Does anyone have a copy of the 1658 edition?
The Crafty Whore:
or,
The mistery and iniquity of
BAWDY HOUSES
Laid open,
the dialogue between two SUBTLE BAWDS,
wherein, as in a mirrour, our
CITY-CURTESANS
may face their sould-destroying Are, and Crafty
devices, whereby they Insnare and beguile
Youth, pourtraled to the life,
By the PENSELL of one of their late, (but now
penitent) CAPTIVES, for the benefit of
all, but especially the younger sort.
Whereunto is added
DEHORTATIONS from LUST
Drawn from the
SAD and LAMENTABLE
Consequences it produceth.
Mastodon
We need to bring back that style of title/title page for all of our texts. It got me hooked from the first line.
Is it on the Project Gutenberg site?
tag yourself
i’m “sad and lamentable consequences”
I’ll have to check the stacks, PZ. I don’t think so, but given herself’s ability to come up with obscure titles and put them on our shelves, you never know.
The use of “dehortations” is interesting. I assume that’s an antonym of “exhortations” (i.e. urging someone to do something).
The description of the printer is priceless. How could anyone miss them?
It is in Google Books, but unavailable. They don’t even have a preview. The data says it’s a 1658 edition, and I’m sure that makes it out of copyright. So, why can’t we get it?
Just more enshittification of Google.
AI can do that…
Can anyone here render that penultimate Latin section in English? (It seems to concern Venus, and I always like astronomy stuff!)
The use of random ALLCAPS is uncannily like that employed by those televangelist begging letters of the 80s and 90s, and the shouters in the social media comment sections today.
There’s nothing new under the sun, apparently…
Pierce R. Butler @ #6 — I’ll leave translation to the Latin scholars around here, but I suspect it refers to the goddess Venus rather than the planet.
tacitus @ #7 — I believe capitalization like that was quite common in manuscripts of the period, particularly on title pages as a way to add emphasis to words when there were no bold type faces. The televangelists probably get it from reading facsimiles of the KJV.
300 years later and we’re still wringing or hands over people getting together to fuck.
Our species is too dumb to live.
Sir Terry Pratchett’s “Going postal” has such Victorian style chapter headings as a “Take that” to a reviewer who accused him of being unable to write in chapters. Things like “Chapter 7, In which Moist von Lipwig obtains the greatest of all treasures, which is hope” and such.
This would be perfect for a doctoral dissertation. I’m not certain what field this would be appropriate for, but I would be more than willing to switch.
@6, I’m no Latin scholar, but I make out the text to be:
which Google translates to:
Maybe a modern paraphrase would be, “I hope you find the book entertaining, it’s not a fap manual.”
If that is accurate, it’s the usual warning/statement by the author that he is not writing to titillate but to educate and entertain. In other words, don’t go getting sexually excited over the exploits described in these pages . I’ve seen similar disclaimers before. It’s not uncommon sentiment used to try to bypass censorship laws. “Yur Hon’r, I t’were’n’t sellin’ pronografy, I were sellin’ ed’cation’l books.”
But I could be way off base here. I’ve seen a good bit of historical pornography, but I can’t say I’m an expert.
I believe the line after CITY-CURTESANS is
“may see their soul-destroying Art”.
And it’s “pourtraied” rather than “pourtraled”.
I could not find it on archive.org, which is a great source for early texts.
I do think that scientific papers would be much improved by this sort of title.
The crafty whore. I’M IN!
If you have academic access, you can read the entire thing here. I’m sad to report the contents don’t live up to the hype; it’s a bog standard morality play that uses titillation to teach people the proper way to behave. The dialogue ends with:
It’s no different than those “free” breakfasts set up by religious groups, only the lure into their sermon isn’t food but gossip about sex, probably written by someone who knows jack shit about the subject.
@flex #12,
That’s 95% accurate, I think. I read (with help) the Latin as
Ite, sed a stimulo carnis Veneris{que} cavete;
Cauta est, at{que} dolis undi{que} plena Venus.
