 Since his family held land in fief
from the Abbey of Saint-Denis, Philippe likely understood both the
common interests and conflicts between the laity and the clergy. And as
an administrator for an aristocrat, he was also cognizant of the dynastic
consequences of the stewardship of royal realms.
Philippe de Rémiʼs use of incest becomes a lens through which to
view medieval class and culture conflicts. Inheritance of the kingdom
by a female is considered unacceptable by the monarchʼs retinue who
believe that the lack of a male heir threatens collapse for the King of
Hungaryʼs dynasty. Says one of the barons: “ʻSeignour,’ fait il,ʻescoutés
moi. / En cest païs avons un roy / Qui ot feme mout boine et sage; / En se
mort avons grant damage. / De cele femme n’a nul hoir / Fors une fille, au
dire voir, / Qui est mout boine et mout courtoise. / Et nonpourquant en
briquetoize / Ert li roialmes de Hongrie / Se feme l’avoit en baillie. / Pour
c’est il bon que nous alons / Au roi, et de cuer li prions / Qu’il pregne feme
a nostre los” (ll. 205–217). “ʻSirs,’ he said, ‘hear me. / In this land we
have a king / Who had a very good and wise wife. / In her death we
have a great loss. / Of that wife he has no heir / Except for a daughter, to
tell the truth, / Who is very good and courteous. / Nevertheless the
kingdom of Hungary / Will be in peril / If a woman had it in her power.
/ Therefore it is good that we go / To the king and beg him earnestly /
That he take a wife by our advice.’”3 One of the barons then explains the
situation of “li prelat qui ci sont, / Qui en grant orfenté seront / Se
malvais sires vient sour aus” (ll. 325–327), “the prelates who are here, /
Who will be in a difficult position / If a bad ruler comes over them.” The
proposed solution of incest not only promises a solution to the lack of a
male heir, but it also portends a downward spiral of social degradation
as that dynasty metaphorically feeds on its young. La Manekine pits the
younger, virtuous female laity in the person of Joïe against corrupt
clergymen who understand that their interests align with those of the
barons of the kingdom, hence the clerical complicity in arguing for a
forbidden union. Joïeʼs righteousness contrasts with the immorality of
prelates who will support a suspension of Church law in order to
protect their material well-being in the service of their monarch. And,
as an innocent young woman, Joïeʼs unwavering morality only
highlights the deviousness of the kingʼs retinue who will sacrifice
anyone, even an innocent young woman, to protect their own self-
interests. Philippe depicts the competing interests between men and
women, between parents and children; the laity and the Church; the
wealthy and the poor; the powerful and the powerless; and between
lords and servants. Indeed, Joïe is twice saved by wise seneschals who
know how to give the appearance of obedience to the king or queenʼs
order while protecting the innocent protagonist with whom the
common people identify and sympathize when they hear of the
execution order: “Meïsmement les povres gens, / Cui elle donnoit
vestimens, / Furent plain de dolour et dʼire” (ll. 865–867). “Especially the
poor people, / To whom she used to give clothes, / Were full of grief and
sadness.” Joïe is able to move between the noble class and the peasant
class; she is brave enough to defy her monarch and father; and she will
even speak out at St. Peter’s in Rome to generously forgive her father,
even before the Pope can utter his absolution.
Defining and discussing incest in La Manekine then become ways of
re-visioning the relationships and conflicts of interest between
medieval social groups. La Manekine pits generational groups against
each other, as exemplified in the conflict between parent and child; and
it pits politically powerful lay members against vulnerable lay
members, as in the instance of a vengeful monarch and the kind
seneschals who secretly disobey him. The King of Hungary and his
household consider incest permissible if it will protect their political
and dynastic interests; they believe the clerics and the Church should
bend the rules in light of the lack of a male heir and the potential
ensuing turmoil for the kingdom, should it fall into foreign hands
through marriage. The clergy closest to the king also clearly understand
that they may not fare as well under another royal dynasty, but as Joïe
sees it, the incestuous marriage proposal made by the kingʼs men
betrays their very cultural identity as defined by their own systems of
law: “A ce ne me porroi[t] plaisier / Nus: que ce me san[l]ast droiture /
Quʼuns hom peüst sʼ[en]genreüre / Espouser, selonc nostre loy; / Et tuit cil
sont plai[n] de derroy / Qui contre Deu conse[l] vous dounent / Et de tel
cose vous s[em]ounent” (ll. 550–556). “For by no-one could I be bent to
this: / That it could seem right to me / That a man might marry / His
own child according to our law; / And they are full of wickedness, all
those / Who give you advice contrary to God / And exhort you to do
such a thing.” More than an infraction against human law, this proposed
marriage positions the King of Hungary as an authority competing with
God himself. In Joïe’s estimation, the incestuous proposal functions as a
declaration of war upon another king: “Mais miex ameroie morte estre, /
Car cʼest contre le Roy Celestre” (ll. 601–602); “But I would rather be
dead, / For it is against the Heavenly King,” muses Joïe to herself, as she
prepares to ally herself with the divine king against the incestuous
proposal of an all-too-fallible human king.
Joïe stands behind Godʼs law even when the clerics will not. Indeed,
in this lay authorʼs depiction of both sacraments—marriage and
penance—the clerics do not live up to their responsibilities as spiritual
guides, but instead are depicted as submissive and subordinate. In
response to the baron who articulates both the problem and the
solution, provoking the clerics’ eventual complicity after significant
