A little more reading (Encyclopedia of Arabic Literature, Hispano-Arabic Literature and the Early Provençal Lyrics) suggests (possibly unjustly) that Wallada was famous not so much for her poetry as for being the caliph’s daughter and having poetry written about her by Ibn Zaydun. It’s a shame that in our enthusiasm to find ancient heroines inoffensive…
Where arse turns up regularly in jokes, proverbs and stories, bollocks–cojones–in CORDE’s version of sixteenth century Spain seem to be confined to medical treatises and to a verse novel of quite extraordinary and possibly unsurpassed filth. The anonymous Carajicomedia (1519) consists of the adventures of the noble Diego Fajardo’s one-eyed trouser snake, which is said…