A Diller, A Dollar (1955) (continued)

[Mark A. Mandel]

Larry asks:
>>>>
speaking of wall scrawls, and bathroom graffiti in particular, whence

Here I sit, broken-hearted
Came to shit and only farted.

?

I'm assuming Fred will need an first cite on that for his Yale
Dictionary of Quotations, although it might be hard to determine the
author.  I see from the archives that Barry (in an October 2000
posting) found this in a "Realist" issue from 1968--in the pay-toilet
version, "Paid to shit"--but its provenance is certainly a lot
earlier.
<<<<

There's even a very vulgar Latin version:

        Hic iaceo, cor meum peredi
        Pecunia impensa modo pepedi.

But you needn't look in the Pompeii graffiti for that citation. One of my
wife's Latin professors at CCNY used to while away the subway commute by
translating graffiti into Latin.

Vos salutat Marcus Mandelensis
[anglice a voce scripsit, latine a manu]