disputing among themselves, the narrator tells us: “De tex [i a] qui s’i
acordent / Et de tex [qu]i molt s’en descordent. / Long[u]e[me]nt entr’eus
desputerent. / En l[a fin] li clerc s’acorderent / Que il le r[oy] en
prieroient / et su a[us] le pecié penroient. / A l’Apo[stol]e monterront / Le
gra[nt] proufit pour quoi fait l’ont” (ll. 333–340). “There are those who
agree / And those who disagree strongly. / For a long time they argued
among themselves. / At last the clerics agreed / That they would
entreat the king to do it / And would take the responsibility upon
themselves. / They will show the Pope / The great benefit for which
they have done it.” While one might understandably expect the barons
to push aside laws and commandments in favor of their material well-
being, one expects a higher standard of behavior from the clergy. While
they do debate the issue, their ensuing self-interested decisions are
clearly inferior to some lay peopleʼs behavior, intentions, and spiritual
experience, such as the conduct of the kindly seneschals who bravely
defy royal orders and protect Joïe from execution.
While the royal father debates within himself the morality of this
plan, as a monarch, he also is seduced by idea, which he justifies by
evoking the nexus of intricate social connections in his kingdom as he
hides behind the wishes of his nobles and “proposes” to his daughter:
“Et mi baron ne voelen[t m]i.e. / Que li roialmes de Hong[rie] / Demeurt
sans hoir [ma]lle aprés moi. / Pour ce ai du clergié lʼot[roi] / Que de moi
soiés espous[ee]; / Roïne serés couroun[ee]. / …Et jʼai or bien consel d[u
fa]ire, / Mais quë il a vous v[oei]lle plaire”(ll. 531–542). “And my barons
do not at all want / The kingdom of Hungary / To remain without a
male heir after me. / Therefore I have the leave of the clergy / That you
be wedded by me; / You will be crowned queen. / …And now I am
indeed of a mind to do it, / Provided that it might be pleasing to you.”
The king understands that he needs his baronsʼ goodwill as much as
they need a male heir from him; the clergy understands that the baronsʼ
interests are their interests as well. Joïeʼs initial acceptance of her filial
subjection before she learns the exact nature of her father’s plan (“Car
ma vol[e]ntés me requiert, / De tout quanq[u]e fille doit faire / Pour pere,
ne so[i.e.] contraire,” [ll. 516–518] “For my will requires me / In
anything that a daughter should do / For a father, not to refuse”),
however, turns to brave defiance when she learns the exact details of
her fatherʼs immodest proposal. The King of Hungaryʼs evolving lust for
his daughter contrasts with Joïeʼs modest blush as she is caught by her
father during her toilette: “La damoisiele se pino[it]; / Ele se regarde, si
voit / Son pere qui est dalés [li]. / De la honte quʼele, r[ou]g[i]” (ll. 383–
386). “The young lady was combing her hair; / She looks around, and
sees / Her father, who is close beside her. / Out of embarrassment, she
blushes.” While some critics read Joïeʼs crimson face as proof of her
unconscious desire for her father,4 one could just as easily interpret the
young girlʼs blush to signal embarassment at having her father discover
her in an act that traditionally depicts female vanity, the seriousness of
which pales in comparison to the fatherʼs sin. Joïe refuses to acquiesce
to social needs and compromises that defy her Christian morals. She
refuses to take her place in the social network of concession: “Pour
riens ne mʼi ac[or]deroie; / La mort avant en [s]oufferroie. / Ne sui mie
tenue a [fa]ire / Ce quʼa mʼame seroit [c]ontraire. / …Car qui sʼame pert,
trop compere” (ll. 557–572). “Not for anything should I agree to do it; / I
should die first. / I am not obliged to do / What would be perilous to
my soul. / …For the one who loses her soul, pays too dearly.”5 Joïe
knows, however, that her refusal to consent will not suffice to save her
from what she perceives to be a monstrous marriage. A declaration
stating “no” does not mean that her decision will be respected, no
matter Church doctrine about the need for individual consent, but a
demonstration of her ineligibility for royal marriage might put an end
to the proposal: “Bien pens faire le me feront; / Ja pour mon dit ne le
lairont, / Sʼaucune cose en moi ne voient / Par quoi de ce voloir recroient”
(ll. 605–608). “I do indeed think that they will make me; / They will not
leave off for anything I say, / Unless they see in me something / For
which they give up this intention.” That “something” is horrific: backed
into a corner, Joïe recognizes her only option is to maim herself by
slicing off her left hand. Then she can appeal to a traditional
expectation that requires ruling persons to be physically whole: “Mais
roïne ne doi pas estre, / Car je nʼai point de main senestre, / Et rois ne doit
pas penre fame / Qui nʼait tous ses membres, par mʼame!” (ll. 795–798).
“But I may not be a queen, / For I do not have a left hand, / And a king
may not take a wife / Who does not have all her members, upon my
soul!”6 Upon seeing her recent infirmity and hearing her articulate her
ineligibility for a royal marriage, her father becomes enraged at her
calculated defiance and charges his senechal to burn her to death,
threatening the latter as well should he not comply: “Et se nel faites a
estrous, / Saciés, je le ferai de vous; / Ne mar mʼi atendrés jamais, /
Nʼomme de vo lignage aprés” (ll. 831–834). “And if you do not do it
promptly, / Know that I shall have the same done to you; / If ever I find
you it will be the worse for you / And for any man of your lineage
afterwards.” The price of defiance to an incestuous command or to an
order of execution is death. In Joïeʼs act of self-amputation and the
seneschalʼs cloaked defiance of the execution order, La Manekine
presents models of resistance to immoral parents, to self-interested
clergy, and to cruel monarchs, all the while protecting the purity of
lineage. Nonetheless, the protagonist pays with her own body the price
of agency and morality.

