Ancients, Primitives and Folk Curses

Come ’ere, you fucker.
This, the earliest recorded insult I have found, dates from around 2300 BC. It is from the tomb of Ti at Saqqara, Egypt. The hieroglyph (circled) is fairly self-explanatory. Academics have rendered the insult, which one fisherman is hurling at another, as ‘Come here, you copulator’.

Imanis metula es. [You’re a big prick.]
Pompeii graffiti

Your arsehole is filled with blue mud.
South-east Salish (North American Indian) insult

Commictae spurca saliva lupae. [The foul saliva of a pissed-over whore.]
Catullus, XCIX, 10, tr. Amy Richlin

Your blistered crotch!
Insult from the Marquesas Islands

Lahis felat a.II. [Lahis gives blow jobs for $2.]
Pompeii graffiti

Cosmus Equitiaes magnus cinaedus et fellator est suris apertis. [Equitias’ slave Cosmus is a big queer and a cocksucker with his legs wide open.]
Pompeii graffiti

I thought (so help me Gods!) it made no difference
Whether I smelt Aemilius’ mouth or arsehole,
One being no cleaner, the other no filthier.
But in fact the arsehole’s cleaner and kinder.
It has no teeth. The mouth has teeth half a yard long
And gums like an ancient wagon-chassis.
Moreover, when it opens up it’s like the cunt
Of a pissing mule gaping in a heat wave.
Catullus, XCVII, tr. Guy Lee

Zoile, quid solium subluto podice perdis? Spurcius ut fiat, Zoile, merge caput. [Zoilus, if you want to pollute the public bathing place, Don’t stick in your arse first, stick in your face.]
Martial, II.42, tr. Richard O’Connell

If you were as narrow-arsed as you are narrow-minded, or broad-minded as your anus is broad, you would be the most perfect of people walking the earth.
Di’bil, from the Arabic

Sabina felas, no belle faces. [Sabina, you give blow-jobs, you don’t do good.]
Pompeii graffiti. The original Latin, as in many of these examples from Pompeii, is misspelt. Amy Richlin has suggested this freestyle translation.

I am the Roman Emperor, and am above grammar.
Sigismund, when his Latin was criticized

When you rise up from a chair, Lesbia,
(I’ve seen it happen frequently)
You get butt-fucked by your skirt.
The damned thing catches in the narrow crack
Between those massive buns of yours,
Those ship-crunching pillars of Hercules.
You pull with your left hand, you pull with your right,
Wincing and grunting till it comes loose.
An unladylike faux pas, to say the least
Want a tip on etiquette, Lesbia?
Don’t get up, and don’t sit down.
Martial, XI.99, tr. Joseph Salemi

Their teeth, because of their foul food, are like the nails of a female circumciser whose knives are too blunt.
Hassan Ibn Thabit, a contemporary of Muhammad, on the Hawazin

Villainous and loathsome screamer! Your audacity
fills the whole earth, the whole Assembly,
all taxes, all indictments, all law-courts,
you mud-churner, you who have thrown
our whole city into chaos and confusion,
you who have defeated our Athens with your shouting,
watching like the tunny-fishers from the rocks above for shoals of tribute.
Aristophanes on the Athenian general Cleon, The Knights. The words are spoken by the chorus, tr. Alan H. Sommerstein.

The language of Aristophanes reeks of his miserable quackery: it is made up of the lowest and most miserable puns; he doesn’t even please the people, and to men of judgement and honour he is intolerable; his arrogance is insufferable, and all honest men detest his malice.
Plutarch on Aristophanes

His heart shall not be content in life, he shall receive no water in the necropolis and his soul shall be destroyed for eternity.
Egyptian curse, inscription aimed at ‘anyone who desecrates the tomb-chapel’

May you get fucked by a donkey! May your wife get fucked by a donkey! May your child fuck your wife!
Egyptian legal curse, c. 950 BC

Now in the morning as he returned into the city, he hungered. And when he saw a fig tree in the way, he came to it, and found nothing thereon, but leaves only, and said unto it, Let no fruit grow on thee henceforward for ever. And presently the fig tree withered away.
Jesus curses a fig tree, Matthew 21:18–19. (Note that figs were not in season.)

