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Monty Python is the first thing that came to my mind when I saw the title. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_Python https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_Pytho
by 1cvmask 5y ago
Monty Python is the first thing that came to my mind when I saw the title.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_Python https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_Python
I also love the phrase gallows humor:
Robert-François Damiens, a French man who attempted to assassinate king Louis XV, was sentenced on March 26, 1757 to be executed in a gruesome and painstakingly detailed manner. He would first be led to the gallows, holding a torch with 2 lbs of burning wax. Pliers would then be used to tear his skin at the breast, arms and legs. Then his right arm, which held the knife he had used for his crime, would be burned with sulfur. The aforementioned areas with ripped skin would then be poured upon with molten lead, boiling oil, burning pitch, wax and sulfur. His body would then be dismembered by four horses, the members and trunk consumed in fire, and the ashes would be spread in the wind. After hearing the sentence, Damiens is reported to have replied: “Well, it's going to be a tough day.”
During the French Revolution, Georges-Jacques Danton, who had facial scars from smallpox, when he was about to be beheaded with a guillotine on April 5, 1794, is reported to have said to the executioner: “Don't forget to show my head to the people, it's well worth it!”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_comedy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_comedy
Edit: After reading the author references Monty Python
- smitty1e 5y agoSpeaking of gallows humor, via the Brothers Grimm. . . 'when they had walked a little farther to where they could see the gallows, the man said to him, "Look, there is the tree where seven men got married to the rope maker's daughter, and are now learning how to fly..."' https://sites.pitt.edu/~dash/grimm004.html https://sites.pitt.edu/~dash/grimm004.html Whether that idiom's origin is old enough to qualify as Dark Ages isn't known, but it's certainly Dark Humor. Bonus points for the sexual subtext of the noose.
- Archelaos 5y agoRemindes me of one of François Villon's prison poems from 1462 (in modern spelling): Je suis François, dont il me poise, Né de Paris emprès Pontoise, Et de la corde d'une toise Saura mon col que mon cul poise. For the various attempts to translate this into English see: "Getting the Hang of it" at https://www.loquence.com/eblog/?p=114 https://www.loquence.com/eblog/?p=114
- Eelongate 5y agoThis really puts the guillotine into context.
- kingcharles 5y agoDid they succeed in pulling him apart with horses? I thought the French government only tried this twice, once successfully and then a second time where the horses weren't strong enough and the guy just moaned and screamed and the public lost their taste for it after that.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]