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Literary and Poetic References to Crimes of Passion

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Praefectus Praetorio

R.I.P. Brother of the Quill
I hope this thread warrants attention and contribution by many. I have been struck by the many times in fine literature and poetry that crimes of passion are addressed. It is not just dime novels and BDSM porno.
 
The man had killed the thing he loved
And so he had to die.

Yet each man kills the thing he loves
By each let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword!

Some kill their love when they are young,
And some when they are old;
Some strangle with the hands of Lust,
Some with the hands of Gold:
The kindest use a knife, because
The dead so soon grow cold.

Some love too little, some too long,
Some sell, and others buy;
Some do the deed with many tears,
And some without a sigh:
For each man kills the thing he loves,
- Oscar Wilde
 
I'll have to scratch my head over this one awhile. One scene that immediately comes to mind though was from the book "The Young Lions." by Irwin Shaw. As I recall, and it's been many years, it involves the stories of three soldiers, one German, two American, in WWII. In the scene I'm thinking of, one of the minor female characters is being dragged off to be raped by a German soldier. Don't remember if it's the main German character or not attempting the assault, or if he rescues the young woman (?) The woman cries out in fear and despair as she realizes the soldiers intentions, pleading for help. Her neighbor opens his door. The neighbor sees the German soldier, smiles, and closes the door. I'll have to check the book out and revisit that scene.
 
OTHELLO
It is the cause, it is the cause, my soul.
Let me not name it to you, you chaste stars,
It is the cause.

But once put out thy light,
Thou cunning’st pattern of excelling nature,
I know not where is that Promethean heat
That can thy light relume. When I have plucked thy rose
I cannot give it vital growth again,
It must needs wither. I’ll smell thee on the tree.

Be thus when thou art dead and I will kill thee
And love thee after.

DESDEMONA
That death’s unnatural that kills for loving.
Alas, why gnaw you so your nether lip?
Some bloody passion shakes your very frame.

OTHELLO
Down, strumpet!

DESDEMONA
Kill me tomorrow—let me live tonight!

OTHELLO
It is too late. (he smothers her)
 
OTHELLO
It is the cause, it is the cause, my soul.
Let me not name it to you, you chaste stars,
It is the cause.

But once put out thy light,
Thou cunning’st pattern of excelling nature,
I know not where is that Promethean heat
That can thy light relume. When I have plucked thy rose
I cannot give it vital growth again,
It must needs wither. I’ll smell thee on the tree.

Be thus when thou art dead and I will kill thee
And love thee after.

DESDEMONA
That death’s unnatural that kills for loving.
Alas, why gnaw you so your nether lip?
Some bloody passion shakes your very frame.

OTHELLO
Down, strumpet!

DESDEMONA
Kill me tomorrow—let me live tonight!

OTHELLO
It is too late. (he smothers her)
And somewhere close by, Iago is getting very hard.
 
Tess of the d’Urbervilles, A Pure Woman
Author: Thomas Hardy
End - Phase the First: The Maiden
D’Urberville stooped; and heard a gentle regular breathing. He knelt and bent lower, till her breath warmed his face, and in a moment his cheek was in contact with hers. She was sleeping soundly, and upon her eyelashes there lingered tears...
But, might some say, where was Tess’s guardian angel? where was the providence of her simple faith? Perhaps, like that other god of whom the ironical Tishbite spoke, he was talking, or he was pursuing, or he was in a journey, or he was sleeping and not to be awaked…
Why it was that upon this beautiful feminine tissue, sensitive as gossamer, and practically blank as snow as yet, there should have been traced such a coarse pattern as it was doomed to receive…
One may, indeed, admit the possibility of a retribution lurking in the present catastrophe. Doubtless some of Tess d’Urberville’s mailed ancestors rollicking home from a fray had dealt the same measure even more ruthlessly towards peasant girls of their time. But though to visit the sins of the fathers upon the children may be a morality good enough for divinities, it is scorned by average human nature; and it therefore does not mend the matter.
Begin - Phase the Second: Maiden No More
 
Framkie and Johnny were sweethearts
Lordy how they did love
They swore to be true to each other
As true as the stars above
He was her man
He wouldn't do her wrong
Franke went down to the corner
Just t get a bucket of beer
She said "Mr. Bartender
Has my lovin' Johnny been here?
He's my man, he wouldn't do me wrong"
I ain't gonna tell you no story
I ain't gonna tell you no lie
Johnny left here 'bout an hour ago
With a gal named Nellie Bly
If he's your man, he's doin' you wrong
Frankie looked over the transom
And much to her surprise
There on a cot sat Johnny
Making love to Nellie Bly
She said "He's my man
But he's doin' me wrong"
Roll out your rubber tired buggy
Roll out your rubber tired hack
She's taking her man to the graveyard
But she ain't gonna bring him back
She shot her man
Because he was doin' her wrong
This story has no moral
This story has no end
This story goes to show
That you can't put your trust in men
She shot her man
Because he was doin' her wrong
 
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A last one for the night. A favorite of mine for over 55 years

Gaius Valerius Catullus was a young Latin poet who was born in Verona between 87-84 BC and died in Rome between 57-54 B.C, when he was 30 years old. Often the extraordinary and divine skill of poetry is followed by a young and premature death.
He fell in love, with a pretty and licentious and married lady of Roman society, Clodia, called Lesbia in his poems. Their relationship was a long succession of agreements and disagreements that embittered the young poet. Of this relationship he wrote one of the greatest love (?) poems of all time:
Carmen 85 –
Odi et amo. Quare id faciam, fortasse requiris.
Nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior.

I hate and I love. Perchance you ask, why I do this?
I do not know, but I sense that it happens and I live in torture.