2.1 Medieval Definitions and Examples of Incest

The King of Hungary’s immodest proposal focuses on the closest of
possible incestuous pairings, that between a parent and a child.
However, that was only one example of countless forbidden unions. The
Middle Ages defined incest as forbidden sexual relationships between
blood relatives within certain degrees, but in addition to bans against
marriage with a blood relative, the Church also forbade marriage with
an adopted child; or with a godchild, or with the godparent of oneʼs
child, considered to be “spiritual” incest, for the act of baptism creates
another level of family.7 In fact, according to the Council of Estinnes of
743 C.E., should a parent attempt to serve as godparent to his or her
own child, this spiritual incest would invalidate the marriage.8 The 813
C.E. council of Chalon, however, merely required the parent who
presented himself/herself as godparent to his or her own child to do
penance, refusing to sever the bonds of marriage over this.9 Just as
incest taboos and regulations could pit one social class against another,
they could also become the battleground on which to work out disputes
over the nature of marriage as indissoluble or soluble. Finally, the
Church also forbade marriage to relatives of in-laws, such as between a
widower and his sonʼs sister-in-law, or even marriage to a relative of a
former sexual partner, both of these instances qualifying as incest by
affinity.10 Such a case was considered by Hincmar of Reims in the ninth
century: a certain Stephen from the region of Aquitaine married but
refused to have sex with his bride, claiming that it would be incestuous
since, prior to this marriage, he had had intercourse with one of her
relatives. In Hincmarʼs view, the marriage had to be dissolved since the
couple could not consummate the union without committing incest.11
The intricate details of all these types of prohibited unions are
scrupulously described by Robert Grosseteste in his 1235 Templum Dei
which contains explanatory diagrams.12
With the exception of incest by affinity, King Robert the Pious (972–
1031), for instance, appears to have violated the interdictions related to
both spiritual incest and consanguineous incest in varying degrees,
starting even before marriage: he fornicated with a woman (never
identified by name) to whom he was related and who was a co-
godparent; for these acts he did penance. Robert repudiated his first
wife Rozala, purportedly because she was a cousin related to him in the
sixth degree, but more likely because the marriage produced no son. He
repudiated his second wife Berthe, with some insinuation by the monk
Odorannus of Sens that it was due to the fact that she was related to
him in the third degree. His third wife Constance was also a distant
cousin; but once Constance engendered sons, Robert attempted to
revert back to Berthe, with no success.
Similarly, Count Geoffroi Martel, Count of Anjou (1006–1060),
remained married for eighteen years to Agnès in incestuous affinity:
she was a widow of Geoffroiʼs cousin in the third degree. His third wife,
Adèle was a cousin in the fourth degree, a fact that allowed him to
eventually set her aside, to remarry his second wife Grécie. Geoffroi
even managed a fifth marriage, but through all these unions, incestuous
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decided that more marriages were made on the beach than in
heaven. Position in society is everything. Here there was everything
in position. Heads in laps, arms around waists, boys in girls’ laps,
girls in boys’, legs linked, or arms and legs tied up in lover’s bow-
knots. All were taking “Sea”estas in their “surge” suits. The sight
was very “surf”eiting. In this Cupid school we saw girls with pearly
teeth, but with no pearls of wisdom; many who could paint their
face, but not paint a Madonna; girls who could play with the boys,
but not the piano; the only apparent study was that of anatomy.
Breakers on the beaches are divided into three classes: ocean-
breakers, law-breakers and heart-breakers. California is a fruit state
and we looked everywhere to see the “peaches” on the beaches—
but most of them were dried, and there were more old Iowa
valetudinarians and bearded bipeds than anyone else. Timon of
Athens was a misanthrope who went to the seashore to get away
from mankind. Had he come to this beach, the day we were there,
he would have prayed for a tidal wave to wipe it off the map.
Scripture says of the beautiful lilies, “they toil not, neither do they
spin.” Of these painted, half-dressed, lounging, walking, posturing
beach-combers with their dry feet, we say, “They toil not, neither do
they swim.” We came away from the beach that Sunday with a
composite picture of pop-eyed, pot-bellied promenaders in the sand,
vulgar Venuses, wobbly wenches, living links, heavy-hipped hags,
sinuous, shrunken men, tattered tights, tousled head nymphs, and
vain cock of the walks admiring their own shape and gazing on their
feet and fingernails.
We wish we could forget the bather’s singularity and angularity,
the plethoric paunch, the blinking, bawling, calling, sprawling,
mawling, drawling, squalling figures that defaced the beauty of the
sky, the sea and the sand. Oh, the water cataracts running and
dripping from shaking sides, heavy hips and swinging busts! If
Ulysses and his crew sailed by this shore with its sweating sirens and
howling hurdy-gurdies, they would stop their ears—but not for fear
of being enticed ashore.
The poet sings of the “smile” of the sea—we do not wonder at
laughing waves when they see some of the freak styles. What are
the wild waves saying? Some things we think we better omit. To
watch this beach of bathers is like having a front seat at the Winter
Garden Follies. The visitor may study the contour of beach and
bathers. Here he meets the living skeleton of angles and the bag of
bones, as well as her heavy-set sister with all her capricious curves,
crests, elevations and depressions. How unlike the pictures in the
Sunday supplements, and how like the caricatures in the comic
supplement. When first they appear all nice and dry they are
passable, but look at them if you dare and can, when they take a dip
or flop and come out with their homely lines all emphasized. No
Greek statues, no things of beauty and joy forever, but shattered,
disenchanting dreams, or nightmares rather.
Farewell to this flotsam and jetsam, foam and scum, these sand-
flies. If you want to have a “good time,” go to the beach where the
volume of nature and human nature is “wide open.” The text books
you should bring and study on the seashore are Shelley, Burns,
Sand, Crabbe and Bacon.

* * *

Dickory, dickory, docking,

The mouse ran up her stocking,
But I’m afraid
Up there it stayed
Which makes it twice as shocking!

* * *

A marriage certificate is a mere scrappy paper. One divorce leads

to another, but the marriage vow will always be taken ad-in-fun-
item.

* * *

Nice day for swimmin’!

What swimmin’?
Loo swimmin’.

* * *

“Your new stenog, I hear, is a beauty. Can she spell?”

“What does that matter?”
 Questions and Answers

Dear Captain Billy—What is meant by “A third rail girl?”—Inoa

Recipe.
It probably means one dangerous to touch.

