{"id":97218,"date":"2016-04-21T14:32:37","date_gmt":"2016-04-21T18:32:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=97218"},"modified":"2016-04-21T15:46:50","modified_gmt":"2016-04-21T19:46:50","slug":"lousie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/04\/21\/lousie\/","title":{"rendered":"Lousie"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Detail

Detail showing delousing from Jan Siberechts\u2019s painting Cour de ferme<\/em>, 1662.<\/p><\/div>\n

\n

PEDICULARE, the lousie disease, that is when the bodie is pestred and full of lice and nits.
\n \u2014<\/span><\/em>Iohn Florio,<\/span> A Worlde of Wordes, or Most Copious, and Exact Dictionarie in Italian and English<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Think of the above as an indirect nod to Shakespeare\u2019s birthday: living as he did in a particularly pestilential period of London\u2019s history, the bard had reason to reference \u201cthe lousie disease\u201d with some regularity. The plague of 1593 famously shuttered all of London\u2019s theaters; ten thousand\u00a0people died in this outbreak alone. Even in nonplague years, typhus was a major killer. And at the best of times, lice were a quotidian nuisance and a marker of hygiene.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Indeed, lice of various kinds come up in\u00a0Titus Andronicus<\/em>\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0King Lear<\/em>, and that\u2019s just for starters. The reason I am not quoting them is because most of these references are very lascivious and vile indeed. The only context in which Shakespeare uses lice is as an insult: always insulting someone\u2019s cleanliness to sexual hygiene. (Which seems harsh in a time when vermin of all kinds must have been fairly rampant.) Surely not only slatterns and villains were prone to the pestilence! What about Thomas of Beckett, with his hair shirt running with lice? Shakespeare was most definitely a part of the problem.<\/p>\n

And the shame and stigma in the modern classroom are alive and well, even in places well-fortified with antibiotics and running water.\u00a0To wit: On a downtown subway platform, I heard one little girl in a Catholic school uniform\u2014maybe six\u2014turn to her friend and say, \u201cPinkie\u00a0swear you\u2019ve never had lice.\u00a0Pinkie swear.<\/em>\u201d\u00a0<\/em>Duly sworn in, the two then walked down the platform and approached a third little girl, standing alone.<\/p>\n

\u201cHave you ever had lice?\u201d they demanded sternly. The loner looked around in a panicked sort of way. \u201cN-no… \u201d\u00a0she said uncertainly.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWill you pinkie\u00a0swear<\/em>?\u201d\u00a0demanded the ringleader.<\/p>\n

I have!\u00a0<\/em>I wanted to tell her.\u00a0It doesn\u2019t make you dirty or weird, even if you happen to\u00a0be sort of weird and lonely! And maybe dirty! Anyone can get it! And those nit combs and that horribly painful shampoo are punishment enough! And then one day you\u2019ll just be a grown-up on the platform and no one will even check if\u00a0you wash your hair! It will be okay!\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

And blessedly, then the train pulled in.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n

Sadie Stein is contributing editor of\u00a0<\/em>The Paris Review, and the\u00a0<\/em>Daily\u2019s correspondent.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

PEDICULARE, the lousie disease, that is when the bodie is pestred and full of lice and nits. \u2014Iohn Florio, A Worlde of Wordes, or Most Copious, and Exact Dictionarie in Italian and English Think of the above as an indirect nod to Shakespeare\u2019s birthday: living as he did in a particularly pestilential period of London\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":178,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13115],"tags":[1720,22039,948,19175,22038],"class_list":["post-97218","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-our-daily-correspondent","tag-king-lear","tag-lice","tag-shakespeare","tag-titus-andronicus","tag-vermin"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nOn Shakespeare and Lice<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The cod-piece that will house \/ Before the head has any, \/ The head and he shall louse; \/ So beggars marry many.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/04\/21\/lousie\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Lousie by Sadie Stein\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"April 21, 2016 \u2013 PEDICULARE, the lousie disease, that is when the bodie is pestred and full of lice and nits. \u2014Iohn Florio, A Worlde of Wordes, or Most Copious, and Exact\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/04\/21\/lousie\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Paris Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-04-21T18:32:37+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2016-04-21T19:46:50+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/jan_siberechts_-cour_de_ferme-_detail_scene_depouillage_ltprlice.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"691\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"463\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Sadie Stein\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Sadie Stein\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/04\/21\/lousie\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/04\/21\/lousie\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Sadie Stein\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/a1aef49f81bfc540a37e03590f3bb4d9\"},\"headline\":\"Lousie\",\"datePublished\":\"2016-04-21T18:32:37+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2016-04-21T19:46:50+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/04\/21\/lousie\/\"},\"wordCount\":435,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/04\/21\/lousie\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/jan_siberechts_-cour_de_ferme-_detail_scene_depouillage_ltprlice.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"King Lear\",\"lice\",\"Shakespeare\",\"Titus Andronicus\",\"vermin\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Our Daily Correspondent\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/04\/21\/lousie\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/04\/21\/lousie\/\",\"name\":\"On Shakespeare and Lice\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/04\/21\/lousie\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/04\/21\/lousie\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/jan_siberechts_-cour_de_ferme-_detail_scene_depouillage_ltprlice.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2016-04-21T18:32:37+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2016-04-21T19:46:50+00:00\",\"description\":\"The cod-piece that will house \/ Before the head has any, \/ The head and he shall louse; 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