And A Happy New Year To You, Too!

I found this a long time ago, when I was looking for something more in the holiday/New Year’s theme, and thought you all might find it entertaining. It was originally meant to be just that, and is particularly so nowadays, when people seem to have lost the Fine Art of the Insult. That’s a pity, because an elegant insult is memorable.  A sloppy one – meh. You just down another beer. As it is, I’m leaving it here so that when you find yourself in a confrontation with someone with a brain the size of a pea, who actually thinks that the Current Occupant in the Oval Office is cogent, you have a clear opportunity to provide elegant invective and insults as a response.  Also, I do recommend clicking on some of the links. They lead to specific information that you don’t find elsewhere.

You are free, of course, to insert and use your own invective. You may, in fact, find yourself spouting elegant and forcefully abrasive insults without batting an eye in the process.  The objective of invective is, and always has been, to leave your opponent flatfooted with his/her/its drink spilling onto the floor.  Think what might have happened during the last election if such elegant and absolutely appropriate language had been used instead of cheap shots.

Enjoy it, and find a way to use it and also, create your own version. Calling someone else’s prowess into question is always appropriate, especially if you can avoid terms like “butthead” and “dorkwad”, and still question your opponent’s claims of physical or mental superiority.

How the Cossacks Responded To The Turkish Sultan in 1676

Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks is a historical tableau, set in 1676, exploiting the legend of the reply that the Cossacks sent the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, Mehmed IV. The Cossacks of the Zaporozhian Host (from ‘beyond the rapids’, za porohamy), inhabiting the lands around the lower Dnieper River in Ukraine, had defeated Ottoman Turkish forces in battle. However, Mehmed demanded that the Cossacks submit to Turkish rule. The Cossacks, led by Ivan Sirko, replied in an uncharacteristic manner: they wrote a letter, replete with insults and profanities. The painting exhibits the Cossacks’ pleasure at striving to come up with ever more base vulgarities. During Repin’s time, the Cossacks enjoyed great popular sympathy. Repin also admired them: “All that Gogol wrote about them is true! A holy people! No one in the world held so deeply freedom, equality, and fraternity.”

Sultan Mahmud IV to the Zaporozhian Cossacks:

As the Sultan; son of Muhammad; brother of the sun and moon; grandson and viceroy of God; ruler of the kingdoms of Macedonia, Babylon, Jerusalem, Upper and Lower Egypt; emperor of emperors; sovereign of sovereigns; extraordinary knight, never defeated; steadfast guardian of the tomb of Jesus Christ; trustee chosen by God himself; the hope and comfort of Muslims; confounder and great defender of Christians — I command you, the Zaporozhian Cossacks, to submit to me voluntarily and without any resistance, and to desist from troubling me with your attacks.

–Turkish Sultan Mahmud IV

The reply was a stream of invective and vulgar rhymes, parodying the Sultan’s titles:

Version 1

Zaporozhian Cossacks to the Turkish Sultan!

O sultan, Turkish devil and damned devil’s kith and kin, secretary to Lucifer himself. What the devil kind of knight are you, that can’t slay a hedgehog with your naked ass? The devil excretes, and your army eats. You will not, you son of a bitch, make subjects of Christian sons; we’ve no fear of your army, by land and by sea we will battle with thee, fuck your mother.

You Babylonian scullion, Macedonian wheelwright, brewer of Jerusalem, goat-fucker of Alexandria, swineherd of Greater and Lesser Egypt, Armenian pig, Podolian thief, catamite of Tartary, hangman of Kamyanets, and fool of all the world and underworld, an idiot before God, grandson of the Serpent, and the crick in our dick. Pig’s snout, mare’s ass, slaughterhouse cur, unchristened brow, screw your own mother!

So the Zaporozhians declare, you lowlife. You won’t even be herding Christian pigs. Now we’ll conclude, for we don’t know the date and don’t own a calendar; the moon’s in the sky, the year with the Lord, the day’s the same over here as it is over there; for this kiss our ass!

Koshovyi Otaman Ivan Sirko, with the whole Zaporozhian Host.

Version 2

The Kozaks of the Dnieper to the Sultan of Turkey:

Thou Turkish Satan, brother and companion to the accursed Devil, and companion to Lucifer himself, Greetings!

What the hell kind of noble knight art thou? The Devil voids, and thy army devours. Never wilt thou be fit to have the sons of Christ under thee: thy army we fear not, and by land and on sea we will do battle against thee.

Thou scullion of Babylon, thou wheelwright of Macedonia, thou beer-brewer of Jerusalem, thou goat-flayer of Alexandria, thou swineherd of Egypt, both the Greater and the Lesser, thou sow of Armenia, thou goat of Tartary, thou hangman of Kamenetz, thou evildoer of Podoliansk, thou grandson of the Devil himself, thou great silly oaf of all the world and of the netherworld and, before our God, a blockhead, a swine’s snout, a mare’s ass, a butcher’s cur, an unbaptized brow, May the Devil take thee! That is what the Kozaks have to say to thee, thou basest-born of runts! Unfit art thou to lord it over true Christians!

The date we write not for no calendar have we got; the moon is in the sky, the year is in a book, and the day is the same with us here as with thee over there, and thou canst kiss us thou knowest where!

Koshovyi Otaman Ivan Sirko, with the whole Zaporozhian Host.

 

Category: "The Floggings Will Continue Until Morale Improves"