* * *

Dear Captain Billy—What is your idea of the height of

indifference?—Goofey Gander.
Spilling coffee in your lap and not caring which leg it runs down.

* * *

Dear Captain Billy—What is the difference between kissing a

horse and an ugly girl?—Paul Bearer.
No difference whatever. In either case it’s a horse on you.

* * *

Dear Whiz Bang Bill—I am a great lover of literature, but find

that friends borrow my books to read. Did you ever hear of anything
like it?—Oliver Mudd.
We know an old fogy who married a flapper.

* * *

Dear Captain Billy—My sweetheart got angry at me last night

and said I had feet like a camel. What did he mean?—Rebeccah.
 He probably inferred that your feet had gone too long without
water.

* * *

Dear Capt. Whiz Bang—A friend informs me his wife ran away
with a “bank walker.” I have heard of bank tellers and bank cashiers,
but never heard of a “bank walker.” Please tell me what he meant?—
Bob Sledd.
Your query has been referred to the swimming editor.

* * *

Dear Captain Billy—Will you please tell me the origin of the

expression: “Mother, who is this silly ass?”—S. O. Elly.
It originated in France after the close of the war when a poilu
returned and, finding his home disrupted, left again to vow further
vengeance on the German.

* * *

Dear Cap—Please tell me how to grow fat.—Slim Jim.

Breed hogs.

* * *

Dear Skipper Bill—What is a cure for a horse that slobbers?—

Artie Fishel.
Teach him to spit.

* * *

Dear Skipper—What is the difference between a sewing machine

and a kiss?—B. Qrious.
One sews seams nice and the other seams sew nice.
 * * *

Dear Captain Whiskers—What is a crazy bone?—Howe D.

Dew.
A dollar spent on a girl.

* * *

Dear Kapten Billy—An electriek trolly goes through my corn

feild. Would it be against the law to uze it to shock my corn with?—
O. G. Kroakim.
No, but be careful and not let the juice wet the kernels.

* * *

Dear Skipper—What is meant by “self respect”?—Dottie

Dimple.
Self respect, Dottie, is a comfortable feeling one has in having
escaped detection.

* * *

Dear “Skipper”—Who was the Duke of Peruna?—C. C. Pill.

Lydia Pinkham’s husband.

* * *

Dear Captain Bill—Please give me a definition of a cannibal.—

Student.
Sure. One who loves his fellow man.

* * *

Dear Skipper—Kindly furnish me with an illustration of “Poetry of

Motion.”—Awsthetic Awlice.
 How would this be: A picnic girl with a bug down her back?

* * *

Dear Skipper—Do leaves of trees turn red in the fall from

blushing because they are showing naked limbs?—Bon Jurrows.
No, it’s because they realize how green they were all summer.

* * *

Dear Captain Billy—I had a tussle with my beau last night. How
may I recover myself?—Petite Fifi.
Go to a tailor.

* * *

Dear Capt. Billy—I am ambitious for a career on the stage. Can

you suggest an act that will be entirely new and up-to-date?—Art
Gumm.
Why not try kicking a giraffe in the mouth?

* * *

Dear Cap—I am a member of a newly formed organization

known as the “Woman Hater’s Union.” Could you suggest a motto for
our association?—Fat Chance.
“Oh, kill me now and call it the end of a perfect day.”

* * *

Dear Skipper—When is a good girl not a good girl?—McNotty.

About half the time, we’d say.

* * *
 Dear Captain Billy—What is the difference between a rehearsal
and a show?—Plain Jane.
A rehearsal is the same as a show, only nobody comes around to
see it.

* * *

Dear Captain Bullybeef—My fiance says I have a peachy

complexion. What does he mean?—Kitty Furr.
He probably infers, Kitty, that you have a yellow and orange shade
with fuzz on your face.

* * *

Dear Doctor Bill—Why, oh why, did the police inspect her?—The

Duke o’ Dubuque.
Possibly to help the “deek” detect her.

* * *

A convalescent requiring whisky and beer for rapid recovery is

convalescent all over except his thirst, and that’s in the acute stages.

* * *

Another Jellyfish
“Boys,” asked the school master, “what do you consider the most
beautiful thing in the world?”
“Sunshine,” hazarded one boy.
“Flowers,” ventured another.
Both answers were received with favor, and the turn went to a
hefty youth.
 “A woman,” announced he gruffly.
“Come out here,” commanded the master, sternly.
A good flogging was administered; and then the offender was
bidden to go home and tell his father that he had been flogged, and
why.
Next morning the floggee was again hauled up.
“Did you tell your father that you had been flogged?” asked the
master.
“Yes, sir.”
“Did you tell him why?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What did he say?”
“Please, sir, dad and I talked it all over between us, and we’ve
come to the conclusion that there’s something funny about you.”
 Whiz Bang Editorials
“The Bull is Mightier Than the Bullet”

ress dispatches recently carried an item to the effect that

P
although slightly mentally affected, the mother of Charlie
Chaplin, upon her son’s earnest persuasion, had been allowed
to enter this country from England.
Mrs. Chaplin, upon reaching New York, stood a chance, it
was stated, of having to return had it not been for quick and
effective energies of her sons and their friends in political power.
Those who know Chaplin well declare that the intense melancholy
for which he is noted is due more than anything else to the affection
and concern for his mother. Such things as domestic troubles, it is
said, bear little weight with the man who daily makes millions laugh.
’Tis the mother.
What have we here! Consider this monumental fun-maker of the
screen. Death is bad enough but when the mind of one very dear
becomes clouded, then indeed does tragedy and sadness smite with
a heavy hand.
We read of the circus clown whose wife and children burned to
death, and yet, to keep a date with the world of fun lovers, he went
ahead that night and clowned as never he had clowned before. Have
we in Chaplin a great tragedy also? It will be recalled that when he
was a small boy in London he and his mother and brother lived in a
workhouse in order that the streets might not be their home.
Now his mother is coming home to him, to live amid all the luxury
that great wealth may bring; wealth that came after a sad little
fellow with merry feet, living in a workhouse with his mother,
learned to be the greatest of all fun-makers. Life’s a funny
proposition, folks, isn’t it?

