Detail of the center panel of The Garden of Earthly Delights triptych, by Hieronymous Bosch, c. 1500. © Prado, Madrid / Bridgeman Images.

Flesh

Volume IX, Number 4 | fall 2016

Miscellany

Jin dynasty general Yuanzi once peeked in on a soothsaying Buddhist nun while she bathed. He watched her carve open her belly, take out her viscera, and cut off her own head. Later, the nun emerged intact. “If you remove or bully the supreme ruler,” she told Yuanzi, “your body should be like that.” The general was disappointed; he had been planning a coup but now reconsidered. 

If I had the use of my body I would throw it out of the window.

—Samuel Beckett, 1951