#final sentence has the cadence of a lot of preps stared at me I put up my middle finger at them

[likeniobe]

thomas nashe's prose is so crazy because it's partly the most 1590s language you've ever heard but every once in a while there's a sentence that sounds so not 1590s that it knocks you flat. I was revisiting the unfortunate traveller yesterday and keep turning this passage around in my mind from when the narrator is being shown around rome

He showed us all the monuments that were to be seen, which are as many as there have been emperors, consuls, orators, conquerors, famous painters or players in Rome. Til this day not a Roman (if he be a right Roman indeed) will kill a rat, but he will have some registered remembrance of it. [...] There are a number of other shrines and statues also dedicated to their emperors, and withal some statues of idolatry reserved for detestation. I was at Pontius Pilate's house and pissed against it.