After this opened Job his mouth, and cursed his day. And Job spake, and said, Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night in which it was said, There is a man child conceived. Let that day be darkness; let not God regard it from above, neither let the light shine upon it; … let the blackness of the day terrify it. As for that night, let darkness seize upon it; let it not be joined unto the days of the year, let it not come into the number of months. Lo, let that night be solitary, let no joyful voice come therein. Let them curse it that curse the day, who are ready to raise up their mourning. Let the stars of the twilight thereof be dark; let it look for light, but have none; neither let it see the dawning of the day: Because it shut not up the doors of my mother’s womb, nor hid sorrow from mine eyes. Why died I not from the womb? Why did I not give up the ghost when I came out of the belly? Why did the knees prevent me? Or why the breasts that I should suck? … Wherefore is light given to him that is in misery, and life unto the bitter in soul; Which long for death, but it cometh not; and dig for it more than for hid treasures; Which rejoice exceedingly, and are glad, when they can find the grave?
Job cursing the day he was born, Job 3: 1–22

Cursed shalt thou be in the city, and cursed shalt thou be in the field. Cursed shall be thy basket and thy store. Cursed shall be the fruit of thy body, and the fruit of thy land, the increase of thy kine, and the flocks of thy sheep. Cursed shalt thou be when thou comest in, and cursed shalt thou be when thou goest out …
Moses’ curse in Deuteronomy 28: 16–19

May the earth refuse thee her fruits and the river his waters, may wind and breeze deny their breath. May the sun not be warm for thee, nor Phoebe bright, may the clear stars fail thy vision. May neither Vulcan nor the air lend thee their aid, nor earth nor sea afford thee any path. Mayst thou wander an exile and destitute, and haunt the doors of others, and beg a little food with trembling mouth. May neither thy body nor thy sick mind be free from querulous pain, may night be to thee more grievous than day, and day than night. Mayst thou ever be piteous, but have none to pity thee; may men and women rejoice at thy adversity. May hatred crown thy tears, and mayst thou be thought worthy, having borne many ills, to bear yet more. And (what is rare) may the aspect of thy fortune, though its wonted favour be lost, bring thee but ill-will. Mayst thou have cause enough for death, but no means of dying; may thy life be compelled to shun the death it prays for. May thy spirit struggle long ere it leave thy tortured limbs, and rack thee first with long delaying.
Ovid, Ibis, tr. J.H. Mozley

O pour out thy wrath upon the heathen who know thee not, and upon the kingdoms who invoke not thy name; for they have devoured Jacob and laid waste his beautiful dwelling. Pour out thy indignation upon them and cause thy fierce anger to overtake them. Pursue them in wrath and destroy them from under the heavens of the Lord.
Judaic curse ritually invoked at the Passover between the third and fourth cups of wine. The door to the outside must be opened for its pronouncement. Leo Abse, who referred the editor of this book to this curse, said he had been told that, at times of danger, isolation and persecution, the pronouncement of this curse upon their persecutors was a source of great comfort to Jews assembled for the Passover.

O Lord Neptune, I give you the man who has stolen the solidus and six argentioli of Muconius! Thus I give the names which took them away, whether male or female, whether boy or girl. Thus I give you, O Niskus, and to Neptune, the life, health and blood of him who has been privy to that taking-away! The mind that stole this and which has been privy to it, may you take it away! The thief who stole this, may you consume his blood and take it away, O Lord Neptune!
Curse tablet found in Hampshire. A solidus and argentioli were forms of currency.

Just as this lead cannot be seen and is buried, so may the youth, skin, life, ox, grain and wellbeing of the ones who have done me wrong be buried.
Curse found at the Gaullish hill-fort at Montfo

I turn away Eubola from Aineas.
From his face,
From his eyes,
From his mouth,
From his breasts,
From his soul,
From his belly,
From his penis,
From his anus,
From his entire body.
I turn away Eubola from Aineas.
Fourth-century BC Greek curse from Nemea, near Corinth

Whosoever breaks these oaths … may these oaths seize him … Let them fetter their feet with foot fetters below and bind their hands above. And as the gods of the oaths bound the hands and feet of the troops of Arzawa and piled them in heaps, so may they bind his army and pile them into heaps.
Hittite military oath, second millennium BC

This charm is to send a spirit against Mar Zutra son of Ukmay. In the name of Qaspiel the angel of death.

