A Sad Story
Jan. 17th, 2023 12:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poliphiloI'm reading Gargantua and Pantagruel in the first English translation by Urquhart and Motteux.
Urquhart translated the first three books. Motteux took up the work and completed it a generation later.
Thomas Urquhart was a Scottish squire. Everyone admires his work. The best story about him has him laughing himself to death on hearing the news of the restoration of Charles II.
Peter Anthony Motteux gets less love. Interesting man, though...
He was French- French huguenot; He came to London in his 20s not knowing the language and transformed himself into an English man of letters. He founded and edited The Gentleman's Magazine, wrote plays and quantities of verse. Pope thought he was a bore- but then Pope was a shit. His enduring work is the Rabelais translation and a version of Don Quixote. After a while he diversified and became an importer and retailer of luxury goods from the Orient.
He was a bit of a dandy. In the documents relating to his untimely death everyone remarks on his scarlet cloak.
The year was 1718. It was his birthday. He was 55. He left his wife and kids at home and went out on the spree...
Early in the evening he picked up a girl and took her with him to a chocolate house- where he left her in the coach- keeping her plied with drink- while he socialised indoors. As proof that he wasn't going to run out on her he left his scarlet cloak in her safe keeping. Then they went back to her place. A neighbour looking through the window saw them kissing. Scarlet cloak again. There were other people present because this was a boarding house-cum-bawdy house. He and she went upstairs...
Later that night a medical man was called in to attend to a gentlemen who had died unexpectedly. He found Motteux in bed, all pale and ghastly, with a black bruise circling his throat.
Five people were tried for murder. They all said it was natural causes. They were clearly telling lies but they would, wouldn't they?
Nevertheless they all got off.
It was no secret what had really happened.
Motteux's case is widely cited as the first recorded instance of a person dying from auto-erotic asphyxia.
Urquhart translated the first three books. Motteux took up the work and completed it a generation later.
Thomas Urquhart was a Scottish squire. Everyone admires his work. The best story about him has him laughing himself to death on hearing the news of the restoration of Charles II.
Peter Anthony Motteux gets less love. Interesting man, though...
He was French- French huguenot; He came to London in his 20s not knowing the language and transformed himself into an English man of letters. He founded and edited The Gentleman's Magazine, wrote plays and quantities of verse. Pope thought he was a bore- but then Pope was a shit. His enduring work is the Rabelais translation and a version of Don Quixote. After a while he diversified and became an importer and retailer of luxury goods from the Orient.
He was a bit of a dandy. In the documents relating to his untimely death everyone remarks on his scarlet cloak.
The year was 1718. It was his birthday. He was 55. He left his wife and kids at home and went out on the spree...
Early in the evening he picked up a girl and took her with him to a chocolate house- where he left her in the coach- keeping her plied with drink- while he socialised indoors. As proof that he wasn't going to run out on her he left his scarlet cloak in her safe keeping. Then they went back to her place. A neighbour looking through the window saw them kissing. Scarlet cloak again. There were other people present because this was a boarding house-cum-bawdy house. He and she went upstairs...
Later that night a medical man was called in to attend to a gentlemen who had died unexpectedly. He found Motteux in bed, all pale and ghastly, with a black bruise circling his throat.
Five people were tried for murder. They all said it was natural causes. They were clearly telling lies but they would, wouldn't they?
Nevertheless they all got off.
It was no secret what had really happened.
Motteux's case is widely cited as the first recorded instance of a person dying from auto-erotic asphyxia.
