MAN IN THE MIDDLE: behold and almost but do not quite touch my swords
promise me you’ll never quite touch them
MEN ON THE LEFT: oh god hold me, these swords are incredible
WOMEN WEEPING IN THE CORNER: oh god we’ll never have swords this nice
MAN IN THE MIDDLE: no
you never will
But can we all agree that swords, both these and in those presented in other works of art, are almost always phallic symbols?
If that’s the case, according to Freud, may he rot in hell, and his theory of multiple symbols meaning a fear of the symbol’s absence or lack, per Das Medusenhaupt, all those swords really represent David’s fear of castration by the weeping corner-women.
I should have clarified in my original comment, could we all agree that “it’s hilarious to imagine” that swords…blah blah blah phallic?
And holding three at a time is pretty advanced.
Does Freud have anything to say on the noble art of sword-swallowing?
Oh I mean they’re definitely phallic symbols, as is the MASSIVE ERECT SPEAR.
Freud has a lot to say about a lot of things but it’s all garbage hogwash twaddle. His MORE SNAKES=MORE DICKS=CASTRATION bit is especially hogwashy. One imagines he’d find sword-swallowing somehow relating to your mum.
Sword-swallowing = devouring one’s father and remaining unscathed, thereby defeating the hated father figure.
Alternately, by internalizing the phallus, one takes its masculine energies into oneself, thereby getting a substitute phallus, if one is a woman, or displaying dominance over one’s rivals, if one is a man.
TA-DA!
Oh, are they weeping? I thought they were all swooning of boredom because they were required to be present at the not-sword-touching.
Now my mind went in a different direction partway through, because there’s the men’s adoration of the phallic weapon, and the women in the back going oh GOD, ENOUGH OF THIS ALREADY, WE ARE SO BORED.
Alternatively: FOR FUCK’S SAKE THERE THEY GO CONSECRATING THEMSELVES TO WAR AGAIN. THIS NEVER TURNS OUT WELL. NO ONE’S GOING TO BE AROUND TO PLOW THE FIELDS OR BRING IN THE HARVEST.
“PLOW THE FIELDS”. WINK.
Can I get a shoutout to The Latin Sexual Vocabulary, the most descriptively titled academic tome ever?
DOWNLOADING THE FULL-TEXT PDF NOW. God, I love the humanities. The more advanced the study, the smuttier it gets. #librarianforlife
Oh. Oh dear. It has a smug little duck on the cover. I know too much about duck anatomy to see this as a good sign.
“Oh Christ, they’re getting all excited about honor and glory and whatever again. I hate when this happens.”
Actual transcript of the Oath of the Horatii:
“I swear by my molten silicon nodules that I will refrain from engulfing and dissolving the flesh of Federation colonists, or of any carbon-based life form, except in defense of myself or my hermaphroditic offspring.”
Those gladiator sandals and wide leather belts are really solid summer looks.
the Horatii, with calves of steel
gave their sacred word
to slay the Curiatii
and carve them up like veal
“Raise your hands”, their father cried
while holding up their blades
“promise me you’ll never run,”
“We won’t,” they did confide.
Alba Longa hated Rome
as Rome did Alba Longa
it was a stupid argument
not worthy of this poem
So with mighty muscled calves
the Horatii did swear
while their wives and mothers wept
to do nothing by halves
And so meeting the Curiatii
they fought, and died, and won
and buried there husbands and sons
and everyone weeping bye-bye.
We honor now those Horatii
and their lower legs
who so daft among us now
would play their dad’s fall guy?
Macaulay! You’re alive! And you’ve got better at poetry!
Oh, I do love a bad poem.
I don’t know. I think those women in the corner are practicing the no-pillow partner-nap.
That guy with the spear is impressively double-jointed. That’s not an easy move and it often squicks out the viewers.
This could also be the three of swords in a deck of Tarot cards consisting of images from classic works of art.
Sword guy really looks like Charlton Heston as Moses.
And behind the not-sword-touching:
No, kids, you have to stay awake to tell us when they’re done. Or sufficiently caught up in their penis glorification. Or distracted and we can leave.
'dicking around' lulzzzzz
” Oh, at least when they are showing off swords to each other, they are not explaining them to us” – weeping corner ladies.
I read the first line as ‘almost but don’t quite touch my shorts’ and I was looking closely for the handsy Horatius…
This is clearly the first evidence of jazz hands predating even jazz itself. We can learn so much from art.
DOWNLOADING THE FULL-TEXT PDF NOW. God, I love the humanities. The more advanced the study, the smuttier it gets. #librarianforlife
Oh. Oh dear. It has a smug little duck on the cover. I know too much about duck anatomy to see this as a good sign. <img src="http://cv01.twirpx.net/1084/1084249.jpg" width="200">