I have adjured you, Infarat, the evil spirit: Go against Mar Zutra son of Ukmay and dwell with him, in his body and his frame, of Mar Zutra son of Ukmay and inflate his bowels like a bow and mix within him blood and pus and sit like a bolt on his heart and like a load on his brain and kill him after thirty days.

Go against Mar Zutra the son of Ukmay and cast him in exhaustion upon his bed, and do not give him bread to eat and water to drink until he shouts and neighs noise and howls; until his children despise him and his neighbours distance themselves from him. And cast down his strength as fails that of a toiling ox and forty eight organs of his body and kill him with anger and wrath and great fury … Howl, howl! So will you cry, Mar Zutra son of Ukmay. Enter with this charm locusts fly, these oppressors.
Aramaic inscription on a ‘curse-bowl’

May you forever be plagued by rail replacement bus services

May you stand on slugs in bare feet while you have a crafty cig on the back step

May he never be able to find the end of the sellotape with ease, and may it always split when he does

May you constantly forget about your tea until it is unpleasantly tepid

I hope you get out of bed, stand on a plug, then a piece of Lego, and then a rake

Some of the tweets from the hashtag ‘#CurseDavidCameron’ following revelations about his off-shore tax arrangements

The Lord strike him with madness and blindness. May the heavens empty upon him thunderbolts and the wrath of the Omnipotent burn itself unto him in the present and future world. May the Universe light against him and the earth open to swallow him up.
Pope Clement on a now-forgotten subject

Your stinking foreskin filth.
Polynesian insult

He waddles like an Armenian bride.
Osmanli insult

A waste of skin.
Lancashire expression

As flash as a rat with a gold tooth.
Australian expression

May you croak in the faith of the Poles!
Ukrainian, regarded as an outrageous curse

You’re as ugly as a salad.
Bulgarian insult

May the fleas of a thousand camels infest your armpits.
Arab curse

Careful: my knife drills your soul
listen, [name victim]
One of the wolf people
listen I’ll grind your saliva into the earth
listen I’ll cover your bones with black flint
listen I’ll cover your bones with black feathers
listen I’ll cover your bones with black rocks
Because you’re going where it’s empty
Black coffin out on the hill
listen the black earth will hide you, will
find you a black hut
Out where it’s dark, in that country
listen I’m bringing a box for your bones
A black box
A grave with black pebbles
listen your soul’s spilling out
listen it’s blue.
Cherokee Indian chant designed to bring about the death of a victim, adapted by Jerome Rothenberg, Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees

May you dig up your Father by moonlight and make soup of his bones.
Fiji islands curse

Cursed by your mother’s anus
Cursed by your father’s testicles.
Yoruba verbal duelling, quoted by Chief Oludare Olajuba, References to Sex in Yoruba Oral Literature

I shit on the balls of your dead ones.
Spanish gypsy insult

Copulate with my Father who is dead!
Admiralty Islands’ most unpardonable insult

I shit in your Mother’s milk.
Spanish insult

Copulate with your wife.
Trobriand Islands’ most unpardonable insult

I hope that your piles hang like a bunch of grapes.
Greek insult directed at homosexuals

I shit on your Father’s nose.
Farsi (Iranian) insult

I shit on God, on the cross, and on the carpenter who made it (and on the son of the whore who planted the pine)!
Catalan insult

May a fart be on your beard.
Farsi insult for men

May the devil damn you to the stone of dirges, or to the well of ashes seven miles below hell; and may the devil break your bones! And all my calamity and harm and misfortune for a year on you!
Curse from the Cois Fharraige, west of Galway City, in Connemara

I’ll stick a pig’s leg up your cunt until your back-teeth rattle.
Japanese insult

A donkey’s head in your cunt.
Farsi insult used by a woman to call another stupid

Your Grandmother on roller-skates.
Central American curse

Your Grandmother in trousers.
Central American curse

A plague o’ both your houses!
William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

