Pietro Aretino

Bad Gays

Huw Lemmey & Ben Miller

History

4.5 • 934 Ratings

🗓️ 8 October 2019

⏱️ 43 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

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! ----more---- 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.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hello and welcome to Season 2 episode 3 of Bad Gays, a podcast about evil and complicated gay men in history.
0:23.1	I'm Ben Miller, a writer-researcher and member of the board of the Gay Museum in Berlin.
0:27.2	And I'm Hugh Lemmy, a writer and author.
0:29.4	Last week, we profiled Andrew Cunan, the dark heart at the center of evil twink energy.
0:34.2	Who are we going to talk about this week, Hugh?
0:36.4	Well, before we start, I'd just like to read
0:38.7	a little poem. It's called The Secret Sin. There is, they say, a certain occult sin that dwells in
0:46.3	monasteries where one brother doth sometimes turn for comfort to another. Tis a peccadillo that
0:51.9	they revel in. Then pardon me if my excuse is thin.
0:55.6	My lance is not.
0:56.9	Indeed, there is no other.
0:59.5	Can cut so wide a sway than so can smother an enemy in carnage.
1:04.4	If you would win the day with me.
1:06.5	But I must not forget, do you order victor and the spoils are yours.
1:09.8	Do with me as you will, and with my sword, that gallant shaft which even now I wet. But what is this? You've stolen all
1:16.2	my stores. What matter? Drop compunction by the board. That's a poem by today's subject.
1:24.1	If you visit the Sistine Chaplain in the Vatican, you'll find, as well as the famous ceiling,
1:28.3	an enormous fresco painting of The Last Judgment, also painted by Michelangelo, between 1533 and 1541.
1:35.3	It's based around Dante's Inferno and features over 300 different figures.
1:40.3	Below the triumphant Christ returning to earth at his left foot kneels this muscular
1:45.4	aging man who's bald with a large beard which is St. Bartholomew. In his right hand he holds
1:51.9	a flensing knife, a curved knife used by whalers to remove blubber and in his left hand he
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Huw Lemmey & Ben Miller, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Huw Lemmey & Ben Miller and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.