* * *

alf a century ago the nude in art was strange enough in

H
America to uplift Puritanic hands in holy horror. Today,
among all cultivated people, the female nude is most matter-
of-fact. Our notions of art the country over have been
steadily clarifying, until at last the great distinction has been
recognized and conceded even by pious folk that, while the human
male figure is impossible, the female form is purely beautiful.
Those rabid for realism and resolutely uncompromising, will have
the assurance to claim innocuousness for the undraped male; but
the opinion today among those who are not extremists is still
definitely against the frank exposition of the male form in plastic or
painting.
At worst the mind receives merely a filip of interest; and complete
nudity, to the male fancy, repeated again and again in art, speedily
sates curiosity, and with that, incipient desire. As for the minds of
women, no one would insult them with the suspicion that they find
anything provocative in the portrayal of figures of their own sex.
In every landscape the eye notices at once and unavoidably the
hills; it finds the plains and valleys only by an effort of the will. This
fact has ever been admitted by the modern stage, which is, so far as
the ethics of objective morality go, more conservative than modern
art in its advanced attitude.

* * *

Be a Booster
 If you can’t be a pine on the top of the hill,
Be a scrub in the valley, but be
The best little scrub by the side of the hill,
Be a bush if you can’t be a tree;
If you can’t be the sun be a star,
But the best little booster wherever you are.

* * *

each me that 60 minutes make an hour, 16 ounces one pound

T
and 100 cents one dollar. Help me so to live that I can lie
down at night with a clear conscience, without a gun under
my pillow and unhaunted by the faces of those to whom I
have brought pain. Grant that I may earn my meal-ticket on
the square, and that in earning it I may do unto others as I would
have them do unto me. Deafen me to the jingle of tainted money
and to the rustle of unholy skirts. Blind me to the faults of the other
fellow but reveal to me my own. Guide me so that each night when I
look across the dinner table at my wife who has been a blessing to
me, I will have nothing to conceal. Keep me young enough to laugh
with little children, and sympathetic enough to be considerate of old
age. And when comes the day of darkened shades and the smell of
flowers, the tread of soft footsteps and the crunching of wheels in
the yard—make the ceremony short and the epitaph simply ‘Here
Lies a Man.’

* * *
 He that does not know,
And knows he does not know;
Can be taught.
TEACH HIM!

He that does not know,

But thinks he knows;
Is a dangerous man.
BEWARE OF HIM!

He that does know.

And knows he knows;
Is a wise man—
FOLLOW HIM!

* * *

It’s a stiff neck that has no turning when a short skirt goes by.

* * *

I hope that when I die they’ll pour me back in the bottle. So do

other soaks.

* * *

London Stuff
He had been married about a year and had taken to spending his
evenings out West with the boys. One night his conscience worried
him, and he thought he would phone his wife to have dinner with
him.
“Hello, kiddo,” he began. “Slip on some old clothes and run down
and meet me on the quiet. We’ll have a good dinner and then smear
a little red paint around. How about it?”
“I’ll be delighted to join you,” was the reply. “But why not come up
to the house, Jack, and get me? There’s nobody home.”
Today the young husband spends every evening at home. His
name is Philip.

* * *

Oh! Gawsch!
A stripping bee took place at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Bohumil
Albrecht Thursday evening. Those present Were the Mesdames
Katherine Mach, John Marek, John Jelimek, Kenzel Pokorny, Mr. and
Mrs. John Novotny, Mr. and Mrs. John Hanna and Mr. and Mrs.
Joseph Wessely, Sr.—(From Kewauness (Wis.) Press.)

* * *

The High Cost of Company

Sign in European hotel, Manitowoc, Wis.: “If you have company
over night an extra charge of 50c will be made.”

* * *

A fatted calf maketh a full stocking.

* * *

Then His Nerve Failed

One of the loveliest of girls went into a gents’ furnishing store to
buy a necktie. She hesitated a moment, and then asked in a nice,
straightforward way: “I want to put it on, please. Would you tie it for
me?”
The clerk felt a little nervous, especially as the other fellows were
watching him, but she had already pulled off the necktie that she
wore. He said, “Certainly,” and, putting the new one around her neck
as she ducked her head. She wore a dainty white silk shirt. When
the tie was tied, the ends seemed a bit long, and he suggested: “Do
you wear the ends tucked in?” “Yes,” she returned with
unembarrassed absentmindedness. At this point his courage failed
him.

* * *

She Knew the Truth

“Both of dese here gents,” said the witness, Mandy Thomas,
rather impressed with the importance of being in court, “was
standing at the corner conversin’ with each other pretty hot an’
pointed like.”
“Relate the conversation,” said the prosecutor.
“Ah don’t jest remember, sah,” said Mandy, “’cept dat dey was
callin’ each other what dey is.”

* * *

Women used to carry money in their stocking, but it’s not safe to
put money in public places now.

* * *

A rash marriage is only skin deep.

 Smokehouse Poetry

Whiz Bang has a double-winner for Smokehouse fans next issue!

“The Lure of the Tropics” and “The Far East.”

“O’er chicle camps and logwood swamps

I hunted him many a moon,
Then found my man in a long pit pan
At the edge of a blue lagoon.

“The chase was o’er at the farther shore;

It ended a two-year quest,
And I left him there with an empty stare
And a knife stuck in his chest.”

That’s the swing of the most noted poem of the tropics, “The Far
East,” an excerpt from which follows, is familiar to Philippine war
veterans:

“By the mud hole down in Subic

Looking lazy at the bay,
There’s a goo-goo dame awaiting,
And I think I hear her say:
‘Come you back you malo soldier
Come you back from o’er the sea,
Come you back and pay your jaw-bone,
Por-a-que! You jaw-bone me?’”
 * * *

The Hoboes’ Convention

By George Liebst
You have heard of big conventions,
And there’s some you can’t forget,
But get this straight, there’s none so great
As when the hoboes met.