Vel prodesse volo vel delectare—
Which would be:
“Go, but beware of the sting/goad of the flesh and of Venus. Venus is cautious, and full of deceits on all sides. I wish to either do good or to delight/entertain.”
Pierce R. Butler, #6
I am, at it happens, a Latin scholar. What we have, once the scribal contractions are expanded, is:
“Ite, sed a stimulo carnis Venerisque cavete, et cauta est, atque dolis undique plena est Venus. Vel prodesse volo, vel delectare.”
Which translates as:
“Go, but be careful of the goad of the flesh and of Venus. Venus, too, is careful, and full of tricks from all directions. I want either to be of use or to delight.”
“Venus”, here, is clearly a metonymy for “sex”. The verb caveo with an ablative, as in the first clause, should probably be translated more forcefully as “guard yourself against”, but I have tried to keep the same translation for the verb in both the first and second clauses (“be careful”) to preserve the chiastic structure (Venus… careful… careful… Venus) and polyptoton effect of the original Latin.
Thanks to all the translators (@ #s 12, 16-18); now I’m a little better informed, if no less prurient.
Re Robro @ # 8, I suspect, vide Kim Stanley Robinson’s 2312, that those who might attempt to move in on Venus-the-planet may well find their mission “full of tricks and charms”. ;-P
I always suspected, when I was in the church, that the purpose of the ‘penitent sinner turns from a life of debauchery’ narratives was largely the titillation afforded by the descriptions of the old life.
I might be torturing the Latin, but if caveat is the imperative(?) of caveo, I would render in Ye Olde English verse form as:
Beware the worship of the flesh, yet be aware of the ubiquity of Venus’s wiles.
It alliterates nicely, and preserves both uses of caveo.
As it happens, Japanese “light novels” have brought this tradition back.
Tethys, #21
Technically “caveat” is the present subjunctive (3rd person singular) of caveo, not the imperative (that would be “cave” or “cavete” for more than one addressee). The most common use for this form, though, and the one you’re thinking of here, is a iussive subjunctive (“let them beware”), which is close to an imperative, but suggest more an invocation of permission or necessity than a direct command.
See? Latin grammar is so much more pulse-poundingly exciting than boring old sex.
@15 HJ Horbbeck
https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo2/A80750.0001.001?view=toc has it open to anyone.
@15 HJ Hornbeck
“If you have academic access, you can read the entire thing here. I’m sad to report the contents don’t live up to the hype; it’s a bog standard morality play that uses titillation to teach people the proper way to behave.”
1658 London is a bit of a give away. Last year of Oliver Cromwell’s life and rule as Lord Protector. Things were a bit puritanical at the time. A few years later under the rule of Charles II, the reaction to puritanism saw a plethora of Restoration Comedies.
@ 23 cartomancer
You people. Honestly. X-D
Life of Brian – ROMANES EUNT DOMUS – YouTube
Anyway. On topic. I don’t have any 17th century texts. But I like audiobooks. And one I listened to recently was about sex workers in my home town in the 19th century.
https://www.amazon.com.au/Women-Little-Lon-Nineteenth-Melbourne-ebook/dp/B08W51M6FW
Fascinating stuff. Even today one rarely gets to here about the “crafty whores” and their “bawdy houses”. But the stories of some of these women are astonishing and moving.
Don’t write off sex workers. There’s many a life story there that could be a feature film if not for prejudice.
@14 cartomancer
I am amused to discover that even the word worship is firmly rooted in specifically female flesh in Latin.
Sex as the source of sacredness?
It’s certainly useful if you want to sound very posh while making punny quadruple entendres about veneris.
Beware carnis venerisque has got to be punning on the noun vs the verb forms of Venus/ veneraris. Venerate and venereal.
Love that. Leonard Cohen is the modern master of sex as worship and the feminine principle. This cover by Billy Joel is the carnal gospel: https://youtu.be/9Sly0MmNQzE?si=7RTftGLEY9RPV5qk