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One of the plague waxes of Gaetano Zumbo, which can be found in the Museo La Specola in Florence. Zumbo's works ridicule the vanity of man and provide a reminder of the ascendency of time over all mortal concerns. Further (better) images of these spectacular wax miniatures:
1, 2, 3, 4, 5
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- I was smoking and trying to look cool, as if what I'd just seen hadn't bothered me at all. The pig was positioned head away, hind legs and butt pointed in my direction. Global Alan, one of the shooters for the TV crew, was standing next to me, shooting from a crouch as the men washed and rinsed the pig's upper body. Suddenly and without warning, one of the men stepped around and, with the beast's nether regions regrettably all too apparent, plunged his bare hand up to the elbow in the pig's rectum, then removed it, holding a fistful of steaming pig shit- which he flung, unceremoniously, to the ground with a loud splat before repeating the process.
-Anthony Bourdain,
A Cook's Tour
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- He hadn't gone a yard when BANG
With open jaws a lion sprang
And hungrily began to eat
The boy, beginning at his feet
Now just imagine how it feels
When first your toes and then your heels
And then by varying degrees
Your shins and ankles, calves and knees
Are slowly eaten bit by bit
No wonder Jim detested it.
excerpted from the poem
by
Hillaire Belloc
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- I wander thro' each charter'd street,
Near where the charter'd Thames does flow,
And mark in every face I meet
Marks of weakness, marks of woe.
In every cry of every Man,
In every Infant's cry of fear,
In every voice, in every ban,
The mind-forg'd manacles I hear.
How the Chimney-sweeper's cry
Every black'ning Church appalls;
And the hapless Soldier's sigh
Runs in blood down Palace walls.
But most thro' midnight streets I hear
How the youthful Harlot's curse
Blasts the new born Infant's tear,
And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse.
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- But to return to Francoise Secretain, it is a strange thing that Satan lay with her in the shape of a fowl. I am of opinion that she meant to say a gander instead of a fowl, for that is the form that Satan often takes, and therefore we have the proverb that Satan has feet like a goose. Yet it would be as easy for him to take the shape of a fowl as that of a gander. For we know that he has at different times assumed the shape of a dog for the same purpose, and we have two remarkable examples of this: one of a dog, said to be a demon, which used to lift up the robes of the nuns in a convent of the diocese of Cologne in order to abuse them; the other, of certain dogs found on the beds of nuns of a convent on Mount Hesse in Germany.
Henri Bouguet,
Discours des Sorciers,
1602
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- When Satan means to lie with a witch in the form of a man, he takes to himself the body of some man who has been hanged. But even if he has only a body formed from the air, there is still nothing to prevent him from intercourse with a witch; for in that case he makes the body of air so dense that it is palpable (for air is, of itself, palpable) and consequently capable of coition with, and even defloration of a woman. And why should not this be easy for him, seeing that he is powerful enough to overthrow a town or a city or a kingdom? And as for his semen, he has but too plentiful a supply, even were there no other sources of it, in that which he receives when he acts as a succubus.
Henri Bouguet,
Discours des Sorciers,
1602
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- The ugliness and deformity lies in the fact that Satan couples with witches sometimes in the form of a black man, sometimes in that of some animal, as a dog or a cat or a ram. With Thievenne Paget and Antoine Tornier he lay in the form of a black man; and when he coupled with Jacquema Paget and Antoine Gandillon he took the shape of a black ram with horns; Francoise Secretain confessed that her demon appeared sometimes as a dog, sometimes as a cat and sometimes as a fowl when he wished to have carnal intercourse with her. For all these reasons I am convinced that there is a real and actual copulation between a witch and a demon; for what is there to prevent the Devil, when he has taken the form of an animal, from coition with a witch? In Toulouse and Paris women have been known to make sexual abuse of a natural dog; and it seems to me quite to the point to refer here to the legends of Pasiphae and other such women.
Henri Bouguet,
Discours des Sorciers,
1602
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- But since here are some who maintain that the coupling of which we have just spoken exists in imagination only, it will be well to say something here on this subject. For some treat the matter with derision, some are doubtful about it, and others firmly believe it to be a fact. St Augustine appears to be among these last, as also St Thomas Aquinas and several other later learned authorities. But the witches’ confessions which I have had make me think that here is truth in this matter; for they have all admitted that they have coupled with the Devil, and that his semen was very cold; and this is confirmed by the reports of Paul Grilland and the Inquisitors of the Faith. Jacquema Paget added that she had several times taken in her hand the member of the Demon which lay with her, and that it was as cold as ice and a good finger’s length, but not so thick as that of a man. Thievenne Paget and Antoine Tornier also added that the members of their demons were as long and big as one of their fingers; and Thievenne Paget said, moreover, that when Satan coupled with her she had as much pain as a woman in travail. Francoise Secretain said that, whilst she was in the act, she felt something burning in her stomach; and nearly all witches affirm that this coupling is by no means pleasurable to them, both because of Satan’s ugliness and deformity, and because of the physical pain which it causes them, as we have just said.
Henri Bouguet,
Discours des Sorciers,
1602
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