To Portland, Oregon, last year

They came from near and far;
On “tops” and “blind” where cinders whined,
They rode on every car.

Three hundred came from New York state,

Some came from Eagle Pass;
That afternoon, the third of June,
They gathered there en masse.

From Lone Star state came “Texas Slim”

And “Jack the Katydid”;
With “Lonesome Lou” from Kal’mazoo
Came “San Diego Kid.”

And “Denver Dan” and “Boston Red”

Blew in with “Hell-fire Jack,”
“Andy Lang” from lakeshore gang,
“Big Mac” from Mackinack.

I saw some boys I’d never met;

A bo called “New York Spike,”
“Con, the Sneak,” from Battle Creek,
And “Mississippi Ike.”

Old “New York Bill,” dressed like a duke,

Shook hands with “Frisco Fred”;
And “Half-breed Joe” from Mexico
Shot craps with “Eastport Ed.”

“St. Louis Jim” and “Pittsburg Paul”

Fixed up a jungle stew,
While “Slipp’ry Slim” and “Bashful Tim”
Croaked gumps for our menu.

The “Jockey Kid” spilled out a song

Along with “Desp’rate Sam”;
And “Paul the Shark” from Terrors’ Park
Clog-danced with “Alabam ”
 Clog danced with Alabam.

We gathered ’round the jungle fire,

The night was passing fast;
We’d all done time for every crime,
And talk was of the past.

All night we flopped around the fire

Until the morning sun;
Then from the town the cops came down—
We beat it on the run.

We scattered to the railroad yards,

And left the “bulls” behind;
Some hit the freights for other states,
And many rode the “blind.”

Well, here I am in Denver town,

A hungry, tired-out bo;
The flier’s due, when she pulls through,
I’ll grab her and I’ll blow.

That’s her—she’s whistling for the block—

I’ll make her on the fly;
It’s number nine—Santa Fe line,
I’m off again—Good Bye!

* * *

Mushy Stuff, Eh?

He blushed a fiery red,

Her heart went pittypat;
She gently hung her head,
And looked down, at the mat.

* * *

Mary Jane
 Ah, here we have the second spasm of the rollicking thirst
emporium ditty:

Oh, she promised to meet me

When the clock struck seventeen,
At the stockyards, just three miles out of town,
Where the pig eyes and pig ears and the
Tough old Texas steers
Sell for sirloin steak at
Eighteen cents a pound.

CHORUS:

Oh, she’s my honey, my baby,

She’s maul-eyed, she’s crazy,
She’s knock-kneed, she’s pigeon-toed, she’s lame.
Although her lower teeth are phoney
From eating Swift’s bologna,
She’s my freckled face, consumptive Mary Jane.

* * *

Casey’s Revenge
Did you ever hear that noted recitation, “Casey at the Bat?” Here’s
a baseball soul with a more generous poetic disposition. He replies
to the old classic, which, as you remember, ended with the mighty
Casey striking out, and Glory-be, it sure gives us a thrill, and
reminds us of our own Mudville nine. Heave ho to this “Curve”—
—By James Wilson.
There were saddened hearts in Mudville for a week or even more;
There were muttered oaths and curses—every fan in town was sore.
“Just think,” said one, “how soft it looked with Casey at the bat,
And then to think he’d go and pull a bush league trick like that.”
All his past fame was forgotten; he was now a hopeless “shine,”
They called him “Strike-out Casey” from the mayor on down the line.
And as he came to bat each day his bosom heaved a sigh,
While a look of hopeless fury shone in mighty Casey’s eye.

The lane is long, some one has said, that never has a turn again,
And Fate, though fickle, often gives another chance to men.
And Casey smiled—his rugged face no longer wore a frown;
The pitcher who had started all the trouble came to town.
All Mudville had assembled; ten thousand fans had come
To see the twirler who had put big Casey on the bum;
And when he stepped into the box the multitude went wild,
He doffed his cap in proud disdain—but Casey only smiled.

“Play ball,” the umpire’s voice rang out, and then the game began;
But in that throng of thousands there was not a single fan
Who thought that Mudville had a chance; and with the setting sun
Their hopes sank low—the rival team was leading “four to one.”
The last half of the ninth came round, with no change in the score;
But when the first man up hit safe the crowd began to roar.
The din increased, the echo of ten thousand shouts was heard
When the pitcher hit the second and gave “four balls” to the third.

Three men on bases—no one out—three runs to tie the game,

A triple meant the highest niche in Mudville’s hall of fame;
But here the rally ended and the gloom was deep as night
When the fourth one “fouled to catcher” and the fifth “flew out at right,”
A dismal groan in chorus came—a scowl was on each face—
When Casey walked up, bat in hand, and slowly took his place;
His bloodshot eyes in fury gleamed; his teeth were clinched in hate
He gave his cap a vicious hook and pounded on the plate.

But fame is fleeting as the wind, and glory fades away;

There were no wild and woolly cheers, no glad acclaim this day.
They hissed and groaned and hooted as they clamored “strike him out.”
But Casey gave no outward sign that he had heard this shout.
The pitcher smiled and cut one loose; across the plate it sped;
Another hiss, another groan—“strike one” the umpire said.
Zip—like a shot, the second curve broke just below his knee—
 “Strike two” the umpire roared aloud; but Casey made no plea.

No roasting for the umpire now—his was an easy lot.

But here the pitcher whirled again—was that a rifle shot?
A whack, a crack, and out through space the leather pellet flew—
A blot against the distant sky, a speck against the blue.
About the fence in center field in rapid whirling flight,
The ball sailed on; the blot grew dim and then was lost to sight.
Ten thousand hats were thrown in air, then thousand threw a fit;
But no one ever found the ball that mighty Casey hit.

