Theophrastus, Characters: Bad Taste
“Bad taste, to give a simple definition, is a kind of action which causes grief but not harm. A person with bad taste is the kind…
Who barges in and wakes someone who is sleeping just to chat;
Or who slows people down when they are about to leave;
Or he demands someone waits before they take a walk
Or, when he takes a baby from his nurse, chews his food himself, coos and makes baby-sounds, saying, “you’re more wicked than your father”
Or, while he eats, relates that he’s all cleaned out inside because he drank some hellebore and that his bile was darker than the food on their plates.
Or he is likely to ask in front of the whole household, “Tell me, momma, what day was it when you went into labor and had me?
Or, he talks about how sweet she is and complains that it is not easy to find someone to have both of them.
Or, he has a cold water cistern in his home and a garden with many vegetables, and he has a cook who prepares dishes and his house is like a hotel, since it is always full and his friends are like a vase full of holes since he is never able to fill them even trying hard.
When he is entertaining he demonstrates to his guest what kind of a person his toady is. Over drinks he challenges him by saying, “The pleasure has been prepared for the guests” and then, when they ask, “The servant will go and get her now from the pimp so she can play the flute until we’re happy.”
(1) ἔστι δὲ ἡ ἀηδία, ὡς ὅρῳ περιλαβεῖν, ἔντευξις λύπης ποιητικὴ ἄνευ βλάβης, ὁ δὲ ἀηδὴς τοιοῦτός τις,
(2) οἷος ἐγείρειν ἄρτι καθεύδοντα εἰσελθών, ἵνα αὐτῷ λαλῇ.
(3) καὶ ἀνάγεσθαι δὴ μέλλοντας κωλύειν,
(4) καὶ προσελθὼν δεῖσθαι ἐπισχεῖν, ἕως ἂν περιπατήσῃ.
(5) καὶ τὸ παιδίον τῆς τίτθης ἀφελόμενος, μασώμενος σιτίζειν αὐτὸς καὶ ὑποκορίζεσθαι ποππύζων καὶ πανουργότερον τοῦ πάππου καλῶν.
(6) καὶ ἐσθίων δὲ ἅμα διηγεῖσθαι ὡς ἐλλέβορον πιὼν ἄνω καὶ κάτω καθαρθείη καὶ ζωμοῦ τοῦ παρακειμένου ἐν τοῖς ὑποχωρήμασιν αὑτῷ μελαντέρα <εἴη> ἡ χολή.
(7) καὶ ἐρωτῆσαι δὲ δεινὸς ἐναντίον τῶν οἰκείων· “εἴπ᾿, ὦ μάμμη, ὅτ᾿ ὤδινες καὶ ἔτικτές με, τίς ἡμέρα;”
(8) †καὶ ὑπὲρ αὐτῆς δὲ λέγειν ὡς ἡδύ ἐστι, καὶ ἀμφότερα δὲ οὐκ ἔχοντα οὐ ῥᾴδιον ἄνθρωπον λαβεῖν,†
(9) καὶ ὅτι ψυχρὸν ὕδωρ ἐστὶ παρ᾿ αὐτῷ λακκαῖον, καὶ ὡς κῆπος λάχανα πολλὰ ἔχων καὶ ἁπαλὰ [ὥστε εἶναι ψυχρὸν] καὶ μάγειρος εὖ τὸ ὄψον σκευάζων, καὶ ὅτι ἡ οἰκία αὐτοῦ πανδοκεῖόν ἐστι· μεστὴ γὰρ ἀεί· καὶ τοὺς φίλους αὐτοῦ εἶναι τὸν τετρημένον πίθον· εὖ ποιῶν γὰρ αὐτοὺς οὐ δύνασθαι ἐμπλῆσαι.
