A small penis humiliation moment from 400 years ago has been revealed from the most unlikely source..

A recent analysis of William Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost has revealed a joke the Bard made in that comedic play: by referencing a popular 16th century French satirical song about a small penis.

The analysis focused on a single line from the play that had confounded Shakespearean scholars for centuries.

A little context

In the play, Ferdinand, a king in northern Spain, establishes a rule banning gentlemen in his court from making love or even meeting with a woman for three years while he and his scholars carry out research studies. Ferdinand says the research will be more productive if the people around him avoid having sex.

However, Costard, one of Ferdinand’s subjects, is soon caught with a woman named Jaquenetta. A Spanish nobleman Don Adriano de Armado — who has a high opinion of sexual abilities — then enforces Ferdinand’s decree and imprisons Costard.

Armado then falls in love with Jaquenetta and decides to release Costard on condition that he arrange a meeting with Jaquenetta.

Concolinel? The bloody ‘ell?

At the start of the third act, the infatuated Armado asks his page named Moth to, “Warble, child; make passionate my sense of hearing.”

In the most widely accepted publications of Love’s Labour’s Lost, Moth responds with a single word that has baffled Shakespearean experts for centuries: “Concolinel.”

Experts weren’t sure just what was meant by “Concolinel,” but they did have a clue. The word “song” is also given at the beginning of the third act, possibly indicating Moth is supposed to sing something related to “Concolinel.”

In an article recently published by the journal Shakespeare Quarterly, Ross Duffin, a music history professor at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, wrote that “Concolinel” has been taken to represent a song, now lost to time.

In his report, Duffin noted that “Concolinel” could actually be a French song called Qvand Colinet, which was popular at the time Shakespeare wrote the play. The song mentions a penis that is: “too soft and too small” – which would have Moth effectively mocking the cocksure Armado. The Spanish noble does not understand the French song, and therefore doesn’t see that his own servant is mocking him.

After Moth sings this song, according to the news report, he asks Armado if he will win over Jaquenetta with a “French Braule,” a type of song. Duffin said this is further needling by Moth and it confirms that “Concolinel” is actually the French song Qvand Colinet.

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