Oh, somewhere in this favored land dark clouds may hide the sun,
And somewhere bands no longer play and children have no fun;
And somewhere over blighted lives there hangs a heavy pall;
But Mudville hearts are happy now—for Casey hit the ball.

* * *

Expurgated
By a Former Acting-assistant Buck Private, Budd L. McKillipps.
Last night I was at a party
And some fellow sang a song,
A song I’d heard,
But this poor bird
Had half the words all wrong.

He sang a soldier ballad,

But it lacked the army tang;
It sounded strange
To hear the change,
These were the songs he sang:

Mademoiselle from Armentieres;

Parley Vouz,
Mademoiselle from Armentieres;
Parley Vouz,
Mademoiselle from Armentieres,
She hasn’t been kissed in forty years,
Hinky Dinky Parley Vouz.
I’d tell you the way we sang it
Around the cafes in France,
(The words grow worse
With every verse),
I don’t dare take a chance.

Oh, I long to see the captain in the grave yard,

With the quartermaster sergeant by his side,
And the non-commissioned officers in the tool house
While the privates in the mess hall running wild;
The non-commissioned officers are a bunch of dirty sticks,
They take us to the drill field and they teach us dirty tricks.
Squads East, Squads West, Right Front Into Line—
The dirty bunch of loafers, they give us double time;
Then it’s home boys, home;
That’s where we ought to be,
Home, boys, home, to the land of liberty;
We’ll hoist Old Glory to the top of the pole
And we’ll all re-enlist—when the weather gets cold
And we ll all re enlist when the weather gets cold.
That wasn’t the way we sang it,
To comrades garbed in O.D.;
There’s some may tell
The real song, well—
You’ll not find out from me.

I want to go home, I want to go home,

The mademoiselles in Gay Paree;
They certainly all feel sorry for me;
I want to go home
I’m here with a busted knee.
Oh, hell, I wish I was well,
I want to go home.
I cried when I heard him sing that,
’Twas a song we sang in Brest;
When long days crept
And boys were kept
In stockades under arrest.

Oh, why do they change those ballads,

Till nothing’s left but the air?
They’re made for men
So sing them when
There’s no darned women there.

* * *

Tribute to the Painted Girl

By Grayce Moody.
 There are girly girls and whirly girls,
And girls who are bashful and shy;
There are gay brunettes and dizzy blondes,
And the girl with the wicked eye.
There’s the haughty girl who sits on the world,
As the honey from life she sips,
But give me the girl the world calls bad,
The girl with the painted lips.

She’s there with a smile and a friendly word,

When the world is going wrong,
She will jolly you and cheer you up
And tell you life’s a song.
She will stick by you and play you square,
No odds if you’re down and out,
She’s a dandy pal and a true blue friend,
I’ll say she’s a regular scout.

Her life is not all sunshine and roses

This painted little maid,
But she hides her hurts behind a smile
And faces the world unafraid;
Little she minds what the world says
Or the “goody girls’” caustic quips,
She’s worth a thousand “prudish prunes”
My girl with the painted lips.

* * *

Monkey Shines
Two young men were riding on a street car which I chanced to
squeeze onto with some 249 other adults.
“I took my first drink last night, Algernon,” said one of the pair.
“Did you, Clarence? Honestly, where did you get it?” queried the
other.
 “Down at a near beer parlor. It was real near beer, too, with one-
half of one per cent alcohol and everything.”
“I’ve been drinking, too,” said the other; “I had two whole glasses
of near beer the other night. I was going to a party, you know, and
wanted to get plenty of pep.”
“Did you drink your near beer straight, or did you dilute it with
water?” asked Clarence.
“I drank it straight. I wanted to get the full kick. Straight, you
know, with a coupla chasers.”
“I certainly went crazy after I took that drink, though. I thought I
was going to try to sing at first,” said Clarence.
“I hope none of my friends saw the way I acted after I took that
near beer the other night,” Algernon put in. “I went batty right away.
I started telling all sorts of funny jokes and laughing ridiculously.
Went to see my girl immediately after, and she said she could tell I
had been drinking after I told her. She promised not to tell it,
though.”
The two young men got off the car about this time, and a grizzled
old dog sitting in front of me bit the neck off a bottle of turpentine
he carried and drank the contents of the bottle. “I heard that pair
talking,” he said.

* * *

Liberty’s Love Lights

A young colored couple were sitting at the foot of the Statue of
Liberty. Henry was holding Mandy’s hand.
“Henry,” said Mandy, “Does you-all know why dey has such small
lights on de Statue o’ Liberty?”
“Ah dunno,” replied the Ethiopian swain, “unless it’s because de
less light, de mo’ liberty.”
 * * *

Ashes to ashes,
And fire to fire;
He’s a weak old man,
She’s a foxy vampire.

* * *

Rasping Rastus’ Roost

“What am de matter, Rastus? Ketch cold?”
“Yeah, purty bad, too.”
“How come?”
“Ya know, I put mah bed out in de yard, and doggone if Ah didn’t
go to bed las’ night wiff de gate open.”

* * *

The head that is loaded with wisdom doesn’t leak at the mouth.

* * *

Debt is a trap which a man sets and baits for him self and then
deliberately falls into.
 Arthur Neale’s Page

wish to assure the readers of Captain William’s Whiz Bang that

I
what we stand for is one country, one flag, one language and
one-piece bathing suits.

* * *

’Cause what looks so cute

As a nice bathing suit—
Provided inside it
The girl is a beaut?

* * *

We notice the Very Rev. “Golightly” Morrill says: “At Puerto Cabello
one goes in swimming au natural. The guide-book says: ‘The natural
beauties of the place are charming.’” That settles it! Puerto Cabello is
where we spend the vacation!

