Pietro Aretino

A vituperative satirist who made kings tremble. Also, he wrote this:

My fingers are but stragglers at the rear,

Who go a-foraging for what they find;

And they are not ashamed to lag behind,

Since there’s no foe in front they need to fear.

They’ve wandered through a tufted valley near.

And you yourself have said they were most kind,

And so, I know, my lady will not mind

If they see other booty, nor think it queer. 

And yet, it may be, you prefer the Lance;

Then, let your stragglers reconnoiter, sweet,

And guide him like a blind man to safe cover.

He is no coward, since he takes a chance.

Though he, my dear, has neither eyes nor feet;

For a soldier always makes a perfect lover!

SOURCES:

Aretino, Pietro. The school of whoredom. London: Hesperus, 2003.

 

———. The secret life of nuns. London: Hesperus, 2004.

 

Burckhardt, Jacob. The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy. Penguin Classics. London, England ; New York, N.Y., USA: Penguin Books, 1990.

 

Marrapodi, Michele, ed. Shakespeare and the Italian Renaissance: Appropriation, Transformation, Opposition. Anglo-Italian Renaissance Studies Series. Farnham, Surrey ; Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2014.

 

Talvacchia, Bette. Taking Positions: On the Erotic in Renaissance Culture. Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 1999.

Our intro music is Arpeggia Colorix by Yann Terrien, downloaded from WFMU's Free Music Archive and distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. Our outro music is by DJ Michaeloswell Graphicsdesigner.