[For those with interests in the sound of poetry, Latin poetry elides - that is blends together the vowel ending a word with the vowel starting the next word. So read aloud, the Latin would sound like:
Odet Amo. Quarid faciam, fortasse requiris
Nescio, sed fieri sentiet excrucior
]
 
I’m gonna rummage through my library and see what I find, but I’d be interested if some of the members could weigh in with Roman Empire era erotic poems, a lot of which survived thanks to Muslims and monks.
Here's a start. Again Catullus. Carmen 16.
A few may be aware of the Loeb Classics interlinears. They were definitive texts of the LAtin CLassics with interlinear translations. Generations of desperate school boy and girl Latin students used them to try to keep up.
The 1924 edition of Loeb omitted the first two lines of this poem in translation, but included the Latin. It then omitted lines 7-14 in both! It was considered too obscene. A full English translation wasn't published until the late Twentieth Century. But of course, diligent Latin scholars could read it for themselves and puzzle out the "bad" words.
Pēdīcābō ego vōs et irrumābō
Aurēlī pathice et cinaede Fūrī,
quī mē ex versiculīs meīs putāstīs
quod sunt molliculī, parum pudīcum.
Nam castum esse decet pium poētam
ipsum, versiculōs nihil necesse est
quī tum dēnique habent salem ac lepōrem
Sī sint molliculī ac parum pudīcī
et quod prūriat incitāre possint
nōn dīcō puerīs sed hīs pilōsīs
quī dūrōs nequeunt movēre lumbōs.
Vōs quod mīlia multa bāsiōrum
lēgistis male mē marem putātis?
Pēdīcābō ego vōs et irrumābō.


I shall supply a full translation later, to give the squeamish among you time to leave. Or perhaps Eulalia will. In the meantime here is the first line, which may or may not be the title.

"I shall fuck both of you up the ass and in the mouth"

The man had a way with hendecasyllabics, didn't he?
 
Here's a start. Again Catullus. Carmen 16.
A few may be aware of the Loeb Classics interlinears. They were definitive texts of the LAtin CLassics with interlinear translations. Generations of desperate school boy and girl Latin students used them to try to keep up.
The 1924 edition of Loeb omitted the first two lines of this poem in translation, but included the Latin. It then omitted lines 7-14 in both! It was considered too obscene. A full English translation wasn't published until the late Twentieth Century. But of course, diligent Latin scholars could read it for themselves and puzzle out the "bad" words.
Pēdīcābō ego vōs et irrumābō
Aurēlī pathice et cinaede Fūrī,
quī mē ex versiculīs meīs putāstīs
quod sunt molliculī, parum pudīcum.
Nam castum esse decet pium poētam
ipsum, versiculōs nihil necesse est
quī tum dēnique habent salem ac lepōrem
Sī sint molliculī ac parum pudīcī
et quod prūriat incitāre possint
nōn dīcō puerīs sed hīs pilōsīs
quī dūrōs nequeunt movēre lumbōs.
Vōs quod mīlia multa bāsiōrum
lēgistis male mē marem putātis?
Pēdīcābō ego vōs et irrumābō.


I shall supply a full translation later, to give the squeamish among you time to leave. Or perhaps Eulalia will. In the meantime here is the first line, which may or may not be the title.

"I shall fuck both of you up the ass and in the mouth"

The man had a way with hendecasyllabics, didn't he?
Pedicare, transitive verb, meaning, literally, to place the penis in the anus.
Irrumare, transitive verb, to place the penis in the mouth for sucking. From ruma, meaning udder (see Barbara).
A more modern slang translation would be bugger and face fuck.
 
Here is a modern Prose Translation, slightly modified by me, by Micaela Wakil Janan:
Fuck you, boys, up the butt and in the mouth, you cock-sucker Aurelius and you buggered Furius! You size me up, on the basis of my poems, because they're a little sexy, as not really decent. A poet has to live clean – but not his poems. They only have spice and charm, if somewhat sexy and really not for children – if, in fact, they cause a hard erection (I'm not talking in teenagers, but in hairy old men who can barely move their stiff bums). But you, because you happen to read about "many thousands of kisses," you think I'm not a man? Fuck you, boys, up the butt and in the mouth!
 
Here is a modern Prose Translation, slightly modified by me, by Micaela Wakil Janan:
Fuck you, boys, up the butt and in the mouth, you cock-sucker Aurelius and you buggered Furius! You size me up, on the basis of my poems, because they're a little sexy, as not really decent. A poet has to live clean – but not his poems. They only have spice and charm, if somewhat sexy and really not for children – if, in fact, they cause a hard erection (I'm not talking in teenagers, but in hairy old men who can barely move their stiff bums). But you, because you happen to read about "many thousands of kisses," you think I'm not a man? Fuck you, boys, up the butt and in the mouth!
A bit different from the little I remember of the schoolboy Latin of 70 years ago.
 
Our national bard produced a whole collection of spicy alternatives to his couthy parlour songs,
in The Merry Muses of Caledonia - his love may have been a red, red rose,
but she was a hardy specimen with a fine bush! Just one sample for tonight:

Gie the Lass Her Fairin
O gie the lass her fairin lad,
O gie the lass her fairin,
An something else she’ll gie to you,
That’s waly worth the wearin;

Syne cowp her ower amang the creels,
When ye hae taen your brandy
The mair she bangs the less she squeels,
An hey for houghmagandie.

Then gie the lass a fairin, lad,
O gie the lass her fairin,
An she’ll gie you a hairy thing,
An o it be na sparin;

But cowp her ower amang the creels,
An bar the door wi baith your heels,
The mair she bangs the less she squeels,
An hey for houghmagandie
 
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