Love and scandal are the best sweeteners of tea. —Henry Fielding

25 August 2013

1509 in 2013

This exchange is from a 1572 English translation by George Gascoigne of a 1509 Italian comedy called I Suppositi by Lodovico Ariosto. I hear in the conversation a series of complaints that I believe I heard just a few days ago at the airport.

Philogano: ...But that was nothing to the stir that the searchers kept with me when I came aboard the ship. Jesus, how often they untrussed my mail [luggage], and ransacked a little capcase that I had, tossed and turned all that was within it, searched my bosom, yea my breeches, that I assure you I thought they would have flayed me to search between the fell [skin] and the flesh for farthings.

The Ferrarese: Sure, I have heard no less, and that the merchants bob [bribe] them sometimes, but they play the knaves still.

Philogano: Yea, be you well assured, for such an office is the inheritance of a knave, and an honest man will not meddle with it.

TSA is the absolute worst.

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