# Stiffy Makane: Apocolocyntosis — 12 of 235

## One of the Bruces and Drunken Bastard

Release 1

- Home page
- Beginning
- Previous
- Next

Part Two - "Footnotes"

Table of Footnotes

assignment | note
a number | "'Fulminator'[emdash]a traditional epithet of Jupiter[emdash]in the original."
-- | "The Curia Hostilia burned in 52 BC; Julius Caesar started its renovation, but the Curia Julia (named in his honor) was not completed until 29 BC during the reign of Augustus. I hope you now feel better-educated."
-- | "My hearfelt thanks to Professor Michael Maas of Rice University for locating this reference for me."
-- | "This is a rather loose translation from the original."
-- | "Lucius Macanus Mentula, to be pedantic about it."
-- | "Even, indeed, this one."
-- | "The Roman toga was a rough semicircle of fabric nearly six yards long and two yards wide at its widest point. The artist isn't [italic type]just[roman type] being a dick about your weight."
-- | "Oh, all right. Flews are the droopy part of a dog's lips, back towards the ears. Saliva usually pools there. Dogs with prominent flews tend to collect lots of drool in them. Do you feel better-informed now?"
-- | "Yes, of course gin was unknown to the Romans. However, Madame Sosostris is a famous clairvoyante, and can forsee the future, so obviously [italic type]she[roman type] knows about gin. Martinis too. Nice going, Chuckie. Who's the bigger lame-o now? You or me[30 as a reference]?"
-- | "But you already knew that, right?"
-- | "Sweeny knows the future, of course: the dead do. Just see Book Six of [italic type]The Aeneid[roman type]. The surprising thing is that Sweeny reads Borges. Maybe it's Buenos Airean civic pride. Didn't know Sweeny was Argentinian?[paragraph break][italic type]The circles of the stormy moon[line break]Slide westward toward the River Plate[line break]Death and the Raven drift above[line break]And Sweeny guards the hornéd gate[roman type][39 as a reference]."
-- | "Really, Polymnia is the muse of lyrical poetry, but painting is usually counted as part of her portfolio too."
-- | "For those of you keeping score at home, Eliot is here quoting the [italic type]Aeneid[roman type],I.726."
-- | "Abeona protects children leaving home."

[Continuing at 15]

Table of Footnotes (Continued)

assignment | note
-- | "Vertumnus is the patron of gardens and fruit trees."
-- | "Sterculius is the god of manuring."
-- | "Gallio Macanus Gallus, if you were wondering."
-- | "You are now one small step closer to being the very model of a modern major-general."
-- | "Cloacina is the goddess of sewers."

[ at 20 ]

Table of Footnotes (Continued)

assignment | note
-- | "Cardea is the goddess of door hinges[21 as a footnote]."
-- | "Seriously."
-- | "OK, I admit it. This puzzle design is stolen from Rich Reid[apostrophe]s 'Fluffy Goes Down The Drain' in [italic type]Castle Greyhawk[roman type]."
-- | "Gaius Norbanus Flaccus became consul in 38 BC, by the way."
-- | "A note to our younger readers: way back in ancient times, there was no Google, and there was no Wikipedia, and if you wanted to find something out, you actually had to go to this place called a 'library', where there were lots of books[emdash]remember those?[emdash]and ask a special kind of sage who worked there called a 'librarian' for help finding out what you wanted to know. Unthinkable, isn[apostrophe]t it?"

[at 25]

Table of Footnotes (Continued)

assignment | note
-- | "The [italic type]Golden Ass[roman type] is actually a [italic type]corbita[roman type], workhorse of the Roman merchant fleet. At 80 feet, she's on the small side, with a capacity of roughly 150 tons, or 3,000 [italic type]amphorae[roman type]. She is steered with a pair of steering oars, is built with mortise-and-tenon construction, and has a single mast, rigged with square sails."
-- | "Socrates[apostrophe] last words, famously, were 'Sacrifice a cock to Asclepius.' Now, while generations of philosophers have pretended that this is some sort of high-minded reference to his passage into the world of Platonic Forms, really it was just a crude pun: hemlock, while it's killing you, gives you an erection. The joke means exactly the same thing it would in English. Now you know, and knowing is half the battle."
-- | "The Greeks and Romans very likely actually did treat gonorrhea with cannabis. See, for instance, Luigi Arata's 'Nepenthes and Cannabis in Ancient Greece' in [italic type]Janus Head 7/1[roman type], particularly footnote 23."
-- | "Gaius Sempronius Gracchus attempted to found a [italic type]colonia[roman type] on the ruins of Carthage in 122 BCE, only 24 years after its destruction. That attempt was basically unsuccessful, and it was not until Caesar's [italic type]Colonia Junonia[roman type] (which actually didn't really take off until after his death, and thus this characterization of the city may be a bit ahistorical) that the city regained prominence. However, in short order it was the capital of the province of Africa. Thus it is probably not much of a stretch to suppose that a certain amount of rebuilding and laying the groundwork for profiteering was going on prior to Caesar's plan."
-- | "Please don't ask how it's possible that Stiffy, who clearly was present in Rome during Caesar's dictatorship, could also have been in the ships at Mylae with Stetson. Maybe the author is affirming the correctness of Book X of the [italic type]Republic[roman type] and an earlier incarnation of Stiffy fought with Stetson. Or maybe it was just too good a line and image to waste."