(10) καὶ ξενίζων δὲ δεῖξαι τὸν παράσιτον αὑτοῦ ποῖός τίς ἐστι τῷ συνδειπνοῦντι· καὶ παρακαλῶν δὲ ἐπὶ τοῦ ποτηρίου εἰπεῖν, ὅτι “τὸ τέρψον τοὺς παρόντας παρεσκεύασται,” καὶ ὅτι “αὐτήν,” ἐὰν κελεύσωσιν, “ὁ παῖς μέτεισι παρὰ τοῦ πορνοβοσκοῦ ἤδη, ὅπως πάντες ὑπ᾿ αὐτῆς αὐλώμεθα καὶ εὐφραινώμεθα.”
Bad taste? Some of these are beyond bad taste. What functioning adult says “Oh wow! My shit was darker than that!” at the table? Why would that even be on your mind?
Theophrastus has some interesting opinions on character, for sure!
You haven’t lived sir.
Or madame, either way.
I’m reminded of a poem by Aleister Crowley that he wrote about his then partner Leah Hirsig titled “Leah Sublime”
“Leah Sublime,
Goddess above me!
Snake of the slime
Alostrael, love me!
Our master, the devil
Prospers the revel.
Tread with your foot
My heart til it hurt!
Tread on it, put
The smear of your dirt
On my love, on my shame
Scribble your name!
Straddle your Beast
My Masterful Bitch
With the thighs of you greased
With the Sweat of your Itch!
Spit on me, scarlet
Mouth of my harlot!
Now from your wide
Raw cunt, the abyss,
Spend spouting the tide
Of your sizzling piss
In my mouth; oh my Whore
Let it pour, let it pour!
You stale like a mare
And fart as you stale;
Through straggled wet hair
You spout like a whale.
Splash the manure
And piss from the sewer.
Down to me quick
With your tooth on my lip
And your hand on my prick
With feverish grip
My life as it drinks—
How your breath stinks!
Your hand, oh unclean
Your hand that has wasted
Your love, in obscene
Black masses, that tasted
Your soul, it’s your hand!
Feel my prick stand!
Your life times from lewd
Little girl, to mature
Worn whore that has chewed
Your own pile of manure.
Your hand was the key to—
And now your frig me, too!
Rub all the much
Of your cunt on me, Leah
Cunt, let me suck
All your glued gonorrhea!
Cunt without end!
Amen! til you spend!
Cunt! you have harboured
All dirt and disease
In your slimy unbarbered
Loose hole, with its cheese
And its monthlies, and pox
You chewer of cocks!
Cunt, you have sucked
Up pricks, you squirted
Out foetuses, fucked
Til bastards you blurted
Out into space—
Spend on my face!
Rub all your gleet away!
Envenom the arrow.
May your pox eat away
Me to the marrow.
Cunt you have got me;
I love you to rot me!
Spend again, lash me!
Leah, one spasm
Scream to splash me.
Slime of the chasm
Choke me with spilth
Of your sow-belly’s filth.
Stab your demoniac
Smile to my brain!
Soak me in cognac
Cunt and cocaine;
Sprawl on me! Sit
On my mouth, Leah, shit!
Shit on me, slut!
Creamy the curds
That drip from your gut!
Greasy the turds!
Dribble your dung
On the tip of my tongue!
Churn on me, Leah!
Twist on your thighs!
Smear diarrhoea
Into my eyes!
Splutter out shit
From the bottemless pit.
Turn to me, chew it
With me, Leah, whore!
Vomit it, spew it
And lick it once more.
We can make lust
Drunk on disgust.
Splay out your gut,
Your ass hole, my lover!
You buggering slut,
I know where to shove her!
There she goes, plumb
Up the foul Bitch’s bum!
Sackful of skin
And bone, as I speak
I’ll bugger your grin
Into a shriek.
Bugger you, slut
Bugger your gut!
Wriggle, you hog!
Wrench at the pin!
Wrench at it, drag
It half out, suck it in!
Scream, you hog dirt, you!
I want it to hurt you!…”