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Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Delightful dunny deities

Voltaire, in a passage of his Philosophical Dictionary devoted to changing conceptions of deity, alludes to a number of real or alleged Roman deities of a less exalted status:

La déesse des tétons, dea Rumilia ; la déesse de l’action du mariage, dea Pertunda ; le dieu de la chaise percée, deus Stercutius ; le dieu Pet, deus Crepitus, ne sont pas assurément bien vénérables. . . Il est sûr que deus Crepitus, le dieu Pet, ne donnait pas la même idée que deus divum et hominum sator, la source des dieux et des hommes.
"The goddess of breasts,
dea Rumilia; the goddess of the marital act, dea Pertunda; the god of the toilet, deus Stercutius; the god Fart, deus Crepitus, were surely not quite objects of reverence. . . It is certain that deus Crepitus, the god Fart, did not give the same sort of idea as deus divum et hominum sator, the creator of gods and men."
— "Polytheism", entry in the
Philosophical Dictionary of Voltaire.
Send thy thunder,
Great Pertunda,
In rolling waves about the land:
It shall defy
Great Zeus on high
Who doth with thunderbolts enforce his dread command.

At thy grumble
All are humble,
To thee both Prince and Pauper squat;
The strong are weak,
The brave are meek,
All duly sacrifice unto thy hallowed pot.

Mighty closet
Of deposit,
We pray thou holdst our piss fart shite
Snot spit and chunder,
Great Pertunda –
Accept these offerings we tend to thee tonight.

Dedicated to - who else? - that chap Diogenes.

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