[at 30]

Table of Footnotes (Continued)

assignment | note
-- | "Lake Avernus is a volcanic crater filled with water, which makes it an ideal protected harbor. Julius Caesar began construction of the port here, connecting Avernus to Lake Lucrino with a canal and thence to the sea. Cocceio's Cave was excavated to allow easy access by chariot to the war fleet housed in Avernus. The port (Portus Julius) became fully operational in Octavian's reign. Thus, it is probably slightly ahistorical to have Cocceio's Cave in this story, as it is likely an Augustan, not a Julian work; nevertheless, it's not badly out of place, and it's a really nifty Roman military construction, so in it stays."
-- | "Or pretty much any legal-but-in-the-wrong-place-or-at-the-wrong-time command."
-- | "I'm delighted that [italic type]someone[roman type] found this Spring-chicken-Easter-egg."
-- | "'Mumber' is a portmanteau word, made from 'mince' and 'lumber.' It's not an easy thing to do, unless of course you happen to be a four-hundred pound, seven-foot tall eunuch. Then it just kind of comes naturally."
-- | "Libitina is the goddess of corpses and funerals."

[at 35]

Table of Footnotes (Continued)

assignment | note
-- | "Pomona is the goddess of fruit trees, gardens, and orchards."
-- | "Not that Yeshua bar Yosef has been born yet, of course."
-- | "Oh, no, not what you're thinking. This is much too early for it to be [italic type]that[roman type] Miriam. Shame on you!"
-- | "The author chooses to disbelieve the allegation that Caesar put the library to the torch in his battles with Pompey."
-- | "William can be seen at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. He's a little smaller in real life, though."

[40, baby]

Table of Footnotes (Continued)

assignment | note
-- | "Puta is the goddess of tree pruning."
-- | "Nehalennia is a Celtic goddess who protects travellers, especially seafarers."
-- | "Yes, really."
-- | "Poena is, unsurprisingly, the goddess of punishment."
-- | "The Project Gutenberg translation of the [italic type]Bucolics[roman type] is used here; no translator is identified."

[at 45]

Table of Footnotes (Continued)

assignment | note
-- | "Perhaps a scurrilous accusation, but attested to by Suetonius in his [italic type]Life of Vergil[roman type]."
-- | "Calliope is the Muse of epic poetry, and not, in fact, the goddess of steam-driven organs."
-- | "Perhaps unfortunately, 'saucy choad' is a false cognate."
-- | "Say what you will about George W. Bush, you can't deny that he rehabilitated the legacies of Richard M. Nixon and Dan Quayle."
-- | "I suspect you had in mind someting much nastier, resembling santorum (which might, indeed, be called 'chocolate moonmilk'); alas, your humble author has decided to play this one perfectly straight. As it were."

[ Fifty ]

Table of Footnotes (Continued)

assignment | note
-- | "Hey, you know, it's kind of odd that 'Anas' is so close to '[Anais]', isn't it? D'ya think?....nah, couldn't be."

Footnotes mentioned is a number that varies.

To say (footnote - a number) as a footnote:

if the current ponciness is poncy

begin;

if footnote > number of filled rows in the Table of Footnotes or footnote < 1

begin;

say "Programming error: footnote assignment out of range.";

otherwise;

choose row footnote in the Table of Footnotes;

if there is no assignment entry

begin;

now footnotes mentioned is footnotes mentioned + 1;

choose row footnote in the Table of Footnotes;

now assignment entry is footnotes mentioned;

say " [bracket]footnote [assignment entry][close bracket]";

if footnotes mentioned is 1

begin;

now footnote_explained is 1;

end if;

end if;

end if;

end if.

[Now, in order to let the player view these footnotes, we'll need to parse numbers.]

Understand "footnote [number]" as looking up a footnote. Understand "note [number]" as looking up a footnote. Understand "fn [number]" as looking up a footnote.

Looking up a footnote is an action out of world applying to one number.

Check looking up a footnote:

if the current ponciness is not poncy, say "You must enable ponciness [bracket]PONCY ON[close bracket] before you can look up the footnotes, you big fruit." instead;

if the number understood > footnotes mentioned, say "You haven't seen any such footnote." instead;

if the number understood < 1, say "Footnotes are numbered from 1." instead.

Carry out looking up a footnote:

choose row with assignment of number understood in the Table of Footnotes;

if the first_footnote is not_warned_about

begin;

say "[bracket]To disable poncy footnotes, you can type PONCY OFF[close bracket][paragraph break]";

now the first_footnote is warned_about;

end if;

say "[bracket]Footnote [assignment entry][close bracket]: [note entry][line break]"