Vulgar words in Venetian Life (Page 1)

This book at a glance

ass x 2
buffoon x 1
make love x 3
            

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~   ~   ~   Sentence 349   ~   ~   ~

_Fra Marco e Todaro_, is a Venetian proverb expressing the state of perplexity which we indicate by the figure of an ass between two bundles of hay.]

~   ~   ~   Sentence 442   ~   ~   ~

For hours this idle maiden balanced herself half over the balcony-rail in perusal of the people under her, and I suspect made love at that distance, and in that constrained position, to some one in the crowd.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 545   ~   ~   ~

They embrace, however, a wide range of subjects, from lofty melodrama to broad farce, as you may see by looking at the advertisements in the Venetian Gazettes for any week past, where perhaps you shall find the plays performed to have been: The Ninety-nine Misfortunes of Facanapa; Arlecchino, the Sleeping King; Facanapa as Soldier in Catalonia; The Capture of Smyrna, with Facanapa and Arlecchino Slaves in Smyrna (this play being repeated several nights); and, Arlecchino and Facanapa Hunting an Ass.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 702   ~   ~   ~

A building which has a lady and gentleman painted in fresco, and making love from balcony to balcony, on the façade, as well as Arlecchino depicted in the act of leaping from the second to the third story, promises something.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 931   ~   ~   ~

Or Venice lures you in a gondola into one of her remote canals, where you glide through an avenue as secret and as still as if sea-deep under our work-day world; where the grim heads carven over the water-gates of the palaces stare at you in austere surprise, where the innumerable balconies are full of the Absences of gay cavaliers and gentle dames, gossiping and making love to one another, from their airy perches.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 1,874   ~   ~   ~

In that rude day, neither the life nor the property of the merchant who visited the ultramontane countries was safe; for the sorry device which he practiced, of taking with him a train of apes, buffoons, dancers, and singers, in order to divert his ferocious patrons from robbery and murder, was not always successful.

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