Contreblason du Tetin (1535) (Eng: Blazon of the Ugly Tit) is a poem by Clément Marot on ugly female breasts. Here in a translation by Helene Marmoux [1]. Clément Marot (1496–1544), was a French poet of the Renaissance period, for his poems on body parts, known as blasons and contreblasons. The ugly woman is a surprisingly common figure in Renaissance poetry, one that has been frequently appropriated by male poetic imagination to depict moral, aesthetic, social, and racial boundaries. The subject has been treated in dept by Patrizia Bettella in The Ugly Woman: Transgressive Aesthetic Models in Italian Poetry from the Middle Ages to the Baroque ( 2005).
Tit, skinny tit,
flat tit that looks like a flag,
big tit, long tit,
tit, must I call thee bag?
Tit with its ugly black end,
forever moving tit.
Who would boast having touched you?
With their hand fondle you? more…
Tip of the hat to On Ugliness
ick. I really can’t think of anything to say about this
I understand.
Let me give you the blason on the beautiful breast:
Tetin refaict, plus blanc qu’un oeuf,
Tetin de satin blanc tout neuf,
Tetin qui fait honte à la rose,
Tetin plus beau que nulle chose ;
Tétin dur, non pas tétin voire
Mais petite boule d’ivoire
Plump breast, whiter than an egg
Breast of brand new white satin
Breast that puts the rose to shame
Breat more beautiful than anything
Firm breast, not a breast but,
A little round ball of ivory
A lot of the charm of these poems is lost in translation, of course.
Jan
that’s much more palatable to the nurse 🙂
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