The upcoming issue of the Black Scat Review is devoted to “Lewd, Nude, and Rude.” I’m offering my translation of The Noble Apothecary, a 1664 novella by Jean Donneau de Visé. Donneau de Visé is remembered mostly for his polemics against Molière, but he also wrote plays, served as Louis XIV’s historian, and founded an influential literary magazine, Le Mercure galant. He also wrote L’Apoticaire de qualité, a bawdy tale of romance, jealousy, and enemas, which, as far as I know, has not been translated before. Here’s how it begins:

Since bloodletting and enemas contribute greatly to ladies’ health, and since ladies are convinced that such remedies lend brightness and freshness to their complexions, Araminte, although flawlessly beautiful, often used those innocent artifices, thinking thereby to preserve the charms of her lovely face.

One day when she was to receive an enema, her chambermaid informed her that it was ready, whereupon she lay on her bed, and assumed the best position for receiving the syringe that had been prepared for her, or rather, the remedy that she considered the preservative of all ladies’ complexions.

Araminte lying face down in this way, and unable to see what was happening in the room, awaited her enema with all the patience imaginable, having promised her beauty never to become angry, for fear of overheating, and thereby reddening her complexion, which she cherished above all earthly goods.

This beautiful woman was still waiting in that position, when her chambermaid remembered that she needed some linen, which obliged her to set the syringe on a chair, and to go look for what she required, in the room above.

Since she expected to be gone a short time, and thought she would find at once what she wanted, she left the door to her mistress’s room open. Timante, who often visited Araminte, arrived at that very moment, and finding the path clear, and being quite respectful, entered without a sound: but he had scarcely taken four steps into the room, when he saw her in the position I have just described. His surprise almost paralyzed him, and since he had entered without being heard, his respect for that incomparable ass prevented him from making a sound. He looked around to see if anyone were there, and after he had scrutinized every corner of the room, his growing amazement stopped him awhile from either advancing or retreating. But finally, seeing the syringe lying on a chair by the bed, he stepped forward, took it, and, noticing that it was full, decided to give Araminte her enema, which he did more ably than the most accomplished apothecary in Paris. […]