Note 124 — AL-MALIK AL-ZAHIR RUKN AL-DIN BIBARS AL-BUNDUKDARI AND THE SIXTEEN CAPTAINS OF POLICE.[1]

Arab. “Zirtah” the coarsest of terms for what the French nuns prettily termed un sonnet: I find ung sonnet also in Nov. ii. of the Cent nouvelles Nouvelles. Captain Lockett (p. 32) quotes Strepsiades in The Clouds βροντᾷ κομιδῆ παππάξ “because he cannot express the bathos of the original (in the Tale of Ja’afar and the old Badawi) without descending to the oracular language of Giacoma Rodogina, the engastrymythian prophetess.” But Sterne was by no means so squeamish. The literature of this subject is extensive, beginning with “Peteriana, ou l’art de peter,” which distinguishes 62 different tones. After dining with a late friend en garçon we went into his sitting-room and found on the table 13 books and booklets upon the Crepitus Ventris, and there was some astonishment as not a few of the party had never seen one.