* * *

We heard someone say: “I do admire Art”;

We blushed as we thought of our striving,
But the next thing they said was a stab to the heart.
’Twas: “Look! She’s so graceful when diving.”

* * *
 Every year the bathing regulations grow stricter. If Gus, the hired
man, read the ones for Coney Island this year we think he’d say they
wear more in the sea than they do on the sidewalk.

* * *

Miss Venus, as perhaps you know,

Had lost her pair of arms;
It didn’t matter to her beau,
The gal had other charms.

* * *

As the refined woman single in vaudeville said: “I may be no riot—

but thank God, I’m satisfied.”

* * *

Our friends in the song-writing game will be interested to learn

that we are now at work on a snappy little one-step entitled: “When
Adam Said ‘Eve, You’re a Naughty Little Girl.’ She said: ‘Well, I don’t
care A dam.’”

* * *

Our Monthly Prayer

“O Fadder, give thy servant this mornin’ de eye of de eagle and de
wisdom of de owl; connect his soul with de gospel telephone in de
central skies; ’luminate his brow with de sun of heaben; pizen his
mind with love for de people; turpentine his ’magination; grease his
lips with ’possum oil; power; ’lectrify his brain with de lightnin’ of de
loosen his tongue with de sledge hammer of thy word; put ’petual
motion in his ahms; fill him plum’ full of de dynamite of thy glory;
’noint him all over with de kerosene oil of thy salvation, and sot him
on the fire. Amen!”
 The Raptures of Cupid

In the April issue we published a model love letter,

and since then we have been deluged with dimes from
anxious swains asking us to hurry along another letter,
as their sweethearts had answered the first and were
expecting another. As we are always ready to
sympathize with crooning youths, and wish to be
obliging, we are offering another captivating love note
in the following:

y dear Miss Gumptious: Every time I think of you, my heart

M
flops up and down like a churn dasher. Sensations of
unutterable joy caper over it like young goats on a stable
roof, and thrill through it like Spanish needles through a
pair of two linen trousers. As a gosling swimmeth with
delight in a mud puddle, so swim I in a sea of glory. Visions of
ecstatic rapture, thicker than the hairs of a blacking brush, and
brighter than the hues of a humming bird’s pinions, visit me in my
slumbers; and, borne on their invisible wings, your image stands
before me, and I reach out to grasp it, like a pointer snapping at a
blue-bottle fly. When I first beheld your angelic perfections I was
bewildered, and my brain whirled ’round like a bumble bee under a
glass tumbler. My eyes stood open like cellar doors in a country
town, and I lifted up my ears to catch the silvery accents of your
voice. My tongue refused to wag and in silent adoration I drank in
the sweet infection of love as a thirsty man swalloweth a tumbler of
hot whiskey punch.
 Since the light of your face fell upon my life, I sometimes feel as if
I could lift myself up by my boot straps to the top of the church
steeple, and pull the bell rope for singing school. Day and night you
are in my thoughts. When Aurora, rising from her saffron-colored
couch, blushing like a bride; when the jay bird pipes his tuneful lay
in the apple tree by the spring house; when the chanticleer’s shrill
clarion heralds the coming morn; when the awakening pig ariseth
from his bed and grunteth, and goeth forth for his morning
refreshments; when the drowsy beetle wheels to droning flight at
sultry noontide; and when the lowing herds come home at milking
time, I think of thee; and, like a piece of gum elastic, my heart
seems stretched clear across my bosom. Your hair is like the mane
of a sorrel horse, powdered with gold, and the brass pins skewered
through your water-fall fill me with unbounded awe. Your forehead is
smoother than the elbow of an old coat; your eyes are glorious to
behold. In their liquid depths I see legions of little Cupids bathing,
like a cohort of ants in an old Army cracker. When their fire hit me
upon my manly breast, it penetrated my whole anatomy, as a load of
bird shot through a rotten apple. Your nose is a chunk of Parian
marble, and your mouth is puckered with sweetness. Nectar lingers
on your lips, like honey on a bear’s paw; and myriads of unfledged
kisses are there, ready to fly out and light somewhere, like bluebirds
out of their parents’ nest. Your laugh rings in my ears like the
windharp’s strain, or the bleat of a stray lamb on a bleak hillside.
The dimples in your cheeks are like bowers in beds of roses—hollows
in cakes of home-made sugar.
I am dying to fly to thy presence, and pour out the burning
eloquence of my love, as thrifty housewives pour out hot coffee.
Away from you I am as melancholy as a rat.
Sometimes, I can hear the June bugs of despondency buzzing in
my ears, and feel the cold lizards of despair crawling down my back.
Uncouth fears, like a thousand minnows, nibble at my spirits; and
my soul is pierced with doubts, as an old cheese is bored with
skippers.
 My love for you is stronger than the smell of patent butter, or the
kick of a young cow, and more unselfish than a kitten’s first
catterwaul. As a song bird hankers for the light of day, the cautious
mouse for the fresh bacon in the trap, as a mean pup hankers after
new milk, so I long for thee.
You are fairer than a speckled pullet, sweeter than a Yankee
doughnut fried in sorghum molasses, brighter than the top knot
plumage of muscovy ducks. You are candy, kisses, raisins, pound-
cake and sweetened toddy altogether.
If these few remarks will enable you to see the inside of my soul,
and me to win your affection, I shall be as happy as a woodpecker
on a cherry tree, or a stage horse in a green pasture. If you cannot
reciprocate my thrilling passion, I will pine away like a poisoned bed
bug, and fall away from a flourishing vine of life an untimely branch;
and, in the coming years, when the shadows grow from the hills,
and the philosophical frog sings his cheerful evening hymn, you,
happy in another’s love can come and cast a tear and catch a cold
upon the last resting place of
Yours affectionately,
ANNY JOHN.

* * *

Give Her a Ring Under the Eye

“What shall I give my girl for a birthday present?”
“Why not give her a book?”
“No, I think she has a book.”

* * *

“Where did you get the idea?”

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