For him that stealeth a Book from this Library, let it change into a serpent in his hand and rend him. Let him be struck with Palsy, and all his Members blasted. Let him languish in Pain crying aloud for Mercy and let there be no sur-cease to his Agony till he sink in Dissolution. Let Bookworms gnaw his Entrails in token of the Worm that dieth not, and when at last he goeth to his final Punishment, let the flames of Hell consume him for ever and aye.
Curse Against Book Stealers, Monastery of San Pedro, Barcelona

Roger Fuckebythenavel.
Earliest recorded use of the word ‘fuck’ in English – an offensive nickname for a man outlawed in 1311

Die, may he; Tiger, catch him, snake bite him; Steep hill, fall down on him; Wild boar, bite him.
Curse of Toda tribe in southern India

Woe unto bloody Lichfield!
George Fox, founder of the Quakers, after a dream in which he saw the town engulfed in blood

Thou cursed cock, with thy perpetual noise,
May’st thou be capon made, and lose thy voice,
Or on a dunghill may’st thou spend thy blood,
And vermin prey upon thy craven brood;
May rivals tread thy hens before thy face
Then with redoubled courage give thee chase;
May’st thou be punished for St Peter’s crime,
And on Shrove Tuesday perish in thy prime;
May thy bruised carcass be some beggar’s feast –
Thou first and worst disturber of man’s rest.
Sir Charles Sedley on a cock at Rochester

I charm thy life
From the weapons of strife,
From stone and from wood,
From fire and from flood,
From the serpent’s tooth,
And the beasts of blood:
From Sickness I charm thee,
And Time shall not harm thee;
But Earth which is mine,
Its fruits shall deny thee;
And Water shall hear me,
And know thee and fly thee;
And the Winds shall not touch thee
When they pass by thee,
And the Dews shall not wet thee,
When they fall nigh thee:
And thou shalt seek Death
To release thee, in vain;
Thou shalt live in thy pain
While Kehama shall reign,
With a fire in thy heart,
And a fire in thy brain;
And Sleep shall obey me,
And visit thee never,
And the Curse shall be on thee
For ever and ever.
Robert Southey, The Curse of Kehama

you are the dumbest thing
on the earth the slimiest
most rotten thing in the universe
you motherfuckin germ
you konk-haired blood suckin punks
you serpents of pestilence you
samboes you green witches gnawing the heads of infants
you rodents you whores you sodomites you fat
slimy cockroaches crawling to your holes
with bits of malcolm’s flesh
i hope you are smothered
in the fall of a huge yellow moon.
Welton Smith on black people who failed to support Malcolm X, The Nigga Section

Sadaam, oh Sadaam
Thou flesh-knotter you
Claim not to be Muslim
For you are truly a Jew
Your deeds have proved ugly
Your face is darkest black
And we will set fire
To your bottom and your back.
Poem on Sadaam Hussein, broadcast on Saudi television during the Gulf War

Son of a Scots manse though you were
I’ve take the rare scunner against you,
You who thieve the golden hours of bairns,
You who bitch up the world’s peoples
With crystal images, pitch-black lies,
You who have ended civilized conversation
And dished out licenses to print banknotes,
May your soul shrink to the size of a midge
And never rest in a couthie kirkyard
But dart across a million wee screens
And be harassed by TV jingles for ever and ever,
For thine’s the kingdom of the televisor,
You goddam bloody genius, John Logie Baird!
Robert Greacen, curse

May you wander over the face of the earth forever, never sleep twice in the same bed, never drink water twice from the same well, and never cross the same river twice in a year.
Gypsy curse

May you be cursed with chronic anxiety about the weather.
John Burroughs

Fuck you.
Ed Koch, in response to a reporter’s allegations of war criminality. And countless others.

I hope you will pray too that the Lord will smite him hip and thigh, bone and marrow, heart and lungs and all there is to him; that he shall destroy him quickly and utterly.
Bob Jones III, a Christian fundamentalist, on Alexander Haig, after the latter refused Ian Paisley a visa to visit the USA

The Rev Ian Paisley has died. The authorities have asked that we should all observe a minute’s shouting.
David Baddiel

I fart in your general direction.
John Cleese, Monty Python and the Holy Grail

Now I can finally say what a diplomat normally cannot to those he comes into contact with: I hope you encounter every curse imaginable!
Koji Haneda, First Secretary, Embassy of Japan (London), wishing the editor of this book success in his collection of insults