nothing new in the kingdom/planet of the flattering apes.....

SYCOPHANTS

When I watch these Lords, with authority

Seeing themselves commanding at their rank,

With a daring brow, walk flank by flank,

It seem I see a small pinch of divinity.

But seeing them turn pale when His Holiness

Spit in a basin, and from their white face

Carefully spy if there's blood,

Then with a little laugh they feign that all’s safe.

O how I say then, the greatness I see

Is made miserable by the cost of a king’s greatness!

Unhappy is who spends cash to buy the largess!

Truly the murderous sword and the heavy rock fear

Hang above the head of these Lords here,

Since on an old spew depends all their happiness.

MONKEYS

Lord, I can't look favourably in good faith

These old court monkeys, who can’t do anything

But in ridiculous walk, as counterfeit Princes

Will dress, in pompous attire, like quinces.

If their master mocks, they will do the same,

If he lies, they are not the ones to say otherwise,

Rather will they see, in order to please him,

The moon at noon, at midnight the sunlight.

If someone ahead of them gets a compliment,

They will add to it, though they die from rage

If the other gets a reprimand, they second it.

But what's more against them to annoy me,

It is before the King, with a hypocritical face,

These baboons laugh, and they don't know pea.

JOACHIM DU BELLAY

Written in in 1555, published 1558

TRANSLATION AND ADAPTATION BY JULES LETAMBOUR.

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By Gus Leonisky at 17 Jul 2023 - 8:17am
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burlesque poetry....

Du Bellay was a French satirist/poet who had spent time in Italy and learnt the art of the burlesque poetry....

Il Burchiello and Burchiellesque Verse in the Fifteenth Century

In the first half of the fifteenth century the attention of Italian intellectuals turned to humanistic pursuits. While the indefatigable Poggio Bracciolini busied himself in searching out classical manuscripts, the study of antiquity gave a renewed, classical impulse to learning and literature. Petrarchism was in full swing among the hoards of for the most part mediocre and conventional versifiers who were currently making a business of poetry. Concomitant with this stagnation in "serious" verse, however, was a significant development in the popular and semipopular poetry (càntari, serventesi, frottole, strambotti, etc.) that rang out throughout Tuscan streets in the late Trecento. Sapegno has described this movement as a gradual merging with learned literature, to which the popular vein contributes ideas, images, and linguistic coloring and rhythms. As popular poetry was integrated into the written medium, it lost its original directness and emotional clarity to become a delightful and conscious game.

The first attempts at this integration and subsequent "literaturization" of popular verse are appreciated in the poems of Franco Sacchetti. The true leader of this movement, however, was Domenico di Giovanni (1404–1448), known as "il Burchiello" (little bark). Burchiello was a Florentine barber whose shop on the Via Calimala became a meeting place for the city's wits and literati during the 1420s and 1430s. This barber poet was esteemed by other poets and patrons alike, so much so that he spawned a group of young followers known as "burchielleschi." Bernardo Bellincioni, Matteo Franco, and Antonio Alamanni are among the better known. These poets took up his themes and style shortly after Burchiello's death.[37] Proof of his popularity among more exalted circles was the fact that the great Maecenas Lorenzo de' Medici kept a book of Burchiello's verse in his bedroom.[38]

Burchiello wrote many different types of poetry: serventesi, a kind of parody of lofty narrative poems built around fanciful situations; typically burlesque misogynous and socially critical poems; bitter personal invective as in his tensons with Roselli; autobiographical sonnets lamenting the inequities and hardships of his life; and a group of prison poems wherein a tone of rising above the elements underlies his protestations against slow starvation in a lice-ridden cell. The majority of his poems are tailed sonnets.

"Cimici, e pulci, con molti pidocchi" (Appendix 12) is representative of his "autobiographical" poems, and brings to mind Cecco Angiolieri's bitter sonnets in the same vein. This poem shares a similar tone of self-mockery and comic exaggeration. It finds the author in an impossibly wretched inn, enumerating the miseries of a night spent among insects, mice, a snoring sheep, and two other unfortunate souls. Burchiello seems to mock himself for somehow allowing himself to get into such a situation. He does not vent his anger by decrying external causes (as Cecco would), but instead, apparently resigned to his fate, he tries simply to get on with life. He even attempts to maintain a modicum of dignity by protesting to the innkeeper. But the futility of the gesture only makes us laugh at his ill-timed and ill-placed indignation.

https://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft4870069m;query=art;brand=ucpress

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By Gus Leonisky at 17 Jul 2023 - 8:36am
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he did not fall asleep....

ACCORDING TO SOME COMMENTATORS (INCLUDING OUR ESTEEMED GEORGE GALLOWAY) JOE BIDEN DID FALL ASLEEP DURING THE VISIT OF PRESIDENT HERZOG OF ISRAEL... HE DID NOT... BUT HE RAMBLED ON AND ON ABOUT NONSENSICAL CRAP WITH A DIMINISHING THIN VOICE, READING FROM PENTAGONIC NOTES, PROBABLY WISHING THE ISRAELI PRESIDENT WOULD LEAVE, SO HE COULD HAVE HIS AFTERNOON NAP... FOR US, REALISTS OF THE NICE WORLD, IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN PREFERABLE HAD THE AMERICAN PRESIDENT SNORED AWAY....

A keyword search on YouTube led us to the official YouTube channel of CBS News, where we found the longer version of the viral video titled “President Biden meets with Israeli President Isaac Herzog”, shared on July 19, 2023. In it, we observed that while talking to his Israeli counterpart, Biden placed a note on his lap. Later he read from that note with his head down.

At the 1-minute-18-second mark, we found the viral clip. The US President could be seen and heard reading the note. He said, "We opened up Air Space for Israel over Saudi Arabia and Oman after I had a little visit there and we brought Israelis and Palestinians together at a political level. Prime Minister Netanyahu yesterday." After that, Biden looked up from the notes and spoke with Herzog again.

https://www.indiatoday.in/fact-check/story/us-president-biden-didnt-fall-asleep-meeting-israeli-president-clipped-video-goes-viral-2408956-2023-07-19

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enough is enough — bring him home......