Shakespeare and syphilis

Abstract

Sink into the ground and Athens succumb! Mothers of the family, be immodest! Convert to general corruption, young virginity, and do it in the sight of your parents! Servant, go to your master's bed, for your mistress is in the brothel! Pity and fear, religion for the gods, peace, justice, truth, domestic respect, night rest, good neighborhood, instruction, manners, mysteries, professions, hierarchies, observances, customs, laws, be confused with the opposite, and confusion reigns everywhere! Contagious plague for man, let your powerful and infectious fevers pile on Athens, ripe for ruin! Cold sciatica, cripple our senators, and let their limbs grind like their customs! Lust and debauchery, glide through the spirit of the marrow of our youth so that it may fight against the current of virtue and sink in rottenness! Scabies and pustules, sow your germs in the Athenian breasts, so that their whole is a general leprosy! Infect the breath to the breath, in order that your treatment, like your friendship, becomes poisonous! I do not want to bear from you but poverty, detestable city!